After General William Howe occupied Philadelphia on September 26, 1777, the Revolutionaries still controlled the Delaware River forts and prevented supplies reaching the British army from the sea. The British had the formidable task of clearing the Delaware River of obstructions, defeating a flotilla of warships and gunboats under Captain John Hazelwood, and capturing three forts: Fort Mercer near Red Bank, New Jersey; Fort Mifflin on Mud Island; and an outpost at Billingsport, four miles down the river.

The British campaign began well when they captured the frigate Delaware on September 27 after it went aground near Philadelphia, and they occupied Billingsport almost unopposed on October 2. But they ran into difficulties in clearing the river of obstructions near Billingsport and were harassed by Hazelwood's ships. Establishing batteries on the islands at the mouth of the Schuykill River opposite Fort Mifflin proved difficult because of the marshy and unstable nature of the ground. By October 15 the British had opened up a narrow passage at Billingsport and began an artillery bombardment on Fort Mifflin.

The Revolutionaries had their own problems since they were low on ammunition and had a divided command: Hazelwood was independent of the officers in charge of the forts, and those officers were independent of Hazelwood. These difficulties aside, the defenders scored two big victories in the failed assault by Hessians on Fort Mercer in the Battle of Red Bank (October 22, 1777) and the disastrous naval attack on Fort Mifflin on October 23 in which the Royal Navy lost a 64-gun ship, the HMS Augusta, and a 20-gun sloop, the Merlin. Both vessels had run aground near each other and caught fire, then blew up in huge explosions. The loss in men was minimal since the ships had been evacuated, but the destruction of two warships was significant.

The situation, however, remained difficult for the Revolutionaries. Although George Washington finally consolidated the command structure under General James Varnum, supplies remained low, and the situation at Fort Mifflin was exposed. The British built platforms on the marshy ground opposite Mud Island to support big cannon from the navy, and they began a heavy bombardment on November 10. The navy brought additional ships up the river on November 15 and fired on the fort from pointblank range, pounding it into a shambles and forcing the Continentals to abandon it that night. About half of the 500-man garrison was killed or wounded; the British lost only a handful of men.

Washington and Varnum hoped that they could still check the British on the Delaware by holding on to Fort Mercer. But when Lord Cornwallis and 4,200 men began to move on the fort on November 20, Varnum considered the situation at Fort Mercer untenable, and he reluctantly ordered its evacuation. Varnum's rearguard left just before Cornwallis's troops arrived on November 21, a move that left Hazelwood's fleet without any land-based support. Some of his galleys were able to row upstream, but because of the wind the sailing ships were unable to escape. Hazelwood ordered all 11 ships burned to prevent their falling into British hands. In the meantime, Washington had sent Nathanael Greene and 7,000 men into New Jersey, hoping to use Fort Mercer as bait to trap Cornwallis. But little came of this effort, and Cornwallis was able to recross the Delaware unobstructed. Washington then had to order Greene to rejoin him before Howe and Cornwallis could strike at his depleted army at Whitemarsh. When Greene returned to Washington's main body on December 1, the campaign for the control of the Delaware River forts was over, and the British were able to resupply their army in Philadelphia.

Bibliography:

Stephen R. Taffe, The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777-1778 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2003)

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