To X** (OMflO/IWEALTjH ^v THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT OF COMMODORE BYRON MCCANDLESS 1< UL44 FROM STORIES OF THE REVOLUTIONARY DAYS IN BOSTON BY NINA MOORE TIFFANY BOSTON, U.S.A. GINN & COMPANY 1897 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890, by NINA MOCKJi TIFFANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. GUSHING & Co., BOSTON, U.S.A. PRESSWORK BY GINN & Co., BOSTON, U.S.A. E PREFACE. " PILGRIMS AND PURITANS " dealt with the earliest days of Massachusetts ; " From Colony to Common- wealth " takes up the beginnings of the Revolution. Children reading either book should consult at the same time Higginson's "Young Folks' History of the United States" and Montgomery's "Leading Facts of American History." Older readers will recognize, as the sources from which these fireside tales have been gathered afresh, "The Memorial History of Boston," Frothingham's " Siege of Bos- ton," and the biographies of Samuel Adams, Joseph Warren, and James Otis, as well as Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay and many contempo- raneous accounts. NINA MOORE TIFFANY. CONTENTS. THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA i BOSTON IN 1760 9 THE STAMP ACT 21 THOMAS HUTCHINSON . . . . .26 SAMUEL ADAMS. I. The Father of the Revolution ... 39 II. The Boston Massacre 44 III. Sam Adams's Regiments ..... 50 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY 55 GENERAL GAGE. I. The Port Bill and the Regulation Acts ... 67 II. Gage's Scouts in Worcester and Concord . . 71 JOSEPH WARREN ........ 84 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I. Paul Revere's Ride 91 II. The March of the British 101 III. The Skirmish at Lexington . . . . .103 IV, The Concord Fight 105 V. The Retreat of the British 1 1 1 VI CONTENTS. THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. PAGE I. The Army at Cambridge . . . . 115 II. The Fortification of Breed's Hill . . . .119 WASHINGTON * .' -132 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON 145 NOTES . . 155 INDEX .......... 179 MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE MAP OF OLD BOSTON Frontispiece. MAP OF FIRST SETTLEMENTS 3 NEW AMSTERDAM NOW NEW YORK .... 5 THE PROVINCE HOUSE n GEORGE III. 17 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 23 A STAMP 25 THOMAS HUTCHINSON 27 LIBERTY TREE . . 31 SAMUEL ADAMS 41 THE BOSTON MASSACRE -47 POWNELL'S VIEW OF BOSTON FROM CASTLE ISLAND . 51 THE OLD SOUTH 59 THROWING THE TEA OVERBOARD 63 MAP OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS, SHOWING THE OLD ROADS 71 JOSEPH WARREN . . . . . . . -87 MAP OF COUNTRY AROUND BOSTON (MASSACHUSETTS) . 91 CHRIST CHURCH 93 Vlll MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON 95 ROADS TO LEXINGTON 102 LEXINGTON COMMON AND MEETING-HOUSE . . .104 MAP OF THE NORTH BRIDGE 106 CONFLICT AT THE NORTH BRIDGE 109 GENERAL PUTNAM 117 THE HILLS OF CHARLESTOWN 120 MAP OF BOSTON WITH ITS ENVIRONS IN 1775 AND 1776 . 121 PLAN OF THE REDOUBT 124 PLAN OF CHARLESTOWN 127 GEORGE WASHINGTON 133 WASHINGTON ELM . . . . . . . -139 THE CRAIGIE HOUSE 143 MAP OF BOSTON AND VICINITY, SHOWING DORCHESTER HEIGHTS 148 THE WASHINGTON MEDAL 153 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. FROM A PAINTING BY MR. HENRY SANDHAM. FROM COLONY TO COMMONWEALTH. THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. WHEN the early discoverers had proved that a vast new continent lay west of the Atlan- tic, explorers from the great European nations made haste to claim portions of it for their different rulers. English, Spanish, Dutch, and French voyagers sailed along the coast and up the rivers, and each, on coming to a place which no one else had yet visited or described, planted upon it the flag of his own country, and set it down on his map as belonging to the sovereign whom he served. The explorers were followed by traders, the traders by colonists. Spaniards settled Mex- ico, and founded St. Augustine in Florida. The French went northward to Nova Scotia and Canada. The Dutch built New Amster- 2 THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. dam, which is now New York, on Manhattan Island, and called their possessions New Neth- erland ; while the English made colonies in Virginia, at Plymouth, and about Massachu- setts Bay. The English colonies prospered best. Those of Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay united, in 1691, under the name of Massachusetts. Massachusetts families spread out into Con- necticut and Rhode Island. English settlers ousted the Dutch from New Amsterdam, and turned New Netherland into New York and New Jersey. They also found foothold in Pennsylvania, Maryland, the Carolinas, and even in Georgia, which the Spaniards had ex- pected to hold for themselves. Then, in the French and Indian War, England gained pos- session of Canada and of all the land east of the Mississippi ; so that the king who came to the English throne in 1760 had in his hands, by 1763, an unbroken front of Atlantic colo- nies, reaching from Labrador to Florida. That is, he thought that they were in his hands, \ FIRST SETTLEMENTS. 4 THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. and they might have been, had he known how to hold them. But from the beginning, the colonists, especially those of New England and Virginia, had been used to acting for them- selves, and to the end they insisted on keeping control of their own affairs. The Puritans, who had gained freedom for their church, had obtained a good deal of freedom in their gov- ernment as well. Indeed, all of the older colonies were at first very much let alone by England ; and in consequence, whenever a king of England undertook to overthrow their customs or to meddle with their charters, they resisted him as stoutly as they were able. For more than fifty years the Massachusetts men elected their own legislators, made their own laws, and even chose their own governors. But in 1686 Sir Edmund Andros was sent to rule over them, and though they contrived to rid themselves of him, they were obliged afterward to submit to royal governors, selected by the king. This was a sore trial, but worse was to come ; for certain people in authority, THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. 7 finding that the Americans were growing rich, busied themselves with schemes for guiding American wealth into the English treasury. There had long been duties laid by England on articles brought to the provinces from foreign ports. Each gallon of molasses, for instance, carried to Massachusetts from the French West India islands, was supposed to have a small sum, or duty, paid for it upon its entrance at Boston. This duty was to be given into the hands of the English Qrovernment. But O O the colonists had long been permitted to evade the law, and in reality the duties had seldom been paid. Vessels had a way of slipping in under cover of the darkness ; their cargoes were landed at some obscure point, and hidden away in roomy cellars. The collectors of cus- toms could not or would not discover the smug- glers, and so did not deliver to the king the moneys which he expected from them. The royal governors, therefore, were ordered to make their collectors more vigilant; and in 1760 the officials were furnished with papers 8 THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. called writs of assistance, warrants which gave the officers power to enter private houses, whenever they saw fit, to search for smuggled goods. James Otis, a Boston lawyer, spoke out fear- lessly against these writs ; but instead of re- moving the grievance, the English government went on adding other oppressive measures, until there came to be a feeling among the colonists that they were being deprived of their British liberty. A great struggle began in all the colonies, a struggle to keep their ancient rights and privileges. This struggle was hot- test at first in Massachusetts, and centred about Boston. BOSTON IN 1760. BOSTON was a queer little, dear little town. Its crooked streets went winding about its hills in easy curves found out by the cows and cowherds ; its harbor was alive with skimming sails ; its wharves were busy with arriving and departing ships. Trace upon the old-time map the ups and downs, the ins and outs, of the Boston thor- oughfares as they were little more than a cen- tury ago. The Treamount stood untouched. Nowadays we see only what pick and shovel have spared of Beacon Hill; but. in 1760 the three peaks, Beacon, West, and Cotton, rose distinct. A few houses had been built on the hill-slopes, but the most crowded neighbor- hoods were on the level grounds, near the water. Winthrop's house was still standing, though 9 IO BOSTON IN 1760. a church, our Old South, had been built on his garden-plot. C, on the map, near the picture of a church, shows the Old South. Another building, the Town House, stood in the former market-place, at a. In the Town House, or, as it is often called, the Old State House, the governor and council and the representatives held their sessions. Almost opposite the Town House, at A, was the meeting-house of the First Church, to which Governor Winthrop had belonged ; and west of the meeting-house, at E, was King's Chapel, where the services of the Church of England were performed, much to the grief of some of the oldest inhabitants, who still hated the sight of a bishop, and could scarcely bear the thought of having any religious worship different from their own in their much-cher- ished town. Near King's Chapel was a school, e, while at 3, on Marlboro Street, stood the governor's, or, as it was more often called, the Province House, where the royal governors usually lived. THE PROVINCE HOUSE. BOSTON IN 1760. 13 Beginning at the Town House and walking south, a visitor in the old town would have passed, as the map will show, the Old South Church and the Province House ; then gar- dens and pastures, until the long street with many names, that long street is Washington Street now, carried him on through fields and marshes to the narrow strip called Boston Neck, where the first fortifications were built, in Governor Winthrop's day. Strolling back over the same route, the stranger might have stopped at the corner of Orange and Essex streets, to admire several large elms of which more will be said by and by. Next, turning down Essex Street, he might have found his way along the shore to Belcher's Lane, which afterward became Purchase Street, and which would have led him past Griffin's Wharf to Fort Hill. Skirting the hill, he would have come upon Oliver's Wharf and Oliver's Dock, for Andrew Oliver was a prosperous citizen. Of him, also, we shall hear again. Perhaps our visitor would have gone to the 14 BOSTON IN 1760. end of Long Wharf to look off down the har- bor. If he found his way through Dock Square, he might have been interested in Fore, Back, and Middle streets. Fore is North Street now, and no longer fronts the water ; Middle, which on our map runs into an older North Street, is now Hanover ; while Back Street has become part of Salem Street. On Salem Street was, and is, Christ Church, often spoken of then as the Old North it is marked M on the map. Copp's, or Snow, Hill is not far from Christ Church. Its earliest name was Windmill Hill, because of a windmill that would not work in Watertown, and passed its days in idleness until brought to Boston and set up upon this breezy summit. There were quaint and homely reasons for many of the old names of the hills and streets and coves. Tremont Street was so called for its leading toward the three peaks of the Trea- mount ; Common Street, for its ending in the Common ; Beacon Street wound up toward BOSTON IN 1760. 15 the never-lighted signal-mast; Frog Lane, now Boylston Street, gave warning of the swamp. The people who walked in these straggling streets had independent ways, but were, never- theless, kindly neighbors, and public-spirited ever. The good of the community was still, as in Governor Winthrop's time, uppermost in their minds. If Governor Winthrop, the founder of the town, could have come back to it in 1760, he might have been grieved at finding a royal governor, Bernard, in the Province House, at seeing other officials of the crown busy in the Custom House, and at noting the extravagant habits, gay dress and pleasure-seeking ways of a few of the richer families of the town. He could not have failed, however, to rejoice in the plainer folk, in the ministers, lawyers, doctors, sea-captains, ship-builders, master-workmen, and mechanics. He would have turned to these with confidence, for they were true followers of the Puritans of old in their devotion to the general welfare, 1 6 BOSTON IN 1760. The general welfare needed their devotion. In October of the year 1760 George the Third ascended the English throne. News of all kinds, good or bad, travelled slowly then. It was not until late in December that Governor Bernard learned, from a London captain, of the death of the second King George and of the accession of the third. For about two months Bernard had been carrying on the affairs of the province in the name of a dead king. He thought at first that he must con- tinue to do so, for the captain had not brought any official announcement of the succession; but after waiting in vain for instructions, Gov- ernor Bernard decided that the new king must be proclaimed. On the 2 Qth of December, therefore, the town-crier summoned the people to the open space at the eastern end of the Town House ; the herald blew his trumpet, commanding si- lence ; the governor, in his robes of state, stepped out upon the balcony and read, first, the announcement of the, death, on the 25th of GEORGE III. BOSTON IN 1760. 19 October, of George the Second, and then the announcement that the present king of Eng- land was George the Third. Shouts, loyal as those uttered in London, arose from the crowd. " Long live King George the Third ! " " Long live the King ! " The King ! That title pleased King George. " Be king, George ; be king ! " his mother had often said to him ; and he boasted that he would be king indeed. First, he must have money ; and Parliament, the body of men who helped the king to gov- ern England, proceeded to tax the colonies in order to get what was needed to re-fill the treasury. Now the colonists might have been willing to furnish the money if they had been allowed to raise it in their own way. They had helped England in a war against the French ; they would probably have taxed themselves to pay their share of the debt which remained to be settled when the war was over. They did not object to taxing themselves ; but they would 2O BOSTON IN 1760. not give one penny at the bidding of Parlia- ment. Parliament, they said, had no right to tax them. British subjects had always, since the days of King John, maintained that they must not be taxed by any except the men whom they had chosen to represent them. The men whom the colonists had chosen to represent them did not go to England ; they had never formed part of the Parliament ; they met in their own chief towns, and there enacted the laws of the colonies. They alone had the right to tax the British subjects in America. Still the king and Parliament persisted in their course. According to the letter of the law, the king of England possessed the power to do nearly as he chose with his provinces. King George meant to exercise that power to the full. He would not see that these prov- inces in America \vere too strong and too skilled in taking care of themselves to be treated as helpless dependencies, and he went on from one act of folly to another until he had made a breach that nobody could heal. THE STAMP ACT. IN 1763 one of the members of Parliament, Lord Bute, proposed that the American colo- nists should pay a tax on their business papers and legal documents. His plan was liked by the king's friends ; and in 1 765 an act called the Stamp Act was passed. It declared that on and after the ist of November, every bit of writing showing the sale of a vessel or of a piece of land, every bill of lading, every mar- riage certificate or agreement of any kind, would be worthless unless it bore a certain stamp. The stamps, or stamped papers, were to be bought of the English government, and the extra money thus collected was to be spent as that government thought best. The passage of the Stamp Act filled the colonists with dismay. Benjamin Franklin, who was then in England, wrote, " The Sun of 22 THE STAMP ACT. Liberty is set : the Americans must light the lamps of industry and economy." Those lamps were indeed bright ; it was by their aid that the Americans discovered the path out of their difficulties. When Governor Bernard, in an address to the Massachusetts Assembly, said that Parlia- ment maintained its right to make laws for the American colonies, the Assembly replied that they would not dispute what he said, but that they would remind him that their charters gave them the right to lay their own taxes and make their own laws, and that it would be most disrespectful to Parliament to suppose that it would be so " despotick " as to tax any subjects without their consent. They asserted that Parliament would soon repeal the Stamp Act. What the Assembly said in their councils the people .repeated in their homes, on the streets, in political meetings, and in their patri- otic newspapers. " No taxation without repre- sentation," was the general cry. Bands of men BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. THE STAMP ACT. 25 pledged to defend the freedom of the colonists, and calling themselves Sons of Liberty, were formed in New York, Boston, and elsewhere. All were determined that the Stamp Act should not be enforced. THOMAS HUTCHINSON. AT the time of this excitement about the Stamp Act there was in Boston a scholarly man named Thomas Hutchinson, who was vainly trying to keep the peace between King George the Third and His Majesty's rebellious subjects in Massachusetts. Hutchinson was not then the governor of Massachusetts he was as yet only the lieu- tenant-governor; but his influence on people and events was greater than that of Governor Bernard himself. He was a Boston man, and interested in all public matters ; yet, Boston man though he was, he was a Tory, that is, an adherent of the king. He said that Parliament had a perfect right to tax the Americans. He said that British subjects in America, living so far from the 36 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 29 mother-country, could not expect to enjoy all the privileges claimed by British subjects at home. He thought the Stamp Act an unwise measure, and did what he could to prevent it from being passed ; but after the passage of the act he maintained that the colonists would have to submit to it, and, for his part, insisted on its being enforced. The patriots, on the other hand, made it their business to show that it would never be endured. The more able and far-seeing among them consulted and called a general congress, which was to meet at New York and to decide on some plan for action. The stanch me- chanics of Boston, most of whom were Sons of Liberty, paraded the town and made speeches in Liberty Hall, which was not a real hall, but the open space beneath the large elm known as Liberty Tree, on the corner of Essex and Orange streets. On a morning in August the branches of Liberty Tree were seen to be bearing strange fruit. A stuffed figure dressed to look like 30 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. Andrew Oliver, and a great boot, which was plainly meant to ridicule Lord Bute, dangled in the air. Hutchinson ordered the sheriff to take them down. The people about the tree forbade the sheriff to do anything of the kind. All day the figures hung there, hooted and laughed at by the crowd. At night-fall the Sons of Liberty cut them down. They placed them upon a hand-bier and carried them in a procession through the streets. Through Orange, Marlboro, and Newbury streets, the procession marched, halting finally under the arches of the Town House. " Liberty, property, and no stamps ! " shouted the people. The council, who with Bernard, Hutchinson, and others, were within, thought that the crowd meant to rush into the building. The Sons of Liberty, however, had no such inten- tion. They rested a moment, gave three rous- ing cheers, and passed on. Down Kilby Street (Merchant's Lane) they THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 33 moved, to Oliver's Dock. Near by was a half- finished building which some said was to be the stamp-office. This they pulled to the ground ; then, shouldering its beams, they carried them to Oliver's house on Fort Hill, made a bonfire of them, and burned the effigies before Oliver's eyes. The Sons of Liberty intended no violence; but some unruly men, following in their wake, trampled Oliver's garden, and, breaking into his house, destroyed part of his furniture. Moreover, a fortnight later, the mob spirit broke out among the worst elements of the town. A drunken rabble, collecting in King Street, plundered the wine-cellars of the regis- trar of the admiralty, opposite the Court House, and of the comptroller of the customs, on Han- over Street, and then rushed to Hutchinson's house, in Garden Court, to work further mis- chief there. It was a fine old house, filled with pictures and books, and containing a store of valuable papers, letters, and manuscripts ; for Hutchin- 34 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. son had undertaken, as had William Bradford and John Winthrop before him, to write a his- tory of the Massachusetts colony. The second volume of this history was still unprinted. It lay in loose sheets in Hutchinson's desk. Hutchinson, on discovering that the rioters were coming, sent his family out of the house, but remained himself to guard his possessions. His eldest daughter, however, had fled but a few steps, when she was overpowered by the thought of her father facing the mob alone. She could not bear it, and, turning back, de- clared that she would not leave the house unless he went with her. The mob were close at hand ; for her sake he yielded. They hastened away, and in a few moments the crowd burst into the building. " The doors were immediately split to pieces with broadaxes," says Hutchinson, "and away made there and at the windows for the entry of the mob, which poured in, and filled, in an instant, every room in the house. . . . They continued their possession until daylight, car- THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 35 ried away or cast into the street everything that was in the house," the manuscript his- tory was given to the winds, and would have been utterly lost had not some friends rescued it, bit by bit, and given it back to him, " de- molished every part of it, as far as lay in their power, and had begun to break away the brick work. . . . People came in from many parts of the country to view the ruins . . . and from the shocking appearance could not help express- ing a disapprobation of such acts of violence. Their prejudices, however, were not abated against the Stamp Act." Not one whit. The New York Congress sent an address to the king and protests to Parliament ; the colonies united in opposition. Quantities of stamped paper and parchment had been prepared in England. All that was sent over was so well taken care of by the patriots, that by November not a sheet of it could be obtained for use. On the ist of November, tolling bells and booming minute-guns announced the day. 36 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. Flags floated mournfully at half-mast; men saluted each other with the watchword, " Lib- erty, property and no stamps ! " Effigies were again hung on Liberty Tree, and again carried in procession about the streets. There was no sign that the prejudice had abated. Oliver had, long before this, lost all desire to give out the hated stamps to such a popu- lace, but the people still feared that he might try to do so ; and he was required to face an assemblage of two thousand people, under Liberty Tree, and to read there a paper assur- ing them that he never did, and never would, act as stamp distributor. Then the people said that, as the distrib- utor had resigned, it was impossible for them to obey the Stamp Act, and they demanded that business should be allowed to proceed as before. To this, however, Hutchinson w r ould not agree, and for a time all was at a stand- still. Hutchinson says, " Five or six weeks passed without any business in the Custom House or the courts of law. No wills were THOMAS HUTCHINSON. 37 proved, no administrations granted, nor any business of any kind transacted where stamped papers were requisite." But such a state of affairs could not con- tinue very long. Gradually business was re- sumed. In January the council promised that the courts should be re-opened ; and at last Par- liament, finding that the resistance in America was so great, repealed the Stamp Act, to the great rejoicing of the colonists and of many people in England as well. Boston celebrated the repeal with bells, cannon, illuminations, and fireworks. Liberty Tree, which now bore a copper plate with "The Tree of Liberty, Aug. 14, 1765," stamped upon it in " golden letters," was gay with lan- terns ; a pyramid of two hundred and eighty lamps glowed on the Common ; the houses shone with lighted windows; while streams of people passed to and fro, congratulating each other upon the happy ending of their trials. In their relief at being freed from the Stamp Act, few stopped to realize the full meaning of 38 THOMAS HUTCHINSON. a sentence which accompanied the repeal, a sentence which declared that Parliament had power to bind America " in all cases whatso- ever." SAMUEL ADAMS. I. THE FATHER OF THE REVOLUTION. A WELL-BUILT house, comfortable still, though falling into decay, stood, in 1765, on Purchase Street, overlooking the water. Each night, long after other houses were dark, a light shone from this ; for within, in his study, sat Samuel Adams, plying an untiring pen. This pen furnished many an article for the newspapers of the day. It had said, " It is safe for every man to adhere to the law," and it insisted that the laws of England, rightly understood, justified the colonists. When Parliament declared that it had power to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever, and shortly after proceeded to levy taxes on glass, paper, painters' colors, and tea, this never- 39 4O SAMUEL ADAMS. resting pen found yet more work to do. It wrote letters to be sent to London, explaining what the colonists thought about taxation; it wrote a circular letter to be sent from one colony to another, saying that the colonists must stand by each other, and refuse to let Parliament lay their taxes. It wrote a famous petition to the king. Now for a plain man, in a shabby house, in an American colony, to be writing a petition to the king of England, might well seem a wonderful thing to many people. It seemed wonderful enough to Samuel Adams's daugh- ter Hannah. " Only think of it ! " she exclaimed, when she saw her father preparing the petition, " that paper will soon be touched by the royal hand ! " " My dear," Samuel Adams answered, " it will, more likely, be spurned by the royal foot!" He was quite right. The king paid little heed to the remonstrances of his American subjects. But the Americans did not intend SAMUEL ADAMS. SAMUEL ADAMS. 43 to pay the taxes, notwithstanding. By the ad- vice of Samuel Adams and others, the patriots throughout the country agreed to "eat nothing, drink nothing, wear nothing " that came from Great Britain. The wives and daughters of the Boston men would not buy or drink any tea. They gave up wearing mourning for the death of friends, because they would not use the fine black cloths, all of which were then brought over from England. Every one dressed in the cloths that were manufactured here. Homespun be- came the fashionable wear. Spinning-wheels were set up in the drawing- rooms, where young girls were expected to know how to use them, and spinning-matches were held on the Common, to encourage all classes in the industry. The non-importation agreement, and the resolute spirit of the Boston men, alarmed the king's officials. They asked for troops, for protection. English soldiers were sent, there- fore, to rebellious Boston, to try to keep it in order. 44 THE BOSTON MASSACRE. II. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. The soldiers arrived on the ist of October, 1768. Two regiments and part of a third landed at Long Wharf and marched through the streets with flying colors, to the beat of the drum. Soon the Common was white with their tents, the Town House, in which a number of them slept, noisy with their voices. British cannon were planted in King Street ; the red- coats were everywhere to be seen. The townsfolk were bitterly opposed to the coming of the troops, but they resolved to keep the peace. They meant to prove that Boston was not a turbulent, troublesome hotbed of discontent, but the home of men who could defend their rights soberly and without vio- lence. For a year and a half the scarlet uniforms and the coats of homespun jostled each other in the streets, and irritation grew on both sides. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 45 The people, and the soldiers, too, however, controlled themselves wonderfully well ; but ill-will was rife, and at last the bad feeling broke out in what has been called the Boston Massacre. On Friday, the 2d of March, in the year 1770, some Boston rope-makers had a quarrel and a short fight with several of the soldiers. Both sides let their friends know that on Mon- day, March 5th, the quarrel would be renewed. When Monday evening came, parties of men and boys and bands of soldiers were to be seen passing hither and thither through the streets. One squad of soldiers, on their way from the main-guard on King Street to the Brattle Street barracks, was met by a crowd of men armed with sticks and canes. High words passed. Blows followed. The soldiers raised their guns as if to fire, but an officer who chanced to pass at that moment ordered the soldiers away. The mischief was done, however, for some 46 THE BOSTON MASSACRE. one had already hurried to the alarm-bell, and soon its strokes pealed out upon the air, while cries of " To arms, to arms ! the soldiers are rising ! " " Town-born, turn out ! town-born, turn out ! " aroused the people. Pouring from their doors they rushed to g Street. " To the main-guard ! to the main-guard ! there's the nest ! " shouted some ; while others, more prudent, tried to quiet the excited throng. In King Street, in front of the Custom House, stood a sentinel. " There's the soldier who knocked me down! " called out a boy. " Kill him ! knock him down ! " roared a chorus of voices. The sentinel ran up the steps and loaded his gun. " The lobster is going to fire ! " exclaimed another boy. " If you fire, you must die for it ! " said Henry Knox to the sentinel. " If they touch me, I'll fire," answered he. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 47 Snowballs came pelting about him. " Keep off ! " he cried ; and, pointing his gun at the crowd, called loudly for help. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. Captain Preston and eight other soldiers came from the main-guard to his aid. They stood there, ten armed men, facing the fifty or 48 THE BOSTON MASSACRE. sixty citizens who by this time had gathered in front of the Custom House. " Take your men back again," urged Knox, seizing Preston's arm. " If they fire, your life must answer for the consequences." " I know what I'm about," said the captain, and turned to his men, who were pressing upon the people with their bayonets. " Fire if you dare, you lobster-backs ! " called the crowd. " Why don't you fire ? " and sticks, stones, and clubs were hurled at the file. Then a gun went off, another, and another seven shots. / The people fell back, trispus Attucks, a powerful man, half-negro, half- Indian, who had been a leader of the mob, lay dead upon the ground. Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, on- lookers merely, were killed too. Eight others were badly wounded. The clrums of the soldiery and the drums of the town, alike, now beat to arms. Several companies of the 2gih regiment marched rap- idly to the spot, and knelt, with levelled guns, in position for street firing. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 49 The frightened populace, arriving upon the scene, saw, by the moonlight, the kneeling troops, the blood-stained snow, and their dead or dying comrades now being carried away by friends. Presently they caught sight of Hutchinson, just appearing. " To the Town House ! " they cried, as he stopped to reprimand Captain Preston. Into the Town House Hutchinson went. Stepping out upon the balcony, he addressed the crowd below. A full inquiry, he assured them, should be made, and justice should be done ; he begged them to return to their homes. But the people refused to move while the soldiers remained. Hutchinson appealed then to the officers, asking them to withdraw the troops. They gave the command, and the soldiers rose, shoul- dered arms, and withdrew to their barracks. Satisfied with this, the citizens also moved slowly away. 5O SAM ADAMS S REGIMENTS. III. SAM ADAMS'S REGIMENTS. On the very next day an immense meeting was held in the Old South Church, and Samuel Adams, at the head of a committee, was sent to Hutchinson to demand that the troops should be removed from the town. Hutchinson replied that he could not order the troops away ; only General Gage, who was in New York, could do that. He was their commander ; the order must come from him. Adams, however, insisted. Colonel Dal- rymple, sitting near Hutchinson in the council chamber, remarked in a low voice that he could take one regiment to the Castle. Hutchinson consented to this. He said he would send away one regiment, and Samuel Adams left the Town House to carry that answer to the peo- ple assembled in the Old South Church. But Adams was determined that the answer should not satisfy the people. He knew that o O SAM ADAMS S REGIMENTS. 53 both regiments must be removed ; and as he passed through the crowded streets and up the aisle of the church, he said significantly, bow- ing as he did so to the right and to the left, " Both regiments, or none ! Both, or none ! " His hint was understood. When he an- nounced from the pulpit that Hutchinson had promised that one regiment should be sent away, and then asked if Hutchinson's answer was satisfactory, the people shouted with a will, " No ! " and " Both regiments ! " Back again to Hutchinson he went, to say that the meeting was not appeased; that both regiments must go. Hutchinson, with twenty-four councillors and several British officers, still sat at the great council-table. The scarlet waistcoats, powdered wigs, and gold-laced hats made the room bril- liant with color. When Samuel Adams, in his suit of homespun, stood before them, it may well have seemed that English magnificence must overawe American simplicity. Adams repeated his request. Hutchinson 54 SAM ADAMS S REGIMENTS. was firm. One regiment only, he said, Colonel Dalrymple's, could be sent to the Castle. But toward the imposing circle Adams stretched a commanding arm. Pointing at Hutchinson, he said : " If you, or Colonel Dal- rymple under you, have the power to remove one regiment, you have the power to remove both. It is at your peril if you refuse. The meeting is composed of three thousand people. They are become impatient. Night is approach- ing. An immediate answer is expected. Both regiments or none ! " Hutchinson grew pale with anger. He saw, at last, that he must yield. Actually trembling with rage and cha- grin, he promised that the troops should go. On the following morning the removal was begun ; both regiments were sent to the Castle. Ever since, because Adams's wishes, and not the lieutenant-governor's nor the general's nor the king's, were obeyed, those troops have been spoken of as "Sam Adams's Regiments." THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. DECEMBER 16, 1773. As a concession to the colonies, Parliament in 1770 took off the taxes on paper, glass, and painters' colors. It did not, however, take off the tax on tea. The Americans knew that while a single tax remained they must continue their resistance. Merchants, therefore, still refused to import the tea; patriots, with their wives and daughters, still refused to drink it. In Boston a kind of sham tea was made of raspberry - leaves ; Connecticut housekeepers preferred thyme for their teapots ; while with others a shrub, even now called New Jersey tea, was the favorite. As the colonists would not buy the real tea, great quantities of it lay unsold in the English ports. Its owners, of course, wished very much to get rid of it. They hoped that if the price 55 56 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. were reduced, the Americans might be induced to purchase the tea ; so the price was lowered by three-pence a pound, and ships loaded with tea-chests were despatched across the Atlantic. The price, however, was not at all what the Americans objected to. They objected to the tax itself. And as that had not been removed, they were unshaken in their resolve that the tea should not be bought. Wishing to act in concert, they formed com- mittees of correspondence ; and letters posted back and forth carrying news and encouraging all to keep to their agreement. Lord North, one of the leaders of the min- istry, was warned that if England forced the tea upon the colonies, serious trouble would ensue. " The king will have it so," he answered. " The king means to try the question with America." If the king meant to try the question with America, America was ready to have it tried. The Boston committee of correspondence as- THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 57 sured the other committees that Massachusetts would not allow the tea to land, and the answers which came from them showed that all were of one mind. " The people would rather buy so much poison," wrote a New York man ; and the Philadelphians would have said the same. In November, 1773, the Dartmouth, loaded with tea, arrived in Boston, and was moored at Griffin's Wharf. Not long afterward two other ships came up the bay, and were anchored near her. The tea, however, remained in their holds, for a guard of twenty-five men watched night and day to prevent the removal of a single chest. The Boston men declared that the ships must bear their cargoes straight back to Eng- land. The owners and the captains replied that the vessels could not do that without a permit from the governor or from the Custom House, and permits were refused. Yet if the tea was not taken from the ves- sels or carried away again before the I7th of 58 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. December, the government would have the right to seize the cargoes and do as it liked with the tea, perhaps put it into the hands of tea-merchants who were on the king's side and who had plenty of Tory customers. The 1 6th came. A great meeting filled the Old South Church to overflowing. Francis Rotch, the owner of the Dartmouth, appeared before the meeting and said that he had not succeeded in getting the papers which would enable his ship to sail. He was bidden to go again to Hutchinson, who was now the gover- nor, and to ask for the last time for permission to send back the tea. Hutchinson was at his country-seat in Mil- ton ; but Mr. Rotch hastened out to find him, while the people in the Old South patiently awaited the reply. As the hours dragged on, the time was en- livened by speeches. " Who knows," said John Rowe, "how tea will mingle with salt water?" This hint was hailed with applause. December days are short. By five o'clock THE OLD SOUTH. THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 6 1 it was quite dark. The Old South was but dimly lighted by a few candles. Still the people lingered. Finally, at six o'clock, Mr. Rotch returned. Making his way to the pulpit, he announced that his errand had been a failure. Hutchinson had again refused to furnish him with a pass. As Rotch finished speaking, Samuel Adams arose. In a loud, clear voice he said, " This meeting can do nothing more to save the country." " Boston harbor a teapot to-night ! Hurrah for Griffin's Wharf ! " called a voice in the gallery. At the same moment a shout sounded out- side, and, no one knew whence, but seeming to spring up at every corner, bands of queerly dressed men, many of them disguised as In- dians, rushed down to the wharf. One of the company, Joshua Wyeth, says : " We placed a sentry at the head of the wharf, another in the middle, and one on the bow of each ship as we took possession. We boarded 62 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. the ship moored to the wharf, and our leader . . . ordered the captain and the crew to open the hatchways and hand us the hoisting-tackle and ropes, assuring them that no harm was intended them. The captain asked what we intended to do. Our leader told him that we were going to unload the tea, and ordered him and the crew below. They instantly obeyed. Some of our number then jumped into the hold and passed the chests to the tackle. As they were hauled on deck, others knocked them open with axes, and others raised them to the railing and dis- charged their contents overboard. . . . We were merry, in an undertone, at the idea of making so large a cup of tea for the fishes, but were as still as the nature of the case would admit. . . ." And another gives this account : " The captain of the brig begged that they would not begin with his vessel, as the tea was covered with goods belonging to different merchants of the town. " They told him the tea they wanted, and the tea they would have ; but if he would go THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. 65 into his cabin quietly, not one article of his goods should be hurt. They immediately pro- ceeded to remove the goods and thus to dis- pose of the tea." The men were " clothed in blankets, with their heads muffled and copper-colored counte- nances, being each armed with a hatchet or axe. . . . Not the least insult was offered to any person save one Captain O'Connor, . . . who had ripped up the lining of his coat and waist- coat under the arms, and . . . had nearly filled them with tea, but being detected was handled pretty roughly. They not only stripped him of his clothes, but gave him a coat of mud, with a severe bruising into the bargain ; and noth- ing but their utter aversion to any disturbance prevented his being tarred and feathered." When all was over, the men, who had been wading ankle deep in tea, were called together, ordered to empty their shoes of the tea that had lodged in them, told to "shoulder arms," and then marshalled in strict order to the head of the wharf, whence they went back to their 66 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. homes. In the space of two or three hours they had broken open three hundred and forty- two chests of tea. Nothing but the tea had been harmed. So careful were they to respect all other property that a padlock, broken by accident, was re- placed by a new one. In the early morning the rising tide, as if to play the part of Tory, floated the mass of tea- leaves toward the shore again ; but the Boston men would not suffer even this landing to be made. On discovering that the incoming water, from Fort Hill to Dorchester, was coated with the tea, they put out in boats and stirred with a will until it sank and dis- appeared. GENERAL GAGE. I. THE PORT BILL AND THE REGULATION ACTS. WHEN the news of the destruction of the tea reached England, the king resolved to punish Boston. The town was immediately placed under military rule. Hutchinson sailed for London. General Gage came from New York to take charge of Boston affairs. Gage came with orders to close the port of Boston. After the ist of June, 1774, not an American craft was to show itself in Boston Harbor. Even English vessels, with merchan- dise or supplies, were to avoid Boston, and to put in at Salem or Marblehead. This threatened ruin to the Boston mer- chants. In June the wharves lay idle, the warehouses were empty, men who had made their living by buying and selling what was 6 7 68 GENERAL GAGE. brought to them in ships found their business at an end. Besides this, provisions grew scarce. The boats which had formerly come with supplies from the other colonies or with produce from the neighboring country came no more. No one might fetch hay or wood from the islands, or pumpkins or potatoes from the farms. Such things must take a roundabout land journey and get in over Roxbury Neck, if they arrived at all. The closing of the port was not the only penalty Gage had come to inflict. He was to carry out the Regulation Acts. The Regulation Acts were certain com- mands of Parliament which quartered more troops upon the town, forbade the holding of town-meetings without the consent of the gov- ernor, and took away from the Massachusetts people the right to choose their own council- lors and to pay their own judges. But now the Massachusetts people, in some patriotic declarations called the Suffolk Re- GENERAL GAGE. 69 solves, announced that a king who had broken faith with his people by permitting such injus- tice could not claim their support any longer. Henceforth, said the Resolves, the people would obey the Continental Congress, and a Provin- cial Congress should be formed. Gage, alarmed at this, began to seize the powder belonging to the Province. His sol- diers captured what was stored in the old mill not far from the hill on which Tufts College now stands ; and on the same day they carried off two field-pieces from Cambridge. They tried also to get the powder that was kept in Salem ; but in this they did not succeed. The farmers, on their side, prepared for war. Every town had its band of militia. Every village green became a training-ground. Men of all ages, fathers and sons, answered the beat of the drum, assembled in companies, marched and countermarched, and presented and shouldered arms, under the teaching of some veteran who had learned his lesson in fighting against the French. Alarm com- 7O GAGE S SCOUTS. panics, called minute-men, held themselves ready to spring to arms at any hour of the day or night ; they were especially warned to be ready at a minute's notice to defend the arms, ammunition, and food collected by the patriots for the use of the American army. II. GAGE'S Scours IN WORCESTER AND CONCORD. I774-I775- By the middle of the winter a good supply of rice, flour, and other stores for a Provincial army had been gathered and forwarded for safe-keeping to Worcester and Concord. Gage had forbidden the buying of these stores. He determined to destroy them. First, he must find out where they were placed, and by what roads a body of soldiers could best reach them. So he sent two young officers on a trip of discovery. As the officers, Captain Brown and Ensign 72 GAGE S SCOUTS. De Berniere, did not wish to be known for Englishmen, they dressed themselves as farm- ers, in " brown clothes," and with reddish hand- kerchiefs about their necks. Thus disguised, they set off, in the latter part of February, for Worcester. They crossed the river to Charles- town, and walked on through Cambridge to Watertown. In Watertown was a tavern, which they en- tered, intending to rest there for the night. Having ordered dinner in a private room, they sat contentedly enough over their comfortable meal, until they noticed that the negro woman who served them eyed them very sharply. " This is a fine country," one of them said to her, suavely. " So it is," she replied on the instant ; " and we have brave fellows to defend it ; and if you go up any higher, you will find it so." The retort took them aback. If they were suspected, they could not remain. Making an end of their meal, they hurried away. Captain Brown's servant, John, who accom- GAGES SCOUTS. 73 panied them and who had had his own expe- riences in the kitchen, now confided to them that the woman had told him that she knew them to be British officers, and that they would meet with rough usage if they ventured far into the country. De Berniere frankly owns that when they heard this they thought of turning back, but that on second thoughts, reminding each other that if they did they would " appear very fool- ish," they decided to push on. The next tavern they tried was six miles fur- ther along, in Weston. Its sign told them that it was called " The Golden Ball." The landlord of " The Golden Ball " proved most obliging. When they asked for coffee and a fire, he answered meaningly, " You can have whichever you like, coffee, or tea ! " Now no patriot would have offered tea. The man was plainly a Tory. This made them feel quite safe under his roof. They slept there until morning, when he sped them upon their journey, advising 74 GAGES SCOUTS. them to look for Jones's tavern on arriving in Worcester. They had left Boston on Thursday. On Saturday they walked into Worcester ; and finding the right tavern, and Mr. Jones, they were pleased to find that here again they might have " tea, or anything else they chose." " The next day being Sunday," writes De Berniere, " we could not think of travelling, as it was contrary to the custom of the country ; nor dare we stir out until the evening, because of meeting. . . . Nobody is allowed to walk the streets during divine service, without being taken up and examined ; so that, thinking we could not stand the examination so well, we thought it prudent to stay at home, where we wrote and corrected our sketches. . . . " In the evening we went round the town and on all the hills that commanded it, sketch- ing everything we desired, and returned to the town without being seen." They had now learned almost enough about the country to be able to guide the troops from GAGE S SCOUTS. 75 Boston to Worcester by way of Framingham, and this they fully expected to do before long. To be quite sure of the road, however, they needed to go over part of it again ; so, though they intended to explore the Maryborough road also, they decided that they must first go back as far as Buckminster's tavern in Framingham, and then strike across to Marlborough. At daybreak they arose, and after breakfast- ing and supplying themselves with food for the rest of the day, set out on the way by which they had come. A little beyond Shrewsbury, the road forked the way to Marlborough ran to the left, the way to Framingham to the right. Just before they reached the parting of the ways a horseman overtook them. He rode slowly beside them, looking at them with close scrutiny, but without saying a word ; then, as if he had learned all he cared to know, he suddenly put his horse into a gal- lop and dashed off to Marlborough. The two young soldiers did not like this at all, and would have been still more disturbed 76 GAGE'S SCOUTS. had they been told who he was ; for he was a messenger sent by the committee of corre- spondence to obtain news of them for the Marlborough folk. Their danger increased now with every hour. The wide-awake committee had eyes, ears, feet, and tongues at their command through every mile of the countryside. By six o'clock that evening the travellers came in sight of Buckminster's tavern, where they were to stop for the night. As they approached they heard shouts of command and the tramp of marching feet. To their dismay they saw that a company of rebel militia was being drilled before the house. To turn back unnoticed was impossible. They put a bold face upon the matter and entered the inn. The drill proceeded. An hour passed. Then the marching came nearer, nearer yet, until the company took position upon the green just outside of the room in which Brown and De Berniere were sitting. GAGES SCOUTS. 77 There the drill was vigorously resumed. It ended at last, and the men stood in silence while one of their commanders made them a stirring speech, every word of which could be heard by the listeners within. He urged his men to be cool, to be patient, to be brave ; he reminded them that they had already helped to win battles against the French, and spoke to them with enthusiasm of their favorite leaders, General Putnam and General Ward. When the company was dis- missed, many of them came into the house and remained until nine o'clock; but the two offi- cers were not molested, though, doubtless, their errand was known. On the morrow they came once more to the tavern of their friendly tea-drinker, Jones, of Westpn, and passed that night under his roof. They were not yet ready, however, to return to Boston. General Gage would expect a plan of the Marlborough route, and that they had not explored. The landlord said all he could against their 78 GAGE'S SCOUTS. venturing again into that part of the country, but by this time they had grown confident and were not to be dissuaded. John was sent to Boston with their papers and sketches, but his masters made themselves ready for another long walk. Meanwhile, a snowstorm had come on. Hoping that it would abate, they did not set off until two o'clock in the afternoon, when they struck out toward the Marlborough road. The snow was ankle deep, the sky darkened by heavy clouds. They plodded doggedly on and were about three miles from Marlborough when suddenly they heard a muffled thud of hoofs coming along the snowy road. Turning, they saw a horseman, who reined up beside them, demanding, " Whence do you come ? " " From Weston." " Do you live there ? " " No." " Where do you live ? " " At Boston." " Where are you going ? " GAGE S SCOUTS. 79 " To Marlborough, to see a friend." They were, indeed, going to the house of a Mr. Barnes, whom they knew to be a stanch Tory. " Are you in the army ? " This alarmed them, and they answered flatly, " No." He asked a few more questions, and then rode on to Marlborough. The Marlborough people, doubly forewarned of the approach of the strangers, came out of their houses, in all the storm, to see them go by. A baker accosted them. " Where are you going, masters ? " said he. "On to see Mr. Barnes," and on they went. Arriving at Mr. Barnes's door, they apolo- gized for making use of his house and name without so much as saying "by your leave," and confessed to him that they were officers in disguise. He interrupted them by saying, " You need not tell me ; you are already very well known to me, and so you are, I fear, to the people of the town." 8o GAGE'S SCOUTS. " Recommend to us then, we beg of you," said the officers, unwilling to endanger him, " some tavern where we may be safe." " You will be safe nowhere but in my house," was the response. " The town is very violent. You were expected at Colonel Williams's last night, and a party of liberty men went there to meet you." Then Brown and De Berniere remembered the horseman of the previous day. He had probably prepared the town for their reception. " What would they do with us if they got us into their hands ? " asked the officers. Mr. Barnes did not answer. The question was repeated. " You know very well what these people are," said Mr. Barnes, reluctantly. " You may expect the worst of treatment from them." Just then he was called from the room. Brown and De Berniere saw that the affair wore a very threatening face, but thought they might rest for two or three hours and get away by midnight. They were very hungry GAGE'S SCOUTS. 81 as well as tired ; a supper-table had been laid for them, and they seated themselves with alacrity. They had hardly begun to eat when Mr. Barnes came back, looking very much dis- turbed. " I must tell you plainly," said he, " that I am very uneasy about you. My ser- vants say that an attack will be made very soon. There is no safety for you within the town." Hastily cramming some bread into their pockets, the young men rose from the table. " Is there no road," they asked, " which will carry us around the outside of the town, so that we may not be seen ? " Barnes led the way to the rear of the house, and pointed out a by-road which ran about a quarter of a mile from the settled portion of the town. The fugitives set off at a rapid pace, and Mr. Barnes rejoined his family. He had hardly closed the back door when the front door resounded with heavy knock- ing. Opening it, he found himself face to face 82 GAGE'S SCOUTS. with several grave men, members of the com- mittee of correspondence. They sternly bade him deliver the officers into their charge. Mr. Barnes said that his friends had gone. His word was not enough. The house was searched from cellar to attic. When convinced that those whom they sought were really not there, the members of the committee left, but turned to Mr. Barnes before going, with the remark that had they caught the officers in his house, it would have been pulled about his ears. At noon of the next day, when General Gage was inspecting the new fortifications on Bos- ton Neck, he saw two russet figures coming towards him through the snow. As they drew near, he saw that they were Brown and De Berniere, bringing him the information he desired. The two officers had done so well in their Worcester journey that General Gage entrusted them with the Concord affair. Read what De Berniere says of that : " The twentieth of March Captain Brown GAGE'S SCOUTS. 83 and myself received orders to set out for Con- cord. . . . We arrived there without any insult being offered us. ... We were informed that they had fourteen pieces of cannon (ten iron and four brass), and two cohorns. . . . Their iron cannon they kept in a house in town ; their brass they had concealed in some place behind the town, in a wood. They had also a store of flour, fish, salt, and rice, and a maga- zine of powder and cartridges. . . . We dined at the house of Mr. Bliss, a friend to govern- ment. ... A woman directed us to Mr. Bliss's house ; a little while after she came in crying, and told us they swore, if she did not leave the town, they would tar and feather her for direct- ing Tories in their road." JOSEPH WARREN. 1775- FOR a number of years after the Boston massacre the event was kept in mind, as the fifth of March came round, by meetings and speeches and patriotic declarations. The people were wont to come together in Faneuil Hall or in the Old South Church to listen to an oration and to express their detes- tation of having troops occupy their town. Joseph Warren was their favorite orator. He had already given one Fifth of March ora- tion, and now, in 1775, he was to deliver another. There was danger in the attempt. Every one expected a disturbance from the soldiers, and rumor said that there was a plot afoot to take Warren, Hancock, and Adams prisoners. Still, Warren was not to be dissuaded ; the danger only made him more eager. 84 JOSEPH WARREN. 85 The 5th of March came, the hour for the oration approached, the church was filled, but Warren did not appear. His friends looked anxiously toward a group of British officers who had gathered about the entrance. It seemed impossible that Warren could make his way past them and through the crowd that thronged the aisles. Samuel Adams, sitting with John Hancock in the raised pulpit under the bell-shaped sounding-board, saw the scarlet coats about the door, and, with as much prudence as courtesy, ordered the best front pews to be cleared, and bade the officers come forward to the empty seats. Into the deacons' pews and the places reserved for the elders of the church filed the officers. Some of them, not finding room elsewhere, perched upon the pulpit stairs, their British uniforms making a startling con- trast to the folds of mourning draped there in memory of men who had been killed by British guns. Suddenly at the window behind the pulpit 86 JOSEPH WARREN. rose the head and shoulders of a man. There was a loud shout of applause, and Warren, for it was he, leaped through the opening and took his stand behind the desk. He had foreseen that it would be difficult to enter by the door. He had thought, indeed, that some mischance might prevent his reach- ing the pulpit at all if he took the usual way. So he had driven to an apothecary's near by, had there put on his orator's robe, and, obtain- ing a ladder, had mounted to the window from the court below. Now, with officers of the British army all about him, as he stood in the old-fashioned high pulpit, he began a discourse on the evils of having soldiers quartered on the town in a time of peace. " Our streets," he said, " are again filled with armed men ; our harbor is crowded with ships of war. But these cannot intimidate us. Our liberty must be preserved. It is far dearer than life." And again, " An independence of Great Britain is not our aim. No ; our wish JOSEPH WARREN. JOSEPH WARREN. 89 is that Britain and the colonies may, like the oak and ivy, grow and increase in strength together; . . . but if the only way to safety lies through fields of blood, I know you will not turn your faces from your foes." While Warren was speaking, the officers in- dulged in coughs, exclamations, and groans. One of them, sitting directly under the pulpit, caught Warren's glance, and thrusting his hand into his pocket, brought out some bullets, which he held up significantly in his open palm. Warren, without a moment's hesitation, dropped his white cambric handkerchief upon the bullets, and went on smoothly with what he was saying. The handkerchief was, perhaps, a sign of truce. It was, at any rate, a token of fear- lessness, and he was allowed to speak to the end. When he had finished, a vote of thanks was called for. " Fie, fie ! " cried the officers, to show that they, at least, did not thank him at all. 9O JOSEPH WARREN. " Fire, fire ! " echoed the panic-stricken crowd, mistaking the officers' words. For a few moments there was wild confusion ; but as soon as it was quieted by the assurance that there was no fire, all waited to pass the usual resolutions, and then dispersed in peace. MAP OF COUNTRY AROUND BOSTON (MASSACHUSETTS). THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. APRIL 19, 1775. I. PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. EVERY one knew that Gage meant to send troops out to Concord to seize the cannon and stores. Every one said that the soldiers meant to stop at Lexington to capture John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who had taken refuge there. A number of men, therefore, most of them mechanics, undertook to watch the doings of the British, and messengers were frequently sent from Boston to Lexington, bearing infor- mation of the movements of the enemy. One of the trustiest of these messengers was Paul Revere. By the middle of April it was noticed that the small boats belonging to the army were put 91 92 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. in order, and left ready for use under the sterns of the men-of-war. On the evening of the i8th a body of soldiers was seen moving quietly across the Common toward the river. Word was instantly carried to Warren that the troops were on the march. Warren lost no time in sending for Paul Revere. He told him that he must get to Lexington before the troops, warn Hancock and Adams of their danger, and then hasten on to give the alarm in Concord. Revere had promised the Charlestown peo- ple that as soon as the soldiers moved he would flash a signal from the Old North Church. One lantern hung from the tower would mean that they had passed out over the Neck ; two, that they had taken to the boats and were crossing the river. Stopping only to ask a friend to hang out the lanterns, he hurried to his own little boat, which he kept at the north- ern end of the town, and while the British were embarking from the western shore and making for Cambridge, he was pulled by two stout rowers directly over to Charlestown. CHRIST CHURCH. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 95 The moon was rising, and the Somerset, a British man-of-war, swung slowly with the in- coming tide. Revere passed the ship unchal- lenged, and landing at Charlestown found that the people there had seen the signals and knew already what he had to tell them. As soon as a horse could be saddled, he mounted, and leaving the few late lights of the village behind him, sped along the lonely country road leading out over Charlestown Neck. He had been told that parties of British officers were patrolling the roads between Bos- ton and Concord, to catch any messenger sent to spread the alarm ; and he soon proved the truth of the warning, for before he was well past the Neck he espied two horsemen hiding in the shadow of a tree. " One tried to get ahead of me," says Revere, " and the other to take me. I turned my horse very quick, and galloped towards Charlestown Neck, and then pushed for the Medford road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to cut 96 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. me off, got into a clay pond. ... I got clear of him, and went through Medford, over the bridge and up to Menotomy [Arlington]. In Medford I awaked the captain of the minute- men, and after that I alarmed almost every house until I got to Lexington." Hancock and Adams were at the house of the Rev. Mr. Clark, on the old Bedford road, now Hancock Street. Up through the Lexington streets Revere clattered, and drew rein before the minister's door. A sergeant was on guard in front of the house ; Hancock and Adams were asleep within. " Hush ! " said the sergeant to Revere. " Don't make so much noise ; you will awaken the family." " Noise ! " shouted Revere. " You'll have noise enough before morning; the Regulars are coming ! " " Is that you, Revere ? " said Hancock, thrust- ing his head out of the window. " Come in. We know you ! " THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 97 Revere went in. When he had delivered his message, John Hancock fell to cleaning his gun, declaring that he would take part with the militia. Samuel Adams, however, always wise and far-seeing, laid a restraining hand upon Hancock's arm. " That is not for us," he said ; " we belong to the cabinet." Hancock's aunt, and Dorothy Quincy, whom Hancock was to marry, were in the house. They added their entreaties, and it was decided that the two patriots should leave Lexington and go to a place of greater safety in Woburn. Another messenger arrived while Revere was resting at Mr. Clark's. Warren, knowing the risks that Revere ran, had sent William Dawes out over the Neck, hoping that if one failed, the other might succeed. Revere and Dawes refreshed themselves with food, and sprang into their saddles again, to carry the alarm to Concord. A young physician, a Concord man, whom they overtook, joined them, and all were intent 98 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. on awakening the inmates of the houses by the way, when Revere discovered four more British officers lying in wait for them. Spurring out from the trees by the roadside, these officers forced Revere and his compan- ions into a pasture. Here there was a hot chase. The doctor succeeded in jumping his horse over a low stone wall, and got to Con- cord ; but Revere, seeing a piece of woods at a distance, unluckily made for that. He had nearly reached it, and thought himself safe, when out started six other officers, who sur- rounded him. " Where do you come from ? " demanded one. " From Boston," answered Revere. " What is your name ? " " Paul Revere." " Are you an express [a special messen- ger] ? " " I am." " What time did you leave Boston ? " " I told him," says Revere, " and added, that THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 99 . . . there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the way up." The two parties of officers then united. Revere was bidden mount his horse again, and all together they moved toward Lexington, Revere being assured that he should be shot at the first attempt to break away. Thus they rode until they neared the Lex- ington meeting-house, when the sound of a volley of guns startled them. In front of the meeting-house, on the Com- mon, were Captain Parker and his men. They had assembled at the first alarm, and were determined to show the English soldiers that American farmers, if need be, could fight for the welfare of their homes. But the soldiers were still far away. Captain Parker advised his men to separate and rest, to sleep, if they could, until called together again. They fired a volley and parted. It was this volley which had startled the offi- cers who were approaching with Revere. They 100 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. anxiously asked if there were no other road to Boston. They must rejoin the army, they said, with all possible speed. But the sergeant's horse was tired, and un- equal to the journey. " Take that man's horse," commanded the major briefly, pointing to the one Revere rode. In a twinkling Revere was off, the sergeant on; and the good horse that had carried the alarm so swiftly and safely throughout the night dashed off with the rest of the king's steeds, turned Tory against his will. Revere was left standing alone. Taking a short cut across the burying-ground and meadows, he went back to Mr. Clark's house, to assist in getting Hancock and Adams to a place of safety. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. IOI II. THE MARCH OF THE BRITISH. While Paul Revere was rowing over to Charlestown, the British entered their boats at the foot of the Common and embarked for Cambridge. By the time that he was spurring over Charlestown Neck, they must have been just leaving the marshes near Phips's Farm, on Lechmere's Point, their landing-place. They marched on in silence, Gage's grena- diers and light infantry, eight or nine hundred in all, flattering themselves that their move- ment was unknown. Suddenly the stillness was broken by the pealing of bells and the firing of guns. Their secret was out. The countryside had received the alarm. The British commander, Colonel Smith, sent back to Boston for re-enforcements, and bade IO2 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. one of his officers, Major Pitcairn, push rapidly on, with a small body of men, to Lexington. ROADS TO LEXINGTON. As Pitcairn advanced, he met several mes- sengers riding down the road from Lexington THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 1 03 to gather news of the troops. These messen- gers he captured, one after another, until one, Thaddeus Bowman, eluded the soldiers, and galloped back to Lexington with the news that the Regulars were close at hand. III. THE SKIRMISH AT LEXINGTON. On receiving the alarm Captain Parker sum- moned his men by the beat of the drum and drew them up again upon the Common. He was resolved not to " meddle or make with the Regulars " unless they molested him ; but if they did molest him, he knew what he should do. As he waited in the gray morning light, he ordered his men to load their pieces with powder and ball, and said to them, " Don't fire unless fired upon ; but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here ! " It was to begin there. Major Pitcairn, first allowing Colonel Smith to overtake him, ic>4 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. marched directly upon the little band of sev- enty, who, with about as many more of their townsmen, stood resolutely facing him. " Ye villains, ye rebels, disperse ! " cried Pitcairn, loudly. " Lay down your arms ! Why don't you lay down your arms, and disperse ? " LEXINGTON COMMON AND MEETING-HOUSE. A gun was fired, probably a British gun. More shots followed. The Americans returned the fire ; but when the British were seen to be moving around both sides of the meeting- THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 105 house, as if to surround the Provincials, Cap- tain Parker himself called, " Disperse ! and take care of yourselves ! " and slowly, still fir- ing, his men retired. Eight of their number lay dead upon the ground ; ten more were wounded. Major Pit- cairn's horse was shot under him, and two of his soldiers had received slight wounds. The British, as the last of the militia van- ished, formed on the Common, fired a volley, gave three cheers in sign of victory, and marched on for Concord. IV. THE CONCORD FIGHT. It was about seven o'clock when the soldiers came over the hill at the entrance of the town of Concord. The spring was early. On this April morning fruit-trees were in bloom, and fields were green with inch-high grain. The Concord men had worked all night at 106 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. removing or concealing the stores. Much of the food had been carried to other towns; several of the cannon had been dragged away, or hidden in the woods. THE NORTH BRIDGE. The British, however, found about sixty bar- rels of flour, which they split open ; some wooden spoons and trenchers, which they burned ; three cannon, the trunnions of which they knocked off; and about five hundred THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. 1 07 pounds of balls, which they threw into the mill-pond and the wells. Besides this, they cut down the liberty-pole, and set the Court House on fire. The flames of the latter, how- ever, were soon quenched. A party of two hundred soldiers, guided by De Berniere, set off for Colonel Barrett's house, where more stores were thought to be kept. Colonel Barrett's house was on the other side of the Concord River, across what was known as the North Bridge. Half of the party halted at the bridge, and remained to guard it while the rest went on to search the house. The search did not prosper. Some casks of mus- ket-balls, cartridges, and flints were in the attic ; but the colonel's wife had covered them with a huge heap of feathers, and they were not discovered. While the soldiers were burn- ing the wheels of some gun-carriages in the yard, they heard the sound of firing, and hur- ried back to the bridge. The guard at the bridge had been seen by the Provincial militia, assembled on a neigh- 108 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. boring hill. After holding a short council the militia had decided to dislodge the guard. " I haven't a man that is afraid to go," said Captain Isaac Davis, and down the hill with Colonel Robinson and Major Buttrick he marched to make the attack. When the soldiers of the guard saw the militia coming, they took their stand on the side of the river nearest the town, and began to pull up the planks of the bridge. Major Buttrick, quickening his pace, called to them to stop. They did not stop until the Americans were quite near them. Then they stopped to fire. With the discharge of the guns Captain Davis fell. Another of the Americans was killed ; several were wounded. " Fire, fellow-soldiers, fire ! " shouted Major Buttrick. They fired, killing two of the British, and wounding others. The guard, outnumbered, retired; and their friends, coming back from Colonel Barrett's, found the bridge deserted, i *m& P ;; THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I I I their comrades gone to rejoin. Colonel Smith in the centre of the town, and the Provincials withdrawn again to their hill-top. The second detachment crossed the disputed planks un- pursued, and marched back to the main body in safety. V. THE RETREAT OF THE BRITISH. It was twelve o'clock before the English troops set off upon their return to Boston. By that time the roadsides were lined with minute-men and militia from all the neighbor- ing towns. Crouching behind stone walls or dodging from tree to tree, the Americans fired incessantly upon the British, whose flankers tried in vain to protect the main body. At every turn of the road fresh companies came to swell the numbers of the Provincials. The fire grew hotter and hotter, while the fatigue of the Regulars increased with every mile. I I 2 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. At Lexington the troops, despairing and panic-stricken, broke into a disorderly run. The officers were obliged to throw themselves in front of the scattered ranks and to threaten death to any man who tried to pass. Order was, in this way, partially restored ; and the march had begun again, when, to the great relief of officers and men, re-enforcements under Lord Percy appeared. The troops could not have held out much longer. Percy was just in time to prevent a complete surrender. His brigade formed a hollow square around the exhausted regiments ; his field-pieces held the Provincials in check. Smith's tired men flung themselves on the ground, their tongues hanging out of their mouths, like the tongues of panting dogs. The rest could not be a long one. At the end of half an hour arms were again taken up, and the whole turmoil swept on. In Menotomy a sharp conflict occurred. Warren, who took part in it, had a pin struck out of his" ear-lock by a musket-ball. He had THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I 1 3 left Boston in the morning, saying to a friend, " Keep up a brave heart ! They have begun it that either party can do; and we'll end it that only one can do ! " The Charlestown folk all through the after- noon had heard the approaching guns. At sunset they saw the dust and smoke of the battle drawing nearer to their homes. Ameri- can messengers came post-haste into town with dreadful tales of British cruelties. The troops, maddened by their helpless situation, had re- venged themselves by burning the houses along their track, and had killed some of the harm- less inmates. The people of the town, in terror, fled out over the Neck, and took refuge where they could. Down the road and into the streets of Charlestown came the hunted soldiers, flying in wild confusion from the stinging rain of bullets. They asked for shelter. The select- men agreed to prevent farther pursuit ; and Percy, on his side, promised that his men should not in any way harm the town. I 1 4 THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. The Americans contented themselves with setting a guard on Charlestown Neck, while the British soldiers, undisturbed, encamped on the Charlestown hills, and on the next day crossed to Boston. The battle of Lexington opened the War of the Revolution. THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. JUNE 17, 1775. I. THE ARMY AT CAMBRIDGE. THE news of the battle of Lexington spread as fast as hoofs could carry it, and in answer to the intelligence the colonies sprang to arms. All day and all night, and for several days and nights, the tramp of the militia sounded along roads leading to Cambridge ; for Cam- bridge was to be headquarters for the Ameri- can army. Not a moment was lost in obeying the sum- mons. The New Hampshire veteran, Colonel Stark, was in his saddle ten minutes after hear- ing of the fight. Putnam, who lived a hun- dred miles away, reached Cambridge in twenty- four hours. He was at work on his farm, when a horseman galloped furiously down the road "5 Il6 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. bringing tidings of the battle; and without stopping to lay aside his farmer's dress, " Old Put " leaped upon his fastest horse and dashed off to join General Heath, General Pomeroy, and General Ward. Meanwhile Gage and his soldiers were closely cooped in Boston. They dared not venture out to scatter the forces at Cambridge, for the Provincials greatly outnumbered them, and no one cared to have that April chase repeated. But re-enforcements were already crossing the ocean. On the 25th of May three British generals, Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, "the three bow-wows," people called them, arrived with more troops. Gage was now in the best of spirits, and so sure of victory that he offered to pardon all rebels who would return to their loyalty to the king, all, that is, excepting John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Pardon, however, was not what the Americans desired. Ten thousand men were assembled in Cam- GENERAL PUTNAM. THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. IIQ bridge. They were determined to prevent the British from marching out again. On the other hand, Burgoyne had said be- fore leaving his vessel, " What ! ten thousand peasants keep five thousand king's troops shut up ! Well ! let us get in, and we'll soon find elbow-room ! " II. THE FORTIFICATION OF BREED'S HILL. To get their elbow-room, the British decided to seize and fortify Dorchester Heights and the hills of Charlestown. But when their plans were made known to the Americans, as Gage's plans usually were, the Americans agreed that they themselves should fortify those heights and hills. Putnam had long been urging it. Warren was doubtful. Once, when the two were talk- ing about it together, Warren rose and walked two or three times across the room. " Almost I2O THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. \ thou persuades! me," he said at last to Putnam ; " but I must still think the project a rash one. Nevertheless, if the project be adopted and the strife becomes hard, you must not be surprised to find me in the midst of it." The night of the i6th of June was appointed for the work of building a fort on Bunker Hill. At nine o'clock that evening a party of twelve hundred men set off from Cambridge for Charles- town. Through the wooded country roads they marched, the brave Colonel Prescott and two ser- geants with dark-lanterns leading them, until they arrived upon the open pastures of Bunker Hill. There a consultation was held. The next summit, on Breed's farm, seemed to them a more promising = BB5T0N i-stat*rror m ,rjyici n ystr.<*t) WITH ITS. ENVIRONS a.OldSvuthMrilinowInu*' J N- / REFERENCES. /, State (f 122 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. place for their works ; so to Breed's Hill they went, and while some were sent down to the water's edge to note any movement on board the British man-of-war anchored in the stream, the rest threw off their packs, seized their intrenching-tools, and began to dig. Throughout the night the men on the hill sank their trenches and piled up the earthen embankments, while the guard upon the shore listened for the call of the watch on the vessel and the distant cry of the Boston sentinel. " Twelve o'clock, and all's well ! " floated to them from the deck of the war-ship. " Twelve o'clock, and all is well ! " sounded again faintly from the Boston side. One, two, and three o'clock were called and echoed thus ; but at daybreak the thunder of a gun from the Lively came instead. The works were discovered. The battery on Copp's Hill now opened fire upon them. Its shells came singing through the air and ploughed great furrows in the grass. One of the soldiers, venturing outside the de- THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 123 fences, was killed. At the unwonted sight his comrades blanched and paused ; but Prescott, mounting the parapet, walked coolly around the works, and his men, inspired by his cour- age, regained their own. " Who is that ? " asked Gage, looking at him through a glass in Boston. " William Prescott," was the reply. " Will he fight ? " queried the general. " Yes, sir ; he is an old soldier, and will fight to the last drop of his blood." " The works must be carried," said Gage. Clinton advised attacking the works in the rear, but Gage preferred a front attack. He ordered two thousand men under General Howe to row to Moulton's Point. Moulton's Point is now within the Charlestown Navy Yard. General Pigot was to follow with more troops. The scarlet uniforms, massed on Long Wharf or embarked in the little boats upon the sparkling water, were a brilliant and a formidable spectacle, but the Americans did not stop to admire or to fear. They were I2 4 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. digging, digging still; tired and hungry, but full of courage and hope. It was long past noon before Howe and Very deep hollow way. PLAN OF THE REDOUBT. Pigot were ready to move up the hill. By that time the Provincials had roughly finished the central fortification, a redoubt, with a breast- work running from its northeast corner. Be- THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 125 sides this, Putnam had begun to make use of a stone wall, surmounted by a rail fence. He ordered his men to fetch other rails, to place them behind the first, and to fill the space between with the new-mown hay which lay upon the field. Stark, coming up with his New Hampshire regiment and some Connecti- cut troops, finished the line of fence, and took his stand behind the hay. At two o'clock Warren arrived. Although he had not fully approved of the plan to fortify Charlestown, he was ready, as he had said he would be, to fight in defence of the works. A friend had tried to persuade him that he was wrong in risking his life at a time when his counsel was so much needed ; but Warren had replied, " Dulce et decorum est pro patria morif" "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country ! " Putnam offered Warren the post of command at the Tail fence. " I am here only as a volunteer," Warren replied. " Where can I be most useful ? " 126 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. " You will be under cover there," suggested Putnam, pointing to the redoubt. " Don't think I seek a place of safety," War- ren urged. " Where will the attack be hottest ? " " That," said Putnam, still pointing to the redoubt, " is the enemy's object. If that can be maintained, the day is ours." Warren went to the redoubt. The men there, although disappointed that no detach- ment had come from Cambridge to assist them, took heart again on seeing him, and stopped their work to cheer. Prescott asked if he would give them orders. Warren again insisted that he was but a vol- unteer. " I shall take no command here," he said. " I came to serve under you, and shall be happy to learn from a soldier of your expe- rience." At a little after three, Pigot's men, firing as they went, marched slowly up the hill. They pushed forward toward the left of the redoubt. Howe at the same time advanced on the right, toward the rail fence. PLAN OF CHARLESTOWN. 128 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. The Americans had been cautioned to hold their fire. " Don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes," was the command along their line. " The Redcoats will never reach the redoubt, if you obey me," said Prescott. And when some of his men aimed their pieces to return Pigot's fire, the resolute officer ran around the top of the parapet and kicked up their guns. On came the English troops. When they were about eight rods from the redoubt, the Americans' fire was loosed. It cut down the soldiers in dreadful rows. Amazed and stag- gered, the British ranks broke and fell away, in a panic, to the foot of the hill. Prescott praised his men. They were wild with joy. But the British were forming again ; the redoubt must have re-enforcements. Put- nam hastened to the Neck. There, at the other end of the narrow strip of land, were the regiments despatched by Ward; but the Neck was under fire of the gunboats and was raked by shot and shell. Only a few com- panies would venture across. THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 1 29 Burgoyne, from Copp's Hill, now sent a red- hot shower upon the Charlestown roofs. The town blazed instantly; and while dense clouds of smoke rolled overhead, Howe again moved upon the defences. Again the Americans waited in silence ; again their fatal fire leaped out. For a second time the British fell back and scattered. Some of the soldiers rushed into the boats to put the river between them and that deadly hail. For some time now there was a lull. The aid which the Americans expected from Cam- bridge did not come. On the other hand, the British were supported by the presence of Gen- eral Clinton, who, seeing how badly the battle was going, had crossed to Charlestown with a fresh supply of men. Clinton saw that the north end of the breast- work was the weakest point. He determined to assail the Americans there, and to carry the redoubt by the bayonet. For the third time the Regulars marched steadily up the hill. The Americans fired as 130 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. before, but the firing was feeble. Their ammu- nition was gone. When the British discovered this, they pressed on and began to climb the walls of the redoubt. Pitcairn attempted to enter, but fell, mortally wounded, and was borne away by his son. A soldier swung himself into the enclosure by means of a tree near its edge. One after another his companions crowded in. A short hand-to-hand struggle ensued. Then Prescott gave the order to retire, and himself moving backward, "stepping long," gave up the day. The men at the rail fence covered the re- treat of their friends and then followed them. Warren lay dead upon the field. He was one of the last to leave the redoubt. As he retired a ball struck him; and he fell, making good his words, " It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country." Prescott, beside himself with chagrin at the defeat, presented himself before General Ward and demanded fresh troops, saying that he must go back and recover the works. His THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 13! request was not granted. He had, indeed, covered himself with glory, and the country learned to be proud of the battle at which the British gained such a hardly won victory. WASHINGTON. ONE cause of the defeat in the battle of Bunker Hill was the confusion and lack of dis- cipline in the American forces. In fact, after the battle of Lexington every one saw that the Americans must have a commander-in-chief for their army. When Congress, the second general Con- gress, met at Philadelphia, in May, 1775, it took up this important matter. John Adams had in mind a man whom he thought all would unite in choosing. He arose to propose him. " There is," he said, " but one gentleman whom I should like to see in that position." At this Mr. Hancock was all smiles, for he, too, knew of but one gentleman whom he would like to see in that position ; and he thought that Mr. Adams agreed with him. 132 GEORGE WASHINGTON. WASHINGTON. 1 35 " He is," continued Mr. Adams, " a gentle- man from Virginia," here Mr. Hancock's countenance fell, "a gentleman whose skill and experience as an officer, whose indepen- dent fortune, great talents, and universal char- acter would command the approbation of all America." Of course this was not Mr. Hancock, but George Washington. Congress offered Washington the command, and he accepted it, refusing, however, any pay- ment for his services, and saying that if his mere expenses could be provided for, he should be quite content. Mr. Adams was right as to Washington's skill and experience as an officer. He had been a colonel in the French War, and his exploits had won him golden opinions. What- ever he undertook was well performed ; his early work as a surveyor was so accurate that it has never had to be done over again. An aptness for soldiering showed itself even in his childhood. When only ten years old, he 136 WASHINGTON. used to gather his playmates in squads, drill them, parade with them, and marshal them through mock battles. There are several stories of his childhood, one of which we may, per- haps, still venture to repeat. Washington's mother owned some fine colts of which she was justly proud. One of these colts, a sorrel, no one had ever been able to tame. Washing- ton was determined to mount him. With the help of some of his young friends, he succeeded in getting a bit into the mouth of the really wild and vicious creature, and then leaped upon his back. The sorrel ran, bolted, kicked, and tried every means of throwing his rider. Finally, rearing and plunging in a last desperate effort to free himself, he fell to the ground. Wash- ington sprang off, but the sorrel did not rise again. He was dead. The boys looked at each other in dismay. Madam Washington was strict in the govern- ment of her household. What would she say to them ? At that moment they were called in to breakfast. WASHINGTON. 137 " Pray, young gentlemen, have you seen my colts ? " was one of Madam Washington's first questions, when they were seated at the table. " My favorite, I hear, is as large as his sire." " Your favorite, the sorrel, is dead, madam," replied Washington. "Dead!" exclaimed his mother. "Why, how did that happen ? " " The sorrel," said Washington, " has long been considered unmanageable, and beyond the power of man to back or ride. This morn- ing we forced a bit into his mouth. I backed him, I rode him ; and in a desperate struggle for the mastery, he fell under me, and died upon the spot." Madam Washington's cheek flushed. For a moment there was silence. Then she said, quietly, " It is well : while I regret the loss of my favorite, I rejoice in my son, who always speaks the truth." To the end of her life his mother always spoke of him as her good son, her good boy, never as the general or the President. 1 38 WASHINGTON. Washington set off for Cambridge, on the 2ist of June, 1775, to take command of the American army. He had not proceeded far when a courier from New England came riding toward him. The man carried despatches for Congress and gave Washington his first information of the battle of Bunker Hill. " How did the militia act ? " asked Washing- ton. " Bravely," was the reply. " They stood their ground, endured the enemy's fire, reserved their own, and then gave it with deadly effect." Washington was satisfied. " The liberties of the country are safe," he said. Cambridge was reached on the second of July. On the third, Washington, under the great elm near the Cambridge Common, took command of the army and reviewed the troops. The soldiers, assembled from different sec- tions of the country, were variously arrayed. Some wore the uniform in which they had fought, not against King George, but for him ; WASHINGTON. 139 some had donned the buff and blue; while a few of the farmers shouldered their muskets in plain homespun or brown jean. WASHINGTON ELM. The camp was as unmilitary in appearance as was the dress of its occupants. Home-made sail-cloth tents of different shapes and sizes I4O WASHINGTON. dotted the Cambridge fields. Besides these there were huts of stone and of brick and sheds of boards, brush, and turf. Greene's Rhode Island troops, alone, were well equipped. They had canvas tents like those of the English soldiers, and, moreover, they maintained camp discipline. To teach camp discipline was Washington's first care. Privates and officers alike were un- used to military obedience. The men had to be made to understand that they could not trudge back to their farms when the memory of their crops or a twinge of homesickness overcame them ; their officers ' needed to learn to lay aside their jealousies and their suspicion of men from other sections. Usually the camp was peaceful enough, but Irving gives the following amusing account of a quarrel which Washington had to settle. " A large party of Virginia riflemen, who had recently arrived in camp, were strolling about Cambridge, and viewing the collegiate buildings, now turned into barracks. WASHINGTON. 14! " Their half-Indian equipments and fringed and ruffled hunting-garbs provoked the merri- ment of some troops from Marblehead, chiefly fishermen and sailors, who thought nothing equal to the round jacket and trousers. A bantering ensued between them. There was snow upon the ground, and snowballs began to fly when jokes were wanting. " The parties waxed warm with the contest. They closed, and came to blows. Both sides were re-enforced, and in a little while, at least a thousand were at fisticuffs ; and there was a tumult in the camp worthy of the days of Homer. ' At this juncture,' writes our inform- ant, 'Washington made his appearance, whether by accident or design, I never knew. I saw none of his aids with him; his black servant was just behind him, mounted. He threw the bridle of his own horse into his servant's hands, sprang from his seat, rushed into the thickest of the melee, seized two tall, brawny riflemen by the throat, keeping them at arm's length, talking to and shaking them. . . . The 142 WASHINGTON. combatants dispersed in all directions ; and in less than three minutes none remained on the ground but the two he had collared.' " Meanwhile the months were passing, and Washington had not attempted to drive the British out of Boston. People wondered at it, and many blamed him. Washington kept his own counsel. He would not have had the British guess the rea- son for his delay, but the truth was that he had not enough powder to carry him through an attack. He had been told that there were three hundred barrels of it on hand. This was a mistake. There had been three hundred ; there remained only thirty. Powder, cannon, mortars, howitzers, and a supply of lead and flints had been captured by a party of Americans who had taken posses- sion of Ticonderoga, a fort on Lake Champlain ; and Washington had sent Henry Knox thither to fetch the needed stores, but that was a diffi- cult undertaking, and required time, for this was years before the first railroad was built, WASHINGTON. and Knox had to find means of transport. It was not until January that he could write, " I have made forty-two exceedingly strong sleds, and have provided eighty yoke of oxen to drag THE CRAIGIE HOUSE. them as far as Springfield, where I shall get fresh cattle to take them to camp." It was February before the sledges arrived in Cambridge. In the meantime Washington established himself in the Craigie House, where his wife soon joined him ; and they made the 144 WASHINGTON. winter as endurable as they could by enter- taining the American officers and others in the general's leisure hours. Moreover, there was plenty of work for his soldiers, for the shore and hills needed to be fortified. Under Wash- ington's directions a line of defences, eight or nine miles long, stretched in a broken semicircle from Winter Hill, near the Mystic River, to Dorchester Neck; and Boston, with the British army shut up in it, was held in siege. THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. MARCH 17, 1776. WHILE Washington waited for ammunition the British in Boston fared badly. Food was scarce and poor. It was " pork and beans one day, beans and pork another." Even in Gage's household fresh meat was sel- dom to be seen. Putnam, knowing their strait, sent General Gage's wife " a fine quarter of veal," for which he received " a very polite card of thanks." In October Gage, "the mild general," as King George called him, went back to England, and Howe was left in command of the forces in Boston. Howe would probably have marched out upon the Americans in Cambridge, had he guessed their lack of powder. Washington's secrets, however, were not, like General Gage's, "furnished with wings," and the British re- mained in daily expectation of an attack. 145 146 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. As the winter wore on, fuel failed. Wood was ten dollars a cord, an enormous price in those days. Even at that price it was difficult to find, and the soldiers were ordered to pull down the older houses of the town to feed the fires. Governor Winthrop's house was torn to the ground, and the buttonwoods upon his land were felled. Many, indeed, were the trees laid low by British axes. Liberty Tree the Red- coats hewed down with a will. It was to them one of the archrebels. But they did not win over it a bloodless victory ; for a soldier, while climbing out upon one of its branches, lost his footing and was killed. For amusement, the officers gave grand balls, which the daughters of Boston Tories were glad to attend ; and they also had theatrical entertainments. Burgoyne himself wrote a play which was performed in Faneuil Hall. The Old South Church they turned into a riding-school. Its pulpit was removed ; many of the pews were split up for firewood, and one, a beautifully carved pew belonging to Deacon THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 147 Hubbard, was used for a pig-stye. The floor was spread with gravel, and a bar was put up, four feet high, near the Milk Street door. Here the young officers practised leaping, while spec- tators watched them from seats provided for them in the eastern gallery. Numbers of books and papers stored in the church were burned. It was believed for many years that the second volume of Governor Winthrop's journal had been thus destroyed ; but years after it was found, safe and whole. By the latter part of February, however, Washington was able to give the British in Boston something besides riding and dancing and acting to think of ; for when Knox's eighty yoke of oxen, with their fifty cannon and other munitions of war, came plodding into the Cambridge camp, guns were mounted upon the batteries and part of the precious powder was used in hinting to the British, by means of a few cannon-balls, that they could not ex- pect to occupy Boston much longer. Washington proceeded to force them out by 148 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. fortifying Dorchester Heights. On the 4th of March a heavy cannonading from the Cam- bridge and Roxbury batteries was begun. The British thought that the Americans intended an immediate at- tack upon the town, but they were mis- taken. The firing was merely a feint, and was kept up for the purpose of drowning the rum- bling of a long line of heavy carts that had set out from Cambridge and were jolting through Roxbury on their way to the Twin Hills on Dorchester Heights. Three hundred of these carts, loaded with fascines, bundles of screwed hay, and other materials for the walls of the forts, were sent from Cambridge. In front of them marched General Thomas with twelve hundred armed BOSTON AND VICINITY, SHOWING DOR- CHESTER HEIGHTS. THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 149 men, and eight hundred more who carried in- trenching-tools. They proceeded across the bridge over the Charles, and around by Dor- chester Neck to the double summit, the high land near the eastern end of the peninsula. There the workers divided ; half took one, half the other, crest. All night they built and dug, as had Pres- cott's men at Bunker Hill, and at daybreak the astonished British saw two fortresses upon the Heights. Howe, looking at them with amazement, ex- claimed, " The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army would have accom- plished in a month ! " British cannon from the Boston forts now opened fire upon the works. The balls, crash- ing and bounding about the walls, were scarcely heeded by the men, eagerly building on. Washington rode anxiously about, remind- ing the troops of the date, the 5th of March. He had chosen his time, knowing that his sol- diers would be inspired to greater exertions by I5O THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. the memories awakened by that day. Every- where he was answered by patriotic cheers. He had expected the British to attack the Heights at once, and Putnam was waiting in Cambridge, hoping to cross the Charles and carry Boston in the absence of part of the Brit- ish garrison. Howe decided, however, to make a night attack. All day long the British could be seen hurrying hither and thither about the streets, but not until late in the afternoon did they leave the wharves. Toward nightfall a portion of them entered the boats and rowed to Castle William, to be joined by the soldiers there in the assault. But with the night came a furious storm of wind and rain. The surf was high, and the boats and transports which put off from Castle Island could not land on the main shore. The storm continued through the following day. By the time it had ceased, the American works were too strong to be successfully assailed. Howe and Percy gave up all hope of being THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 151 able to overcome them, and began to consider how they could get out of Boston with the least damage to their men and to their pride. The Tories of the town were informed that if the British troops were allowed to leave in peace, they would refrain from injuring any property ; but that if the American army threat- ened them with attack or pursuit, Boston should be given to the flames. The inhabitants, therefore, prepared a paper, stating the case, and sent it under a flag of truce to the American lines. This paper was carried to Washington at Cambridge; but as it bore no address, Washington would not return any formal answer. He did order the firing to cease, however, and the British, understanding that they were not to be harassed, slowly began to make ready for departure. Still the days went by, and they did not go; so on the i6th of March Washington erected a fortification on Nook's Hill, whence his guns could, if necessary, thoroughly rake the town. 152 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. Then there was haste indeed. On the i7th the harbor was crowded with vessels. Trans- ports and men-of-war lay waiting for the signal to be off ; little boats pulled out to them from the wharves, bearing their loads of scarlet- coated soldiers ; sailing-vessels of all sorts, bear- ing the families of men who had sided with the king, hovered anxiously about, ready to follow the rest. Down from the hill in Charlestown marched the British guard ; but the redoubt for which they had fought so hard was not wholly emptied. A number of faithful sentinels still stood with shouldered muskets within the earthen walls. Surprised that any should linger while their comrades pushed out into the stream, a party of Americans, partly suspecting a trick, cau- tiously approached the place. The sentinels did not move ; they were simply men of 'Straw. Great was the rejoicing of the American army when the last Redcoat vanished from Boston and the last British sail passed the Castle. Patriot troops flocked in over Rox- THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. 153 bury Neck. Everywhere they saw signs of the long and hostile occupation. The streets were strewn with crows' feet sharp iron prongs to prevent pursuit ; the public buildings were de- faced, and many of the dwellings ruined. Sam- uel Adams's house, espe- cially, had suffered. He never lived in it again. The country now rang with praises of Washing- ton. Congress passed a unanimous vote of thanks, and ordered a large gold medal to be made for him in commemoration of the evacuation of Boston. As for the British troops, they sailed first to Halifax, and then to New York, to continue there the war that was only begun in Massa- chusetts, the War of the Revolution. THE WASHINGTON MEDAL. 154 THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. On the 4th of July of that year, 1776, inde- pendence was declared. It was then that the colonies began to call themselves states and that Massachusetts took her stand as a commonwealth. Long live the Commonwealth of Massachusetts ! NOTES. THE ENGLISH COLONIES IN AMERICA. PAGES 1-8. Children or young people should read about the early settlements of America in some short history of the United States, like Higginson's or Montgomery's. BOSTON IN 1760. [See The Memorial History of Boston, Drake's Old Land- marks of Boston, etc.] The Map of Old Boston is the Burgess map, with some omissions and one or two additional names. It is taken from the reprint issued by the Bostonian Society. The key to the map is kindly furnished by Mr. William Lawrence. PAGE 9. Boston Streets. A curve in the street usually indicates that there was once a small hill to be avoided in that place, or a marsh to be skirted, or the shore line to be followed. Drake, on p. xix of his Tea Leaves says : " There were no sidewalks in the town, and, except when driven aside by carts or carriages, every one walked in the middle of the streets, ' where the pavement was the smoothest.' " '55 156 NOTES. PAGE 10. The Old South Church. Winthrop's house and garden, often called "The Green," belonged, after Winthrop's death, to his son Stephen. From Stephen's widow it passed to John Norton, and in 1677 Norton's widow gave the garden plot to some seceding members of the old First Church. They built upon it a meeting-house, which, standing in the southern part of the town, was spoken of as the South Meet- ing-house, or, later, when others were put up in the same general neighborhood, as the Old South. The first building was of wood ; the present brick building was put up in 1729. A tablet over the Washington Street door bears this inscription : OLD SOUTH. CHURCH GATHERED, 1669. FIRST HOUSE BUILT, 1670. THIS HOUSE ERECTED, 1729. DESECRATED BY BRITISH TROOPS, 1775-6. The Town House, or Old State House. The first build- ing, finished in 1659, was of wood. It was burned in 1711. In 1712 a second building, of brick, was raised. That was burned in 1747, and the third, erected in 1748, is substan- tially the same that stands to-day. The arches upon which it formerly stood have given way for solid walls, but other- wise it looks much as it did at the time of the Revolution. The First Church. The first building built as a place for worship was near the market-place. Brazier's Building, on State Street, marks its site. NOTES. 157 King's Chapel. "The establishment of the Church of England in Boston," says Mr. Samuel Adams Drake, in his Old Landmarks of Boston, " was attended with great oppo- sition. ... In 1646 a petition praying for the privilege of Episcopal worship, addressed to the General Court at Boston, caused the petitioners to be fined for seditious expressions, and the seizure of their papers. ... In 1686 . . . the first Episcopal services were held in the old Town House. . . . The town, however, continued to refuse the use of any of the meeting-houses." When Sir Edmund Andros came, he demanded the use of the Old South Meeting-house. On the 22d of March, Sewall tells us, in his diary, Andros inspected the three meeting-houses. On the 23d he sent for the keys of the Old South, and, though Mr. Sewall and others remonstrated with him, declaring that the meeting-house was theirs, and that they could not consent to part with it for such a use, the keys were obtained and services were held on Friday, the 25th. Andros and the council, after trying in vain to buy part of Cotton Hill for the site of a new church, took possession of a corner of what had been Mr. Isaac Johnson's land, used since Mr. Johnson's death as a burying-ground. Here the first King's Chapel was built in the year 1688, a wooden structure with a square tower. In 1753 new walls of stone were laid around the old church, and the present building arose. It was called King's Chapel, or, in the reign of Queen Anne, Queen's Chappell ; during the Revolution its name was changed to Stone Chapel, but the original name is restored. The Province House, which stood somewhat back from 158 NOTES. Washington Street, was built in 1679, an( ^ was owned by Peter Sergeant. It was of brick, with a flight of sandstone steps leading up to the portico. The royal governors after- ward occupied the house. Bernard lived there at times ; so did Gage. PAGE 14. Christ Church was built six years before the brick building of the Old South was erected ; that is, in 1723. The chime of bells hanging in its steeple was cast and consecrated in England. Each bell bears an inscription. As given in Old Landmarks of Boston the inscriptions are as follows : FIRST BELL. " This peal of eight bells is the gift of a number of generous persons to Christ Church, N. E. Anno 1744. A. R." SECOND BELL. " This church was founded in the year 1 723. Timothy Cutler, D.D., the first Rector. A. R. 1723." FOURTH BELL. " God preserve the Church of England. A. R. 1744." FIFTH BELL. " William Shirley, Esq., Governor of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England. Anno 1744." SIXTH BELL. " The subscription for these bells was begun by John Hammock and Robert Temple, Church Wardens, Anno 1743; completed by Robert Jenkins and John Gould, Church Wardens, Anno 1744." SEVENTH BELL. " Since generosity has opened our mouths, our tongues shall ring aloud in praise. 1774." EIGHTH BELL. "Abel Rudhall, of Gloucester, cast us all. Anno 1774." NOTES. PAGE 15. 159 John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was born in Groton, England, whence he came to America in 1630. He, with his Puritan company, founded Boston, which received its name September 17, 1630. He died on the 26th of March, 1649, and was buried in the King's Chapel burying-ground. Francis Bernard was born in England. He studied at Oxford, and was first appointed governor of New Jersey ; after two years of service in that colony he was transferred to Massachusetts. " He loved literature and science, could write elegies in Latin and Greek, used to say that he could repeat the whole of Shakespeare ; and had gifts of conversa- tion which charmed the social circle. . . . He was a good hater of republican institutions, . . . and deemed it a marvel that Charles II. had not made a clean sweep of the little New England republics, . . . and had not supplied their place with more aristocratic governments. . . . He thought that though people might bluster a little when such a reform was proposed, yet they never would resist by force ; and if they did, a demonstration of British power, such as the presence of the king's troops in a few coast towns, and the occupation of a few harbors by the royal navy, would soon settle the country." [Frothingham's Life of Warren, p. 29.] On the 3ist of July, 1769, Bernard sailed to England, to report to the king the state of the province, leaving Hutchin- son, the lieutenant-governor, to administer affairs in his absence. He never returned, but died in 1779. 1 6O NOTES. PAGE 16. George III. was born in 1742, came to the throne in 1760, and died in 1820, at the age of seventy-eight years, having been for ten years blind, deaf, and insane. [Mont- gomery's Leading Facts of English History^ PAGE 19. Taxation by Parliament. For this question and that of the king's prerogative and the new problem presented by the new state of things brought about by America's strength and self-dependence, see Green's History of the English People, Vol. IV., Book IX., Chap. I. PAGE 20. Representation in Parliament. " If we are not repre- sented," said the Massachusetts legislature, "we are slaves." Yet there is no doubt that most of the patriots preferred local self-government to representation in Parliament. THE STAMP ACT. [See Green, and the Memorial History of Boston. Hutch- inson, in his History of Massachusetts, is extremely interest- ing here.] PAGE 21. Stamped Papers. " A ream of common blank bail bonds had usually been sold for ^15 ; a ream of stamped bonds cost ;ioo." [Temple's History of Framingham.~] Benjamin Franklin. [See the Autobiography^ NOTES. 1 6 1 PAGE 22. The Assembly replied, etc. [Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, Vol. III., p. 465.] PAGE 25. Sons of Liberty. Barre", in one of his eloquent speeches in defence of America, alluded to the colonists as " Sons of Liberty." The phrase was caught up and used as the name for an organization of patriots. This organization had its centre in New York, and branches in all the other colonies. The men forming the nucleus for the Boston Sons of Liberty had formerly called themselves the " Union Club." After the change of name each member of the Boston organization wore, on public occasions, a medal, " on one side of which was the figure of a stalwart arm, grasping in its hand a pole, surmounted with a cap of liberty, and surrounded by the words ' Sons of Liberty.' On the reverse was a representa- tion of Liberty Tree." \_Tea Leaves, p. Ixix.] The cut shows one of the stamps. THOMAS HUTCHINSON. [See Diary and Letters of Thomas Hutchinson, by P. O. Hutchinson.] Frothingham says : " Thomas Hutchinson, descended from one of the most respected families of New England, and the son of an honored Boston merchant, was now [in 1 769] fifty-seven years old. . . .' He was distinguished by ' an irreproachable private character, pleasing manners, common-sense view of things ; and politics rather adroit than high-toned secured him a run of popular favor. . . . He was, and had been for years, the master spirit of the Tory party." \Life of Warren, p. 107.] 1 62 NOTES. On the ist of June, 1774, Hutchinson sailed for London, to lay before the king the affairs of the province. On arriv- ing he was immediately summoned to King George's pres- ence. The king asked him many questions concerning America, and, among other remarks about the patriots, ob- served, " I see they threatened to pitch and feather you ! " "Tar and feather, may it please your Majesty," replied Hutchinson ; " but I don't remember that I was ever threat- ened by it." It would have been well for George the Third if he could have been as easily set right in other mistaken ideas as to his provinces. Hutchinson " died in England on the 3d of June, 1 780, suddenly, as he was stepping into his carriage." [Frothingham, same, p. 502.] PAGE 29. The first general congress met at New York, Oct. 7, 1765- Liberty Tree was one of several large elms near the corner of Essex and Washington Streets. A stone tablet, set in the wall of a building opposite the foot of Boylston Street, marks the site where the tree once stood. PAGE 30. Andrew Oliver was Hutchinson's brother-in-law. He was to have been the stamp distributer. When Hutchinson became governor, Oliver was made lieutenant-governor. PAGE 34. "His eldest daughter," etc. [See Hutchinson's account.] " The doors," etc. [Hutchinson's History, Vol. III., p. 124.] NOTES. 163 PAGE 35. The stamped paper. That which was sent to Boston was stored at Castle Island. SAMUEL ADAMS. I. THE FATHER OF THE REVOLUTION. Samuel Adams was born on Sunday, Sept. 16, 1722, in the Purchase Street house, which was built by his father. The Adams land extended from Purchase Street to low water mark, and fronted the harbor. " On the roof was an observ- atory and a railing with steps leading up from the interior." Adams graduated from Harvard at the age of eighteen, in 1 740. " At that time position in the classes was determined by the wealth and standing of families. In a class of twenty- two young Adams stood fifth." [Wells's Life of Samuel Adams.~\ " He studied law for a time, but quitted study to enter a counting-house, and finally entered business with his father. They lost money ; indeed, Adams was never a good business man." [Same.] He died in 1803. PAGE 39. The Father of the Revolution. He was called not only the Father of the Revolution, but the last of the Puritans. Tudor says of him : " Every day and every hour was employed in some contribution towards the main design ; if not in action, in writing ; if not with the pen, in conversation ; if not in talking, in meditation." Otis, he adds, used to write first draughts of political papers and " hand them over to Sam to quievecue them." \_Life of Otis.~] 1 64 NOTES. PAGE 40. " Only think of it," etc. [Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, Vol. L, p. 167.] PAGE 43. The non-importation agreement. [See the Memorial History of Boston^ II. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. For the details as given here, see Frothingham's Life of Warren, Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, and the Memorial History of Boston. PAGE 46. Henry Knox, afterward General Knox. PAGE 47. Paul Revere says Mr. Winsor, in a foot-note on p. 40 of the Memorial History took the occasion of the first anniversary of the massacre, in 1771, to rouse the sensibili- ties of the crowd by giving illuminated pictures of the event, with allegorical accompaniments, at the windows of his house in North Square. PAGE 48. Crispus Attucks. An account of Crispus Attucks is given in Livermore's Research on Negroes as Slaves, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 1862^ p. 173. PAGE 49. Preston and his men were tried with scrupulous fairness. " As a result of the trial, Preston was acquitted, six of the NOTES. 1 65 soldiers were brought in ' not guilty,' and two were found guilty of manslaughter, branded in the hand in open court, and then discharged." [Memorial History, Vol. III., p. 38.] III. SAM ADAMS'S REGIMENTS. PAGE 50. The meeting was held in Faneuil Hall in the morning, but in the afternoon adjourned to the Old South. Colonel Dalrymple and Colonel Carr commanded the regiments. PAGE 54. " Sam Adams's regiments." It was Lord North who first spoke of the troops sent to Castle Island as " Sam Adams's two regiments." THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY. [See the Memorial History of Boston, Vol. III., p. 44, and Tea Leaves, by F. S. Drake.] PAGE 55. New Jersey Tea, Ceanothus Americanus. PAGE 56. An English penny is worth two of our cents. PAGE 57. Griffin's Wharf was opposite the foot of Hutchinson Street, now Pearl Street. It has since been replaced by Liverpool Wharf. 1 66 NOTES. Twenty days after her arrival in port, a vessel was liable to seizure for the non-payment of duties on articles imported in her. PAGE 61. "We placed a sentry," etc. [Tea Leaves, p. Ixxi.] PACE 62. " The captain of the brig," etc. [John Andrews, in Tea Leaves, p. Ixix.] " In the space of two or three hours," etc. [Massachu- setts Gazette, quoted in Tea Leaves, p. Ixviii.] GENERAL GAGE. [See the Memorial History of JBoston.~\ I. THE PORT BILL AND REGULATION ACT. PAGE 67. General Gage. " Thomas Gage," says Frothingham, "arrived at Boston May 13, 1774, as captain-general and governor of Massachusetts. He was not a stranger in the colonies. He had exhibited gallantry in Braddock's defeat, and aided in carrying the ill-fated general from the field. He had married in one of the most respected families in New York, and had partaken of the hospitalities of the people of Boston. His manners were pleasing. Hence he entered upon his public duties with a large measure of popu- larity. But he took a narrow view of men and things about him. . . . General Gage proved, as a civilian and a soldier, unfit for his position." \_Life of Warren, p. 5.] NOTES. 167 The Port Bill. " A measure for suspending the trade and closing the harbor of Boston during the king's pleasure, and enforcing the act by the joint operations of an army and a fleet." [Rev. Edward G. Porter in the Memorial History of Boston, Vol. III., p. 51.] Marblehead was declared to be the port of entry, Salem the capital. The people of these towns, however, stood by Boston bravely ; the merchants offered Boston men the use of their wharves, and the townsfolk sent provisions by land, a distance of twenty-eight miles. [Same.] PAGE 68. The Regulation Acts. [See the Memorial History^ The Suffolk Resolves were written by Joseph Warren, in a house still standing in the village of Milton Lower Mills. PAGE 69. The seizure of the powder belonging to the province warned the Bostonians that they must look to their other possessions. Tudor, in his Life of Otis, tells us that In November, 1 766, four guns were ordered bought by the general court of Boston. Two of them were kept in a gun- house opposite the West Street Mall. Major Paddock intended to hand the guns over to the British, but when his men went to fetch them they were gone. The men searched for them. They went into the school-house which was near to hunt for them. There were the boys at their books, there was the master Holbrook, with one foot, which was lame, resting on a large box under his desk. In that box, as the boys very well knew, were the cannon. The master knew it, too. He 1 68 NOTES. begged the soldiers to excuse him if he remained seated ; they assured him that he must not think of rising. The guns were not to be seen, and the soldiers took themselves off. For a fortnight longer that big box was undisturbed ; then one evening the two brass cannon were taken out and trundled on a wheelbarrow to Whitten's blacksmith's shop at the South End, where they were hidden under a pile of coal. There they lay for some time, but finally they were again removed by night and carried to the American camp. II. GAGE'S Scours IN WORCESTER AND CONCORD. PAGE 70. De Berniere's account, on which this chapter is based, is in Vol. IV., 2d Series, of the Mass. Hist. Coll. In the same volume are Gage's instructions to Brown and De Berniere. They were as follows : "BOSTON, February 22, 1775. " GENTLEMEN : " You will go through the counties of Suffolk and Worcester, taking a sketch of the country as you pass; . . . " The rivers also to be sketched out, remarking their breadth and depth, ... the fords, if any, and the nature of their bottoms. . . . " You will remark the heights you meet with, whether the ascents are difficult or easy; . . . " The nature of the country to be particularly noticed, whether in- closed or open; . . . and whether the country admits of making roads for troops on the right or left of the main road. . . . "You will notice the situation of the towns and villages, their churches and churchyards, whether they are advantageous spots to take post in. ... " If any places strike you as proper for encampments . . . you will remark them particularly, and give reasons for your opinions. NOTES. 1 69 " It would be useful if you could inform yourselves of the necessaries their different counties could supply, such as provisions, forage, straw, etc., the number of cattle, horses, etc., in the several townships. " I am, Gentlemen, your most obedient, humble servant, "THOMAS GAGE. "To CAPT. BROWN, 52d Regiment, and ENSIGN D'BERNIERE, loth Regiment. " (Copy)." JOSEPH WARREN. See Frothingham's Life of Warren. PAGE 85. Joseph Warren was born in Roxbury, on June n, 1741. At the age of fourteen he entered Harvard College. He studied medicine under the direction of Dr. James Lloyd. Extremely winning in person and admirable in character, he was greatly beloved. Samuel Adams became one of his warmest friends. He devoted himself to the patriot cause. He saw the firing of the soldiers upon his fellow-townsmen, on the 5th of March, 1770, and gave an oration in 1772, commemorating the death of those who fell. He took part in the work of the committee of correspond- ence, and was present at the patriotic meetings at the time of the destruction of the tea, and when preparations for war began he determined to seek active service in the field. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON. I. PAUL REVERE'S RIDE. See Memorial History of Boston, Vol. III., p. 101, 1 70 NOTES. Revere's letter, Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. V., of the ist Series, Frothingham's Siege of Boston, and Hudson's History of Lexington. PAGE 92. Warren's house. Warren at that time lived on Hanover Street, where the American House now stands. [Memorial History, Vol. III., p. 59.] PAGE 95. Revere's horse was furnished by Deacon Larkin. Longfellow's stirring poem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, represents Revere as waiting on the Charlestown side, and receiving his first intimation of the route of the British from the Boston signals. The " poet's license " will be observed in other portions of the poem. John Hancock's aunt, Mrs. Hancock, and his lady-love, Dorothy Quincy, were at Mr. Clark's house at the time. Madame Dorothy, in giving an account of the night [see the Magazine of American History for 1888], said that it was not until break of day that Mr. Hancock could be persuaded that it was improper to expose himself; but that then, overcome by the entreaties of his friends, he, with Mr. Adams, went over to Woburn. " The ladies remained and saw the battle commence. Mrs. Scott (Dorothy Hancock) says [Maga- zine of American History] the British fired first, she is sure. . . . One of the first British bullets whizzed by old Mrs. Hancock's head, as she was looking out of the door, and struck the barn ; she cried out, ' What is that ? ' They told her it was a bullet, and she must take care of herself. . . . After the British passed on towards Concord, the ladies re- NOTES. ceived a letter from Mr. Hancock, informing them where he and Mr. Adams were ; wishing them to get into the carriage and come over, and bring the fine salmon that they had had sent them to dinner. This they carried over in the car- riage, and had got it nicely cooked, and were just sitting down to eat it, when in came a man from Lexington, whose house was upon the main road, and who cleared out (leav- ing his wife and family at home) as soon as he saw the Brit- ish bayonets glistening, as they descended the hills on their return from Concord. Half frightened to death, he ex- claimed, ' The British are coming ! My wife's in etarnity now ! ' Mr. Hancock and Mr. Adams, supposing the British troops were at hand, went into the swamp, and staid until the alarm was over." II. THE MARCH OF THE BRITISH. PAGE 101. Messrs. Gerry, Orne, and Lee were in their beds, in the tavern at Menotomy, now Arlington, when the alarm was given. They were but half dressed when the British came in sight. The landlord guided them to a back door, and they escaped into a field, where they lay concealed in the stubble, while a squad of soldiers searched the house. [Frothingham's History of the Siege of Boston, p. 60.] III. THE SKIRMISH AT LEXINGTON. PAGE 103. Captain Parker. Captain John Parker, who commanded the Lexington men, was the grandfather of Theodore Parker. 172 NOTES. He was ill on the day of the battle, but " did his duty from 2 A.M. till 12 at night." "Don't fire unless fired upon," etc. [Weiss's Life of Theodore Parker, Vol. I., p. n.] Samuel Adams, in Woburn, having heard the guns at Lexington, exclaimed, " This is a glorious day ! " " It is, indeed," answered one of his companions, thinking that he referred to the brightness of the early morning. " I mean," said Samuel Adams, " that it is a glorious day for America ! " PAGE 105. Killed at Lexington: Jonas Parker, who had said he would never run from the British, and who, even after being wounded, discharged his gun and remained to meet his death at the point of the bayonet ; Robert Monroe, who had been the standard-bearer of his company at the capture of Louisburg ; Samuel Hadley, John Brown, both killed after they had left the common ; Jonathan Harrington, who was shot, and dragged himself to the door, only to die before he reached the threshold ; Caleb Harrington, Isaac Muzzy, and Asahel Porter. [Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 80.] IV. THE CONCORD FIGHT. PAGE 105. A large portion of the stores had been removed before the 1 8th of April; and, after receiving Dr. Prescott's alarm, the inhabitants of Concord spent the remainder of the night in secreting as much as possible of those that were left. NOTES. 173 PAGE 106. EXPLANATION OF THE MAP. 1. Lexington Road. 2. Hill where the liberty pole stood. 3. Centre of the town and main body of the British. 4. Road to the South Bridge. 5. Road to the North Bridge and to Colonel Barrett's, two miles from the centre of the town. 6. High grounds where the militia assembled. 7. Road along which they marched to dislodge the British. 8. Spot where Davis and Hosmer fell. 9. Rev. Mr. Emerson's house. 10. Bridges and roads made in 1 793, when the old roads, with dotted lines, were discontinued. [Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 70.] V. THE RETREAT OF THE BRITISH. PAGE 112. Percy's brigade had met with a long delay. It finally fell in with Smith's men about half a mile below the Lexington meeting-house. [Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 76.] The American loss for the day was 49 killed, 39 wounded, 5 missing. The British loss was : 73 killed, 1 74 wounded, 26 missing. [Frothingham's Siege of Boston.'] THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. See Frothingham's Siege of Boston. After the battle of Lexington, the following circular letter, addressed to the towns of Massachusetts, was, among others, issued. This is in Warren's handwriting. 174 NOTES. " GENTLEMEN : The barbarous murders committed on our innocent brethren, on Wednesday, the 1 9th instant, have made it absolutely nec- essary that we immediately raise an army to defend our wives and our children from the butchering hands of an inhuman soldiery, who . . . will, without the least doubt, take the first opportunity in their power to ravage this devoted country with fire and sword. We conjure you, therefore, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred, that you give all assistance possible in forming an army. Our all is at stake. . . . Every moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may deluge your country in blood. . . . We beg and entreat, as you will answer to your coun- try, to your own consciences, and, above all, as you will answer to God himself, that you will hasten and encourage by all possible means the collection of men to form the army, and send them forward to head- quarters at Cambridge, with that expedition which the vast importance and instant urgency of the affair demand." [Frothingham's Life of Warren, p. 466.] PAGE 115. General Putnam was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the yth of January, 1718, but the greater part of his life was spent in Pomfret, Connecticut. He distinguished himself in the French War, and was also prominent among the Con- necticut Sons of Liberty. He died May 19, 1790. PAGE 116. General Heath was younger, having been born in 1737, in Roxbury. General Pomeroy was from Northampton, and had been a lieutenant-colonel in the French War. General Ward was born in 1727. Bancroft says that he " had the virtues of a magistrate rather than a soldier." PAGE 119. "Almost thou persuadest me," etc. [Frothingham, p. 5S-3 NOTES. PAGE 120. 175 Colonel Prescott was born in 1726. He was "six feet in height, of strong and intelligent features, with blue eyes and brown hair. . . . He was . . . plain but courteous in his manners ; of a limited education, but fond of reading ; never in a hurry, and cool and self-possessed in danger." [Froth- ingham's Siege of Boston^ PAGE 125. "Between twelve and one o'clock, a horseman rode furi- ously into Cambridge with the report that ' the Regulars had landed at Charlestown.' ... It was a very hot summer's day, with a burning sun. Warren was suffering from a ner- vous headache ; he had been occupied through the night with public business, and threw himself on a bed ; but after the alarm was given he rose, and, saying that his head- ache was gone, started for the scene of action. . . . He came within range of the British batteries at the low, flat ground (Charlestown Neck) . . . ; and the firing, at the time he passed, between two and three o'clock, must have been severe." [Frothingham, p. 513.] Three days before the battle Warren was made a major- general. " Dulce est decorum est," etc. [Frothingham's Life of Warren. ,] PAGE 128. The order, " Wait till you see the whites of their eyes," was not original with the Provincials. It had been given in Frederick's wars. On May 22, 1745, Prince Charles, cutting 1 76 NOTES. through the Austrian army, said to his men, " Silent, till you see the whites of their eyes." Twelve years after, at the battle of Prague, it was used again, " No firing till you see the whites of their eyes." \_Boston Memorial History '.] PAGE 130. " The death of our truly amiable and worthy friend, Dr. Warren," wrote Samuel Adams to his wife, " is greatly afflict- ing. The language of friendship is, How shall we resign him!" [Quoted in Frothingham, p. 521.] And Abigail Adams wrote : " We want him in the senate ; we want him in his profession ; we want him in the field. We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the physician, and the warrior." [Same.] Warren was buried on the field. His remains were, however, removed, and they are now in Forest Hills. The whole number of Americans in the battle did not ex- ceed 1500; the British numbered between 2000 and 3000. [Bancroft, Vol. IV., Chap. XXXIX.] The American loss was : 150 killed, 2 70 wounded, 30 taken prisoners. [Boston Memorial History '.] The British loss was : 224 killed, 830 wounded. [Same.] WASHINGTON. See Irving's Life of Washington, Recollections of Wash- ington, by Washington Parke Custis, Sparks 's Washington, etc. PAGE 138. The Washington Elm still stands in Cambridge. NOTES. 177 PAGE 141. "Their half -Indian equipments," etc. [Irving's Life of Washington, Chap. XXIV.] PAGE 143. "I have made forty-two," etc. [Irving, Chap. XXV.] THE EVACUATION OF BOSTON. See Frothingham's Siege of Boston and the Memorial History of Boston. PAGE 145. Putnam's present to Mrs. Gage. [See Recollections of Life in the Revolutionary Period, by H. E. Scudder.] General Gage's wife was an American. It was thought that the wings with which Gage's secrets seemed to be furnished were of her providing. PAGE 146. Burgoyne's play was entitled The Blockade of Boston. PAGE 152. A detachment of Putnam's men took possession of Boston on the 1 7th. The main body marched in on the 2Oth. "The small-pox prevailed in some parts of the town, and Washington was obliged to adopt stringent measures to pre- serve the health of the troops." [Frothingham.] The British fleet lingered for ten days in Nantasket Road. " During this period the enemy burnt the block-house and barracks and demolished the fortifications on Castle Wil- liam." [Same.] 1 78 NOTES. When the greater part of the fleet finally sailed for Hali- fax, a few vessels continued for two months to lie off Nantasket. In May James Mugford, an American captain, captured a British transport ship, the Hope, sent over from England with fresh military stores for the British. He got her cargo safely to Boston, but the British from the men-of- war at Nantasket put out in thirteen boats, two nights later, and attacked Captain Mugford's vessel and another as they , lay near Point Shirley, where Mugford had caught aground. " The crews of both fought their assailants with the greatest intrepidity. Captain Mugford sunk two of the boats. But while fighting bravely he received a mortal wound. He still continued to animate his men, exclaiming, * Do not give up the ship ! You will beat them off ! ' In a few minutes he died. His men beat off the enemy's boats. No other American was killed." [Frothingham's Siege of Boston, P- 3i3-] On the 1 4th of June some American troops, despatched for the purpose, drove the last remnant of the British fleet out of the harbor by means of cannon planted on Long Island. INDEX. Adams, John, 132, 135. Samuel, 39-54, 85, 96, 100, 116, 163, 172. American Camp, 139-144. Andros, Sir Edmund, 4. Army, American, 115, 138. Attucks, Crispus, 48, 164. Beacon Hill, 8. Bernard, Governor, 15- Berniere, De, 70-83, 107. Boston in 1760, 9, 155. Evacuation of, 145-154. Harbor, 67. Massacre, 44-49, 84, 164. Neck, 13. Port Bill, 67, 68, 167. Tea-Party, 55-66, 165. Breed's Hill, 119-131. British, March of, 101-103. Retreat of, 111-114. Brown, Captain, 70-83. Bunker Hill, Battle of, 115-131, 173- 176. Burgoyne, John, 116, 129, 146. Buttrick, John, 108. Calderwell, James, 48. Castle Island, 150. Charlestown, 115-131, 152. Christ Church, 14. Clinton, General, 116, 123, 129. Colonies, English in America, 1-8. Committee of Correspondence, 56. Concord Fight, The, 105, in, 172. Congress, New York, 35, 162. Provincial, 69. Second Continental, 133. Copp's Hill, 14. Cotton Hill, 9. Craigie House, 143. Dalrymple, Colonel, 50. Dartmouth, The, 57. Davis, Isaac, 108. Dawes, William, 97. Dorchester Heights, 148-151. English Colonies in America, The, i. Evacuation of Boston, The, 145-154, 177, 178. Faneuil Hall, 146. First Church, The, 10, 155. Fort Hill, 13. Franklin, Benjamin, 21. Gage, Thomas, 67, 83, 116, 123, 145, 166. Gage's Scouts in Worcester and Concord, 70-83, 168. George III., 16, 19, 20. Gray, Samuel, 48. Griffin's Wharf, 13, 57, 165. 179 i8o INDEX. Hancock, John, 85, 91, 96, 116, 132, 135- Heath, William, 116, 174. Hosmer, Abner, no. Howe, General, 116, 123, 145, 149- 152. Hutchinson, Thomas, 26-38, 49-54, 67. King's Chapel, 10, 157, 161, 162. Knox, Henry, 46, 48, 142, 147, 164. Lexington, Battle of, 91-114, 169. Liberty Tree, 29, 36, 37, 146, 162. March of the British, 101, 171. Massachusetts a Commonwealth, 154- Minute-Men, 70. Monroe, 172. Muzzy, 172. Non-Importation Agreement, 43. Nook's Hill, oo. North, Lord, 56. North Bridge, 107. North, Old, or Christ Church, 14. O'Connor, Captain, 65. Old South Church, 10, 50, 58, 85-90, 146, 156. Old State House, 10, 44-49, 50-54. Oliver, Andrew, 13, 36, 162. Otis, James, 8. Parker, John, 99, 103-105. Percy, Lord, 112, 150. Pigot, General, 123, 124, 126. Pitcairn, Major, 102, 105, 130. Pomeroy, Seth, 116, 174. Preston, Captain, 47, 164. Prescott, William, 120-137, 174. Dr., 97. Provincial Congress, 69. Province House, 10, 157. Putnam, Israel, 115, 119, 125, 128, 174. 177. Quincy, Dorothy, 97. Regiments, Sam Adams's, 50, 165. Regulation Acts , 68. Retreat of the British, no. Revere's Ride, 91, 169, 170. Rotch, Mr., 58. Rowe, John, 58. Schoolhouse, 10. Skirmish at Lexington, 103, 171. Smith, Colonel, 101. Stamp Act, 21. Repealed, 37. Stark, John, 115, 125. Sons of Liberty, 25, 29, 161. Suffolk Resolves, 68, 167. Taxation by Parliament, 20. Tea-Party, Boston, 55-66. Thomas, General, 148. Town House, 10. Ward, Artemas, 116, 174. Warren, Joseph, 84-90, 92, 112, 113, 119, 125, 126, 169, 175, 176. Washington Elm, 138, 176. Washington, George, 132-144, 147- 154- West Hill, 9. Winthrop, John, 10. Winthrop's House, 9. Writs of Assistance, 8. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. W nrat 'D LD-UR 01 FEB 1 8 969 FEB 1 1989 ^EE WEEKS H^ DATE NON-RENEWABLE Form L9-32m-8 ) '57(C8680s4)444 ':'. 3 1158 00758 3890 , SOUTHERN _REGIONAL LIBRARY FACIl AA 001 110059