On the night of October 3 he started, and reached Germantown at daybreak on the 4th.

At first the Americans swept everything before them, and flung the British back in rout and confusion.

Then matters began to go wrong, as is always likely to happen when, as in this case, widely separated and yet accurately concerted action is essential to success.

Some of the British threw themselves into a stone house, and instead of leaving them there under guard, the whole army stopped to besiege, and a precious half hour was lost.

Then Greene and Stephen were late in coming up, having made a circuit, and although when they arrived all seemed to go well, the Americans were seized with an inexplicable panic, and fell back, as Wayne truly said, in the very moment of victory.