Cooch's Bridge

COOCH'S BRIDGE. 3 September 1777. To harass the advance of General William Howe from Head of Elk, Maryland, Maxwell's light infantry took up a position near Cooch's Bridge, Delaware, (sometimes called Iron Hill) on Christiana Creek about five miles northeast of Elkton, Maryland. On 2 September, Washington warned William Maxwell that the enemy would move in his direction the next day. About 9 o'clock the morning of the 3rd, Maxwell's pickets opened fire on the advance guard of Cornwallis's "grand division." Lieutenant Ludwig von Wurmb, commanding the leading element of jägers, brought his amusettes into action and then drove the Americans back by an envelopment and bayonet attack against their right. Maxwell was forced out of several delaying positions. The British light infantry came forward to support the Germans, and although the Americans delivered several close, well-directed fires, the running fight degenerated into flight. The Americans fell back on Washington's main body on White Clay Creek, some four miles north of Cooch's Bridge.

Carl Leopold Baurmeister, a Hessian officer, said the Americans left thirty dead, including five officers, but evacuated their wounded. The historian Christopher Ward accepts this figure, but he also mentions that other contemporary estimates ranged from Montresor's figure of twenty American dead left on the field to Marshall's estimate of forty American killed and wounded. Enemy losses were three killed and twenty wounded according to Montresor, or thirty killed and wounded according to Robertson.

The relatively minor skirmish gained notoriety from being the largest fight of the war to take place in Delaware, and because it is claimed to be one of the first places where the recently adopted Stars and Stripes flew in battle.

SEE ALSO Amusette; Howe, William; Maxwell's Light Infantry; Philadelphia Campaign.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cooch, Edward. The Battle of Cooch's Bridge, Delaware, September 3, 1777. Wilmington, Del.: Cann, 1940.

Quaife, Milton M., Melvin J. Weig, and Roy E. Appleman. The History of the United States Flag from the Revolution to the Present. New York: Harper and Rowe, 1961.

Ward, Christopher. War of the Revolution. 2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1952.

                              revised by Robert K. Wright Jr.