Come early and enjoy dinner at MaGerks before our meeting!!
Live Meeting at MaGerks Fort Washington – 582 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington, PA 19034
We recommend that you get here before 6:30pm to order your food and drinks before the lecture. Bring $1 or $5 cash for our used book raffle and you could win a Revolutionary War book!! Program begins around 7:15pm, Lecture around 7:30pm.
British General Howe captured Philadelphia on September 26, 1777. But the forces of Gen. Howe, and Admiral Howe, weren’t able to win control for the Delaware River until November 18, 1777. We are excited to welcome back Michael Harris as he will be speaking about the Battle for the Delaware, 1777. This topic is addressed in his recently released book, Fighting for Philadelphia: Forts Mercer and Mifflin, the Battle of Whitemarsh, and the Road to Valley Forge, October 5-December 19, 1777.
The weeks of bloody maneuvering and fighting along the Delaware River at Fort Mercer, Fort Mifflin, and Gloucester receive but scant attention in the literature of the American Revolution. The same is true for the five-day Whitemarsh operation and other important events in December 1777. Award-winning author Michael C. Harris’s impressive Fighting for Philadelphia: Forts Mercer and Mifflin, the Battle of Whitemarsh, and the Road to Valley Forge, October 5-December 19, 1777, rescues these important actions from obscurity, puts them in context with the Saratoga Campaign, and closes his magnificent trilogy that began with Brandywine and left off with Germantown.
This period of the war began when General Sir William Howe’s army of 16,500 British and Hessian soldiers set out aboard a 265-ship armada from New York to capture Philadelphia in late July 1777. Six difficult weeks later, Howe landed near Elkton, Maryland, moved north into Pennsylvania, and defeated Washington’s army in the large battle at Brandywine on September 11. Philadelphia fell to the British.
On October 4, Washington launched a successful surprise attack obscured by darkness and a heavy morning fog against the British garrison at Germantown. The recapture of the colonial capital seemed within Washington’s grasp until poor battlefield decisions brought about a reversal of fortune and a clear British victory. Like Brandywine, however, the bloody Germantown scrap proved Continental soldiers could stand toe-to-toe with British Regulars. What followed was a protected quasi-siege of the British garrison in Germantown prior to the travails soon to come that winter at Valley Forge.
Link to Purchase This Book: https://www.amazon.com//dp/1611217423
About Michael Harris: Michael C. Harris is a graduate of the University of Mary Washington and the American Military University. He has worked for the National Park Service in
Fredericksburg, Virginia, Fort Mott State Park in New Jersey, and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission at Brandywine Battlefield. He has conducted tours and staff rides of many east coast battlefields. Michael is certified in secondary education and currently teaches in the Philadelphia region. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Michelle and son Nathanael.