The Battle of Paoli, also known as the Battle of Paoli Tavern or the Paoli Massacre, was a battle in the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolutionary War fought on September 20, 1777, in the area surrounding present-day Malvern, Pennsylvania. Following the Continental Army's retreat in the Battle of Brandywine and the aborted Battle of the Clouds, George Washington left a force behind under the command of Brigadier General Anthony Wayne to monitor and resist the British as they prepared to attack and occupy the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia campaign (1777–1778) was a British military campaign during the American Revolutionary War designed to gain control of Philadelphia, the Revolutionary-era capital where the Second Continental Congress convened and formed the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander in 1775, and authored and unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence the following year, on July 4, 1776, which formalized and escalated the war.