BRANDYWINE PATRIOT by Jack Leddy

This family story introduces you to Captain John Barnes, one of our early American ancestors, formerly a British Officer during the War for American Independence. His picture, hand-etched on ivory in London around 1775, is shown on the adjacent page. This picture, along with old family stories passed on by my father, cousins and other, more distant relations provide an interesting insight to our family history in the beginning of America. A recent trip to Philadelphia and the Brandywine River area, south of the city and to Valley Forge National Historic Monument brought inspiration and uncovered more confirmation of this story. Also, some help from a British friend, who gave useful British Army reference websites to further confirm some of the information.



On September 11, 1777 the battle of Brandywine River, the largest conflict of the American Revolution was fought on a hot, humid day. This battle brought defeat to George Washington’s troops as he was largely outnumbered by the British Redcoats. Philadelphia, the capital of the newly formed nation, was the goal of British General Howe during the campaign of 1777. The British approached Philadelphia from the Chesapeake, landing at Head of Elk (now Elkton), Maryland. Washington chose the high ground in the area of Chadds Ford to defend against the British advance. Chadds Ford allowed safe passage across the Brandywine River on the road from Baltimore to Philadelphia. Today, Chadds Ford is still a small village near the Brandywine River Battlefield with several art galleries. The famous Wyeth family of artists live nearby and a beautiful art museum dedicated to them is next to the Brandywine River. It is now very peaceful and difficult to believe that such a bloody battle took place in that area.



A British officer’s comment on the battle: “What excessive fatigue. A rapid march from four o’clock in the morning till four in the eve, when we engaged.. Till dark we fought…….

There was a most infernal fire of cannon and musquetry. Most incessant shouting. ‘Incline to the right! Incline to the left! Halt! Charge! etc. The balls plowing up the ground. The trees cracking over one’s head. The branches riven by the artillery. The leaves falling as in autumn by the grapeshot.”



In 1777, George Washington lost the battle due to inferior intelligence. He had studied all the possible crossings of the Brandywine River and assumed that Chadd’s Ford was the only logical crossing of this natural barrier on the road to Philadelphia.

However, the British commander, General Howe, discovered another location of a crossing much to the north of Chadd’s Ford and managed to outflank our Continental Army and put Washington’s troops in danger of being completely surrounded. Washington was assisted for the first time in the War for Independence by the French Marquis de Lafayette, already a General in the American Army at the age of 19. Saved by nightfall, Washington managed to retreat to West Chester.



However, the American troops had some sharpshooters that were expert at picking off the British officers, who marched at the front of their troops. Washington had some of these riflemen stationed in trees on the road to Philadelphia with orders to shoot every Redcoat officer through the heart with the thought that this would discourage and frighten the British troops.



By coincidence, my great, great, great grandfather, a British Army officer, Captain John Barnes, was shot by one of these riflemen, who missed his heart, and shot him through the left shoulder. Wounded severely, but surviving in great pain, he was carried on a stretcher to Old Swede’s Church in South Philadelphia. The church had been made into a temporary hospital by the British when they occupied Philadelphia in the fall of 1777. It is still standing, known as Gloria Dei National Monument, and is a functioning church, surrounded by a cemetery where some of our ancestors are buried.



The oldest traceable ancestor buried in that churchyard was a Swedish lady, Elizabeth Salonius. Born in 1620 in Philadelphia and died in 1690. She was the widow of Augustin Salonius, an early Swedish settler and the grandmother of Sarah Johnson. Sarah was a nurse at Old Swede’s Church attending the British troops.



After several months, John Barnes found that he was deeply in love with Sarah. Suggesting marriage to her she told him that she would not marry him unless he left the British Army and joined the American Revolution. According to our family history he actually deserted the British, and we recently have traced his enlistment in the American army at the bitter winter encampment in Valley Forge in January, 1778. But he became very sick and was discharged after a few months. He disappeared for awhile amidst the Swedish farm settlers in upstate Pennsylvania but family history indicates he was commissioned as a Captain in the US Army and was present at Yorktown when the British Army admitted defeat and surrendered to Washington.



Peacetime in the beginning of America had its difficulties and we don’t know how John Barnes made a living but it is surmised that he was in the hotel business. One quotation from a letter from Mary B. Reynolds to Mary Barnes (Allaben) follows:

“Now Mary, I will do the best I can to tell you a little about the Barnes Family history.

One of the very first things I remember was my Father taking Lucy and me for a walk on Sunday afternoons. We had one favorite walk, that was to the Delaware River, about nine blocks from our home. We loved the busy wharves with the sailors, foreigners, earrings in their ears, a monkey jabbering and climbing about, and a parrot with its bright plumage, sitting on a sailor’s shoulder or wrist. Then we stopped in at Old Swede’s Church cemetery to take a look at the grave of our great-grandmother Johnson, the mother of our grandmother Barnes. A pleasant place, that quiet God’s acre, nothing of sadness.”



“Then on we fared to Grandmother Barnes’ house on Wharton Street near Moyamensing Avenue; a rather French looking house with lovely wrought iron balconies outside of every window, a remembrance of the many years in New Orleans. We always found visitors at grandmother’s, but we were quiet and well behaved children. I can remember her sitting there looking at a picture book. It was always the same one: ‘Fox’s Book of Martyrs’ and the ghoulish delight I had in Saint Lawrence, who was shown on a gridiron, toasting over the flames, like my mother cooked lamb chops.



One of the visitors was an old sea captain, my grandmother remarked that he followed the sea, and I know how envious I was, happy fate, to follow the sea, to what far mysterious port did he follow? I wondered. He always showed us children how he drew a bright gleaming sword out of his cane and brandished it. Captain Kidd had nothing on him in my estimation. He never appeared anywhere but in grandmother’s parlor.



Then I used to wonder how grandfather, John Barnes, a handsome young fellow in stock and ruffles, whose portrait smiled down on us, could be the husband of that little gray haired old dame we all loved. He looked younger than any of her sons.”



When Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase he told the loyal veterans that he had no money to give them but he had lots of land. Captain Barnes asked for a lot in down-town New Orleans and took his wife and two children down the Mississippi River and settled in New Orleans and built the largest hotel in that city.



“When grandmother Barnes married that handsome young Englishman, John Wall Barnes, and started out for New Orleans, it was quite an undertaking. They went by stage to Pittsburg, from there took the comfortable boat that went down the Ohio and then swung into the Ole Man River and down to New Orleans. They were in the hotel business and I have heard it said, had the finest hotel in New Orleans. It was on the corner of Schoupitoulas and Grand Streets near the French Quarter on the river front.



However, when the British invaded from the South in the War of 1812 he knew that they were aware that he was living in New Orleans and he would have been hanged as a traitor if they captured him. Our family history shows he left New Orleans, abandoning the hotel, which burned to the ground, and returned to Philadelphia by horseback with his wife, son and daughter. General Andrew Jackson managed to stop the British invasion of New Orleans just twelve miles south of the city. There is no record as to what caused the fire that gutted the hotel.



The horseback trip must have been very difficult at that time as there were very few roads and a lot of unfriendly Indian tribes, bloodthirsty river pirates and robbers in the unsettled parts of the South. One has to keep in mind that there were very few places available for food and shelter and it must have been many weeks before they reached Philadelphia with exhausted horses.



Captain Barnes family lived in the South Philadelphia area for many years and his descendants married into other families such as the Breen, Grimshaw, Murray and, eventually the Irish Catholic Leddy family, who emigrated to America during the disastrous potato famine in the 1840’s. Quite a few of our ancestors are buried in Old Swede’s Church, now an Episcopal Church surrounded by a large cemetery, next to busy Highway 95. One of these ancestors was my cousin, Anna Breen, whose family dated from 1804, and was , by marriage, related to the Barnes family. She was the person that left me this locket with the picture of Captain John Barnes and inspired me to write this story.



John Barnes Leddy

June 11, 2004