From Farm House to the White House Part 42

They were received in camp with the wildest demonstrations of joy. A few weeks later a long, lumbering train of wagons, laden with military stores captured on the sea, came into camp. Washington had been forced to send out cruisers, by the action of General Gage in arming vessels to capture supplies along the American coast. One of his cruisers captured a brigantine ladened with munitions of war,--two thousand stand of arms, one hundred thousand flints, thirty thousand round shot, and thirty-two tons musket b.a.l.l.s,--which were taken into Cape Ann, and transported from thence on wagons to Cambridge.

In this way, as well as by the action of Congress and the Provincial Legislatures, the army of Washington was strengthened and equipped. The British were so thoroughly entrenched in Boston, and their army so well disciplined and powerful, that it would have been foolhardy for Washington to attack them; besides, an attack would have resulted in burning the city and sacrificing the lives of many friends who lived there.

"British officers must understand that men fighting for their country are patriots, and not malefactors," remarked Washington to Mr. Reed, his secretary. "Cruelty to prisoners anyway is contrary to all the rules of civilized warfare."

"Well, we are 'rebels,' you know," replied Reed sarcastically, "and General Gage thinks that 'rebels' have no claim upon his clemency."

"Cruelty to prisoners is not confined to General Gage," responded Washington. "There is no doubt that the king holds Allen [Ethan] in irons, and his fellow-captives, which is treating prisoners of war as savages do."

Ethan Allen was the famous patriot who led two hundred and thirty men against Fort Ticonderoga, and captured it in May, 1775. He surprised the commander, and demanded an immediate surrender.

"By whose authority do you make this demand?" inquired the officer in charge.

"In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" shouted Allen.

He was captured by General Prescott in Canada.

"Were the king's forces in Boston to sally forth and conquer our army, the rules of civilized warfare would be of no account to them, I am thinking;" suggested Mr. Reed. "It behooves us to keep out of their clutches, or die in the attempt."

The cruelty of British officers to prisoners was the subject of frequent discussion between Washington and his advisers, and finally he wrote to General Gage as follows:

"I understand that the officers engaged in the cause of liberty and their country, who, by the fortune of war have fallen into your hands, have been thrown indiscriminately into a common jail, appropriated to felons; that no consideration has been had for those of the most respectable rank, when languishing with wounds and sickness, and that some have been amputated in this unworthy situation.... The obligations arising from the rights of humanity and claims of rank are universally binding and extensive, except in case of retaliation. These, I should have hoped, would have dictated a more tender treatment of those individuals whom chance or war had put in your power.... My duty now makes it necessary to apprise you that, for the future, I shall regulate all my conduct towards those gentlemen who are, or may be, in our possession, exactly by the rule you shall observe toward those of ours now in your custody.

"If severity and hardships mark the line of your conduct, painful as it may be to me, your prisoners will feel its effects. But if kindness and humanity are shown to us, I shall with pleasure consider those in our hands only as unfortunate, and they shall receive from me that treatment to which the unfortunate are ever ent.i.tled."

The reply of General Gage was characteristic of a conceited, ambitious, and domineering officer of the king, and Washington closed his reply to it with these words:

"I shall now, sir, close my correspondence with you, perhaps forever. If your officers, our prisoners, receive a treatment from me different from that which I wished to show them, they and you will remember the occasion of it."

Subsequently, Washington ordered British officers at Watertown and Cape Ann, who were at large on parole, to be confined in the jail at Northampton, explaining to them that it was not agreeable to his feelings of humanity, but according to the treatment of Americans whom the officers of the crown held as prisoners. But he could not tolerate even this mild form of retaliation, and therefore in a short time he revoked the order, and the prisoners were at large again.

"I was never more distressed in mind than I am now," remarked Washington to a member of his staff.

"Why so?"

"Within a few days this army will be reduced to less than ten thousand men by the expiration of enlistments," answered Washington; "and when we can ever attack Boston is a problem. For six months I have been waiting for powder, fire-arms, recruits, and what-not; and here we are with the 1st of January, 1776, right upon us, when several thousand soldiers will leave."

"A very discouraging fact indeed," answered the staff officer; "and how will you fill the breach created by their going?"

"That is what troubles me. We shall be forced to require soldiers whose term of enlistment expires, to leave their muskets, allowing them fair compensation for the same. And to encourage their successors to bring arms, we must charge each one of them who fails to bring his gun one dollar for the use of the one we provide."

"A novel way of recruiting and supplying an army, truly," said the staff officer.

"The only way left to us," remarked Washington.

"Yes; and I suppose that any way is better than none."

Washington wrote to a friend on the 4th of January:

"It is easier to conceive than to describe the situation of my mind for some time past and my feelings under our present circ.u.mstances. Search the volume of history through, and I much question whether a case similar to ours can be found; namely, to maintain a post against the power of the British troops for six months together without powder, and then to have one army disbanded and another raised within the same distance (musket shot) of a reinforced enemy.... For two months past I have scarcely emerged from one difficulty before I have been plunged into another. How it will end, G.o.d, in His great goodness, will direct.

I am thankful for His protection to this time."

A few days later he wrote:

"The reflection of my situation and that of this army produces many an unhappy hour, when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in on a thousand accounts; fewer still will believe, if any disaster happens to these lines, from what cause it flows. I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if, instead of accepting the command under such circ.u.mstances, I had taken my musket on my shoulder and entered the ranks; or, if I could have justified the measure to posterity and my own conscience, had retired to the back country and lived in a wigwam."

Still, through his tact and indomitable perseverance, Washington found his army in a condition to attack Boston in March. He had vainly tried to induce the British troops to leave their comfortable quarters and come out to battle. He had so effectually cut off their supplies by his determined siege that the British Government was compelled to send supplies from home. But now he felt that the time for action had come.

He called a council of war.

"Our situation compels action of some kind to save ourselves, even at great risk," he said to his advisers. "There is a cloud over the public mind, and there is danger on the north and on the south. Montgomery has fallen before Quebec, and our little army in Canada is depleted and broken. Tryon and the Tories are plotting mischief in New York, and Dunmore in Virginia. Clinton, too, is making depredations along the coast."

"And what do you propose?" inquired one.

"To attack Boston."

"And take the risk?"

"Yes; and take the risk, which will prove less, I believe, that the risk incurred by continual inaction."

"Do you propose an immediate movement?"

"On the 4th of March, the anniversary of the 'Boston Ma.s.sacre.' It is a good time to avenge that wrong."

On the 4th of March, 1775, the British troops, who were often insolent and overbearing to the citizens of Boston, were attacked and stoned by indignant parties. A brief contest followed, in which four Americans were killed and several wounded. This was called the "Boston Ma.s.sacre."

"I hope that your movement will be successful, but it is a hazardous one," suggested one of the council. "An attack all along the line?"

"By no means," answered Washington. "The project is hazardous indeed, but that is inevitable. On the night of March 3 I propose to take possession of Dorchester Heights, throw up breastworks, and by the time the enemy can see the Heights in the morning, be prepared to hold the position."

"And if the whole British army attack us, what then?"

"General Putnam shall have a force of four thousand men on the opposite side of the town, in two divisions, under Generals Sullivan and Greene.

At a given signal from Roxbury, they shall embark at the mouth of Charles River, cross under cover of three floating batteries, land in two places in Boston, secure its strong posts, force the gates and works at the neck, and let in the Roxbury troops. This, in case they make a determined attempt to dislodge us."

Washington waited for a reply. The bold plan somewhat perplexed his advisers at first, and there was silence for a moment. At length one spoke, and then another, and still another, until every objection was canva.s.sed. The plan was finally adopted, but kept a profound secret with the officers who were to conduct the enterprise.

We cannot dwell upon details. Agreeable to Washington's arrangement, when the expedition with tools, arms, supplies, and other necessaries was ready to move on the evening of March 3, a terrible cannonading of the British by the American army, at two different points, commenced, under the cover of which our troops reached Dorchester Heights without attracting the attention of the enemy. The reader may judge of the cannonading by the words of Mrs. John Adams, who wrote to her husband thus:

"I have just returned from Penn's Hill, where I have been sitting to hear the amazing roar of cannon, and from whence I could see every sh.e.l.l that was thrown. The sound, I think, is one of the grandest in nature, and is of the true species of the sublime. It is now an incessant roar.

"I went to bed about twelve, and rose again a little after one. I could no more sleep than if I had been in the engagement; the rattling of the windows, the jar of the house, the continual roar of twenty-four pounders, and the bursting of sh.e.l.ls, give us such ideas, and realize a scene to us of which we could scarcely form any conception. I hope to give you joy of Boston, even if it is in ruins, before I send this away."

What the British beheld on the morning of March 4, to their surprise and alarm, is best told in the words of one of their officers.

"This morning at daybreak we discovered two redoubts on Dorchester Point, and two smaller ones on their flanks. They were all raised during last night, with an expedition equal to that of 'the genii' belonging to Alladin's wonderful lamp. From these hills they command the whole town, so that we must drive them from their post or desert the place."

The British general, Howe, exclaimed:

"The rebels have done more work in one night than my whole army would have done in a month."