Battle of Paoli [Hardcover]

Thomas J. McGuire (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2000

"McGuire writes with such spirit and such a sure mastery of telling detail that it's as though he were there himself. This is first-rate military history." --David McCullough

In the years since the Revolutionary War, legend has obscured the story of the Battle of Paoli, better known in history as the Paoli Massacre. For this first-ever full-length treatment of the battle, the author has uncovered never-before-published primary documents to tell of British General Charles Grey's brutal attack on Anthony Wayne's division of 1,500 men in September 1777. The detailed account follows the action from the arrival of Wayne's division south of the Schuylkill River, near Paoli Tavern, to defend Philadelphia against Howe's encroaching troops to Grey's discovery of Wayne's position, the bloody battle that ensued, and the subsequent court-martial of Wayne, who had been accused of negligence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Engaged on September 21, 1777, Paoli was a night attack on a division of George Washington's army, the Pennsylvania Continentals under Anthony Wayne. The senior officer of the British strike force, Gen. Charles Grey, ordered his men to go in with the bayonet, either unloading their muskets or removing the flints. The Americans were overrun and forced to retreat, with losses surprisingly lowAno more than 60 killed in the kind of close-quarter fighting that frequently produced much heavier casualties. Nevertheless, the British use of the bayonet generated a massacre myth that still endures. McGuire, a preparatory school teacher, argues that while some atrocities did occur during the fighting, the Americans were surprised only in a general sense; they were not caught in their blankets. In the aftermath of Paoli, Washington was constrained to abandon Philadelphia. On October 4, when he attacked the British occupiers at Germantown, it was Wayne's division that achieved surprise, taking no prisoners as it charged through the fog, defending a fortified house to the end and finally seizing victory from apparent defeat. If there is a moral here regarding the laws of war, McGuire does not develop it. But his well-written, well-researched case study is a model of local military history.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

On September 21, 1777, colonial rebels defending Philadelphia from British troops camped outside Paoli, Pennsylvania. In a surprise attack, the British under General Charles Grey overwhelmed the sleeping colonial platoons, and a general slaughter of the Americans ensued. In the drizzly darkness, British bayonets repeatedly demonstrated their deadly efficiency. The vicious, hand-to-hand combat quickly passed into infamy as the "Paoli Massacre." General Anthony Wayne's troops were decimated, and Wayne soon faced a court of inquiry for having allowed British troops to come so near his own. Wayne went on to triumph in the Revolution and afterward showed particular talent in battling Native Americans and their allies in the Northwest Territory. Military historian McGuire has researched original sources and shows how propaganda, myth, and legend have obscured the events at Paoli. For military history and regional American Revolution collections. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books; 1st edition (July 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811701980
• ISBN-13: 978-0811701983
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #736,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Important Treatment of Relatively Obscure Battle, August 20, 2008

By 

David M. Dougherty (Arkansas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Battle of Paoli (Paperback)

The author is to be commended for writing this book and lifting the veil of obscurity that has relegated the "Paoli Massacre" to a few lines in most works on the Revolutionary War. McGuire isn't an accomplished writer and some parts are disjointed, but the nuggets contained are worth the mining.

McGuire accurately plays up the important aspects of this battle. First, the British were able to surprise Wayne's Pennsylvania troops who were on their home turf. This was due to the dark and rainy night, the fact that the British moved forward without flints so there would be no firing from the British side, and the Pennsylvanians were silhouetted against their campfires while the British were almost invisible in the dark woods. Secondly, it was only due to good fortune that Wayne's entire command was not annihilated. Third, the case can be made that Wayne should never have been in the exposed position he was in without some form of cavalry cover. Fourth, this battle "made" Wayne in that he learned from his mistakes and was able to turn the tables on the British later at Stony Point. And last, the survivors were energized to greater efforts and became better soldiers as a result.

Although the Court of Inquiry's findings concerned with the Paoli battle have been lost, Wayne was obviously not exonerated at the inquiry, and at least four of the sixteen officers who testified criticized him. Wayne was then brought up on charges at a court-martial and acquited.

About one-half of the book covers events before the battle and supplies a great deal of information on the units, dispositions and movements preceeding the night of battle. The battle itself takes up less than fifty pages.

One of the best features about this book is the detail it goes into debunking the many myths concerning the battle and putting the event in proper context. The British posessed an excellent plan that was not executed well in its entirety, but nevertheless inflicted a crushing defeat on good soldiers and competent officers. On the American side there is confusion, mistakes, and an inability to adapt at all levels. It could have been worse, but Howe's thought that the Americans had been sufficiently humbled so as to pose little threat to his army was roundly shown to be in error only two weeks later at Germantown.

In short, this is a specialist's book, well worth reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Battle of Paoli by Thomas McGuire, August 5, 2002

By 

Richard E. Kurtz (Berwyn, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battle of Paoli (Hardcover)

The following excerpt is from a review in the Tredyffrin Easttown History Club Quarterly, January, 2003, Vol., XVI, No. 1.

"The Battle of Paoli" provides a long awaited in-depth analysis of the movements of the Continental Army and the British Army in September 1777, both preceding and after the Battle of Paoli, more commonly referred to as the "Paoli Massacre". The TE History Journal carried two well researched articles on the subject by Franklin M. Burns, our local historical authority, in its April and July 1940 editions. The articles provide an interesting departure point for a review of Mr. McGuire's book.
The battlegrounds themselves are in Willistown Township and in the present borough of Malvern, Chester County, Pennsylvania. However, much of the activity before and after the battle took place in Tredyffrin and Easttown Townships. We will particularly review these events as described in the book and attempt to identify the present locations in Tredyffrin and Easttown where the activities took place.
"POSITION OF THE BRITISH ARMY AT
TREDYFFRIN THE 19TH OF SEPTEMBER 1777"
The British troops which overwhelmed Anthony Wayne's two brigades on September 20-21, 1777 were encamped in Tredyffrin Township along the north slope of the southern ridge which defines the Great Valley. Their positions are shown in a manuscript map made by Captain John André of the British Army and another beautifully reproduced map which shows the same positions as "drawn by an officer on the spot." Franklin Burns prepared his own map, TEHCQ, Vol. II, No. 2, p. 33, (the Burns map) on which he endeavored to combine the data from the published maps with "the traditional sites and the cartographer=s knowledge of the terrain." The maps commonly show the positions of many units of the British Army but not all units are commonly shown. Comparing positions shown on the three maps and relating them to known present day locations is a fascinating exercise.
The topography shown on the Andrè, the "officer on the spot", and the Burn's maps conform quite well to the present topography considering the absence of a scientific survey for the old maps. The encampment maps reproduced in the McGuire book show four small hills along Swedesford Road and three larger hills extending west to east further to the south. These hills are discernable to the present day viewer with a little imagination.
Today the area is covered with office parks, retail centers and housing developments. However, it can be viewed from the bounds of Swedesford Road, Valley Forge Road, Hickory Lane, and Howellville Road. Tea Garden Park, D'Ambrosia Park and the Little League ball fields are on the site of the British encampment and Cold Stream Drive runs through the center of it.

GENERAL PAOLI TAVERN

This tavern was a reputed gathering place for local revolutionaries including Anthony Wayne, whose home, Waynesborough, is less than a mile away. It is mentioned in the McGuire book as a place the British Army passed on their way east toward their encampment in Tredyffrin and as a place that Colonel Musgrave's forces passed going west toward his defeat of Anthony Wayne's forces at Malvern.
The site of the Paoli Tavern is on the north side of Lancaster Pike, adjacent the present train station, about where the present post office is.

BLUE BALL TAVERN
The old road to Lancaster had regularly spaced taverns at which travelers stopped for the night. The Blue Ball was the next one east from Paoli.
McGuire's book records the march of 10,000 British troops eastward on Swedesford Road through the Great Valley in September 1777. Cornwallis' troops passed the General Paoli Tavern and continued two miles further east to the Blue Ball Tavern.
The 1777 Blue Ball Tavern, today, is a private home at the corner of Conestoga and Irish Roads across the street from Conestoga High School. In the 1790's the Blue Ball Tavern moved to what is now a meticulously maintained little gem of a house on Old Lancaster Road just north of the Daylesford train station.
NEWTOWN ROAD, EASTTOWN TOWNSHIP
British Colonel Harcourt made an excursion from the British encampment in Tredyffrin Township to collect horses. He went east on the Lancaster Road toward Philadelphia but came back to the camp through Newtown Square. Easttown residents, Robert Stephens, Casper White and Peter Ubles each reported losing a horse to the British and Michael Bingers reported losing three mares. McGuire quotes British Captain Montresor as saying that Colonel Harcourt took "two Creators (creatures) worth thirty-six pounds" from William Burns. One wonders if the plundered William Burns was a relative of our local historian, Franklin M. Burns or of the Burns family who were instrumental in building Berwyn.
The locations of these residences are unknown to the author but Newtown Road follows approximately the same path that it has always followed.

WAYNESBOROUGH
According to McGuire, the ancestral home of Anthony Wayne was searched by a squad of British soldiers hovering near the Paoli Tavern about the time of the Paoli Battle. Waynesborough has been restored recently to a splendid condition. It is located on Waynesborough Road just south of Paoli.

THE CHURCHES
The Anglican Churches, St. Peter's in the Great Valley and St. David's, had a loyalist pastor. On the other hand, the Great Valley Baptist Church and the Presbyterian Church in the Great Valley were the centers of the colonialists who were rebelling against British authority. A Hessian officer later wrote that the war was really an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion.
All of these churches are in the same location, in approximately the same condition, and house the same denominations as at the time of the Battle of Paoli.
Mr. McGuire's book is a "must-read" for a wide range of people from serious students of the Revolutionary War to local residents who will be intrigued by actions which took place in our own back yards.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Battle of Paoli, October 15, 2000

By 

Mark K. Crosby (Burlington County, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battle of Paoli (Hardcover)

As someone who has been studying the American Revolution for over 25 years, Mr. McGuire's book is one of the best to date. He quells the myth that the British snuck up on the sleeping Colonials and bayonetted them in thier sleep. He has gone into Anthony Wayne's court martial records to uncover the truth about this incident. He also draws from the numerous journals left behind by the combatants and tells the story through their eyes as well. His writing is solid and his style is such that the book does not read like a school history text. Anyone with any interest in the American Revolution will find this book to be a wonderful addition to their library.