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In late September of 1777, after victorious encounters with American troops at Brandywine and Paoli, British soldiers occupied Philadelphia, then the capital of the Revolutionary government. The occupying army quartered several thousand troops in the nearby village of Germantown, about 6 miles northwest of the city. In early October, from his headquarters in Skippack (Montgomery County), General George Washington plotted to recapture the capital as quickly as possible. His elaborate battle plan called for an assault on Philadelphia from the northwest, aimed through the heart of Germantown. Overnight and through the early morning hours of October 4, as many as twelve thousand men moved south towards Germantown by several different routes, hoping to catch the British by Americans on the Germantown Road encountered a British picket outpost near, what is now, Allens Lane in Mount Airy. The resulting burst of artillery fire from nearby alarm cannons alerted British Colonel Thomas Musgrave
