Two hundred and twenty-nine years later, I have set out to walk in their path. I'm in Chadds Ford, not far from the old Birmingham Friends Meeting House, whose laconic minute book entry for that fateful Thursday reads, "Today there was much confusion outside." I have about 30 miles ahead of me. It is 7:45 a.m.

The British commander was General William Howe. Howe had conquered New York the year before, but presumably had grown tired of the five boroughs and fancied trying out a sixth. There is evidence that he expected a superb nightlife in the city that loves you back.

George Washington had accepted his generalship by saying, "With the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I [am] honored with." The Continental Congress may have thought that a classy piece of self-deprecation, but the future president had solid grounds for humility. He would lose more battles than he won.

Thirty miles is a long walk by modern standards. It is well-known that the average U.S. citizen walks approximately 50 paces in an ordinary day, 40 of which are in search of the remote. I'm looking at something closer to 50,000. Traveling that far without burning at least three gallons of gasoline may be vaguely un-American, yet it is a curious fact that the only diet capable of packing enough calories for such a journey was developed right here. The British may have been gnawing mottled apples and hardtack, but SEPTA has dropped me off beside a McDonald's. I order the Big Breakfast, which delivers three-quarters of my recommended daily intake of fat. To my future chagrin, I leave without visiting the bathroom.

Sources do not record whether the British encountered much wildlife as they marched toward Philadelphia, but had they passed through a rift in the space-time continuum and emerged in our century, one of the first sights to greet them would have been a fake cow. After two hours of shady two-lane roads filled with the thwapping of motorized lawn mowers, I spot a pair of fake deer posed next to a squirrel figurine. Although I am constantly within view of houses with beautiful yards, I will not see a single child playing in one all day.

Eight miles in, an elderly woman kindly refills my water bottle. "Good luck," she says without particular surprise or concern. "You know it's a long way." The British also enjoyed a measure of hospitality as they moved toward Philadelphia. The countryside was already speckled with British red, and Tories began filling the city after the battle. The only walkers I encounter are a couple of middle-school boys heading up to a Wawa. Life out here apparently takes place entirely indoors. All these basketball hoops standing above silent driveways make me lonely.

The vast field of residences and lawn mowers is broken only by Linvilla Orchards, after which I lose my way and flag down four cars, whose drivers give me three different answers. They are: "I have no idea where Possum Hollow Road is"; "I don't know, but I'm sure it's not to the left"; and "I'm not sure, but it's definitely not to the right."

A fifth driver knows the road. She invites me into her car, promising she won't murder me with an ax. "You'll get killed walking on this road," she says after I enter. "Families used to be able to walk on this road, but now people use it as a cut-through to 95." Twenty seconds later we hit Possum Hollow and I jump out, saying thank you.

By midday I hit Swarthmore, where the sidewalks begin but riding mowers are still out in force. The Big Breakfast wants out. It takes another hour to reach Morton and I do so in pain. At The Coffee Station I order a sandwich. A sign above the kitchen says NOBODY GETS TO SEE THE WIZARD. NOT NOBODY. NOT NOHOW, and Philly feels suddenly closer. In the bathroom I sit down and let my gaze drift toward the ceiling, but it is arrested by another sign. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING UP HERE FOR? My answer does not require speech. I lean back against the upright toilet seat, smile at reaching the homestretch, and let fly.

For the last eight miles my knees scream at the ceaseless asphalt. My feet feel pulpy. If someone leveled a pistol at my chest and told me to scram, I would not be able to run. A thermometer below a bank billboard says 90 degrees and I realize that I'm walking right into the butt end of Southwest Philly. I begin to dread my arrival, but at 3:30 the spires of Center City spring above the railroad tracks in Yeadon and strike me with awe. I pass two men carrying scavenged gutter pipes in grocery carts up the Baltimore Pike. My feet carry me over Cobbs Creek and past the sign that says WELCOME TO PHILADELPHIA.

As if on cue, the 34 trolley comes up behind me on Baltimore Avenue. I hop in. This is the way to enter a city. This thoroughfare may pulse with teenage murder at night, but right this minute, after a marathon of miles, it's alive with barbershops and community gardens and Victorian houses. The city breathes and hums. It may be love or it may be delusion, but Baltimore Avenue looks muscular, even pretty at day's end. I am elated. Fresh corn and baguettes flash in the sun at Clark Park, then the trolley disappears into the 40th Street tunnel and Philadelphia swallows me up. Climbing to the pavement on Market Street, into a sea of pedestrians walking away from work and toward pleasure, I feel the joy the British perhaps felt, even before they began throwing parties with local girls dressed like Turkish maidens.

When word reached Ben Franklin in France that Howe had taken Philadelphia, the inventor replied, "I beg your pardon. Philadelphia has taken Howe."

(trey.popp@citypaper.net)