I haven’t found a copy of the actual handwritten notes by Captain Thomas Buchanan. Our Inn is west of Paoli.
A memorandum in the handwriting of Captain Thomas Buchanan, of the First Pennsylvania regiment
At the affair of Paoli, in the fall of 1777, I was sent forward to Gen. Smallwood, that lay at the White Horse, to get him to cover our retreat and fix a place of rendezvous, etc. He sent me forward to try to stop as many of his broken troops that had taken the road to Downingtown. On coming near to these, I found where some of his artillery had thrown a field-piece into a limekiln and had broken the carriage. I went on to Downingtown, and fixed a guard on the road to stop the runaways; got a wheeler and blacksmith to mend the carriage, and went down and put the cannon on the carriage, etc.