Battle of Red Bank
Who Fought
History & Significance
The Battle of Red Bank, also known as the Battle of Fort Mercer, was fought on October 22, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War. A force of 1,200 Hessian troops was sent to take Fort Mercer on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River just south of Philadelphia, but was defeated by a smaller force of Continental Army troops.
Although Fort Mercer ultimately fell to the British a month later, the victory at the Battle of Red Bank served as a much-needed morale boost to the Patriot cause, delaying British plans to consolidate gains in Philadelphia, and relieving pressure on Washington's Continental Army, which was embedded north of Philadelphia.
After the British capture of Philadelphia on September 26, 1777, and the failure of the American surprise attack against the British camp at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, the Americans tried to deny the British use of the city by blockading the Delaware River.
Two forts were constructed to command the Delaware River: Fort Mercer on the New Jersey side at Red Bank in what was then part of Deptford Township and is now the borough of National Park. The second was Fort Mifflin on Mud Island, in the Delaware River just south of the Delaware River's confluence with the Schuylkill River, on the Pennsylvania side opposite Fort Mercer. As long as the Continental Army held both forts, British navy ships could not reach Philadelphia to resupply their army.
In addition to the forts, the Americans possessed a small flotilla of Continental Navy ships on the Delaware River supplemented by the Pennsylvania State Navy. The flotilla consisted of sloops, schooners, galleys, an assortment of floating batteries and fourteen old vessels laden with barrels of tar to be used as a means of defending the river. The fleet was armed with about one hundred cannon total, under the overall command of Commodore John Hazelwood. The fleet of Admiral Howe's consisted of eight or nine war vessels and several transports. His vessels were fully manned, with 285 guns on the war vessels alone. On just two of the vessels stranded in the river, Howe commanded more officers and men than Commodore Hazelwood had in his entire fleet.
On October 18, General Sir William Howe, the commander of the British Army, evacuated his camp at Germantown, and pulled his forces inside the city of Philadelphia. He sent a part of his force to capture the two American forts denying him use of the Delaware River. Earlier, Howe had sent a group of men via Webb's Ferry, at the mouth of the Schuylkill River, to marshy Providence Island (actually on the Pennsylvania mainland by Mud Island) to construct artillery batteries to bombard Fort Mifflin.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Red Bank lies on Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation And South Wales Lower Coal Measures Formation (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Westphalian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.
- United States: 14 killed; 23 wounded
- Hesse-Kassel: 82 killed; 228 wounded; 60 captured; 2 warships destroyed
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