Escape
Representation of the action off Mud Fort in the River Delaware, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Representation_of_the_action_off_Mud_Fort_in_the_River_Delaware_-_(coloured).jpg[1]
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Ultimately, on November 15, it was concluded that the American defenders of Fort Mifflin could no longer hold out. The bulk of the troops, and some of those who had been killed–see Death of a Friend– were evacuated by boat across the river to New Jersey but some stayed until the last moment. Joseph Plumb Martin described the situation that night:
I happened to be left with a party of seventy or eighty men to destroy and burn all that was left in the place. I was in the northwest battery just after dark, when the enemy were hauling their shipping, on that side, higher up to a more commanding position; they were so nigh that I could hear distinctly what they said on board the sloop. One expression of theirs I well remember, — “We will give it to the d – d rebels in the morning.” The thought that then occupied my mind I as well remember, · The d – d rebels will show you a trick which the devil never will, they will go off and leave you. ‘[2]
Private Martin was part of the last group of American soldiers to leave Fort Mifflin. They were charged with destroying what had not yet been destroyed and then getting out by boat. The flight across the reiver, as remembered by Martin more that a half century later, was itself harrowing:
I happened to be left with a party of seventy or eighty men to destroy and burn all that was left in the place. . . . I returned directly back into the fort to my party and proceeded to set fire to everything that would burn, and then repaired immediately to the wharf where three batteaux were waiting to convey us across the river. And now came on another trial. Before we could embark the buildings in the fort were completely in flames, and they threw such a light upon the water that we were as plainly seen by the British as though it had been broad day. Almost their whole fire was directed at us; sometimes our boat seemed to be almost thrown out of the water, and at length a shot took the sternpost out of the rear boat. We had then to stop and take the men from the crippled boat into the other two; and now the shot and water flew merrily; but by the assistance of a kind Providence we escaped without any further injury and landed, a little after midnight, on the Jersey shore.[3]
[1] This picture would have been of the bombardment of the fort during daylight, and the escape boats would have been separated from the British warships by the chevaux-de-frise, but this image gives a sense of the size of the likely boats and the ships trying to sink them.
[2] Martin, J.P., The Adventures of a Revolutionary Soldier , pg. 68 (1830), https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Adventures_Of_A_Revolutionary_Soldier
[3] Id., pg. 69.