Washington slept on this night at Benjamin Ring's, just east of Chad's Ford, and La Fayette at Gideon Gilpin's, near by. Both the dwellings are still standing and occupied as places of residence. To defend the crossing at the ford a battery of six guns was planted in front of John Chad's house. Its location may yet be distinctly traced. West of the stream, Maxwell's riflemen were posted well out on the road toward Kennet Square, where General Howe occupied Wiley's tavern, an ancient hostelry, as his quarters. He had formed his plan of attack--to engage the attention of the Americans by a sharp attack on the road to the crossing at Chad's with Knyphausen's division of five thousand men, while Cornwallis should proceed, upon roads concealed from the American view by distance and intervening forests, far up the creek to the fords that Sullivan had not guarded, and, crossing there, descend with crushing force upon the American line. Sullivan himself declared, in letters written after the battle, that he had anticipated such an attack: it was the natural plan of battle for Howe to adopt under the circumstances. If, then, our general had only taken sufficient precaution to meet it! Early on this foggy, warm morning of the 11th the British were in motion. There was no hurry for Knyphausen, but Cornwallis's men had a long, hard march before them. At five o'clock they set off, leaving behind them all encumbering baggage, even their knapsacks. Turning northward, they took the road which, pursuing a direction generally parallel with the Brandywine, reaches the west branch of the creek at Trimble's Ford. Howe himself rode with them. He was mounted, Townsend says, "on a large English horse, much reduced in flesh"--thanks to short rations on shipboard. Thirteen thousand men, the whole left wing of the army, marched in this column. Hidden by the forests and hills, as well as by the mists of the morning, they had moved several miles on their way before any word of their march reached the Americans across the creek, only three miles away.