The Americans were meanwhile kept guessing about Howe's destination. He decided in view of this to enter the Chesapeake Bay, landing at the northernmost point possible and approaching Philadelphia overland. The fleet set sail on July 23 and reached the Delaware Bay on July 30, where Howe received misleading intelligence of American obstructions in the Delaware River that seemed to make an approach from that direction impracticable. In the process he might force the pitched battle he had sought unsuccessfully in New Jersey. General Howe's intention was to sail via the Delaware Bay to the Delaware River, threatening Philadelphia and preventing Washington from reinforcing Major-General Horatio Gates's northern army against Burgoyne. Washington and the Battle of Brandywine from Mount Vernon on Vimeo. Washington's stubborn refusal to risk a major engagement forced the British commander to find another means of forcing battle, and on July 8 he began embarking his 16,500 men on board his brother Admiral Richard Howe's armada at Sandy Hook, N.J. The British commander spent the first part of the summer campaign of 1777 in New Jersey, trying to lure Washington into the open for another major engagement that would finally wipe out the main American army while Lieutenant-General John Burgoyne's northern expedition severed New England from the rest of the colonies. in December 1776 and January 1777, when Washington inflicted minor but stinging defeats on Howe's forces. in October 1776, and the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, N.J. Since then, however, the only serious engagements between the armies had been the inconclusive affair at White Plains, N.Y. That battle resulted in the loss of New York City to the United States for the remainder of the war. For Lieutenant-General Sir William Howe, commander of the British forces in North America, it was the first chance he had to come fully to grips with General George Washington's army since the British victory of Long Island in August 1776. The Battle of the Brandywine on September 11, 1777, marked the apparent end of a long period of frustration for the British in North America.

Shattered union light infantry