Revolutionary War Head of Elk Dug Musket Balls

The Philadelphia Campaign of 1777 took definitive shape when Gen. William Howe successfully landed his 16,000 officers and men near Head of Elk (now Elkton), Maryland, on August 25, 1777, the very day that Washington set up his headquarters at a house atop Quaker Hill in the southwestern portion of Wilmington, Delaware, while his advanced two divisions of the Continental army nestled into place a few miles behind him. Wilmington sat half way (twenty-six miles) between Howe and Philadelphia. All four of the brigades within those divisions consisted of Virginia-only infantry regiments. “I propose to view the grounds towards the Enemy in the morning,” wrote Washington to John Hancock on that Monday, admitting his ignorance of the lay of the land when he added, “I am yet a stranger to them [the grounds]." Dug By Henry Leish