large. In its last session the Congress called a second meeting to be held May 10, 1775-if matters had not improved meantime. The New Englanders, confident that matters were only going from bad to worse, began to gather military stores at various points. On April 19, 1775, General Gage, in command of British troops in Boston, sent out a party to destroy one of these depositories at Concord.1 The redcoats fired on a body of colonials drawn up on Lexington Green. At Concord a larger body of militia was encountered, whereupon the British retreated hastily to Boston, pursued by patriotic militiamen who rushed from all points to take pot-shot at Lexington and militia took a position on Breed's Hill in Charleston; on June 17th Gage assaulted the hill and finally carried it at great loss in the Battle of Bunker Hill, as the ex tremity of the ridge was called. o Sudbury x Battles GENERAL DRAFTING CO.INC..N.Y. Beds Hill Medford DORCHESTER HEIGHTS Neponset Boston Boston Harbor COPYRIGHT, DOUBLEDAY, PAGE& Co. THE BOSTON ENVIRONS, 1775-1776 The command of the colonials in this en gagement had been offered to Major-General of Massachusetts Militia Joseph Warren but he declined in favor of Colonel Prescott who comm~ Bunker Hill this immortal eng 1 wedding-day suit, was seen to fall during the battle. It was General Warren. His face, cold in death, might well have been marked by England's king. When Major-Generals are content to fight as privates, and go to their death in gala attire, it is significant of a faith that is unconquerable. Radicals in a minority The resoluteness of these New Englanders in these skirmishes was the talk of the country, and many from now on were certain that a war must be fought to compel King George to revoke the acts that imperiled his colonists' liberty. These, however, were in the minority. Perhaps two thirds, as John Adams at a later date said, were in favor of non-resistance. Class divisions in the colonies were very marked; the commercial element had felt the actual pressure of Parlia- BENJAMIN FRANKLIN lied slowly to the principles advocated by the radicals. In general three parties existed: (a) the radicals who were out and out for independence at the cost of war; (b) those who were firm for the colonies' constitutional rights, even at the price of war, but who did not favor independence; (c) those who opposed war even at price of continued humiliation put upon them by the Mother Country, in whose ultimate fairness they had a steady faith. But by May, 1775, when the Second Congress met (presided over by that firm patriot, John Hancock), the bloodshed in New England altered the feelings of The Second both conservatives and radicals. The former were Congress less sure that they were in the right; the radicals, Continental however, were so certain that the Concord episode had proved that armed resistance was the only hope of the country that they were willing to let matters take their own course without forcing them. Both parties therefore agreed to sign a declaration which stated "the Causes and Necessity for taking up Arms"; also to make one last petition to the King. This petition the King refused to accept. These events rapidly unified sentiment. Many conservatives who had cried out in alarm when Patrick Henry exclaimed "Give me liberty or give me death" now agreed with the more even-tempered, but equally aroused, Jefferson when he said: "I will cease to exist before I yield to a connection [union] on such terms as the British Parliament proposes." Public sentiment was, also, greatly unified by the publication of a tract entitled Common Sense written by an Englishman, Thomas Paine, who had just arrived in this country. It was the most outspoken radical plea for independence made prior to the famous Declaration. Making an army Chandelier Washington, chosen commander-in-chief by Congress, now came to take command of the Continental Army which surrounded the British in Boston. It was an army in name only at this time, but as the year passed the severe training Washington had had in the Valley of Virginia (1756-7) stood the commander in good stead and some proficiency in arms was developed. In the spring of 1776, a method of driving the British from Boston was discovered. An English manual on engineering fell into the hands of General Rufus Putnam, one of Washington's engineers, and from it this officer learned how to fortify a frozen hilltop by "chandeliers." Long narrow crates or racks were to be built in Roxbury orchards and transported bodily to the hill; when filled with bales of hay or faggots they would form substantial breastworks. Washington adopted the scheme and General Howe, now commanding in Boston, awoke one March morning to find near-by Dorchester Heights bristling with cannon and THE CHANDELIER. (Used for the fortifica tion of Dorchester Heights.) Boston alive with troops safely hidden behind solid breastworks.1 Weak efforts to dislodge the Americans failed, and on March 17th the British evacuated Boston. This freeing of New England was hailed with unbounded glee; but the British generals expected to conquer the rebellious Yankees in an THOMAS JEFFERSON compelled so to divide his feeble forces that General Howe beat him piece-meal (August 27th) in the Battle of Long Island. By very clever maneuvering, however, he got his armies around into New Jersey. A General Wolfe would now have struck a telling 1One of the outstanding examples of bold initiative in the first year of the war was the capture of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain by Ethan Allen and his "Green Mountain boys," May 10, 1775. This brave deed gave to the colonists guns and ammunition for the siege of Boston; forty guns were hauled across New England over the winter's snow and some of them were planted on Dorchester Heights behind Putnam's chandeliers. Still bolder, but less successful, were two expeditions for the capture of Montreal and Quebec led by Generals Richard Montgomery (by way of Lake Champlain) and Benedict Arnold (across Maine). Montreal was occupied but an assault on Quebec, by the two parties combined (December 31, 1775), ended in failure, Montgomery being killed and Arnold wounded. |