The English guns were soon trained on the works, and the sleeping city was awakened by the boom of cannon. But the men on the hill toiled on, and by noon they were well intrenched behind a strong redoubt. The British meanwhile decided to storm the American works.

The British landed-three thousand of them, led by Howe about three in the afternoon, and began the ascent of the hill toward the American breastworks. It was a daring thing to do. - and not only daring, it was foolish and suicidal. They might have gone round to Charlestown Neck and cut Prescott off from supplies and reënforcements, and eventually have forced his surrender. But here was a sample of the bulldog courage of the Englishman. Up they marched, in line of battle, with undaunted courage. Not a shot was fired from the top of the hill; the Americans were coolly reserving their fire. General Putnam rode along the lines and ordered the men not to fire until they could see the whites of their enemy's eyes. When the British had come within a few rods, a flame of fire swept along the American lines and the front ranks of the enemy were cut to pieces. Another volley followed, and another, until the British fell back in disorder, leaving the hillside strewn with dead and wounded. Scarcely fifteen minutes elapsed before they had re-formed their lines and made another dash up the hill, only to receive again such a murderous fire from the breast works as no army, however brave, could have endured. Again they rolled down the hill in confusion-except the hundreds who lay dead or wounded on the slope.

More than an hour now elapsed before the English could rally to a third attack, and it was only a blind tenacity of purpose, untempered by wisdom, that led them to make it at all. They had lost near a thousand men, while the Americans had suffered but little. It is true that the latter had almost exhausted their supply of powder, but this the British did not know; and but for this fact any number of assaults would have resulted as did the first two-until the British army would have been annihilated. With wonderful courage they now made a third charge up the hill. The first volleys of the Americans swept down their front ranks as before. But as the assailants neared the crest of the hill, they noted the slackening of the American fire, and Howe determined to charge with the bayonet. Madly the English rushed forward and leaped over the parapet. The Americans were without bayonets to their muskets, and the fight was now an unequal one; but with clubbed muskets and stones

1 Fiske's "American Revolution," Vol. I, p. 141.

BEGINNING OF THE WAR

247

Scores of

they made a valiant stand against the oncoming enemy. them were cut down, until Prescott, seeing the folly of continuing the struggle, ordered a retreat, and the British were left in possession of the field.

Death of

One of the last to leave the redoubt was General Joseph Warren, who lingered in the rear as though he disdained to fly, and this cost him his life. He had joined the ranks as a volunteer and had fought bravely during the day, but with the last English volley he fell dead with a bullet in his brain. Through his death the American cause suffered the most serious loss in a single life during the war.

Warren.

The victory won by the British at Bunker Hill' was a costly one. They lost in killed and wounded 1054 men, one tenth of whom were officers. Pitcairn was among the dead. Howe was wounded in the foot. The victory enabled the English to hold Boston for nine months longer, but the moral effect lay wholly with the Americans, whose loss was 449. At Bunker Hill they had discovered their own prowess, their ability to stand before the regulars; and Bunker Hill became a rallying cry of the patriots in every contest of the war.

WASHINGTON AND THE ARMY

After an overland journey from Philadelphia, that partook of the nature of an ovation, Washington arrived in Cambridge two weeks after the Bunker Hill battle, and the next day, beneath the shade of a great elm tree that still stands as a living monument of that heroic age, he formally assumed command of the Continental army. The new commander was warmly welcomed by the army. The local officers yielded gracefully to his superior authority. Some of them were men destined to achieve abiding fame in the coming war. By far the ablest man among them was Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island. As a farmer boy, and later a blacksmith, he had lacked the means of a classical education, but being fond of books, he acquired much knowledge by private study. He read law, general literature, and especially military tactics. He was a born soldier, and before he knew that he was to spend a portion of his life in the field he was thoroughly familiar with the theory of warfare. He was in most of the battles of the war, and was implicitly trusted by Wash

1 Most of the fighting was done at Breed's Hill, but the higher eminence near by gave its name to the battle.

ington, to whom he was scarcely inferior in generalship. Greene was a man of rare sweetness of character and purity of morals. In the later years of the war he became the savior of the Southern states; and after peace had come to the newborn republic, he left his native state to spend the evening of his days among the people of Georgia, who, in grateful remembrance of his services, had presented him with a fine plantation. From the hills of New Hampshire had come two men, opposite in characteristics, both of whom have left a permanent name in the annals of their country-John Sullivan, who represented wealth, refinement, and culture, and John Stark, who had shown his mettle at Bunker Hill, and whose dashing vigor, undaunted courage, and almost fierce patriotism mark him as one of the most heroic figures of the war. Here also was Henry Knox, a Boston bookseller, a corpulent man with a winning smile and a jolly laugh, who soon won his way into Washington's heart, and who many years later became a member of his first Cabinet. But the most picturesque figure of all was Daniel Morgan, the leader of the Virginia sharpshooters. Morgan was a giant in size, genial and affable, but fierce and recklessly daring in battle. In youth he had received five hundred lashes for insulting a British officer, but his spirit was unsubdued. He had escaped a murderous band of Indians on horseback after a musket ball had passed through his neck. He now joined the army of Washington and did valiant service for liberty throughout the war. These and many other Sons of Liberty now made the acquaintance of the commander in chief on the Cambridge Common.

Sir William Howe had succeeded Gage as commander of the British army, and his brother, Lord Richard Howe, was made admiral of the fleet. The contempt that Gage had felt October, 1775. for the Americans had worked to their benefit at Lexington and Bunker Hill. Howe seemed now to entertain the opposite opinion of his enemy; he remained inactive during the summer and autumn, and this again proved a great advantage to the Americans, for Washington needed the time to drill and reorganize his army and to secure an adequate supply of ammunition. The newmade soldiers soon grew tired of warfare, and as their terms of enlistment expired they departed for their homes by hundreds. Reënlistments were slow, and it was with great difficulty that Washington kept an army about him. He practically disbanded one army and enlisted another - all within musket shot of the British regiments.

EXPEDITION TO CANADA

249

The ex

Canada.

Within this period a remarkable expedition to Canada had been undertaken by General Richard Montgomery. From Ticonderoga Montgomery pressed northward in September with two thousand men, and two months later he had possession of Montreal. pedition promised success. To join this army in Canada Washington had dispatched eleven hundred men Expedition to under Benedict Arnold, who, after a march of incredible hardships through the Maine wilderness, reached the valley of the St. Lawrence in November. Arnold, whose name in our history was to become famous, then infamous, was a man of military skill and intrepid courage. With Arnold on this perilous journey was another whose name, like his, was yet to be honored, then dishonored, by his countrymen. The fragments of the two armies met in the valley of the great Canadian river, and together they made a desperate and fruitless assault on Quebec,' on the last day of the year 1775. Montgomery was shot dead, and Arnold was wounded; Ethan Allen had been taken prisoner and sent in irons to England; hundreds of the brave Americans perished through cold and hunger and the ravages of smallpox ; and, on the whole, the expedition ended the following spring in disastrous failure.

Aaron Burr.

Washington was severely criticised for his long delay before Boston; but he was wiser than his critics. He spent every day in perfecting his army and preparing to strike a blow. By the 1st of March, 1776, a great many of the cannon captured at Ticonderoga the year before had been drawn on sledges all those hundreds of miles to the Continental army at Cambridge. The commander now determined to wait no longer. He sent two thousand men on the night of the 4th of March to fortify the peninsula south of Boston, known as Dorchester Heights, which commanded the city and harbor even better than did Bunker Hill. During the night the Americans kept up an unceasing cannonade from Roxbury and other points Heights. for the purpose of drowning the sound of the pick and

Dorchester

the hammer, the noise of the moving wagons, and of the dragging of siege guns; and Howe, all unwittingly, aided him in the good. work by replying with his cannon.

At the dawn of day the British general opened his eyes in astonishment upon the work that had been wrought in the night on the heights of Dorchester. What could be done? Washington could now destroy every ship in the harbor with shells. Howe determined

1 The city was defended by Sir Guy Carleton.

to storm the works; but his men remembered Bunker Hill, and the memory left them spiritless. Yet something had to be done, and Howe in desperation set apart three thousand men under Lord Percy to undertake the perilous business; but a terrific storm swept over the harbor and delayed the project until the morrow. Then it was too late: for the American works had been made so strong that only suicidal folly would attempt their reduction by storm. There was but one thing left for the English to do—to abandon Boston and the Boston harbor; and ere the end of the month General Howe, with all the British ships, bearing eight thousand soldiers and nearly two thousand American loyalists, launched out Evacuation upon the deep and sailed away to Halifax. Thus the old Bay colony, the home of the Pilgrims and the PuriMarch, 1776. tans, the scene of the opening acts of the Revolution, after six years of incessant annoyance,' was set free from the enemy; and never again, from that day to the present, has a foreign army trod the soil of Massachusetts.2

of Boston.

This was Washington's first stroke in the war, and it was one of his most brilliant. With little loss he had cleared New England of the enemy, and had sent a thrill of joy over the whole country. In their haste the British left behind more than two hundred cannon and great quantities of muskets and ammunition, all of which became the property of Washington's army. Furthermore, the news of Howe's departure did not reach England for several weeks, and meantime vessels were being sent to Boston to supply the wants of the army and so they did, but not of the British army. They sailed innocently into the harbor, and were captured, and their contents went to increase the stores of the Continental army.

THE GREAT DECLARATION

Let us now go back for half a year and shift the scene again to Philadelphia, and the scene, covering some eight months, is the most dramatic of all the scenes in the drama. Early in the autumn of 1775 Congress was waiting to hear from the king. In deference to his Majesty, who would not recognize Congress as a legal body, the members had signed their humble petition, not as a body, but separately, as individuals representing their respective colonies.

1 It was exactly six years (March 5) since the Boston Massacre.

2 Except in the district of Maine in the War of 1812.