bridge. This committee had authority from the Provincial Congress to order out the militia, and General Heath, who was a member of the committee, rode to take command of the provincials, with Warren by his side, who was sufficiently exposed that day to have a musket-ball strike the pin out of the hair of his ear-lock. The two continued together till the British army had crossed Charlestown Neck on its retreat, and made a stand on Bunker Hill. There they were covered by the ships. The militia were ordered to pursue no further, and General Heath held the first council of war of the Revolution at the foot of Prospect Hill. With the fervor of that day's experience upon him Warren wrote, on the day following, this circular to the town in behalf of the Committee of Safety. The original still exists in the Massachusetts archives, marked with much interlineation. 66 GENTLEMEN,―The barbarous murders committed on our innocent brethren on Wednesday, the 19th instant, have made it absolutely necessary that we immediately raise an army to defend our wives and our children from the butchering hands of an inhuman soldiery, who, incensed at the obstacles they met with in their bloody progress, and enraged at being repulsed from the field of slaughter, 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. Death and devastation are the instant consequences of delay. Every moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may deluge your country in blood, and entail perpetual slavery upon the few of your posterity who may survive the carnage. We beg and entreat, as you will answer to your country, 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 enlistment of men to form the army, and send them forward to headquarters at Cambridge with that expedition which the vast importance and instant urgency of the affair demand.” It is always hard to interpret the precise condition of public feeling just before a war. It is plain that the Massachusetts committee expected something more than a contest of words when they made so many preparations. On the other hand, it is evident that hardly any one looked forward to any serious and prolonged strife. Dr. Warren wrote, soon after the 19th of April: "The people never seemed in earnest about the matter until after the engagement of the 19th ult., and I verily be The Carberous Warders commited on to de find ourting our Wives ontores in their love to savage with Shire and Sword, We conjure your is sacred that you give 777 all that you give all Afer foner pipée is for mungen Arry, dar all is at Stater Death & Decoflations one the unites Consyon of Delay-wery Wormentes infiintely proces vorkeur left my clage your Countegist Pend FAC-SIMILE OF WARREN'S ADDRESS. lieve that the night preceding the barbarous outrages committed by the soldiery at Lexington, Concord, etc., there were not fifty people in the whole colony that ever expected any blood would be shed in the contest between us and Great Britain." Yet two days after the fight at Lexington the Massachusetts Committee of Safety resolved to enlist eight thousand men. Two days after that the news reached New York at noon. There was a popular outbreak; the royal troops were disarmed, the fort and magazines seized, and two transports for Boston unloaded. At five on Monday afternoon the tidings reached Philadelphia, when the bell in Independence Hall was rung, and the people gathered in numbers. When it got so far as Charleston, South Carolina, the people seized the arsenal, and the Provincial Congress proclaimed them "ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes." In Savannah, Georgia, a mob took possession of the powder-magazine, and raised a liberty-pole. In Kentucky a party of hunters, hearing of the battle, gave their encampment the name of Lexington, which it still bears; and thus the news went on. Meanwhile, on May 10th, the Continental Congress convened, and on the same day Ethan Allen took possession of the strong fortress of Ticonderoga. It was the first act of positive aggression by the patriotic party, for at both Lexing ton and Concord they were acting on the defensive. The expedition was planned in Connecticut and reinforced in Western Massachusetts, but the main reliance was to be placed on Ethan Allen and his "Green Mountain Boys," whose daring and energy were already well known. Benedict Arnold, who had been commissioned in Massachusetts for the same purpose, arrived only in time to join the expedition as a volunteer. On May 10, 1775, eighty-three men crossed the lake with Allen. When they had landed, he warned them that it was a dangerous enterprise, and called for volunteers. Every man volunteered. The rest took but a few moments. They entered with a warwhoop the open wicket-gate, pressing by the sentinel, and when the half-clad commander appeared and asked their authority, Allen answered with the words that have become historic, "In the name of the great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." The Congress was only to meet that day, but it appeared already to be exercising a sort of antenatal authority; and a fortress which had cost eight million pounds sterling and many lives was placed in its hands by a mere stroke of boldness. Crown Point gave itself up with equal ease to Seth Warner, and another dramatic surprise was given to the new-born nation. In the neighborhood of Boston the month of May was devoted to additional preparations, and to what are called, in the old stage directions of Shakespeare's plays, "alarums and excursions." At one time, when a sally from Boston was expected, the Committee of Safety ordered the officers of the ten nearest towns to assemble one-half the militia and all the minute-men, and march to Roxbury. While this was being done, General Thomas, with an ingenuity quite in the style of the above stage motto, marched his seven hundred men round and round a high hill, visible from Boston, to mislead the British. At another time, when men were more numerous, General Putnam marched all the troops in Cambridge, twenty-two hundred in number, to Charlestown Ferry, the column being spread over a mile and a half, and passing under the guns of the British without attack. At another time, "all of Weymouth, Braintree, and Hingham," according to Mrs. Adams, turned out to drive away a British detachment from Grape Island, where the Americans then landed, burned a quantity of hay, and brought away cattle. A larger skirmish took place at Noddle's Island, near East Boston, where the Americans destroyed a schooner, dismantled a sloop, and captured twelve swivels and four 4-pound cannon. Putnam commanded in this engagement, and the enthusiasm which it called out secured his unanimous election as majorgeneral. Meantime the Provincial troops were gathering for what the Essex Gazette, of June 8th, called, with rather premature admiration, "the grand American army"-an army whose returns for June 9th showed 7644 men. "Nothing could be in a more confused state," wrote Dr. Eliot, "than the army which first assembled at Cambridge. This undisciplined body of men were kept together by a few who deserved well of their country.' President John Adams, writing long after (June 19, 1818), thus summed up the condition of these forces: "The army at Cambridge was not a national army, for there was no nation. It was not a United States army, for there were no United States. It was not an army of united colonies, for it could not be said in any sense that the colonies were united. The centre of their union, the Congress of Philadelphia, had not adopted nor acknowledged the army at Cambridge. It was not a New England army, for New England had not associated. New England had no legal legislature, nor any common executive authority, even upon the principles of original authority, or even of original power in the people. Massachusetts had her army, Connecticut her army, New Hampshire her army, and Rhode Island her army. These four armies met at Cambridge, and imprisoned the British army in Boston. But who was the sovereign of this united, or rather congregated, army, and who its commander-in-chief? It had none. Putnam, Poor, and Greene were as independent of Ward as Ward was of them." This was the state of the forces outside, while the army inside was impatiently waiting for reinforcements, and chafing at the ignoble delay. On May 25th three British generals (Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne) arrived with troops. The newspapers of the day say that when these officers were going into Boston harbor they met a packet coming out, when General Burgoyne asked the skipper of the packet what news there was. And being told that the town was surrounded by ten thousand country people, asked how many regulars there were in Boston; and being answered, "About five thousand," cried out, with astonishment, “What! and ten thousand peasants keep five thousand king's troops shut up! Well, let us get in, and we'll soon find elbow-room." After this conversation the nickname of " Elbowroom” was permanently fastened on General Burgoyne. He used to relate that after his reverses, while a prisoner of war, he was received with great courtesy by the people of Boston as he stepped from the Charlestown ferry-boat, but was a little annoyed when an old lady, perched on a shed above the crowd, |