XXIX. ford. So many followed, that on the morning of the CHAP. twenty-second, he was detached with three hundred to take post at Chelsea, where his battalion, which 1775 was one of the fullest in the besieging army, became a model for its discipline. By the twenty-third, there were already about two thousand men from the interior parts of New Hampshire, desirous "not to return before the work was done." Many who remained near the upper Connecticut, threw up the civil and military commissions held from the king, for said they: "The king has forfeited his crown, and all commissions from him are therefore vacated of course." In Connecticut, Trumbull, the governor, sent out writs to convene the legislature of the colony at Hartford on the Wednesday following the battle. Meantime the people could not be restrained. On the morning of the twentieth, Israel Putnam, of Pomfret, in leather frock and apron, was assisting hired men to build a stone wall on his farm, when he heard the cry from Lexington. Leaving them to continue their task, he set off instantly to rouse the militia officers of the nearest towns. On his return, he found hundreds who had mustered and chosen him their leader. Issuing orders for them to follow, he himself pushed forward without changing the check shirt he had worn in the field, and reached Cambridge at sunrise the next morning, having ridden the same horse a hundred miles within eighteen hours. He brought to the service of his country courage which, during the war, was never questioned; and a heart than which none throbbed more honestly or warmly for American freedom. April. CHAP. April. From Weathersfield, a hundred young volunteers XXIX. marched for Boston on the twenty-second, well armed 1775. and in high spirits. From the neighboring towns, men of the largest estates, and the most esteemed for character, seized their firelocks and followed. By the second night,.several thousands from the colony were on their way. Some fixed on their standards and drums the colony arms, and round it in letters of gold, the motto, that God who brought over their fathers would sustain the sons. In New Haven, Benedict Arnold, captain of a volunteer company, agreed with his men to march the next morning for Boston. "Wait for proper orders," was the advice of Wooster; but the selfwilled commander, brooking no delay, extorted supplies from the committee of the town; and on the twenty-ninth, reached the American head-quarters with his company. There was scarcely a town in Connecticut that was not represented among the besiegers. The nearest towns of Rhode Island were in motion before the British had finished their retreat. At the instance of Hopkins and others, Wanton, the governor, though himself inclined to the royal side, called an assembly. Its members were all of one mind; and when Wanton, with several of the council, showed hesitation, they resolved, if necessary, to proceed alone. The council yielded, and confirmed the unanimous vote of the assembly which authorized raising an army of fifteen hundred men. "The colony of Rhode Island," wrote Bowler, the speaker, to the Massachusetts congress, "is firm and determined; and a greater unanimity in the lower house scarce XXIX. ever prevailed." Companies of the men of Rhode CHAP Island preceded this early message. The conviction of Massachusetts gained the cheer- 1775 April ing confidence that springs from sympathy, now that New Hampshire and Connecticut and Rhode Island had come to its support. The New England volunteers were men of substantial worth, of whom almost every one represented a household. The members of the several companies were well known to each other, as to brothers, kindred, and townsmen; known to the old men who remained at home, and to all the matrons and maidens. They were sure to be remembered weekly in the exercises of the congregations; and morning and evening in the usual family devotions, they were commended with fervent piety to the protection of Heaven. Every young soldier lived and acted, as it were, under the keen observation of all those among whom he had grown up, and was sure that his conduct would occupy the tongues of his village companions while he was in the field, and perhaps be remembered his life long. The camp of liberty was a gathering in arms of schoolmates, neighbors, and friends; and Boston was beleaguered round from Roxbury to Chelsea by an unorganized, fluctuating mass of men, each with his own musket and his little store of cartridges, and such provisions as he brought with him, or as were sent after him, or were contributed by the people round about. The British officers, from the sense of their own weakness, and from fear of the American marksmen, dared not order a sally. Their confinement was the more irksome, for it came of a sudden before their magazines had been filled; and was followed by XXIX. CHAP. "an immediate stop to supplies of every kind." The troops, in consequence, suffered severely from 1775. unwholesome diet; and their commanders fretted April. with bitter mortification. They had scoffed at the Americans as cowards who would run at their sight; and they had saved themselves from destruction only by the rapidity of their retreat. Reënforce ments and three new general officers were already on the Atlantic, and these would have to be received into straitened quarters by a defeated army. They knew that England, and even the ministers, would condemn the inglorious expedition which had brought about so sudden and so fatal a change. As if to brand in their shame, the officers shrunk from avowing their own acts; and though no one would say that he had seen the Americans fire first, they tried to make it pass current, that a handful of countrymen at Lexington had begun a fight with a detachment that outnumbered them as twelve to one. "They did not make one gallant attempt during so long an action," wrote Smith, who was smarting under his wound, and escaped captivity only by the opportune arrival of Percy. Men are prone to fail in equity towards those whom their pride regards as their inferiors. The Americans, slowly provoked and long suffering, treated the prisoners with tenderness, and nursed the wounded as though they had been members of their own families. They even invited Gage to send out British surgeons for their relief. Yet Percy could degrade himself so far as to calumniate the countrymen who gave him chase, and officially lend himself to the falsehood, that "the rebels scalped and cut off XXIX. April. the ears of some of the wounded who fell into their CHAP. hands." He should have respected the name which he bore; famed as it is in history and in song; and he should have respected the men before whom he fled. The falsehood brings dishonor on its voucher; the people whom he reviled, were among the mildest and most compassionate of their race. |