Chapter II: The Conflict Precipitated (2)

Howe was rallying his men for a third assault. Major Small had landed 400 marines, to make up in part for the losses. Clinton had seen how confused the troops were as he looked across the river with his glass, and had hurried over from Boston to render Howe help as a volunteer aid. The British general determined now to concentrate his attack upon the works on the crown of the hill, making only a demonstration against the rail-fence. He brought his artillery to bear in a way that scoured the breastwork which flanked the redoubt, and then he attacked. His column reserved their fire and relied on the bayonet. They met the American fire bravely, but soon perceived that it slackened; and surmising that the American powder was failing, they took new courage. Those of the defenders who had ammunition mowed down the assailants as they mounted the breastworks, Major Pitcairn among them;[413] but as soon as Prescott saw the defence was hopeless, he ordered a retreat, and friend and foe mingled together as they surged out of the sally-port amid the clouds of dust which the trampling raised, for a scorching sun had baked the new-turned soil. It was now, while the confused mass of beings rocked along down the rear slope of the hill, that Warren fell, shot through the head. No one among the Americans knew certainly that he was dead, as they left him. The British stopped to form and deliver fire, and there was thus time for a gap to open between the pursuers and the pursued. The New Hampshire men and others at the rail-fence, seeing that the redoubt was lost, tenaciously faced the enemy long enough to prevent Prescott's men from being cut off, and then stubbornly fell back. Some fresh troops which had come up endeavored to check the British as they reached the slope which led to the intrenchments that Putnam had been so solicitous about; but the British wave had now acquired an impulse which carried it bravely up the hill; and Putnam, skirring about, was not able to make anybody stand to defend the unfinished works. So down the westerly slope of the higher summit to the Neck the provincials fled, and the British followed. The vessels poured in their fire anew as the huddled runaways crossed the low land, and not till they got beyond the Neck was there any effectual movement by fresh troops to cover the retreat. General Howe fired a few cannon shot after them, as he mustered his forces on the hill. It was now about five o'clock. There was time in the long summer's day to advance upon Cambridge, but Howe rejected Clinton's advice to that end, and began, with other troops which had been sent to him from Boston, to throw up breastworks on the inland crown of Bunker Hill. Thus spading for their defence, the British passed the night, while the Americans lay on their arms on Winter and Prospect hills, or straggled back to Cambridge. There was no disposition on either side to renew the fight.

Prescott did not conceal his indignation at not having been better supported, when he made his report at Ward's headquarters. He knew he had fought well; but neither he nor his contemporaries understood at the time how a physical defeat might be a moral victory. Not knowing this, there was little else than mortification over the result,—indeed, on both sides. A wild daring had brought the battle on, and something like bravado had led the British general into a foolhardy direct assault, while more skilful plans, availing of their ships, might have accomplished more without the heavy loss which they had endured.[414] The British folly was increased by the way in which they allowed the provincials to make the first great fight of the war a political force throughout the continent.

From a plate in Valentine's _N. Y. City Manual_, 1851, p. 420.]

The general opinion seems to be that the Americans had about 1,500 men engaged at one time, and that from three to four thousand at different times took some part in it.[415] The British had probably about the same numbers in all, but were in excess of the Americans at all times while engaged.[416] The conflict with small arms lasted about ninety minutes.

On the morning of the 18th of June (Sunday) the British renewed the cannonading along their lines, as if to cover some movement, but nothing came of it, and each side used the shovel busily on the intrenchments. A shower in the afternoon stopped the firing.

* * * * *

There was a dilemma in New York a few days later. Governor Tryon, who had been in England, was already in the harbor ready to land on his return, and Washington was approaching through Jersey on his way to Boston. It was determined by the city authorities to address and extend courtesies to both. The American general chanced to be ahead, and got the parade and fair words first. Tryon disembarked a few hours later, and received the same tributes.[417]

It was Sunday, June 25, when Washington reached New York. He found the town excited over the recent battle, the news of which he had met a few hours out of Philadelphia.[418]

This is about half of the whole as given in fac-simile in Wilkinson's _Memoirs_, i. p. 855. The original is now among the Reed-Washington letters in the Carter-Brown library. It was the basis of Washington's first formal official letter to the president of Congress, which, as written out by Joseph Reed, is given in Sparks' _Washington_, iii. p. 17. It shows the degree of attention which the general bestowed on his minutes for his secretary's use.

Washington, on his first arrival, had taken temporary quarters in the house of the president of the college, known now as the Wadsworth house (_Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 107; Gay's _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 408), till the finest house in the town, one of a succession of mansions on the road to Watertown, was made ready for his use. These houses, which had all been deserted by their Tory owners, gave the name of Tory Row to this part of Cambridge. The one assigned to Washington's use was a Vassall house, later, however, known as the Craigie house, when it became the property of Andrew Craigie, from whose family it passed to the ownership of Longfellow, who died in it. Sparks lived in it when he edited _Washington's Writings_. It is familiar in engravings. Cf. _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. p. 113, with a note on various views of it; and for its associations, see Samuel Longfellow's _Life of H. W. Longfellow_; Irving's _Washington_, ii. p. 11; Greene's _Hist. View of the Amer. Rev._, p. 220; _Manhattan Mag._, i. 119; Mrs. Lamb's _Homes of America_; Gay's _Pop. Hist. U. S._, iii. 415. Among the other buildings of Revolutionary associations still standing in Cambridge are the Brattle house, the headquarters of Mifflin; the Vassall house, where Dr. Church was confined; the house where Jonathan Sewall lived, later occupied by General Riedesel; the Oliver house, now owned by James Russell Lowell; the "Bishop's Palace", where Burgoyne was quartered; and Christ Church, where Washington attended service (view in _Mass. Mag._, 1792, and compare Nicholas Hoppin's discourses, Nov. 22, 1857, and Oct. 15, 1861). For more of the historical associations of these Cambridge sites, see the _Harvard Book_; Drake's _Landmarks of Middlesex_; the Cambridge _Centennial Memorial_ (1875); William J. Stillman's _Poetic Localities of Cambridge_ (Boston, 1876); T.C. Amory's _Old and New Cambridge_; an illustrated paper in _Harper's Monthly_, Jan., 1876, another by Alexander Mackenzie, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1875; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, June, 1858, and Sept., 1872; and the book edited by Arthur Gilman, _Theatrum Majorum, The Cambridge of 1776_, which has an eclectic diary (by Mary W. Greely) of the siege, purporting to be that of one Dorothy Dudley.]

Among the letters now passing through New York was one upon that battle, addressed to the President of Congress, which Washington took the liberty of opening for his own guidance. After instructing Schuyler, who was to be left in charge of the forces in New York, to keep watch upon Tryon[419] and Guy Johnson,[420] Washington the next day (26th) started for Cambridge. On the 2d of July Washington reached Watertown, and on the 3d, under a tree still standing,[421] he took command of the army, which thus passed, in effect, under Continental control, numbering at the time nearly 15,000 men fit for duty.[422] To brigade this army, rectify the circumvallating lines, watch the constant skirmishes, and assign the new bodies of troops arriving to places in the works, was the labor to which Washington devoted himself at once. On the 9th of July he held his first council of war,[423] and on the 10th he addressed his first letter to Congress, describing the condition of the siege as he had found it.

To guard against surprise, and replenish the magazines, required constant diligence, and the supply of powder never ceased to be a cause of anxiety in the one camp, while the diminishing stock of provisions produced almost as much concern in Boston. The beleaguered British, however, got some relief from the exodus of the Boston people, which the stress of want forced the royal commander to permit.[424] So the summer was made up of anxious moments. The independent husbandmen of New England made but intractable raw recruits, and Washington, who had expected to find discipline equal to that which the social distinctions of the South gave to the masses there, was disappointed, and did not wholly conceal his disgust.[425] He grew, however, to discern that campaigns could produce that discipline as well, if not better, than a life of civil subservience. Recruits came in from the South, and when some of the Northern officers saw the kind of men that Morgan and others brought as riflemen from Virginia, their comment was scarcely less austere. "The army would be as well off without them", said Thomas, who, next to Washington, was the best disciplinarian in the camp. Of the generals, Lee was, however, by much the most conspicuous. There was a glamour about the current rumors of his soldierly experience that obscured what might have been told of his questionable character.[426] His eccentricities were the camp talk, and rather served to magnify his presence, while it proved dangerous to perambulate the lines with him and his crowd of dogs, since the exhibition tempted the enemy to drop their shells in that spot.[427] Early in July a trumpeter approached the American lines bringing a letter from General Burgoyne to General Lee, and the camp straightway proceeded to invest the strange general with political importance. Burgoyne and Lee were old campaigners together, and Lee, before he left Philadelphia, had written a stirring letter to the British general on the bad prospects of the ministerial policy. The letter which now came was a reply, and proposed a conference on Boston Neck, to which Congress advised Lee not to accede, and the momentary ripple subsided.[428]

In August there was some correspondence with Gage respecting the treatment of prisoners, in which Washington appears to the better advantage.[429] The correspondence of the American general during the summer constantly dwells upon the scarcity of powder, though for prudence' sake he veils his expressions as much as he can. His own troops and even Congress had no conception of his want, and while Washington hardly dared fire a salute because of the powder it would take, Richard Henry Lee, from Philadelphia, was urging him to plant batteries at the mouth of Boston harbor, and keep the enemy's vessels from coming in and going out.[430] Governor Cooke, of Rhode Island, who was doing his best to get powder from Bermuda, was compelled to keep the secret too. Apparently Washington did not let his brigade commanders know the whole truth.[431] Under these circumstances Washington had no courage to attack, and Gage, on his part, was content to keep his men from deserting as best he could.

During September the threatening manœuvres of the British cruisers along the Connecticut coast[432] kept Governor Trumbull from sending what powder he had, and there was little hope, when Washington called a council of war on the 11th, that anything would come of it. There had been just then some internal manifestations not very reassuring.[433] A letter which Dr. Benjamin Church had tried to get to the British in Newport harbor had been intercepted, and its cypher interpreted. There was no expressed defection made clear by it, but suspicions were aroused, and Church, being arrested, was summoned before the congress at Watertown, where he made a speech protesting his innocence, but scarcely quieting the suspicions. He was put under control, and removed from the neighborhood of the army.[434]

There was scarce less gratification in the camp at Cambridge in getting rid of their doubtful associate than was experienced in Boston in getting a release from their sluggish general. The ministry had saved that soldier's pride as much as they could in desiring to have him nearer at hand for counsel;[435] and the sympathetic loyalists whom he had befriended paid him their compliments in an address. Gage finally, on October 10, issued his last order, turning over the command to Howe.[436]

In the middle of October, the burning of Falmouth, the modern Portland, in Maine, seemed to make it clear that the war was to be conducted ruthlessly on the British part. Captain Mowatt, with a small fleet, had entered the harbor and set the town on fire, and to those who communicated with him it was said that he announced his doings to be but the beginning of a course of such outrages. When the news reached Washington, he dispatched Sullivan to Portsmouth, with orders to resist as far as he could any similar demonstration there.[437] What a modern British historian[438] has called a "wanton and cruel deed" seems to have been but the hasty misjudgment of an inferior officer, without orders to warrant the act, and the ministry promptly disowned the responsibility.[439] During October, also, a committee of Congress,[440] visiting Washington's camp, could see for themselves the troubles of their heroic commander. They had not yet heard in Philadelphia the roar of hostile guns,—a sensation they might now experience. They could share Washington's perplexities as the new enlistments halted upon the expiration of the old,[441] and perhaps join in some of his kindly merriment when Phillis Wheatley, the negress, addressed his Excellency in no very bad verses.[442]

[443]

[NOTE.—This and the three companion sketches are drawn from a panoramic view in colors, now in the Cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Soc., of which a much reduced heliotype is given in the _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 80. This view is a copy by Lieutenant Woodd of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, from the original by Lieutenant Williams, of the same regiment, which is preserved in the King's Library (Brit. Museum). Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, iv. 397, 424; _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 80.

The foreground on the left is the summit of Beacon Hill, not far from the spot where the State House now stands, though at a level considerably higher than the present one. Two of the guns now standing on Cambridge Common were taken from the dock in Boston after the British evacuated it, and they resemble the cannon here sketched, and one of them may possibly be that identical gun. The spire at the left would seem to be that of the First Church, which stood on the present Washington Street nearly opposite the head of State Street. (Cf. view of it in _Memorial History of Boston_, ii. 219.) The spire next to the right must have been that of the Old South Church. That on the extreme right would seem to be the steeple of the New South (Church Green) in Summer Street, now disappeared.]

In No. 2 the Hancock House is in the foreground. The earliest sketch of this house is a very small one, making part of the Price-Faneuil View of Boston (1743), and its presence in which and other data led to the suspicion that this 1743 view was from an old plate, which had been originally cut twenty years earlier, and this was subsequently proven. Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xviii. 68; xxi. 249. The earliest enlarged view of the house is in the _Mass. Mag._, 1789. Cf. _Mem. Hist. Bost._, iii. 202. An oil painting, belonging to Mrs. F. E. Bacon, is on deposit in the halls of the Bostonian Society, where, also, are some interior views of the house.

The British encampments on Boston Common are indicated in the foreground at the left. The parallel lines (8) show the neck connecting Boston with Roxbury. The meeting-house (10) on the distant land is that of the First Religious Parish in Roxbury, on the site now occupied by the church near the Norfolk Home. The American fort just beyond (at 11) was on a rocky summit, where now the stand-pipe of the Cochituate Water Works is placed.]

No. 3 shows in the foreground the most westerly of the three summits of Beacon Hill (Louisbourg Square—though much lower, the hill having been cut down—represents its present site), and the rope walks. There is a similar water-color drawing among the Peter Force maps and views in the library of Congress.

The inward curve of the nearer shore on the right of the picture represents the area now including Cambridge Street and the territory north of it, below Blossom Street, covering the approaches to the bridge now leading to Cambridge, the oldest parts of which near the College are shown at 16; while at 17 we have the American encampments at Prospect Hill, the modern Somerville. The American works between the College and Charles River seem to be intended by 15. The mouth of the river is seemingly indicated by the point of land just below the number 14, which apparently stands for the Brookline fort and its connections, in the modern Longwood. Between the man in the foreground and the somewhat abrupt eminence beyond him, was a depression in the outline of the ridge, not far from the head of the present Anderson Street.]

No. 4 has the Old West Church in the foreground, where Jonathan Mayhew preached. Its spire was subsequently taken down by the British to prevent its use as a signal station for the friends of the provincials. It stood till 1806, when the present edifice was built. (Drake's _Landmarks_, 374.)

This picture is substantially duplicated on another page, in the Rawdon view, sketched during the continuance of the battle of Bunker Hill. The Mount Pisca (Pisgah) at 19 the present Prospect Hill in Somerville. The lines of Winter Hill and Ploughed Hill would be in the direction of 20. At 27 is a glimpse of the Mystick River seen beyond Charlestown Neck, the armed British transport at 16 commanding the road over that neck. At 22 are the new works of the British, begun after the battle of Bunker Hill, and shown in the contemporary plan of the Charlestown peninsula, given on another page, while the British encampment is on the inner slope of the hill, at 23. Below, and along the shore (24, 24), are indicated the ruins of Charlestown, while the figures 25 mark the position of the redoubt which was defended by Colonel Prescott and his men. The house on the hither shore, below the transport, marks nearly the spot where the present bridge to East Cambridge begins. In the foreground on the extreme right are somewhat vague indications of the dam inclosing the mill-pond, in which the present Haymarket Square occupies a central position.]

Perhaps they may have had the grim satisfaction of riding to distant parts of the lines in Thomas Hutchinson's coach, kept now for the general's use, if we may believe the refugee himself.[444]

A little later, Josiah Quincy, who from his house at Braintree could look out upon the harbor, had been urging Washington to block the channel, and thus imprison the British ships there at anchor, and prevent the coming of others. Washington appreciated the motives of that ardent patriot, but he would have liked better the cannon and powder that would have rendered the plan feasible.[445] At all events, the possible chances of the plan made not a very pleasant prospect for Howe, who had already set his mind—as, indeed, the ministry had already advised[446]—upon evacuating the town; but his ships were as yet not sufficient for the task, and hardly sufficient to protect his supply-boats from the improvised navy which Washington had been for some time commissioning.[447]

John Adams, in Philadelphia, was getting uneasy over the apparent inaction of Washington, and wrote in November (1775) to Mercy Warren that Mrs. Washington was going to Cambridge,[448] and he hoped she might prove to have ambition enough for her husband's glory to give occasion to the Lord to have mercy on the souls of Howe and Burgoyne![449]

The left wing of the beleaguering army was now pushed forward and occupied Cobble Hill, the site of the present McLean Asylum, and the two armies watched each other at closer quarters than before, the almost foolhardy Americans feeling increased confidence when the fortunate captain of an ordnance brig gave them a supply of munitions. In December, Massachusetts and New Hampshire[450] promptly supplied the loss of Connecticut and Rhode Island troops, who were not to be induced to prolong their enlistments. Washington was cheered with this alacrity of a portion, at least, of the New England yeomen, and he suffered as many as he could of those who had come hastily to the camp in the spring to go home on brief furloughs to make winter provision for their families. Before the year was out, Congress had authorized Washington to destroy Boston if he found it necessary. The British general was, on his part, organizing in that town a Royal Regiment of Highland Emigrants,[451] and other loyalist battalions, putting Ruggles, Forrest, and Gorham in command of them.[452]

On the first of January, 1776, the federal flag, with its thirteen stripes and British Union,[453] was first raised over the American camp, and their council of war was inspirited to determine upon an attack, as soon as the chances of success seemed favorable; but the prudent ones trusted rather to Howe's evacuating through his straits for provisions, and held back from the final decision. It was not forgotten that 2,000 men were still without firelocks, and there was not much powder in the magazines. The total environing army scarce numbered ten thousand men fit for duty, and they were stretched out in a long circumvallation, while the enemy could mass at least half that number on any one point, and had a fleet to sustain them. Howe had not shown a much more active spirit than Gage had displayed, and there was a feeling in the British camp that he was too timid for the task,[454] and there could not have been much hopefulness in seeing so much better a general as Clinton sent off in January with several regiments, to join other forces and a fleet on the coast of North Carolina.[455] Washington meanwhile kept up a show of activity, and when, on the evening of January 8, he sent Knowlton on a marauding scout into Charlestown, there was a little flutter of excitement in Boston for fear it foreboded more serious work, and the British officers were hastily summoned to their posts from the play-house, where they were diverting themselves,[456]—the play on this particular occasion being something they had planned, and called _The Boston Blockade_.

* * * * *

As early as the middle of June, 1775, General Wooster, with some Connecticut troops, had by invitation of Congress marched to the neighborhood of New York, to be prepared for any demonstration from British ships which might attempt to land troops, for the British naval power was and continued to be supreme in the harbor till Washington occupied the city.

Before Clinton had left Boston, Washington, under Lee's urgency, had decided to possess New York, and the plan, which was submitted to John Adams, as representing the Congress, met with that gentleman's approval.[457] Lee was accordingly sent into Connecticut to organize such a force as he could for advancing on that city.[458] He kept Washington informed of his success in these preliminaries, and finally reached New York himself on February 4,[459] and here he remained till it was ascertained that Clinton was proceeding to the South, where he was instructed to follow that general and confront him as best he could, as we shall presently see.[460]

The chief event of February, 1776, was the arrival of the cannon captured at Ticonderoga, and the placing them in the siege batteries along the American lines, for Washington had dispatched Knox to bring these much needed cannon to him. John Adams records meeting them on their way at Framingham, January 25;[461] and when the train of fifty pieces and other munitions reached the lines, there was something less of anxiety than there had been before.[462] The army, however, was still deficient in small arms, and Washington wrote urgently to the New York authorities for assistance of that kind.[463]

By the first of March powder had been obtained in considerable quantities, and Washington opened a bombardment from all parts of his lines, which was deemed necessary to conceal a projected movement. During the night of March 4-5, General Thomas, from the Roxbury lines,[464] with 2,500 men, took possession of Dorchester Heights.[465] It was moonlight, but the men worked on without discovery, and by morning had thrown up a cover. Both armies now laid plans for battle.

After a photograph of a view in the British Museum. Cf. similar views in _Moore's Diary of the Amer. Rev._, i. 97; _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. p. 156; Lossing's _Field-Book_; Grant's _British Battles_, ii. 138. The house in the left foreground is the house built by Governor Shirley. It is still standing, but much changed. See a view of it in the frontispiece of _Mem. Hist. Boston_, vol. ii.

There is a view of the town and harbor in the _Pennsylvania Mag._, June, 1773; and others of a later date are in the _Columbian Mag._, Dec., 1787; _Mass. Mag._, June, 1791. Cf. Winsor's _Readers' Handbook of the Amer. Rev._, p. 66, for other views and descriptions.]

After a photograph of a view in the British Museum.]

Howe determined to attack the Heights by a front and flank assault. Washington reinforced Thomas, and planned at the same time to move on Boston by boats across the back bay. The British dropped down on transports to the Castle, but a long storm delayed the projected movement. This so effectually gave the Americans time to increase their defences that the British general saw that to evacuate the town was the least of all likely evils. As he began to show signs of such a movement, the Americans began to speculate upon their significance. Heath, at least, was fearful that the appearances were only a cloak to cover an intention to land suddenly somewhere between Cambridge and Squantum.[466] But the genuineness of Howe's intention gradually became apparent, as, indeed, evacuation with him was a necessity, while Admiral Shuldam also saw that his fleet, too, was immediately imperilled from the newly raised works on Dorchester Heights. So Howe had scarce an alternative but to give a tacit consent to a plan of the selectmen of Boston for him to leave the town uninjured, if his troops were suffered to embark undisturbed. Washington entered upon no formal agreement to that end, but acquiesced silently as Howe had done.[467] There was still some cannonading as Washington pushed his batteries nearer Boston on the Dorchester side, at Nook's Hill, teaching Howe the necessity of increased expedition. By early light on the 17th of March it was discovered that Howe had begun to embark his troops, and by nine o'clock the last boat had pushed off, completing a roll, including seamen, fit for duty, of about 11,000 men, with about a thousand refugees.[468] The Continentals were alert, and their advanced guards promptly entered the British works on the several sides. The enemy's ships fell down the harbor unmolested; but that night they blew up Castle William, and the vessels gathered together in Nantasket Roads. Here they remained for ten days, causing Washington not a little anxiety; and he wrote to Quincy, at Braintree, to have all the roads from the landings patrolled, lest the British should send spies into the country.[469] On the 27th, all but a few armed vessels, intended to warn off belated succor,[470] had disappeared in the direction of Halifax.[471]

Ward was left with five regiments to hold the town and its neighborhood,[472] while Colonel Gridley, "whom I have been taught to view", said Washington, "as one of the greatest engineers of the age", was directed to fortify the sea approaches.[473]

After an original in the collection of _Proclamations_ in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society. Cf. _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. p. 181; Sparks's _Washington_, iii. 322; Niles's _Principles and Acts_ (1876), p. 127. Curwen records, when the proclamation reached London, that its prohibition of plunder "was a source of comfort."]

Washington gradually moved his remaining army to New York, not without apprehension at one time that he would have to direct them to Rhode Island, for a fog had befooled some people in Newport into sending him a message that the British fleet was in the offing there. He left Cambridge himself April 4th, not for Virginia, as some good people imagined he would do, out of loyalty to his province,[474] but to defend as he could the line of the Hudson, of which signs were already accumulating that it was the game for each side to secure. A few of the enemy's ships still hung about Nantasket Roads, and some desultory fighting occurred in the harbor.[475] The British, however, failed to prevent some important captures of munition vessels being made. It was not till June that General Lincoln, with a militia force, brought guns to bear upon the still lingering enemy, when they sailed away, and Boston was at last free of a hostile force.

It is now necessary to follow two other movements, which had been begun while the siege of Boston was in progress, the one to the north, and the other to the south.

The exploits of Allen and Arnold at Ticonderoga, already related, had invited further conquests; but the Continental Congress hesitated to take any steps which might seem to carry war across the line till the Canadians had the opportunity of casting in their lot with their neighbors. On the 1st of June, 1775, Congress had distinctly avowed this purpose of restraint; and they well needed to be cautious, for the Canadian French had not forgotten the bitter aspersions on their religion which Congress had, with little compunction, launched upon its professors, under the irritation of the Quebec Act. Still their rulers were aliens, and the traditional hatred of centuries between races is not easily kept in abeyance. Ethan Allen was more eager to avail himself of this than Congress was to have him; but the march of events converted the legislators, and the opportunity which Allen grieved to see lost was not so easily regained when Congress at last authorized the northern invasion. Arnold and Allen had each aimed to secure the command of such an expedition, the one by appealing to the Continental Congress, the other by representations to that of New York. Allen had also gone in person to Philadelphia, and he and his Green Mountain Boys were not without influence upon Congress, in their quaint and somewhat rough ways, as their exuberant patriotism later made the New York authorities forget their riotous opposition to the policy which that province had been endeavoring to enforce in the New Hampshire Grants. Connecticut had already sent forward troops to Ticonderoga to hold that post till Congress should decide upon some definite action; and at the end of June, 1775, orders reached Schuyler which he might readily interpret as authorizing him, if the Canadians did not object, to advance upon Canada.[476] He soon started to assume command, but speedily found matters unpromising. The Johnsons were arming the Indians up the Mohawk and beyond in a way that boded no good, and they had entered into compacts with the British commanders in Canada. Arnold had been at Ticonderoga, and had quarrelled with Hinman, the commander of the Connecticut troops. Schuyler heard much of the Green Mountain Boys, but he only knew them as the lawless people of the Grants, and soon learned that Allen and Warner had themselves set to quarrelling. Presently, however, Allen reported at Ticonderoga for special service, as he had been cast off by his own people. Another volunteer, Major John Brown, was sent by Schuyler into Canada for information. Schuyler's position was a trying one. He had few troops of his own province. The Connecticut troops were too lax in discipline to suit his ideas of military propriety, and his temperament had little to induce him to make concessions to the exigencies of the conditions.[477] With the best heart he could, he tried to organize his force for an advance, and assisted, in Indian conferences at Albany, to disarm, as far as he might, the Mohawks of their hostility.

In August the news from Canada began to be alarming. Richard Montgomery, an Irish officer who had some years before left the army to settle on the Hudson and marry, was now one of the new brigadiers. He urged Schuyler to advance and anticipate the movement now said to be intended by Carleton, the English general commanding in Canada. At this juncture Schuyler got word from Washington that a coöperating expedition would be dispatched by way of the Kennebec, which, if everything went well, might unite with Schuyler's before Quebec.

Montgomery had already started from Ticonderoga, and it was not till the foot of Lake Champlain had been reached that Schuyler overtook him, and, with an effective force of about 1,000 men, he now prepared, on the 6th of September, to advance upon St. Johns. The demonstration caused a little bloodshed, but, getting information which deceived him, he fell back to the Isle-aux-Noix, and prepared to hold it against a counter attack, and to prevent any vessel of the enemy penetrating to the lake. The outlook for a while was not auspicious. Malaria made sad inroads among the men, and of those who were left on duty, insubordination and lack of discipline, and perhaps a shade of treachery, impaired their efficiency. Schuyler was prostrate on his bed, and Montgomery was forced to unmilitary expedients because of the temper of his troops. Schuyler's disorder seeming to have permanently mastered him, he resigned the command to Montgomery and returned up the lake. He had, at least, the satisfaction of meeting reinforcements pushing down to the main body. Before these arrived Montgomery had begun the siege of St. Johns, and he was pressing it, when Ethan Allen, whom Montgomery was expecting to join him, met with Brown, and these two planned an attack on Montreal. It was attempted, but Brown and his men failed to coöperate, and Allen and those he had with him were finally captured.[478] When the Canadians heard that the redoubtable Green Mountain leader was in irons on board an English vessel bound for Halifax,[479] a great deal was done towards awakening them from that spell of neutrality upon which the American campaign so much depended for success.

So Montgomery continued to keep his lines about St. Johns with great discouragement. He met every embarrassment which a hastily improvised and undisciplined mass of men could impose upon a man who was of high spirit and knew what soldierly discipline ought to be. A gleam of hope at last came. He detached a party to attack Fort Chamblée, further down the Sorel, and it succeeded (October 18), and he was thus enabled to replenish his store of ammunition, which was by this time running low.[480] So Montgomery was enabled to press the siege of St. Johns with renewed vigor. When Wooster, the veteran Connecticut general, joined him with the troops of that colony, there was some apprehension that the younger Montgomery might find it difficult to maintain his higher rank against the rather too independent spirit of the old fighter.[481] No disturbance, however, occurred, and both worked seemingly in union of spirit. Every effort of Carleton to relieve the British commander at St. Johns failing, that officer surrendered the post, and, on November 3d, Montgomery took possession.

* * * * *

We may turn now to the expedition that Washington had promised to dispatch from Cambridge, and which had been thought of as early as May. Benedict Arnold had hurried from Crown Point to lay his grievances before the commander-in-chief. It seemed to Washington worth while to assuage his passions and to profit by his dashing valor, for he had by this time become convinced that Howe had no intention of venturing beyond his lines. So Arnold was commissioned Colonel, and given command of the new expedition, and the satisfied leader saw gathering about him various quick spirits, better recognized later. Such was Morgan, who led some Virginia riflemen, and Aaron Burr, who sprang to the occasion as a volunteer.[482] Washington provided Arnold with explicit instructions, and with an address to circulate among the Canadians.[483] About eleven hundred men proceeded from Cambridge to Newburyport, whence, by vessel and bateaux, they reached Fort Western (Augusta, Maine), towards the end of September. Here the expeditionary force plunged into the wilderness, up the Kennebec, environed with perils and the burdens of labor. Suffering and nerving against vexations and weariness that grew worse as they went on, they saw the sick and disheartened fall out, and found their rear companies deserting for want of food.[484] Those that were steadfast were forced to eat moccasins and anything. On they struggled to the ridge of land which marked the summit of the water-shed between the Atlantic and the St. Lawrence. Then began the descent of the Chaudière, perilous amid the rush of its waters, which overturned their boats, and sent much of what stores they had left on a headlong drive down the stream. At last the open country was reached, and Arnold stopped to refresh the survivors. He dispatched Burr to see if he could find Montgomery,[485] and, making the most of the friendly assistance of the neighboring inhabitants, Arnold advanced to Point Levi, and began to make preparations for crossing the St. Lawrence. The city of Quebec looked across the basin in amazement on a stout little army, of whose coming, however, they had had an intimation; while Arnold's men were hard at work making or finding canoes and scaling-ladders.

Meanwhile where was Montgomery, whom Burr, disguised as a priest, and speaking French or Latin as required, was seeking up the river? He had got possession of Montreal without a blow, and sending Colonel Easton down to the mouth of the Sorel, that officer intercepted the little flotilla with which Carleton was trying to reach Quebec, and captured all of the fugitives except Carleton himself, who escaped in a disguise by night. The news of Arnold, which Burr at last brought to Montgomery, made that general more anxious than ever to push on to Quebec, but the expiration of the enlistments of some of his men much perplexed him, and he was obliged to make many promises to hold his army together. Before Montgomery could reach him, Arnold had in the night taken about 550 men across the river, and ascending at Wolfe's Cove, he had paraded them before the walls and demanded a surrender. The garrison was small, and in part doubtful, and the inhabitants were more than doubtful, but the lieutenant-governor, Cramahé, with his stanchest troops, the Royal Scotch, overawed the rest, and kept the gates closed. The vaporing Arnold had been known in the past within the town as a horse-jockey, and his promise as a general, with his shivering crowd, did not greatly impress those whom he had somewhat farcically beleaguered. In a day or two Arnold became frightened and drew off his men, strengthened now a little by others who had crossed the river. Unmolested he went up the river, to keep within reach of Montgomery, perceiving as he went up the banks the succor for Quebec which Carleton, having picked up men here and there, was bringing down by water.

From the _Political Mag._, iii. 351. Cf. Jones's _Campaign for the Conquest of Canada_, p. 112; _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, June, 1883, p. 409; Moore's _Diary of the Revolution_, p. 454; B. Sulte's _Hist. des Canadiens français_ (as Lord Dorchester, to which rank Carleton was subsequently raised).]

By the 1st of December, Montgomery, with three armed schooners and only 300 men, reached Arnold at Point-aux-Trembles. The united forces now turned their faces towards Quebec, less than a thousand in all, with a body of two hundred Canadians, under Colonel James Livingston, acting in conjunction; and on the 5th were before the town. Carleton haughtily scorned all advances of Montgomery to communicate with him, and devoted himself to overawing the town, quite content that the rigors of winter should alone attack the invaders. While the Americans were making some show of planting siege-batteries, plans for assault were in reality maturing, and a stormy night was awaited to carry them out. It came on the night before the last day of the year. While two feints were to be made on the upper plain, the main assaults were to be along the banks of the St. Charles and the St. Lawrence, from opposite sides, with a view to joining and gaining the upper town from the lower. Montgomery led the attack beneath Cape Diamond on the St. Lawrence side, and while in advance with a small vanguard, and unsuspecting that his approach was discovered, he was opened upon with grape, and fell, with others about him.[486] His death was the end of the assault on that side. Arnold was at first successful in carrying the barriers opposed to him, but was soon severely wounded and taken to the rear. Morgan, who succeeded to the command, was pressing their advantage, when Carleton, relieved by Montgomery's failure, and by the discovery that the other attacks meant nothing, sent out a force, which so hemmed Morgan in, that, having already learned of Montgomery's failure, he found it prudent to surrender with the few hundred men still clinging to him. The Americans elsewhere in the field hastily withdrew to their camp, and Carleton was too suspicious of the townspeople to dare to take any further advantage of his success.

The command of the Americans now devolved on Lieutenant-Colonel Donald Campbell, who sent an express to Wooster at Montreal, urging him to come and take the control. That general thought it more prudent to hold Montreal as a base,[487] and remained where he was, while he forwarded the dismal news to his superior, Schuyler, at Albany, who had quite enough on his hands to overawe Sir John Johnson and the Tories up the Mohawk. The succession of Wooster to the command in Canada boded no good to the New York general, and led to such crimination and recrimination between the two that Congress, towards spring (1776), took steps to relieve Schuyler of the general charge of the campaign. Thomas, who had rendered himself conspicuous in driving the British from Boston, was made a major-general (March 6), and was ordered to take the active command in Canada. A New England general for troops in the main from those colonies seemed desirable, and Thomas was certainly the best of those furnished by Massachusetts during the early days of the war.

Meanwhile Arnold, amid the snows, was audaciously seeming to keep up the siege of Quebec in his little camp, three miles from the town. Small-pox was beginning to make inroads on his little army, scarce at some periods exceeding five hundred effective men. Wooster finally came from Montreal on the first of April, and assumed command. For the influence intended to soothe and gain the Canadians to pass from the courtly Montgomery to the rigid and puritanical Wooster was a great loss, and it soon became manifest in the growing hostility of the people of the neighboring country. It was by such a pitiful force that Carleton allowed himself to be shut up in Quebec for five months.

This was the condition of affairs when a commission, consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll, was sent by Congress, with delegated powers, to act with prompter decision on the spot.[488] They reached Albany early in April, and found Thomas, from Boston, already there. So the two generals, Schuyler and Thomas, pushed on ahead of the commissioners, and, with the reinforcements now setting towards Canada, before and behind them, it seemed as if a new vigor might be exerted upon the so far disastrous Northern campaign. Thomas directed his course to Quebec, while the commissioners went to Montreal, where they found the most gloomy apprehensions existing, and were soon convinced that, without hard money and troops, Canada must be relinquished. Franklin returned to Philadelphia to impress this upon Congress, while Schuyler was at his wits' ends to find men, provisions, and money to send forward, till Congress should act.

Washington, by this time in New York with the troops which had forced the evacuation of Boston, yielded to the orders of Congress, and sent Sullivan of New Hampshire with a brigade, carrying money and provisions, to reinforce the wretched army in Canada, thereby diminishing, with great risk, his own force to less than 5,000 men. Thomas had at this time reached Quebec (May 1), where he found, out of the 1,900 men constituting the beleaguering army, only about a thousand not in hospital, and scarcely five hundred of these were effective troops. It was necessary to do something at once, for the breaking ice told the American general that a passage was preparing for a British fleet, which was known to be below. Plans for an assault on the town miscarried, and while Thomas was beginning to remove his sick preparatory to a retreat, three British men-of-war appeared in the basin. They landed troops, and gave Carleton an opportunity to hang upon the rear of the retreating invaders, and pick up prisoners and cannon. He did not pursue them far.[489]

Near the same time a force of British and Tories, coming down the river from Ontario, had fallen upon Arnold's outpost at Cedar Rapids, above Montreal, and had captured its garrison. Thus disaster struck both ends of the American line of occupation. The force under Thomas was withdrawing to the Sorel, when Burgoyne, with large reinforcements, landed at Quebec. Up the Sorel the Americans retreated, joined now by the troops under Thompson, which Washington had earlier sent from New York. Thomas[490] soon died (June 2) of small-pox at Chamblée; and Wooster being recalled, Sullivan, who now met the army, took the command, and pushing forward to the mouth of the Sorel, prepared to make a stand. He soon sent a force under Thompson towards Three Rivers, to oppose the approaching British, now reaching 13,000 in number, either at Quebec or advancing from it,—a number to confront, of which apparently Sullivan had no conception. This general himself possessed hardly more than 2,500 men, for Arnold, instead of reinforcing him, as directed, had left Montreal for Chamblée. The action at Three Rivers, of which the cannonading had been heard at the Sorel, proved a disastrous defeat. It was followed by the British vessels pushing up the river, and as soon as they came in sight Sullivan broke camp and also retreated to Chamblée, followed languidly by Burgoyne. Here Sullivan joined Arnold, and the united fugitives, of whom a large part were weakened by inoculation, continued the retreat to the Isle-aux-Noix, thence on to Crown Point, where early in July the poor fragmentary army found a little rest,—five thousand in all, and of these at least one half were in hospital.[491]

From a plate in Valentine's _N. Y. City Manual_, 1851.]

* * * * *

We may glance now at the progress of events to the southward. In Virginia, Dunmore, the royal governor, hearing of Gage's proclamation proscribing Hancock and Adams, feared that he might be seized as a hostage, and took safety on board a man-of-war in Yorktown harbor. Events soon moved rapidly in that quarter.[492] Patrick Henry, perhaps a little unadvisedly, was made commander of their militia.[493] In due time, from his floating capitol, Dunmore issued his proclamation granting freedom to slaves of rebels,[494] and had directed a motley crew of his adherents to destroy the colonial stores at Suffolk, and this led to a brisk engagement at the Great Bridge (December 9, 1775), not far from Norfolk, in which the royalists were totally defeated.[495] The destruction of that town, now under the guns of the royal vessels, soon followed, on the first of January, 1776.[496]

On the 27th of February, 1776, the Scotch settlers of North Carolina, instigated by Martin, the royal governor, and under the lead of their chief, Macdonald,[497] endeavored to scatter a force of militia at Moore's Creek Bridge, but were brought to bay, and compelled to surrender about half of a force which had numbered fifteen or sixteen hundred.[498]

Early in 1776 the task was assigned to Clinton, who had in January departed from Boston, as we have seen, to force and hold the Southern colonies to their allegiance, and Cornwallis, with troops, was sent over under convoy of Sir Peter Parker's fleet, to give Clinton the army he needed. The fleet did not reach North Carolina till May. In March, Lee, while in New York, had wished to be ordered to the command in Canada, as "he was the only general officer on the continent who could speak and think in French." He was disappointed, and ordered farther south.[499] By May he was in Virginia, ridding the country of Tories, and trying to find out where Parker intended to land.[500] It was expected that Clinton would return north to New York in season to operate with Howe, when he opened the campaign there in the early summer, as that general expected to do, and the interval for a diversion farther south was not long. Lee had now gone as far as Charleston (S. C.), and taken command in that neighborhood, while in charge of the little fort at the entrance of the harbor was William Moultrie, upon whom Lee was inculcating the necessity of a slow and sure fire,[501] in case it should prove that Parker's destination, as it might well be, was to get a foothold in the Southern provinces, and break up the commerce which fed the rebellion through that harbor.

Reduced from the plan in Johnson's _Traditions and Reminiscences of the Amer. Revolution in the South_ (Charleston, S. C., 1851). It shows that the rear portion of the fort had not been finished when the attack took place. The same plate has an enlarged plan of the fort only. See the maps in Drayton's _Memoirs of the Amer. Rev. in the South_ (Charleston, 1821, two vols.), ii. 290, which is similar to Johnson's Ramsay's _Rev. in S. Carolina_, i. 144, which is of less area; and that in Gordon's _Amer. Revolution_, iii. 358. These are the maps of American origin. Lossing (ii. 754) follows Johnson.]

The people of Charleston had been for some time engaged on their defences, and "seem to wish a trial of their mettle", wrote a looker-on.[502] The fort in question was built of palmetto logs, and was unfinished on the land side. Its defenders had four days' warning, and the neighboring militia were summoned. On the 4th of June the hostile fleet appeared,[503] and having landed troops on an adjacent island, it was not till the 27th that their dispositions were made for an attack.