It was Philadelphia fifty miles away that he intended to have.
Washington wrote gleefully "Now let all New England turn out and
crush Burgoyne." Before the end of September he was writing that
he was certain of complete disaster to Burgoyne.
Howe had, in truth, made a ruinous mistake. Had the date been May
instead of August he might still have saved Burgoyne. But at the
end of August, when the net was closing on Burgoyne, Howe was
three hundred miles away. His disregard of time and distance had
been magnificent. In July he had sailed to the mouth of the
Delaware, with Philadelphia near, but he had then sailed away
again, and why? Because the passage of his ships up the river to
the city was blocked by obstructions commanded by bristling
forts. The naval officers said truly that the fleet could not get
up the river. But Howe might have landed his army at the head of
Delaware Bay. It is a dozen miles across the narrow peninsula
from the head of Delaware Bay to that of Chesapeake Bay. Since
Howe had decided to attack from the head of Chesapeake Bay there
was little to prevent him from landing his army on the Delaware
side of the peninsula and marching across it. By sea it is a
voyage of three hundred miles round a peninsula one hundred and
fifty miles long to get from one of these points to the other, by
land only a dozen miles away.
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