On September 3, 1777, more than 800 Americans in Brigadier General William Maxwell's Light Infantry Corps fought about 2,000 British Light Infantry and Hessian and Anspach Jägers in a series of skirmishes ending at Cooch's Bridge. Maxwell's newly formed corps included Continentals from New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, along with militia from New Castle and Chester counties, and for one week it had harassed and scouted General Sir William Howe's British army after its late August landing at the Head of Elk, following General George Washington's orders to provide every possible annoyance. Covering the crucial main road to Philadelphia, Maxwell's men set a well-prepared ambush along Old Cooch's Bridge Road as the British advanced north on the morning of September 3, opening fire on the Jägers from concealed positions. After the initial surprise, the Jägers overran the first American position in hand-to-hand fighting, and the battle continued for about a half mile along the road. Howe then reinforced the Jägers with two British Light Infantry battalions and ordered them to outflank the Americans; a move to the right into an area called Purgatory Swamp effectively removed one battalion from the action, but the advance to the left more successfully outflanked the American position. The Continentals eventually held at Cooch's Bridge but were forced across Christina Creek, and after a series of small delaying actions and the prospect of facing the rest of the British army, they withdrew east, ending the battle. Casualties on both sides ranged from 30 to 40 dead and wounded, and British pioneers buried at least 24 Americans on the field in unmarked graves. American officers in the fighting included John Marshall, Thomas Duff of Newport, Delaware, Alexander Martin, and Francis Gurney. Afterward, the British army occupied the area from Iron Hill to Aiken's Tavern, with General Cornwallis' headquarters at the Cooch House, remained there until September 8, 1777, then marched north through Newark, and on September 11 met the Americans again at the Battle of Brandywine. Known to American participants as the Battle of Cooch's Bridge, this skirmish opened the Philadelphia Campaign of 1777, was the only Revolutionary War battle fought on what became First State soil, and is traditionally associated by considerable circumstantial evidence with the first carrying of the Stars and Stripes in battle.