On November 24, 1777, the 20-year-old Marquis de Lafayette rode into Haddonfield hoping for a chance to lead men in battle, and that chance came the next day. After the British army marched into Philadelphia on September 11, 1777, it faced starvation unless it captured the Rebel forts blockading the Delaware River. On November 20, Lieutenant General Charles, Lord Cornwallis, with 4250 men, forced the last fort defending the river, Fort Mercer at Red Bank, to evacuate, and five days later he began embarking troops from Gloucester Town for Philadelphia while Lafayette observed them at a safe distance. From the Continental Army camp at Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, George Washington sent Major General Nathaniel Greene and three brigades to reinforce Fort Mercer, but they arrived too late because they had twice as far to march as Cornwallis, who had a two-day head start. The first Continental troops, 170 men from the Rifle Corps, arrived in Haddonfield late on November 22, and after dark on November 24 Lafayette and General George Weedon arrived with their aides; Greene and the first infantry finally arrived on November 26, long after the fort's loss. On November 25, in the skirmish Benjamin Franklin named the Battle of Gloucester, Lafayette and other officers reconnoitered the British, then in midafternoon Lafayette asked permission to attack a Hessian outpost east of Gloucester Town. With 300 or 400 Continental riflemen and New Jersey militia, Lafayette pushed the Hessians back almost 2 1/2 miles. This little victory provided the only good news Greene could report to Washington. On December 1, the Continental Congress voted to give Lafayette command of an army division. Lafayette was also a mason, a member of the Paris lodge Saint-Jean d'Ecosse du Contrat, and his masonic membership placed him in an international fraternity that included George Washington, Baron de Kalb, Benjamin Franklin, and others important to his career.