Revolutionary War Soldier's Grave Marker
Perkiomen Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Maj. Edward Sherburne of New Hampshire Aide to General John Sullivan Wounded at Germantown Oct. 4, 1777 Died Sunday Evening Oct. 5, 1777
The Story
In the autumn of 1777, George Washington's army fought a costly battle at Germantown just outside British-held Philadelphia. Among the wounded was Major Edward Sherburne of New Hampshire, an aide to General John Sullivan, who was struck down on October 4 and died the following evening. This grave marker remembers a young staff officer whose service ended far from home in the war's brutal Philadelphia campaign.
Why it matters
It puts a single name and a single day to the human cost of the Revolution, marking where one of Washington's officers gave his life in the fight for independence.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the autumn of 1777, the Revolution had reached one of its grimmest stretches. The British had taken Philadelphia, then the young nation's capital, and George Washington's Continental Army was maneuvering through the Pennsylvania countryside outside the occupied city, looking for a chance to strike back.
That chance came at Germantown, on the northern edge of Philadelphia, on October 4, 1777. Washington launched an ambitious dawn attack meant to catch the British off guard. It was a bold plan, and for a time it seemed it might work — before fog, confusion, and stiff resistance turned the day against the Americans.
This grave marker sits in the Pennsylvania countryside, in the same broad landscape through which the armies moved that fall. It marks not a battlefield but a resting place — the human aftermath of a single hard day of fighting.
People & events
The soldier remembered here is Major Edward Sherburne of New Hampshire, an aide-de-camp to General John Sullivan. Being an aide to a general was no safe desk posting in this war. Staff officers carried orders across chaotic, smoke-filled fields, rode where the fighting was thickest, and made themselves conspicuous targets in the process.
Sherburne was wounded at Germantown on October 4, 1777, and, as the marker records, died the following evening. Behind that plain sequence lies a very old and very human story: a young officer struck down in battle, surviving a single day, and dying far from the New Hampshire home he had left to serve the cause.
He served under General Sullivan, one of Washington's active field commanders during the Philadelphia campaign. But the marker rightly keeps its focus narrow — on one man, one wound, and two dates. It is a personal memorial, not a battle map.
Its place in the American story
The Revolution is often told through its famous names and its turning points. Markers like this one tell it a different way — one grave, one officer, one autumn evening at a time. They remind us that independence was purchased in individual lives.
Germantown itself mattered to the larger war. Though Washington's army did not win the day, the boldness of the attack — coming so soon after other setbacks — helped convince observers at home and abroad that the Continental Army was a serious, resilient force. That impression fed into the crucial foreign support the cause would soon gain.
Sherburne was one of many who did not live to see any of it. To stand at his grave is to be reminded that the words in the founding documents rested on the willingness of ordinary young men to ride into fire and, sometimes, not come back.
If you visit
Approach this as a quiet, personal stop rather than a grand historic site. The power here is in its plainness — a single officer's name, a rank, a general he served, and the two dates that bracket the end of his life.
Take a moment to read those dates against each other: wounded one day, gone the next. That short span says more about the cost of the Philadelphia campaign than any statistic could. It puts a face and a name to a war that can otherwise feel like a distant sweep of events.
If you're touring Revolutionary sites in the Philadelphia region, this makes a fitting counterpoint to the better-known battlefields and monuments. Come with respect, as you would to any grave, and let the smallness of the memorial be exactly the point.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Edward Sherburne
- · John Sullivan
Related events
- · Battle of Germantown
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Washington Revolutionary War Encampment Monument
Perkiomen Township, PA
During the tense weeks around the Battle of Germantown in the fall of 1777, George Washington marched his army through the Pennsylvania countryside, camping at Pennypacker Mills in late September and again in early October. Washington made his headquarters in the house of Samuel Pennypacker while the Continental Army rested and regrouped nearby. This stone, placed by the Historical Society of Montgomery County in 1897, marks the ground where that encampment stood.
Revolutionary War Memorial
Phoenixville, PA
This marker records the farthest inland point reached by British forces during their 1777 campaign to capture Philadelphia. In late September of that year, after the Battle of Brandywine, British and American armies maneuvered across Chester County — including the rain-drenched 'Battle of the Clouds' — before General Howe's troops pressed on toward the rebel capital and Washington's army withdrew.
Anderson Family Burial Ground
Schuylkill Township, PA
This burial ground holds the Anderson family and was dedicated by Isaac Anderson, who served as a first lieutenant in the Chester County militia during the Revolution in 1779 and later represented Pennsylvania in Congress from 1805 to 1807. His life traced the arc from citizen-soldier of the Revolution to lawmaker of the early Republic.
Horse-Shoe Trail Eastern Terminus
Upper Merion Township, PA
The Horse-Shoe Trail was blazed in 1935 as a bridle-and-hiking path linking the hallowed ground of Valley Forge — where Washington's Continental Army endured the brutal winter of 1777–78 — to the Appalachian Trail on Stony Mountain, winding 121 miles through the rolling farmland and wooded ridges of southeastern Pennsylvania. This granite marker, set in 1972 by the Horse-Shoe Trail Club, honors Henry M. Woolman, one of the volunteers whose vision knit together a footpath still walked today. Trails like this one grew out of the early-twentieth-century outdoor movement, when clubs of enthusiasts carved recreational corridors across the American landscape.