Caring for the Wounded and Burying the Dead

"Great numbers were killed in the water, and many dropped down from excessive heat, and the farmers for several days afterwards were fishing dead bodies from the water, and burying them and others left on the ground."

Dr. William Darlington

Before the Battle of Brandywine, Washington had used the Birmingham Meeting House for use as a hospital for his wounded. After the Continentals retreated to Chester, the British took over the meeting house for their wounded.

On September 13, two days after the battle, Howe sent Washington a note requesting a “Rebel Doctor” for the American wounded, as the British were not “so situated as to give them the necessary relief.”

On September 14, a British captain wrote that “the noted Dr. Rush, a rebel Doctor and delegate with 3 Surgeons to attend the wounded Rebels left scattered in the Houses about the field of Battle” had arrived.

Local farmers helped bury the dead, some 1,800 to 3,200 British and Americans.

Mass gravesite for an estimated
300 soldiers at Birmingham Meeting

Mass gravesite for 13 Hessian
soldiers at Kennett Meeting

 These two marked burial sites, plus additional ones found in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, account for approximately 350 known battle-related gravesites. Still unaccounted for are the burial sites of perhaps another 1,000 casualties of the battle, believed to be scattered throughout the Landmark.