Paoli

The Battle of Paoli and the Making of American Memory

On the night of September 20, 1777, a quiet stretch of Pennsylvania countryside near the Paoli Tavern became the site of one of the most brutal and psychologically transformative engagements of the American Revolution. What happened there — a British night assault conducted largely with bayonets, resulting in the killing and wounding of several hundred Continental soldiers — was not the largest battle of the war, nor was it the most strategically decisive. But the Paoli Massacre, as Americans immediately and permanently labeled it, became something arguably more powerful: a rallying cry, a source of righteous fury, and a turning point in the emotional life of the Continental Army. To understand Paoli is to understand how a single night of violence could harden the resolve of a revolutionary cause and transform a cautious officer into one of the war's most aggressive fighters.

The very name "Paoli" speaks to the transatlantic currents of liberty that animated the American Revolution. The tavern that gave the battle its name was built in 1769 by Joshua Evans and named for Corsican patriot General Pasquale Paoli.

Paoli was a freedom fighter who helped win Corsica's independence from the Republic of Genoa and served as president of the Corsican Republic during its brief existence from 1755 to 1769. He was also the author of the republic's constitution, considered to be the first ever democratic constitution, based on Enlightenment principles.

Although Paoli never visited America, he was an inspiration to the American revolutionaries, and so much admired in this area that an inn was named after him — and the town was named after the inn. That a tavern honoring a Corsican champion of republican government should become the landmark for one of the Revolution's most infamous engagements is one of history's grimmer ironies.

The events at Paoli unfolded within the broader crisis of the Philadelphia Campaign. In late summer 1777, General Sir William Howe landed a massive British force at the head of the Chesapeake Bay and began marching north toward Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress and the symbolic capital of the American rebellion. George Washington attempted to stop him at Brandywine Creek on September 11, but the Americans were outflanked and defeated, suffering over a thousand casualties. Washington's battered army retreated northward, and the British positioned themselves to advance on Philadelphia largely unopposed. After the Battle of the Clouds, an ultimately aborted engagement due to bad weather on September 16, Washington withdrew to Yellow Springs and Reading Furnace in northern Chester County to replenish his ammunition. In this desperate moment, Washington detached Brigadier General Anthony Wayne — a local Pennsylvanian who knew the terrain intimately — with a division of roughly 1,500 to 2,000 troops to shadow the British rear, harass their supply lines, and delay their march toward the capital. Wayne knew the Philadelphia area well. His grandfather, a British officer of distinction, had purchased a large land grant in the farmlands west of the largest city in the Colonies. Anthony was born in the ancestral home, Waynesborough, in 1745 — just three miles east of the Paoli Massacre site. Wayne positioned his men in the woods and fields near the Paoli Tavern, a well-known landmark along the road from Lancaster to Philadelphia, roughly two miles from the main British encampment. It was a logical choice: the position offered concealment, proximity to the enemy's flank, and the possibility of striking a meaningful blow at Howe's baggage train.

Wayne's division consisted of the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th, and 11th Pennsylvania Regiments, Hartley's Additional Continental Regiment, an attached artillery company, and a small force of dragoons, amounting to approximately 1,500 men.

Several miles to the west and moving to join Wayne was William Smallwood's Maryland militia, who had approximately 2,100 inexperienced troops under his command.

The problem was that Wayne's position was not nearly as secret as he believed. Local Loyalists — and the surrounding area had its share of Tory sympathizers — passed intelligence to the British about the location and approximate strength of Wayne's force. The British heard rumors that Wayne was in the area, and Howe dispatched scouts, who reported his location to be near the Paoli Tavern and Warren Tavern in present-day Malvern on September 19. Since his position was just 4 miles from the British camp in Tredyffrin Township, Howe immediately planned an attack on Wayne's camp. Major General Charles Grey, a seasoned and ruthless British officer, was tasked with eliminating the threat. Grey devised a plan of striking simplicity and terrifying discipline. He would march his force of several regiments to Wayne's encampment under cover of darkness and attack with the bayonet alone. To ensure that no soldier accidentally discharged a musket and alerted the Americans, Grey issued what became known as the "Flintless Order" — he commanded his troops to remove the flints from their muskets entirely, or in cases where loads could not be drawn, to attack with muskets unloaded. Grey ordered his troops to be quiet under threat of the death penalty.

This earned Grey the epithet "No Flint" Grey.

Grey's troops included the 2nd Light Infantry, a composite battalion formed from the light companies of 13 regiments, plus the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment and 44th Regiment of Foot. A dozen troopers of the 16th Queen's Light Dragoons were in the vanguard of the main British column. Altogether, Grey's force numbered approximately 1,200 men.

An additional 500–600 troops — the 40th and 55th Regiments — stood in support two miles away, not directly engaged in the battle.

As they marched through the night, the British captured all civilians living along their path to prevent word of the attack from reaching the Continentals.

The British also forced a blacksmith at the Warren Tavern to serve as a guide to Wayne's exact location.

The assault began at roughly 10 p.m. Hearing the firing from a picket on the right, the main body of Wayne's force began moving west out of camp in a column through well-fenced fields when a disabled cannon blocked the avenue of escape for several minutes. With loud battle cries, the British stormed into the camp in three waves: the 2nd Light Infantry in the lead, followed by the 44th and the 42nd, and light dragoons sweeping across the camp. Some of Wayne's troops fired in the direction of the British attack, exposing their positions in the dark; the rear of Wayne's column was silhouetted by their campfires. Some fired into each other and the ensuing chaos caused