312 HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. [1777. 



The meeting-house was used as a hospital while the British 

 army remained in the neighborhood. 



A Major Furgesson, who was the commander of a small corps 

 of riflemen attached to the British army, mentions an incident 

 which he says took place, while he lay concealed in a small skirt 

 of wood in front of Knyphausen's division. In a letter to Dr. 

 Furgesson, he writes : " We had not lain long when a rebel 

 ofiicer, remarkable for a huzzar dress, passed towards our army, 

 within one hundred yards of my right flank, not perceiving us. 

 He was followed by another dressed in dark green and blue, 

 mounted on a good bay horse, with a remarkably high cocked 

 hat. I ordered three good shots to steal near to them ; but the 

 idea disgusted me ; I recalled the order. The huzzar, in return- 

 ing, made a circuit, but the other passed within a hundred 

 yards of us ; upon which I advanced from the woods towards him. 

 Upon my calling, he stopped ; but looking at me, he proceeded. 

 I again drew his attention, and made a sign to him to stop, but 

 he slowly continued on his way. As I was within that distance 

 at which, in the quickest firing, I could have lodged half a dozen 

 balls in or about him before he was out of my reach, I had only 

 to determine ; but it was not pleasant to fire at the back of an 

 unofiending individual, who was acquitting himself very coolly 

 of his duty, so I let him alone. The day after, when I was telling 

 this story to some wounded ofiicers, who lay in the same room 

 with me, when one of our surgeons, who had been dressing the 

 rebel officers, came in and told me that General Washington was 

 all that morning, with the light troops and only accompanied by 

 a French officer in a huzzar dress, he, himself, dressed and 

 mounted in every way as above described.. I am not sorry that 

 I did not know' at the time Avho it was." The good genius of 

 Washington never forsook him.^ 



The young man, Percy, supposed to be a relative of the Duke 

 of Northumberland, before mentioned, was killed near the meet- 

 ing-house. The following anecdote is related of him : " When 

 he had arrived, with the regiment he accompanied, in sight of the 

 Americans ranged in order of battle upon the heights near Bir- 

 mingham meeting-house, he surveyed the field around him for a 

 moment, and then turning to his servant, handed him his purse 

 and his gold watch to take charge of, remarking, ' this place I 

 saw in a dream before I left England, and I know I shall fall 

 here.' The coincidence was striking and remarkable — the event 

 verified the prediction. His name is not mentioned in the British 

 official account of the battle, because he held no commission in 

 the army. He was merely a volunteer."^ 



The place where La Fayette received his wound, as pointed 



1 Hist. Chester County. i lb. 



