Jefferis Ford, a crossing of the East Branch of Brandywine Creek in East Bradford Township, is where the main British army got around George Washington's right flank on 11 September 1777. Sir William Howe sent Wilhelm von Knyphausen's division along the Great Road toward Chadds Ford, exactly where Washington expected the whole British army to attack, while Howe himself marched with Lord Cornwallis's column out of Kennett Square before dawn on a foggy morning. The column crossed the West Branch at Trimble's Ford and then turned east to Jefferis Ford, two crossings Washington had left unguarded. A plaque at the crossing says Cornwallis crossed there between 1 and 2 o'clock. Jefferis Ford lay two miles north of Buffington's Ford, the farthest point north where the Americans had posted soldiers.
The jaegers scouting ahead under Captain Johann Ewald saw that the column had to pass a narrow gorge where a hundred men could have held up either army the whole day, but it went through unopposed. By about 1:15 p.m. Howe's column of about 8,000 were across both fords. They halted at Sconneltown, where foragers found a cache of liquor that Wilmington merchants had hidden in a barn, then moved on to Osborne Hill after nearly eleven hours and 17 miles on the march.
Local tradition credits Thomas Cheyney, a local squire, with riding seven miles to Washington's headquarters to warn him of the column and being met with disbelief. The historian Michael C. Harris, in his 2014 history of the battle, found no evidence that Cheyney warned Washington of the flank march, so the ride is best treated as legend. Washington accepted from several reports, by about 2 p.m., that Howe was behind his right.
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39.9389, -75.6364
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