The Siege of Boston

THE battle of Bunker Hill had the effect of determining the relation which New England held toward the mother country, and went far toward defining the attitude of all the thirteen colonies. The British army in Boston represented England, and when the forces, already called American, issued from camp in Cambridge on the 16th of June to plant themselves with menace on the hill that overlooked the town, the act was an unquestioned assertion of armed hostility. England had no other alternative than to meet it promptly with sharp rejoinder; but in doing this she as inevi tably confirmed the foregone conclusion of American independence. The victory which the British army won gave them the hill on which the battle was fought, but it gave them nothing more; the effect of the battle on the defeated forces was to increase their number at once, and to drive them forward in that siege of Boston which had begun after the battle of Concord and Lexington, but had thus far been scarcely more than an armed watch of the army in possession of the town.

A fortnight only elapsed before the arrival of Washington, in possession of that authority to command which was the first requisite of the unorganized, restless body of men who clustered upon the hills that surrounded Boston and camped on the broad farms that lay by the river, which then more than now separated the town from the main-land. Behind Washington, the coming leader, was the Continental Congress, rude anticipation of the legislative government yet to come, and the army itself under its colonial divisions had been adopted by that Congress; but though news of the engagement was at once sent off, there was no interruption in the course begun upon months before. In Boston there was constant expectation of an attack; in the camp there was a similar apprehension that the enemy would follow up the advantage gained; in the country, wherever the news penetrated there was sharper division than ever into two parties. No one seemed to know, in the excitement that followed the thunder-clap of a battle, just what was to happen, but inaction was no part of the temper either of the besieging forces or of the British army. On the night of the 17th of June, when General Howe was throwing up breastworks on the northwestern declivity of Bunker Hill, General Putnam was hard at work on Prospect Hill, engaged in the same task. “ I found him,” his son says, “ on the morning of the 18th of June, about ten o’clock, on Prospect Hill, dashing about among the workmen, throwing up intrenchments, and often placing a rod with his own hands. He wore the same clothes he had on when I left him on the 16th, and said he had neither put them off nor washed himself since.”¹ Work was constantly going forward during the fortnight upon this important hill, and a large body of men was stationed there; the hill, which has since been razeed and is still under the pick and spade, was a commanding eminence under which lay the road from Cambridge to Charlestown; and from whose summit both the British and the American lines were in full view. The New Hampshire troops, which before the battle had been in camp at Medford, retreated in that direction, but stopped at Winter Hill and began to fortify it, continuing in possession during the fortnight. General Thomas, who had been in command of the forces posted in Roxbury and had not been at Bunker Hill, was at work strengthening his position, at the point where the main avenue from Boston issued, a point which had hitherto been strangely neglected, and his men received the liveliest attention from the Boston guns. Volunteers and curious visitors came down all the country roads; refugees struggled out of Boston, lories hurried to get under shelter of the king’s arms; and while there was confusion inevitably incident to the condition, there was evidence on all sides of what a writer of that day declared: “ This battle has been of infinite service to us; made us more vigilant, watchful, and cautious.” The troops were in high spirits, and the whizzing of balls to and fro was the accompaniment to their work at the intrenehments.

The town of Boston, which was to be watched thus by these men for nine months, can be held in the reader’s mind only by an effort of the imagination and memory in lopping off the extraneous portions which from time to time have been added to the original peninsula. Up to the year of the siege this remained, in its physical features, much the same as when occupied by the solitary Blackstone a hundred and fifty years before. The peninsula, which could have been made an island in a few hours by cutting through the sandy neck, only some three hundred paces broad, was marked by its rough hills, — Copp’s, Fort, and the three-headed Beacon Hill; its coves, including the mill pond, bounded we may say by Prince, Salem, Hanover, Hawkins, Green, and Leverett streets, dammed by the causeway, now Causeway Street, and connected with the harbor by the sluggish mill creek; its Common, ending in a marsh a little below where Charles Street now borders it; its pastures and fields, covering the tract first ravaged by the great fire of 1873; its wharves and ship-yards, occupying the water front from Barton’s Point, at the end of Leverett Street, around the peninsula to the neck, which was narrowest where Dover Street now crosses Washington, over which the tides sometimes washed, and by the margin of which unwary travelers sometimes floundered and lost their way, until the road was hedged in by pickets. The peninsula comprised less than a thousand acres, being about a mile and three quarters long from the neck to Winnisimmet Ferry, and a little more than a mile wide at its widest point. There were no bridges connecting it with the neighboring points of land: an old mile-stone has lately been dug up in Cambridge and reinstated in comfortable vicinity to Massachusetts Hall, with the legend in blushing red, “ Boston 8 miles; ” that was the distance Lord Percy had to travel when he set out on April 19th to reënforce Colonel Pitcairn, for he had to cross Boston Neck, traverse Brookline, and cross the Brighton bridge, the only one then spanning Charles River. People living in Chelsea then had a trip of a dozen miles to make if they would reach Boston on foot or in a wagon. A ferry-boat ran to Charlestown and one to Winnisimmet, and if the wind was contrary the scow would take an hour in making the trip. There was an occasional ferry to Cambridge also, but the ice in the river in winter made the passage irregular and difficult.

Upon this ragged peninsula lived some fifteen or sixteen thousand people, but even before the affair of April 19th the number had begun to be reduced by the withdrawal of those disaffected toward the government and suspicious of the coming difficulties, and by the depression of trade consequent upon the enforcement of the Port Bill. After the warning of the Concord fight the exodus was greatly increased, and after the battle of Bunker Hill no one of the patriot party stayed behind who could well help it, so that in July, before the last permission to leave the town was given, a count showed only six thousand five hundred and seventy-three inhabitants, exclusive of the troops with their wives and children. It had been the policy of the governor, who was also commanding officer, to get rid of as many inhabitants as possible, foreseeing the incumbrance which a great and hungry population would be, should the colonial forces succeed in closing the avenues to the town; and the anxiety which he felt to be rid of the people was equaled only by that of the people to get away. The governor took care also to secure their arms, under a formal agreement with the town authorities, which he afterward violated, and to make it difficult for those escaping from the town to carry much personal property with them. But there was a small counter-migration of tories living in the neighborhood of Boston, who sought the protection of the government from the persecution of their angry neighbors; and these, with the tories resident there, remonstrated against a course which would leave in the town no hostages to deter the besiegers from destroying the place altogether. So effectual was their remonstrance that the governor broke faith with the patriots, and pursued a policy by which the misery of the siege was increased by the separation of families and the retention in the town of helpless women and children.

It is intimated that some of the bolder kept up a communication with their friends outside, by means of signals from the church steeples. “ About three weeks ago,” a letter-writer of July 25th says, “three fellows were taken out of one of the latter [steeples] who confess they had been so employed for seven days. ’ ’ There were yet a few men of character who remained, notably the Rev. Andrew Eliot and Dr. Isaac Rand, though the latter may perhaps be classed among the quiet tories. Both of these did much to lighten the distresses of the poor, for the great majority of the patriot families that remained were of the humbler sort, trades-people and artisans, whose daily bread depended on their toil in their shops. There certainly was no demonstration of patriotism inside the town. Madam Draper’s News Letter, the only paper published in Boston during the siege, copies in its issue for July 13th a notice by William Cooper, the town clerk, which had appeared in one of the outside papers, calling upon the dispersed freemen of Boston to meet at Concord in order to choose a representative to general court, and adds, mockingly, “ Some have been wondering of late at the peaceableness of this town; it is to be hoped that their surprise will now cease, when they find that Mr. Cooper and the rest of our town-meeting folks have adjourned to Concord.”

The few patriots were necessarily looked upon with suspicion by the officers, and with hatred by the loyalists; they were closely watched, and thrown into prison upon slight pretenses. The loyalists, confident of the final success of the king’s arms, joined the troops in excessive demonstration of their loyalty. They formed a company entitled The Loyal American Fencibles, and took much of the patrol duty. They made a valiant attack upon the famous libertytree that stood opposite the present Boylston Market, and, regarding it as in some sort an incarnation of the spirit of liberty, made mouths at it, disported themselves in insolent antics about the dignified, silent witness, and finally chopped it down. There were more than a thousand living thus under protection of the British guns, and these included all classes of society, farmers, traders, and mechanics being numbered among them, as well as gentlemen connected with the government, rich merchants, and clergymen.

The people who from choice or necessity spent those nine dreary months in Boston could hardly have led a very cheerful life, though the officers of the garrison took some pains to break up the monotony. Business was at a standstill. The Port Bill had already destroyed for a time the commerce of the town, and the warehouses on the wharves, deserted by their owners, were used as dépôts for military and naval stores. The custom-house was ironically reopened, and trade resumed — on paper. There were auctions held by Joshua Loring, Jr., one being the stock of Henry Knox, whilom bookseller, and now, while the auction was going on, making his way from Ticonderoga, bringing the “ noble train of artillery” which Washington was so glad to get. Occasional straggling advertisements appear in the News Letter of goods for sale, but there was small temptation to buy anything beyond the daily necessaries of life. The public schools were dispersed, Master Lovell, of the Latin school, casting in his lot with the crown, while his son James, an usher in the same school, was thrown into prison under suspicion of being a spy, and carried off in chains by the army with which his father decamped as a loyalist. One solitary school was kept gratuitously by Mr. Elias Dupee; the only other educational offer seems to have been that of Daniel McAlpine “to instruct all lovers of the noble science of Defense, commonly called the Back Sword, in that art.” Of the churches, King’s Chapel was the customary place of worship for the officers, and the rector, Dr. Caner, went off with his congregation at the evacuation, carrying with him, in his zeal, the church registers, plate, and vestments. The officers stationed at the north end of the town worshiped at Christ Church, but troops were quartered in Hollis Street Church, the old West Church, and Brattle Street Church, though services were sometimes held in the last named, as reference is made in the News Letter to a very edifying discourse on sedition and conspiracy delivered to a genteel audience by Dr. Morrison, successor to the wicked Dr. Cooper. The Old North was pulled down for fuel. The Old South was used by Burgoyne for a riding-school, the pulpit and pews removed, and gravel brought in to cover the floors. The religious dissipation of the Thursday lecture, so dear to excellent old Bostonians, finally gave way near the end of the siege. “ We hear,” says one of the papers in a sympathetic tone, “that the Thursday lecture, which has been held in Boston for upwards of one hundred and thirty years without any interruption, was closed about a fortnight since by the Rev. Dr. Eliot, who delivered a discourse well adapted to the occasion.” We fancy that the minister had more funeral than other services to perform that winter, and that he must have reckoned the Thursday lecture as having but a flickering life, those dark months. One of the first acts of the people, however, after Boston was restored to them, was to revive this venerable institution.

The officers of the British army were gentlemen, and while of course they took possession of the best houses in town, they used them well; even Hancock’s house, upon General Washington’s report, received no damage worth mentioning, the furniture being left in tolerable order and the family pictures untouched. We should have been badly off if the Copleys in town had been hacked and hewed. Hancock’s house was occupied by General Clinton, while Burgoyne occupied the Bowdoin mansion on Beacon Hill, near where the street named from Bowdoin now runs, and Lord Percy at one time held Gardiner Greene’s house on Pemberton Hill; Howe, like his predecessor Gage, had his headquarters at the Province House. The houses occupied by the soldiery, however, were a good deal abused, and several hundred buildings, most of them old, were pulled down for fuel as the winter grew deeper, among them the parsonage attached to the Old South, and the house built by Governor Winthrop. The town, being under military rule, was kept clean, and, suffering very little from occasional bombardment, it was subjected to no greater damage than I have indicated.

It was dull work for the officers and ladies and gentlemen to stay cooped up in the little peninsula through the dismal winter, their eyes and ears besieged by the forlorn condition of the inhabitants, and enjoying small show of that dignified merry-making for which Boston has been famous. The officers found time enough for gallantry, and two ladies living then in town, daughters of the famous Dr. Byles, used to tell, half a century later, when they were still unflinching loyalists, of their promenades with General Howe and Lord Percy on Boston Common, and of the music of his lordship’s band, played under their window at his lordship’s order. A new regiment arrived from England in December, and the News Letter chirped at mention of the excellent band it brought, with promise of a concert for the diversion of the town. When the new year set in, a series of subscription balls was announced, to be held at Concert Hall once a fortnight. The last ball at the Province House was the queen’s ball, given, curiously enough, on the 22d of February. The festival of St. John the Evangelist was duly celebrated by a dinner at Free Mason’s Hall, a march to Brattle Street, and an appropriate sermon, but there is no mention of any public festivity at Christmas. The most elaborate effort at entertainment was in the theatrical representations given under the patronage of General Howe. A number of officers and ladies formed a Society for Promoting Theatrical Amusements, a title which somehow seems to give a certain solemnity to the proceedings, and they did this, the announcement frankly stated, for their own amusement and the benevolent purpose of contributing to the relief of distressed soldiers, their widows, and children. Faneuil Hall had been fitted up with a stage, and the performances began at six o’clock. The entrance fee was not immoderate, one dollar for the pit and a quarter of a dollar for the gallery. The surplus over expenses was to be appropriated to the relief of the poor soldiers. For some reason, either because the play was immensely popular or from some difficulty with the currency, the managers were obliged to announce, after a few evenings, “ The managers will have the house strictly surveyed, and give out tickets for the number it will contain. The most positive orders are given out not to take money at the door, and it is hoped gentlemen of the army will not use their influence over the sergeants who are door-keepers, to induce them to disobey that order, as it is meant entirely to promote the ease and convenience of the public by not crowding the theatre.” The theatre gave some business to the printer, who announces that he has ready the tragedy of Tamerlane as it is to be acted at the theatre in this town. The tragedy of Zara seems to have been the favorite, and the comedy of The Busybody, with the farces of The Citizen and The Apprentice, were also given. The most notable piece, however, was the local faree of The Blockade of Boston, by General Burgoyne,² whose reputation as a wit and dramatist has kept quite even pace with his military fame. On the evening of the 8th of January it was to be given for the first time. The comedy of The Busybody had been acted, and the curtain was about to be drawn for the farce, when the actors behind the scenes heard an exaggerated report of a raid made upon Charlestown by a small party of Americans. One of the actors, dressed for his part, that of a Yankee sergeant, came forward upon the stage, called silence, and informed the audience that the alarm guns had been fired and a battle was going on in Charlestown. The audience, taking this for the first scene in the new farce, applauded obstreperously, being determined to get all the fun there was to be had out of the piece, when the order was suddenly given in dead earnest for the officers to return to their posts. The audience at this was thrown into dire confusion, the officers jumping over the orchestra, breaking the fiddles on the way, the actors rushing about to get rid of their paint and disguises, the ladies alternately fainting and screaming, and the play brought to great grief. Whether it was ever given or not does not appear, but the News Letter in reporting the incident intimates that the interruption was likely to last: “ As soon as those parts in the Boston Blockade which are vacant by some gentlemen being ordered to Charlestown can be filled up, that farce will he performed, with the tragedy of Tamerlane.”

But the idle sports and the festivities at the Province House and the houses of the few rich loyalists could scarcely have covered, with their feeble blaze, the wretchedness of the town during that winter. In the first place, there was not enough to eat, and what there was they were sometimes forced to eat with squeamishness. The Yankees out side had a joke that the Town Bull, aged twenty, was killed and cut up for the use of the officers, and we are not sure how much there may have been of a jest in the letter of an officer in town to his father: " Why should I complain of hard fate? General Gage and all his family have for this month past lived upon salt provision. Last Saturday General Putnam, in the true style of military complaisance which abolishes all personal resentment and smooths the horrors of war when discipline will permit, sent a present to General Gage’s lady of a fine quarter of veal, which was very acceptable, and received the return of a very polite card of thanks.” At one time during the siege, we arc told, only six head of cattle were in the hands of butcher master - general Howes, as entire stock for troops or inhabitants, and the rejected portions of the slaughtered animals found purchasers among those who were both rich and dainty. One account, dated the middle of December, says, “ The distress of the troops and inhabitants in Boston is great beyond all possible description. Neither vegetables, flour, nor pulse for the inhabitants; and the king’s stores so very short none can be spared from them; no fuel, and the winter set in remarkably severe. The troops and inhabitants absolutely and literally starving for want of provisions and fire. Even salt provision is fifteen pence sterling per pound.”

It is likely enough that accounts from without as well as some from within exaggerate the actual suffering. Provisions were dear and scarce, but the communication by sea was open, and the vessels went on foraging excursions along the coast, while provisions and even fuel were sent from England. Perhaps as good a picture of the life of a well-to-do inhabitant as can be found, with hints of the condition of the poorer, occurs in one of the letters of John Andrews. Writing at the end of the siege, and looking back over the winter, this good-natured and merry merchant says, “ I am well in health, thank God, and have been so the whole of the time, but have lived at the rate of six or seven hundred sterling a year; for I was determined to eat fresh provisions while it was to be got, let it cost what it would; that since October I have scarce eat three meals of salt meat, but supplied my family with fresh at the rate of one shilling to one shilling and sixpence sterling the pound. What wood was to be got was obliged to give at the rate of twenty dollars a cord, and coals, though government had a plenty, I could not procure (not being an addressor or an assoeiator³), though I offered so high as fifty dollars for a chaldron, and that at a season when Nabby and John, the only help I had, were under inoculation for the small-pox, that if you ’ll believe me, Bill, I was necessitated to burn horse-dung. Many were the instances of the inhabitants being confined to the provost for purchasing fuel of the soldiers, when no other means offered to keep them from perishing with cold, yet such was the inhumanity of our masters that they were even denied the privilege of buying the surplusage of the soldiers’ rations. Though you may think we had plenty of cheese and porter, yet we were obliged to give from fifteen pence to two shillings a pound for all we ate of the former, and a loaf of bread of the size we formerly gave threepence for, thought ourselves well off to get for a shilling. Butter at two shillings. Milk, for months without tasting any. Potatoes from nine shillings to ten shillings and sixpence a bushel, and everything else in the same strain. Notwithstanding which, Bill, I can safely say that I never suffered the least depression of spirits other than on account of not having heard from Ruthy, in one season, for near five months; for a persuasion that my country would eventually prevail kept up my spirits and never suffered my hopes to fail. ’ ’ ⁴

The number of troops occupying the town during the siege was about fourteen thousand, including women and children. The sailors were perhaps the most comfortably off, especially in the summer time, but under General Howe’s management great care seems to have been taken of the health and condition of the troops. By the middle of winter affairs had been reduced to order, and the life in barracks went on with monotonous uniformity. About seven hundred men occupied the barracks on Bunker Hill, while the remainder were in Boston, upon the Common, on board the fleet, at the Castle in the harbor, quartered in houses, and holding the intrenchments at the neck and the battery on Copp’s Hill. General Howe held his forces with a strong hand, but the records show that he had a turbulent and unruly set of men to manage. The large number of deserted houses, the destruction of others for fuel, the defenseless condition of the families of patriots who had left the town, all conspired to tempt plundering and depredation. In one case the wife of one of the privates, convicted of receiving stolen goods, was sentenced " to receive one hundred lashes on her bare back with a eat-o’-nine-tails, at the cart’s tail, in different portions of the most conspicuous parts of the town, and to be imprisoned three months.” The small-pox broke out both in the army and among the inhabitants, and was still ravaging the town when it was taken possession of by Washington, after the evacuation.

Excepting the naval expeditions in search of provisions, upon one of which Falmouth was burned, there were only occasional sallies out of town, and nothing that looked like an attempt to drive the Americans from their position. Captain Hall, in his History of the Civil War in America, says, “ Little was attempted against the enemy save a design of burning the town of Roxburgh, which was imperfectly executed from the obstacles and superior force it was discovered we should have had to contend with, had matters been pushed further than they were at that time. ’ ’ General Howe from the beginning refused to entertain the idea of attacking the works, unless compelled to by the enemy’s movements, since it was plain that even if success were had, there would be but a barren advantage to show for what would cost an enormous loss of life and property. The ministry indeed had desired Howe to remove the army to New York before winter, but the general was compelled to reply that he could not convey the entire force at once for lack of transports, and dared not divide his army. The winter’s stay was forced upon him, and his inaction was equally beyond his control, though it is difficult to understand now why, when the American army was so miserably equipped, Howe did not push out with his forces and occupy some of the posts commanding the town, especially why he did not take possession of Dorchester Heights. Yet he had the experience of Bunker Hill, and he was not one to sneer at the courage of the besieging army. That army was not, he wrote to Lord Dartmouth, in “ any ways to be despised;" it had in it “ many European soldiers, and all or most of the young men of spirit in the country, who were exceedingly diligent and attentive in their military profession.” It is perhaps sufficient to consider that the almost entire absence of a loyal party in Massachusetts would have rendered any advance into the country, even if the American works were passed, nugatory. If they went inland from Boston, where should they go? and what was to be gained by capturing the forts that commanded the town, if it could be done, when it would only give them more ground to occupy and defend? ⁵

If Howe’s inaction and the general attitude of the British army excited the jeers of the party in England that opposed the war, the delay of General Washington to turn the siege into a bombardment and an attack caused impatient criticism in America; but with our full information of the actual condition of the besieging forces, and especially with Washington’s letters before us, the delay is perfectly intelligible, while the historic value of the delay is more evident the closer one inquires into the growth of the national spirit. What was the American army, how was it equipped, and what were its resources? It may almost be characterized as a recruiting force stationed behind Quaker guns charged with sand. When Washington took command, and the several colonial forces were constituted as one continental army, the lines extended from the extreme left at Winter Hill, overlooking the Mystic River, through Cambridge, where was the centre, to Roxbury and the borders of Dorchester, where the right rested. A line of intrenchments had been thrown up and points were constantly being strengthened, and these lines were held by about seventeen thousand men, quite unused to military tactics. The total number did not much exceed this at any time during the siege, and fell off in the middle of winter to less than twelve thousand. These men, moreover, had come upon short terms of enlistment, and the very spirit of patriotism which had suddenly called many from their firesides was very nearly akin to that domestic spirit which made them exceedingly eager to get back to the same firesides, to their wives and children. Immediately after the first return of the state of the army ordered by Washington upon his arrival, he wrote to the President of Congress: —

“ Upon finding the number of men to fall so far short of the establishment, and below all expectation, I immediately called a council of the general officers, whose opinion as to the mode of filling up the regiments and providing for the present exigency I have the honor of inclosing, together with the best judgment we are able to form of the ministerial troops. From the number of boys, deserters, and negroes that have been enlisted in the troops of this province, I entertain some doubts whether the number required can be raised here; and all the general officers agree that no dependence can be put on the militia for a continuance in camp, or regularity and discipline during the short time they may stay. . . . The deficiency of numbers, discipline, and stores can only lead to this conclusion, that their spirit has exceeded their strength. . . . It requires no military skill to judge of the difficulty of introducing proper discipline and subordination into an army while we have the enemy in view, and are in daily expectation of an attack; but it is of so much importance that every effort will be made to this end which time and circumstances will admit. In the mean time I have a sincere pleasure in observing that there are materials for a good army, a great number of able-bodied men, active, zealous in the cause, and of unquestionable courage.” The infusion of order and discipline⁶ into this mob of men, brought together from all manner of motives, was a slow and painful one. The orderly books of the day show the character of the offenses, and the frequent courts-martial indicate that the process of discipline was a rugged one. Stealing and drunkenness were most common, but disobedience, desertion, and even mutiny testified to the undisciplined condition of the troops; the whipping-post, pillory, and wooden horse were set up in the camp. It was the custom then as it is now to ascribe to the common people of New England at that time a lofty and heroic standard of duty, which enabled them to meet the exigencies of the war with an unconquerable, unselfish spirit. There must have been a sturdiness of temper and a resolution, or the stand could not have been made; but war brings with it a touch-stone for all the baser elements of human nature as well, and those who stood nearest to the army almost despaired of ever finding in it a strong instrument for attack or defense. “ His Excellency,” writes General Greene of Washington, “ has not had time to make himself acquainted with the genius of this people. They are naturally as brave and spirited as the peasantry of any other country; but you cannot expect veterans of a raw militia of only a few months’ service. The common people are exceedingly avaricious ; the genius of the people is commercial, from their long intercourse with trade. The sentiment of honor, the true characteristic of a soldier, has not yet got the better of interest. His Excellency has been taught to believe the people here a superior race of mortals; and finding them of the same temper and dispositions, passions and prejudices, virtues and vices of the common people of other governments, they sink in his esteem. The country round here set no bounds to their demands for hay, wood, and teaming. It has given his Excellency a great deal of uneasiness that they should take this opportunity to extort from the necessities of the army such enormous prices.” And also in another place, when considering the chances of an attack on the British army, he says, “ There must be some cowards among them as well as among us.” The army, far from consisting of picked men, was made up of anybody that could be had, and the greatest anxiety was felt as the enlistments dragged and it seemed impossible to fill the regiments to the required standard. Moreover, the generals were embarrassed, precisely as at the outset of the late war, by the short terms of enlistment and the failure of more than a few minds to foresee the necessity of adequate preparation for the coming conflict.

If Great Britain was for us squeezed then into the crooked town of Boston, America with ampler promise was to be seen in a nutshell in the camp before the town. It was a strange medley of good and bad material. The officers were by military discipline further removed from the soldiers than these quite liked at first; but Washington and Lee were great men to those about them, the former giving at once the full face of his character, which was to grow in the minds and hearts of men, the latter giving only occasional profile views, by which every one read him differently from his neighbor; while the rough-andready Putnam early parted with half of his surname to catch the whole of the affection of the men, and Greene, commanding respect everywhere, was building slowly and surely his solid reputation. The men were all from New England, with the exception of a few from Pennsylvania and the South, who were objects of Curiosity to their Yankee comrades. Great stories were told of their sharp-shooting and dash. “ Two brothers in the company,” runs one veracious anecdote, “ took a piece of board five inches broad and seven inches long, with a bit of white paper, about the size of a dollar, nailed in the centre, and while one of them supported this board perpendicularly between his knees, the other at the distance of upwards of sixty yards, and without any kind of rest, shot eight bullets through it successively, and spared a brother’s thigh.” This is one for the Southern troops, and I cannot forbear taking a passage from one of merry John Andrews’s earlier letters, for its droll testimony not only to the excellence of New England marksmen, but also to the dialect and dry humor which are of no recent birth: “It’s common for the soldiers to fire at a target fix’d in the stream at the bottom of the common. A countryman stood by a few days ago, and laugh’d very heartily at a whole regiment’s firing, and not one being able to hit it. The officer observ’d him and ask’d why he laugh’d? Perhaps you’ll be affronted if I tell you, reply’d the countryman. No, he would not, he said. Why then, says he, I laugh to see how awkward they fire. Why, I’ll be bound I hit it ten times running. Ah! will you, reply’d the officer; come try: Soldiers, go and bring five of the best guns, and load ’em for this honest man. Why, you need not bring so many: let me have any one that comes to hand, reply'd the other, but I chuse to load myself. Me accordingly loaded, and ask’d the officer where he should fire? He reply’d, to the right —when he pull’d tricker, and drove the ball as near the right as possible. The officer was amaz’d —and said he could not do it again, as that was only by chance. He loaded again. Where shall I fire ? To the left — when he perform’d as well as before. Come! once more, says the officer.—He prepar’d the third time. — Where shall I fire naow? — In the centre. — He took aim, and the hall went as exact in the middle as possible. The officers as well as soldiers star’d and tho’t the Devil was in the man. Why, says the countryman, I ’ll tell you naow. I have got a boy at home that will toss up an apple and shoot out all the seeds as it’s coming down.”

The diaries of officers and soldiers reveal the different phases of character which the army presented. Here is Paul Lunt, who scrupulously sets down “ nothing remarkable ” against one day after another, and does not forget to go to church whenever it is possible, and record the text. Benjamin Craft, too, on the 23d of June remarks that it remains very dry, and “ God’s judgments seem to be abroad on the earth; may we forsake our sins.” He goes to church, also, and hears Mr. Murray, who prayed well, affecting Benjamin and his other hearers. “ He was very successful in gaining the attention of his hearers,” which is not unlikely, from the solitary passage in the sermon which is set down: “ He said he believed the devil was a tory.” One Sunday, just after meeting, two floating batteries came up Mystic River, and the alarm was given. We “ fired several shot at the regulars which made them claw off as soon as possible. General Gage this is like the rest of your Sabbath day enterprises.” Little David How — we know he must have been little — keeps a diary with infinite pains, as judged by his struggles with the spelling-book, and innocently draws a picture of himself as irrecoverably given over to swapping and trading. He buys cider and chestnuts and leather breeches and half boots, and trades the same with an eye to profit, setting down complacently on the 30th of January, “ We have sold Nuts and Cyder Every Day This Weak.” His passion for trade was too much for his military ardor, and he was finally given leave to set up in business as a boot-maker. But I cannot let him go without extracting one further entry from his diary: “March 5. Our people went to Dodgster hill Last Night and built a fort there. There was afireing of Bums all Night and they killed one man at Litchmors point with A Bum. They have ben fireing At Dogester almost all Day.” ⁷

There were simple, affectionate men in camp who longed to return to their families, but remained steadfast at their posts. One cannot read such artless letters as those of William Turner Miller⁸ without finding in the uncouth garb the tenderness of the Puritan nature; it is easy to pass to them from the earlier letters between John Winthrop and his wife. “ Dearest Lydia,” he writes, “I receved your Kind Letter by Mr. Burr as also the Inkstand Corn & Cucumbers you sent Every Letter & Present from you is Like a Cordial to me in my absence from you my Heart is delighted in Reading Your Letters Especially when on the Countenance of them you Appear to be in Health and when you appear by your Letters to be in Trouble I Long to participate with you.” And again, “ I receved Yours wherein you Expressed your Joy in my Not going to Quebeck Remember the Psalmists Expression, if I take the wings of the Morning and fly to the uttermost Parts of the Sea behold Thou art there I doubt not hut where Ever I am god will be there and be my Stay and Support my Love I had it under Consideration whither to offer my Self to go to Quebec and had so far Concluded upon the matter that If I had been Requested to go I should not have Refused though I think it Carries the Appearance of a Desparate undertaking. ’ ’

The soldiers in camp were at first sheltered by canvas tents or huts rudely constructed. “ It is very diverting,” writes the Rev. Mr. Emerson, who visited the camp just after Washington’s arrival, “ to walk among the camps. They are as different in their form as the owners are in their dress, and every tent is a portraiture of the temper and taste of the persons who encamp in it. Some are made of boards and some of sailcloth. Some partly of one and some partly of the other. Again, others are made of stone and turf, brick and brush. Some are thrown up in a hurry; others curiously wrought with doors and windows done with wreaths and withes in the manner of a basket. Some are your proper tents and marquees, looking like the regular camp of the enemy'.” It was late in the season before regular barracks were provided, and in the poverty of the troops one great-coat would be made to serve the purpose of each relieving sentry. But the winter, according to a British officer, was the mildest in the memory of the oldest man. The soldiers had games and wrestling matches to relieve the tedium, but they never were long without the excitement of an alarm of some sort.

The critical time came at the close of the year, when the term of the old soldiers’ enlistment expired and the ranks were filled with the newly enlisted. “ It is not in the pages of history, perhaps,” writes Washington to the President of Congress on the 4th of January, “ to furnish a case like ours. To maintain a post within musket-shot of the enemy for six months together without —, and at the same time to disband one army and recruit another, within that distance of twenty-odd British regiments, is more, probably, than ever was attempted. But if we succeed as well in the last as we have heretofore in the first, I shall think it the most fortunate event of my whole life.” The blank purposely left in this letter, lest it should fall into the hands of the enemy, was filled at once, from the knowledge of Congress, with the word “ powder; ” for as at Bunker Hill, so now the crying need was of ammunition. At one time it was suddenly discovered that there were only thirty-five barrels of powder in the magazine, or not half a pound a man. General Sullivan writes that when General Washington heard of this he was so much struck by the danger “ that he did not utter a word for half an hour. Every one else was equally surprised. Messengers were dispatched to all the Southern colonies to call in their stores,” and the secret was kept within the knowledge of the council of war only. The orders show how uneasy the officers were on this score, and how much the soldiers regarded their occupation as a kind of lark. “ Every person that fires his gun without positive orders to be punished immediately by a regimental court-martial.” “It is impossible to conceive upon what principle this strange itch for firing originates, as it is rather a mark of cowardice than bravery to fire away ammunition without any intention.” “ There being an open and daring violation of a general order in firing at geese, as they pass over the camp, General Greene gives positive orders that any person that fires for the future be immediately put under guard. Every officer that stands an idle spectator, and sees such a wanton waste of powder and don’t do his utmost to suppress the evil, may expect to be reported.”

The gradual unification of the army was significant of the increasing solidarity of the young nation, and ideas which had been slowly spreading were quickened and made vigorous during that winter before Boston. The very existence of the army was a visible, tangible evidence of a common country. “ I found,” Dr. Belknap writes, when visiting the camp in October, “ that the plan of independence was become a favorite point in the army, and that it was offensive to pray for the king.” Thacher in his Journal notes that a public fast had been appointed throughout the colonies, “the first general or continental fast ever observed since the settlement of the colonies,” and Madam Draper’s News Letter calls attention to the circumstance that the Thanksgiving proclamation in November ends with “ God save the people ” instead of “ God save the king.” The tories in Boston were quick to catch that sound ; they had heard something like it before from Sam Adams. The first day of the new year witnessed in a peculiar degree the outward sign of this national growth. On that day, amidst much anxiety, the new continental army was mustered in, and that army was the result of Washington’s absorbing endeavor to construct an army representing the entire country; on that day, too, was received in camp the king’s speech at the opening of Parliament, in which the rebellious war was denounced and the purpose of the government declared to hold with an iron hand the colonies in America. On that day, most significant of all, the Union flag of thirteen stripes was for the first time raised. “ A volume of them ” (the king’s speeches), writes Washington, “was sent out by the Boston gentry, and, farcical enough, we gave great joy to them without knowing or intending it; for on that day, the day which gave being to the new army, but before the proclamation came to hand, we had hoisted the Union flag in compliment to the United colonies. But behold, it was received in Boston as a token of the deep impression, the speech had made upon us, and as a signal of submission. So we hear by a person out of Boston last night. By this time I presume they begin to think it strange that we have not made a formal surrender of our lines.”

From the first there had been occasional encounters of the two armies, which were made quite as much of by the country as the facts would warrant. The courage of the soldiers was tested by these frequent encounters, and the confidence of their officers in them increased, although the daring was sometimes looked upon by the moderate men as foolhardiness. So Dr. Belknap, after relating an exploit in October when a couple of floating batteries annoyed the enemy, says, “ This manœuvre is not generally approved by thinking people; it seemed to be rather a military frolic than a serious expedition.” But in truth the condition of the Americans required them much of the time to repress their military ambition rather than give vent to it. ‘ ‘ We are just in the situation,” writes Joseph Reed, of a man with little money in his pocket; he will do twenty mean things to prevent his breaking in upon his little stock. We are obliged to bear with the rascals on Bunker Hill, when a few shot now and then in return would keep our men attentive to their business and give the enemy alarms.” Meanwhile the brilliant capture by Captain Manly of the British ordnance brig Nancy, laden with military stores, not only added to their scanty stock of ammunition, but gave an impetus to their courage and resolution. The coming in of recruits also, during the last month of the year, to take the place of those whose term of enlistment expired with the last day of the year, brought fresh vitality into camp and gave evidence of the energetic measures taken by the colonies.

To attack Boston was Washington’s first wish. From the beginning, with all his sense of the inadequacy of the material at his command, he was ready at any time, when he could bring the officers to agree with him, to strike the blow. He called a council for this purpose early in September, and again in the middle of October, but each time he was overruled in his purpose. He persisted, however, in urging it, and on the 22d of December, after long and serious debate, Congress passed a resolution authorizing Washington to make an assault upon the British forces, “ in any manner he might think expedient, notwithstanding the town and property in it might be destroyed.” On receipt of the resolution, he again called a council of war, throwing the whole weight of his influence in favor of an early attack. The terms in which he expressed himself illustrate the political view of the conflict which still lingered in men’s minds. In his judgment “ it was indispensably necessary to make a bold attempt to conquer the ministerial troops in Boston before they could be reënforced in the spring, if the means should be provided and a favorable opportunity should offer.” Men still clung to the delusion that they were fighting an administration, but that the king was on their side. So the government party and forces in Boston were frequently termed Gageites. The result of the council was a requisition on Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire for thirteen regiments of militia, to remain until the end of March, with the expectation of making a movement as soon as they should arrive.

Meanwhile, as the new troops came in, Washington still found himself miserably supplied with military stores. “ There are near two thousand men now in camp without firelocks,” he writes on the 9th of February, and he is at his wits’ end to procure arms; and on the next day, writing to Joseph Reed, he declares, “ My own situation is so irksome to me at times, that if I did not consult the public good more than my own tranquillity, I should long ere this have put everything on the cast of a die. So far from my having an army of twenty thousand men well armed, I have been here with less than one half of that number, including sick, furloughed, and on command, and those neither armed nor clothed as they should be. In short, my situation is such that I have been obliged to use art to conceal it from my own officers. ’ ’

Once more, on the 16th of February, Washington called a council of war and urged the attack, planning to cross the ice, which was solid from Dorchester Point to Boston Neck and from Roxbury to the Common; but he was overruled by the other generals, who maintained that they had not powder enough, and that the enemy’s force was larger than Washington estimated it to be. But action of some kind was determined upon. The possession of Dorchester Heights was the point, and it was held that since that hill commanded the harbor, the British must be drawn into some movement, should it be occupied. Washington proceeded with alacrity to act upon the decision, with an ulterior purpose of following up the possession of the hill by attack if the opportunity was presented. He notified the Council of Massachusetts of his intention, and requested them to order the militia of the towns next to Dorchester and Roxbury to repair to the lines at these places with their arms, ammunition, and accoutrements, instantly upon a signal being given. It was now the beginning of March. The militia called for by Washington were rapidly coming in, and every preparation was made for the approaching venture. The minds of the men were impressed; a general order forbids games of chance, and the soldiers are reminded of the greatness of the cause in which they are engaged, reminded too of other things by the words, “It may not be amiss for the troops to know that, if any man in action shall presume to skulk, hide himself, or retreat from the enemy without the orders of his commanding officer, he will be instantly shot down as an example of cowardice; cowards having too frequently disconcerted the best-formed troops by their dastardly behavior.” The activity in the camp was a more forcible reminder. Material for intrenching, in the shape of bales of hay and movable parapets; bandages for dressing broken limbs; bateaux and floating batteries in the Charles River, — all indicated the approaching movement, and people within the town could see that the besieging forces were busy with some plan.

What the plan was, Washington took good care not to divulge. For three nights, those of Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the 2d, 3d, and 4th of March, a furious cannonade was kept up from Cobble Hill, Lechmere’s Point, and Lamb’s Dam, directed against Boston and intended to divert attention, for on the third night, when the sun had been down an hour, General Thomas, stationed in Roxbury, marched over to South Boston to take possession of Dorchester Heights. He had with him two thousand men with intrenching tools and material. It was an expedition differing from that of the June before, as the more settled purpose and knowledge of the men who marched differed from the ignorant bravery of the defenders of Bunker Hill. They were an hour reaching the hill. The moon was shining brightly, and the roar of caunon was heard all about them, as they set to work throwing up intrenehments. Along the road by which they had come they made a temporary barricade of hay to protect the carts as they moved back and forth, while two detachments of troops, four hundred each, were posted as watch and guard. The working party was under the direction of Gridley. who had planned the works at Bunker Hill, and of Colonel Rufus Putnam, a son of the general, and worked steadily for eight hours. Now, as before, the British commander discovered in the morning what the enemy had been doing while he slept. Two forts rose before him; Dorchester Heights was occupied with works that commanded both the harbor and the town. Now, as before, he must attack if he would hold his own, and there was no delay in the decision. Howe at once began his preparations for attack the following night, and Washington prepared to meet it. The works on Dorchester Heights were strengthened; the forces there were increased by two thousand fresh troops; barrels filled with earth were ranged at the top of the hill, which were to be rolled down upon the advancing troops;⁹ we can imagine the eagerness with which this frolicsome part would be carried out by the boyish soldiers. The bateaux on Charles River were ranged near the Cambridge shore, and four thousand men were drawn up under arms, ready to embark for a direct attack upon Boston. They were in two divisions, under command of General Greene and of General Sullivan, and were to land, one at the powder house, about half-way between Cambridge Street and Beacon Street, the other at the end of Leverett Street, and, meeting, to force the gates and works at the solitary land entrance on the neck, opening the town thus to the forces without.

A battle that was never fought has great possibilities in it, and when one considers the nine months’ siege, the pressure brought to bear by the country, and the professional pride which a general must feel in an army which he has organized and equipped, it is easy to believe that Washington’s eagerness to bring on an attack was the expression of a thorough conviction that an engagement then and there would have brought victory to the American forces, such a victory, moreover, as might have vast political results. The battle was not to be fought. The men were there, and the occasion; it was, besides, the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, six years before, thus far the event that had laid strongest hold upon the minds of the people. “ Remember it is the 5th of March, and avenge the death of your brethren,” said Washington, as he moved among his men; but as the day wore on and all were breathlessly awaiting the attack, the March winds began to blow, the sea to rise, and when the night had come, the time set by Howe for the attack, there was a tempest which came as an angel with a two-edged sword to smite both armies: the British could not cross to Dorchester Heights, the forces under Greene and Sullivan could not embark in their boats. The storm continued all through the next day, and the Americans took advantage of the delay to strengthen their works. When the storm was over, the situation was graver than before. The Americans were firmly intrenched, their works commanded the fleet in the harbor, and the batteries in the river could at once bombard the town. The delay had made an attack upon the hill more dubious than at first.

Howe called a council and presented the alternative of a disastrous attack or the saving of the army by evacuation. His own judgment was decisive in favor of evacuation, and his officers agreed with him, glad enough, also, no doubt, to get away from their cooped-up quarters. But the loyalists who had remained or had sought shelter in Boston were beside themselves with rage. They had in their zeal added contempt of the rebels to their loyalty, and it was impossible for them to remain. They made ready to leave with their military friends, but it was the scramble into the boats of selfish men from a sinking wreck. The whole town was thrown into agitation and confusion when the decision of the commander was known.¹⁰ For ten days there was sleepless anxiety. The army was embarking and carrying away such stores as it could, destroying much that it must leave; plunder was going on upon all sides, authorized and independent, and as the day drew nearer for the departure of the troops, the excesses increased in spite of the following order from General Howe: “ The commanderin-chief finding, notwithstanding former orders that have been given to forbid plundering, houses have been forced open and robbed, he is therefore under a necessity of declaring to the troops that the first soldier who is caught plundering will be hanged on the spot.” The wind and weather delayed the departure, and Washington, who had been waiting impatiently for the troops to take their leave, began to suspect that Howe might be making only a show of leaving, in order to gain time for expected reënforcements to arrive. On the 16th of March, therefore, another forward step was taken in the fortifying of Nook’s Hill, not far from the present Dover Street Bridge, a point still nearer to Boston and more completely commanding it. The British cannonaded it, but the fire was not returned, and as the act was one that threatened an immediate attack, Howe so understood it and obeyed the menace. Early the next day, Sunday, the garrison at Bunker Hill embarked. The movement was observed from the Cambridge shore, but as sentries still were seen in the fortress, there was some doubt as to the exact state of affairs. Two men were sent out to reconnoitre, and discovered that the sentries were wooden, whereupon a detachment immediately took possession, and another detachment was sent over to Boston to take possession there. From the camp at Roxbury the troops in Boston had been seen to embark, and a body of men came down the neck, unbarred the gates at the entrance, and marched into town, carefully avoiding the crows’ feet — iron points so arranged that, however the instrument was thrown on the ground, one point would always be thrust up — which had been sown by the British to impede the passage of cavalry; a somewhat ironical proceeding in the then state of that arm of the service. So a bloodless victory followed, instead of the encounter to which the troops had been looking. “ The event,” a British historian says with such complacence as he can muster, “ justified the measure on our side by offering a larger field of action for the ensuing campaign, and baffling the conjectures of the enemy as to the object we had next in contemplation.”

For two days restrictions were placed upon entrance and exit, until the town could be freed from the infection of small-pox, but on the 20th of March the army marched into Boston, the citizens began to flock back, the siege was raised, and a signal victory recorded for American generalship. Bunker Hill makes a sharper impression upon the imagination; daring, and grim, stubborn resistance were there; but in taking note of the characteristics of the conflict which accompanied the formal institution of the nation, the siege of Boston gives us, in clear, unmistakable lines, the resolution, self-reliance, patience, and farsightedness which were as distinctly present in the character of the people and their leaders.

H. E. Scudder,