men by the expiration of enlistments," answered Washington; "and when we
can ever attack Boston is a problem. For six months I have been waiting
for powder, fire-arms, recruits, and what-not; and here we are with the
1st of January, 1776, right upon us, when several thousand soldiers will
leave."
"A very discouraging fact indeed," answered the staff officer; "and how
will you fill the breach created by their going?"
"That is what troubles me. We shall be forced to require soldiers whose
term of enlistment expires, to leave their muskets, allowing them fair
compensation for the same. And to encourage their successors to bring
arms, we must charge each one of them who fails to bring his gun one
dollar for the use of the one we provide."
"A novel way of recruiting and supplying an army, truly," said the staff
officer.
"The only way left to us," remarked Washington.
"Yes; and I suppose that any way is better than none."
Washington wrote to a friend on the 4th of January:
"It is easier to conceive than to describe the situation of my mind for
some time past and my feelings under our present circumstances. Search
the volume of history through, and I much question whether a case
similar to ours can be found; namely, to maintain a post against the
power of the British troops for six months together without powder, and
then to have one army disbanded and another raised within the same
distance (musket shot) of a reinforced enemy.... For two months past I
have scarcely emerged from one difficulty before I have been plunged
into another. How it will end, God, in His great goodness, will direct.
I am thankful for His protection to this time."
A few days later he wrote:
"The reflection of my situation and that of this army produces many an
unhappy hour, when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know
the predicament we are in on a thousand accounts; fewer still will
believe, if any disaster happens to these lines, from what cause it
flows. I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if,
instead of accepting the command under such circumstances, I had taken
my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, if I could have
justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to
the back country and lived in a wigwam."
Still, through his tact and indomitable perseverance, Washington found
his army in a condition to attack Boston in March. He had vainly tried
to induce the British troops to leave their comfortable quarters and
come out to battle. He had so effectually cut off their supplies by his
determined siege that the British Government was compelled to send
supplies from home. But now he felt that the time for action had come.
He called a council of war.
"Our situation compels action of some kind to save ourselves, even at
great risk," he said to his advisers. "There is a cloud over the public
mind, and there is danger on the north and on the south. Montgomery has
fallen before Quebec, and our little army in Canada is depleted and
broken. Tryon and the Tories are plotting mischief in New York, and
Dunmore in Virginia. Clinton, too, is making depredations along the
coast."
"And what do you propose?" inquired one.
"To attack Boston."
"And take the risk?"
"Yes; and take the risk, which will prove less, I believe, that the risk
incurred by continual inaction."
"Do you propose an immediate movement?"
"On the 4th of March, the anniversary of the 'Boston Massacre.' It is a
good time to avenge that wrong."
On the 4th of March, 1775, the British troops, who were often insolent
and overbearing to the citizens of Boston, were attacked and stoned by
indignant parties. A brief contest followed, in which four Americans
were killed and several wounded. This was called the "Boston Massacre."
"I hope that your movement will be successful, but it is a hazardous
one," suggested one of the council. "An attack all along the line?"
"By no means," answered Washington. "The project is hazardous indeed,
but that is inevitable. On the night of March 3 I propose to take
possession of Dorchester Heights, throw up breastworks, and by the time
the enemy can see the Heights in the morning, be prepared to hold the
position."
"And if the whole British army attack us, what then?"
"General Putnam shall have a force of four thousand men on the opposite
side of the town, in two divisions, under Generals Sullivan and Greene.
At a given signal from Roxbury, they shall embark at the mouth of
Charles River, cross under cover of three floating batteries, land in
two places in Boston, secure its strong posts, force the gates and works
at the neck, and let in the Roxbury troops. This, in case they make a
determined attempt to dislodge us."
Washington waited for a reply. The bold plan somewhat perplexed his
advisers at first, and there was silence for a moment. At length one
spoke, and then another, and still another, until every objection was
canvassed. The plan was finally adopted, but kept a profound secret with
the officers who were to conduct the enterprise.
We cannot dwell upon details. Agreeable to Washington's arrangement,
when the expedition with tools, arms, supplies, and other necessaries
was ready to move on the evening of March 3, a terrible cannonading of
the British by the American army, at two different points, commenced,
under the cover of which our troops reached Dorchester Heights without
attracting the attention of the enemy. The reader may judge of the
cannonading by the words of Mrs. John Adams, who wrote to her husband
thus:
"I have just returned from Penn's Hill, where I have been sitting to
hear the amazing roar of cannon, and from whence I could see every
shell that was thrown. The sound, I think, is one of the grandest in
nature, and is of the true species of the sublime. It is now an
incessant roar.
"I went to bed about twelve, and rose again a little after one. I could
no more sleep than if I had been in the engagement; the rattling of the
windows, the jar of the house, the continual roar of twenty-four
pounders, and the bursting of shells, give us such ideas, and realize a
scene to us of which we could scarcely form any conception. I hope to
give you joy of Boston, even if it is in ruins, before I send this
away."
What the British beheld on the morning of March 4, to their surprise and
alarm, is best told in the words of one of their officers.
"This morning at daybreak we discovered two redoubts on Dorchester
Point, and two smaller ones on their flanks. They were all raised during
last night, with an expedition equal to that of 'the genii' belonging to
Alladin's wonderful lamp. From these hills they command the whole town,
so that we must drive them from their post or desert the place."
The British general, Howe, exclaimed:
"The rebels have done more work in one night than my whole army would
have done in a month."
General Howe had superseded General Gage some time before this exploit.
Quickly as possible, General Howe began to bombard the new
fortifications on Dorchester Heights. All through the day he cannonaded
the little American army, and, under the cover of the bombardment,
prepared to land twenty-five hundred picked men at night, and carry the
Heights by storm. His guns did little damage, however, through the day.
Washington was present in person, encouraging the soldiers, and
directing them in strengthening the fortifications.
Under the darkness of night General Howe sent twenty-five hundred of his
best soldiers, in transports, to capture the "rebel works." But a
furious northeast storm arose, and beat upon them with such violence
that it was impossible to land. They were compelled to postpone the
attack until the next night. But the storm continued, and even
increased. The wind blew a gale and the rain descended in torrents all
through the following day and night, shutting up the enemy within their
own quarters, and allowing the Americans time to multiply their works
and render them impregnable.
When the storm ceased, an English officer declared that the Americans
were invincible in their strong position. That General Howe was of the
same opinion is evident from the fact that he decided to evacuate
Boston.
Had General Howe been able to land his troops on the first night, as he
planned, there is little doubt that Washington would have been driven
from the Heights as the Americans were driven from Bunker Hill, so that
the intervention of the storm seemed peculiarly providential. When
Washington issued his order, months before, for the strict observance of
the Sabbath and daily religious service by the army, General Lee, who
was a godless scoffer, remarked, derisively, "God is on the side of the
heaviest battalions."
But in this case the storm favored the _weakest_ battalions.
General Howe conferred with the authorities of Boston, and promised to
evacuate the city without inflicting harm upon it if the Americans would
not attack him. Otherwise he would commit the city to the flames, and
leave under cover of the mighty conflagration. Washington wrote to him:
"If you will evacuate the city without plundering or doing any harm, I
will not open fire upon you. But if you make any attempt to plunder, or
if the torch is applied to a single building, I will open upon you the
most deadly bombardment."
Howe promised: yet such was the disposition of the British soldiers to
acts of violence, that he was obliged to issue an order that soldiers
found plundering should be hanged on the spot; and he had an officer,
with a company of soldiers and a hangman, march through the streets,
ready to execute his order.
It was not, however, until the 17th of March that the embarkation of the
British army commenced. About twelve thousand soldiers and refugees
embarked in seventy-eight vessels. The refugees were Americans who
favored the British cause (called Tories), and they did not dare to
remain in this country. Washington wrote about these refugees:
"By all accounts there never existed a more miserable set of beings than
those wretched creatures now are. Taught to believe that the power of
Great Britain was superior to all opposition, and that foreign aid was
at hand, they were even higher and more insulting in their opposition
than the regulars. When the order was issued, therefore, for embarking
the troops in Boston, no electric shock, no sudden clap of thunder, in a
word, the last trump, could not have struck them with greater
consternation. They were at their wits' end; chose to commit themselves,
in the manner I have above described, to the mercy of the waves at a
tempestuous season, rather than meet their offended countrymen."
With exceeding joy Washington beheld the "precipitate retreat" of the
British army from Boston, but fired not a gun. One of General Howe's
officers wrote afterwards:
"It was lucky for the inhabitants now left in Boston that they did not,
for I am informed that everything was prepared to set the town in a
blaze had they fired one cannon."
We have intentionally passed over several incidents, with the rehearsal
of which we will bring this chapter to a close.
When Washington assumed the command of the American army, he left his
Mount Vernon estate in charge of Mr. Lund Washington, continuing to
direct its management by correspondence. He expected to return to his
home in the autumn, and so encouraged his wife to believe. But in this
he was sorely disappointed. His thoughtful and benevolent character
appears in one of his early letters to his agent:
"Let the hospitality of the house with respect to the poor be kept up.
Let no one go hungry away. If any of this kind of people should be in
want of corn, supply their necessaries, provided it does not encourage
them to idleness; and I have no objection to your giving my money in
charity to the amount of forty or fifty pounds a year, when you think it
is well bestowed. What I mean by having no objection is, that it is my
desire that it should be done."
Many Americans feared that the enemy might send a war vessel up the
Potomac and destroy the Mount Vernon residence and capture Mrs.
Washington. She was earnestly advised to leave, and repair to a place of
safety beyond the Blue Ridge. But Washington sent for her to come to him
at Cambridge.
She was four weeks travelling from Mount Vernon to Cambridge. She
performed the journey in her own carriage, a chariot drawn by four fine
horses, with black postilions in scarlet and white liveries. This was an
English style of equipage, and the public sentiment of that day demanded
that the commander-in-chief should adopt it. She was accompanied by her
son, and was escorted from place to place by guards of honor. Her
arrival in Cambridge was the signal for great rejoicing. The army
received her with the honors due to her illustrious husband.
She immediately took charge of Washington's headquarters, and soon
became as popular in the domestic and social circle as her husband was
in camp and field. It was at Cambridge that she was first called "Lady
Washington."
As an illustration of Washington's rigid discipline, an incident is
related of his manner of suppressing a disturbance. It was during the
winter he was besieging Boston.
A party of Virginia riflemen met a party of Marblehead fishermen. The
dress of the fishermen was as singular to the riflemen as that of the
riflemen was to the fishermen, and they began to banter each other.
Snow-balls soon began to fly back and forth, and finally hard blows were
interchanged. A melee occurred, in which a thousand soldiers
participated.
Hearing of the disturbance, Washington hastened to the scene, and,
leaping from his horse, he seized two burly Virginians by the neck, and
held them out at arm's length, at the same time administering a rebuke
in words that scattered the combatants as suddenly as a cannonade would
have done.
The British army committed many depredations in Boston during the year
they held possession of it. They tore out the pulpit and pews of the Old
South Church, and converted it into a riding-school for General
Burgoyne's light-horse regiment. They took down the North Church and
used it for fuel. They used up about three hundred wooden houses in the
same way.
In the winter a theatre was established for the entertainment of the
British soldiers. At one time a British officer wrote a farce entitled,
"The Blockade of Boston," to be played on a given evening. It was a
burlesque upon Washington and the American army. It represented the
commander-in-chief of the American army as an awkward lout, equipped
with a huge wig, and a long, rusty sword, attended by a country booby as
orderly sergeant, in a rustic garb, with an old fire-lock seven or eight
feet long.
The theatre was filled to overflowing on the night the farce was
announced. It happened that, on the same night, General Putnam sent a
party of two hundred men to surprise and capture a British guard
stationed at Charlestown. His daring exploit was successful, though his
men were fired upon by the garrison of the fort. The thunder of
artillery caused a British officer to believe that the Yankees were in
motion, and he rushed into the theatre, crying, "The Yankees are
attacking Bunker Hill!"
At first the audience supposed that this announcement was part of the
play. But General Howe, who was present, undeceived them by calling out,
"Officers, to your alarm posts!"
The farce turned out to be tragedy, and the curtain fell upon the scene.
The audience scattered like a flock of sheep.
The failure of the British to hold Boston was extremely mortifying to
General Howe and the English Government. When the king's regiments first
took possession of the city, one of the officers wrote home:
"Whenever it comes to blows, he that can run the fastest will think
himself well off, believe me. Any two regiments here ought to be
decimated if they did not beat in the field the whole force of the
Massachusetts Province."
General Gage said to the king, before leaving England to take command of
the forces in Boston, "The Americans will be lions so long as the
English are lambs. Give me five regiments and I will keep Boston quiet."
When General Burgoyne was sailing into Boston Harbor to join his king's
army, and his attention was called to the fact that a few thousand
undisciplined "rebels" were besieging a town garrisoned by five or six
thousand British regulars, he exclaimed in derision:
"What! ten thousand peasants keep five thousand king's troops shut up?
Well, let us get in and we'll soon find elbow-room."
He failed to find "elbow room" until he put out to sea.
To be driven out of Boston, when such a result was considered impossible
by the foe, was doubly humiliating to the sons of Great Britain. It was
proportionably glorious to American patriots, and they took possession
of the city with exultation and devout thanksgivings to God.
Congress unanimously adopted a eulogistic resolution, rehearsing the
valor and achievements of the commander-in-chief, and ordered a gold
medal, with appropriate inscription, to be struck off, and presented to
him as a token of the country's gratitude.
XVIII.
DEFENDING NEW YORK.
"What next?" inquired General Putnam.
"That is a difficult question to answer until I know General Howe's
destination," replied Washington.
"Then you don't think he is going home?" continued Putnam facetiously.
"Not yet, though I wish he might; then I would go home, too."
"But seriously, where do you think he is going?" urged Putnam.
"I fear that he is bound to New York, for that is a port more important
to him than even Boston." Washington spoke as if he were greatly
perplexed.
"Well," added Putnam in his resolute way, "if he is bound for New York
it won't do for us to be fooling about here long."
"No; and if I were certain that his destination were there, I should put
you in command of that post at once," said Washington. "Besides the
importance of the position to him, the large number of Tories in that
town is a great inducement for him to strike there. Governor Tryon has
been plotting something with them, and who knows but his appearance
there will be the signal for them to rise against their own country."
"Just like 'em," answered Putnam. "A man who will turn against his own
country ought to dangle at the end of a halter. With the British army
outside, and hundreds of traitors inside, New York will make a poor
show."
"There is no telling what a strong defence of the town can be made with
the Lord on our side. My hope is in the righteousness of our cause."
Washington called a council of war in his perplexity. He laid before his
military advisers his reasons for supposing that the foe, driven from
Boston, had sailed for New York.
"The English will be chagrined over their defeat here, after all their
boasting," said Washington, "and we may expect heavier blows in future
somewhere. The king will not suffer 'rebels' to remain unmolested. We do
well to expect that in future the king will concentrate the military
power of his government and hurl it upon us to bring us to terms."
It was finally determined to put General Putnam in command at New York,
and he was hurried away, with all the troops in Boston but five
regiments, and instructions to complete the fortifications commenced by
General Lee. Two or three months before, in consequence of the
appearance of a British fleet, under Clinton, in the harbor of New York,
and the secret plottings of Governor Tryon and the Tories, Washington
placed General Lee in command there. Lee at once arrested leading
Tories, and sent them to prison, threatening all the rest, in his fiery
way, with similar punishment if they continued to aid the enemy.
Governor Tryon fled to a British man-of-war in the harbor, accompanied
by several of his political advisers, and from those new headquarters he
continued secret intercourse with the Tories. New dangers soon arising
farther south, General Lee was transferred to the Southern Military
Department, with headquarters at Williamsburg.
Such was the state of affairs in New York when General Putnam took
command, with not more than eight thousand available troops in the town
and vicinity.
Washington ordered three thousand militia to go to his aid from
Connecticut, and as soon as he could arrange affairs in Boston he
himself hastened to New York with his body-guard, where he arrived on
the thirteenth day of April.
Before this time he had learned that General Howe proceeded to Halifax,
to await large reinforcements from Great Britain; that his brother,
Admiral Howe, with his naval fleet, would join him there, and then the
great army would sail for New York.
He did not know, however, at that time, what the British Government was
doing "to crush the rebels in North America." He learned afterwards that
the king, stung to madness by the failure of his army in Boston,
resolved to avenge the defeat by a terrible blow upon New York. He hired
seventeen thousand Hessians to join the army, paying them liberally for
their services, and these hirelings would swell the invading army to
startling proportions.
Notwithstanding the evacuation of Boston, the cause of the patriots
never seemed more hopeless than it did when the British army, under the
two Howes, appeared below New York.
"Our army in Canada is beaten and shattered," Washington said, "and our
cause is lost there. Here it is difficult to tell friend from foe. It is
claimed that half of the people in New York are Tories, and what
communications they may have with the British army, through Tryon, it is
impossible to tell. We have not half the men absolutely required to hold
this position, and what we have are poorly clad and equipped, and not
half fed. Then we have reason to suspect that the enemy will come with
greater inhumanity to man, and that fire and sword will do a more
fearful work than ever. What some of the British officers are capable of
doing in the way of fiendish devastation was shown in Boston, when the
burning of every town between that city and Halifax was ordered, and
Portland was laid in ashes."
Washington wrote to his brother:
"We expect a bloody summer in New York and Canada; and I am sorry to say
that we are not, either in men or arms, prepared for it. However, it
is to be hoped that, if our cause is just, as I most religiously
believe, the same Providence which has in many instances appeared for us
will still go on to afford us its aid."
Congress was in session at Philadelphia, and Washington went thither to
confer with members concerning the summer campaign, and to plead for
aid. Through his influence, Congress added twenty-three thousand militia
to the army, including a flying camp of ten thousand.
In the midst of these troubles a conspiracy of startling magnitude was
discovered. "A part of the plot being," says Sparks, "to seize General
Washington and carry him to the enemy." Rev. John Marsh of Wethersfield,
Conn., wrote and published the following account of the affair:
"About ten days before any of the conspirators were taken up, a woman
went to the general and desired a private interview. He granted it to
her, and she let him know that his life was in danger, and gave him such
an account of the conspiracy as gained his confidence. He opened the
matter to a few friends on whom he could depend. A strict watch was kept
night and day, until a favorable opportunity occurred, when the general
went to bed as usual, arose about two o'clock, told his lady that he was
going with some of the Provincial Congress to order some Tories seized,
desired she would make herself easy and go to sleep. He went off without
any of his aides-de-camp, except the captain of his life-guard; was
joined by a number of chosen men, with lanterns and proper instruments
to break open houses; and before six o'clock next morning had forty men
under guard at the City Hall, among whom was the mayor of the city,
several merchants, and five or six of his own life-guard. Upon
examination, one Forbes confessed that the plan was to assassinate the
general and as many of the superior officers as they could, and to blow
up the magazine upon the appearance of the enemy's fleet, and to go off
in boats prepared for that purpose to join the enemy."