The Virginia Gazette

BALTIMORE, October 14.

Extract of a letter from camp, dated 8th of October.

THE night before last our army marched in order to attack the enemy; the distance was very great, I believe 14 miles. The disposition was a pretty one, but did not take place as concerted. The General himself, with Sullivan's, Stirling's, and Wayne's divisions, and Nash's brigade, composed the centre; General Conway commanded the advance; Green, M'Dougall, Smallwood, and Fermoy, were to engage the enemy's right. Armstrong, with the militia, composed our right. Unluckily the wings were not up in time. In the centre, General Conway attacked exceeding clever. Sullivan's division also advanced, and behaved as well as men could do: they bore the brunt of the action for some time, and pushed the enemy from several of their posts. Wayne's also pushed and broke them. The fogginess of the morning was very much against us. I believe in my soul, had it not been for that, we would have totally routed their army. Our men were afraid to follow up their advantages after driving them, as they could not see any distance who were before them: General Green did not come up for some time, but when he did advance he also drove them. We completely surprised the foe, and did not make an attack in a single place without routing them. I was attached to General Washington, and had an opportunity of seeing the behaviour of the centre; we drove them near three hours. Another unfavourable circumstance was our engaging them in Germantown. They took possession of the houses, from which they annoyed us exceedingly; one party from Mr. Chew's house was very troublesome. I was apprehensive for the General. They fired on us from the windows. The General ordered some field pieces to be drawn up against it, which raked it pretty well. We then sent a flag, to summon them to surrender; they fired on the flag, shattered the gentleman's leg who carried it, and kept us in play from this house till they had a reinforcement, I believe their grenadiers from Philadelphia, and then pushed down a column on us, which we were not able to withstand. General Nash had his thigh shattered with a cannon ball, and must die (he is since dead). Colonel Stone is shot through the ankle, Colonel Hall grazed, Colonel Hendricks, who nobly led on his regiment, and gave the enemy the bayonet, is wounded in the head, but not dangerously. Jack White, who behaved bravely, I am afraid, is gone. Captain Cox is killed. Young Baylor was struck on the step with a four pound ball, which passed through the midst of fifteen or twenty of us, the General at our head, and only wounded Baylor; he will lose his leg. Lord Stirling and General Conway had their horses shot. Our loss is not by any means considerable. We had a good many wounded, but brought them off very generally. The enemy must have suffered greatly; their breaking and running in the manner they did testifies that they were very roughly handled. They left their tents standing, with their blankets and provisions in them.

Extract of another letter, dated York-town, 10th of October.

On Saturday morning, about day-break, our troops attacked the enemy in Beggar's town and Germantown, two miles below it, nearly at the same time. We continued to drive them from every post we assaulted for three hours; they at last took shelter in the stone houses and churches, from whence they annoyed us much. While our men were endeavouring to dislodge them from Mr. Chew's house, they had time to bring up a reinforcement of fresh troops. In the mean while, two of our divisions, falling in from different quarters, mistook each other for reinforcements of the enemy; a mistake occasioned by the thick fog, which prevented our seeing the distance of thirty yards. This accident threw our troops into some confusion, and contributed to bring on a retreat; however, the enemy did not dare to pursue.

From pretty good authority, we are assured they had between two and three hundred waggons employed in carrying their wounded to Philadelphia, and Howe would not permit the citizens to see the field of battle, from which it is reasonably presumed that appearances there were very much against him. We hear the enemy have lost General Agnew, Colonels Abercrombie, Walcott, Bird, and General De Heister's son, with several other officers. General Knyphausen is said to be wounded, and it is asserted that General Howe had actually given orders for a retreat to Chester, when the unlucky accident, already mentioned, snatched the victory out of our hands. We were once in the possession of the enemy's camp, tents, provisions, &c. which in our confusion were all lost.