Episode Details

In this episode, we follow the British invasion of Delaware in 1777 and the grueling campaign that led to the Battle of Brandywine and the fall of Philadelphia. What begins as a seemingly brilliant British flanking maneuver becomes a story of exhaustion, miscalculation, and brutal human endurance, as General Howe’s army endures a miserable month-long sea voyage, lands in the mud at Head of Elk, and fights its way north through Delaware while Washington struggles to predict where the real blow will fall. 

The episode also brings the campaign down to ground level, showing the chaos of scouting missions, plundering, local resistance, and the hard fighting at Cooch’s Bridge, where American riflemen and Hessian jägers clashed in Delaware’s woods. More than a story of maps and generals, this is an episode about how weather, terrain, logistics, and human suffering shaped one of the Revolution’s most consequential campaigns.