LVI. Jan. CHAP affirm or who can deny, that mischievous persons on shore may not have found amusement in feeding the 1776. flames? But the American commanders, Howe and Woodford, certainly made every effort to arrest them; and troops without tents would hardly in midwinter have burned down the houses that were their only shelter. When Washington learned the fate of the rich emporium of his own "country," for so he called Virginia, his breast heaved with waves of anger and grief; "I hope," said he, "this, and the threatened devastation of other places, will unite the whole country in one indissoluble band against a nation, which seems lost to every sense of virtue, and those feelings which distinguish a civilized people from the most barbarous savages." On the first day of January, 1776, the tri-colored American banner, not yet spangled with stars, but showing thirteen stripes of alternate red and white in the field, and the united red and white crosses of Saint George and Saint Andrew on a blue ground in the corner, was unfurled over the new continental army round Boston, which, at that moment of its greatest weakness, consisted of but nine thousand six hundred and fifty men. On that day free negroes stood in the ranks by the side of white men. In the beginning of the war they had entered the provincial army; the first general order, which was issued by Ward, had required a return, among other things, of "the complexion" of the soldiers; and black men, like others, were retained in the service after the troops were adopted by the continent. We have seen Edward Rutledge defeated in LVI. Jan. his attempt to compel their discharge; in October, CHAP. the conference at the camp, with Franklin, Harrison, and Lynch, thought it proper to exclude them from 1776 the new enlistment; but Washington, at the crisis of his distress, finding that they were very much dissatisfied at being discarded, took the responsibility of reversing the decision; and referred the subject to congress. That body appointed Wythe, Samuel Adams, and Wilson, to deliberate on the question; and on the report of their able committee they voted, "that the free negroes who had served faithfully in the army at Cambridge, might be reenlisted therein, but no others." The right of free negroes to take part in the defence of the country having thus been definitively established by the competent tribunal, they served in the ranks of the American armies during every period of the war. The enlistments were embarrassed by the low state of Washington's military chest. He could neither pay off the old army to the last of December, when their term expired, nor give assurances for the punctual pay of the militia. At one time in January he had but about ten thousand dollars at Cambridge; and that small sum was held in reserve. It would have been good policy to have paid a large bounty and engaged recruits for the war; but this measure congress refused to warrant; and it was left to the gov ernment of Massachusetts, with the aid of the rest of New England, to keep up the numbers of the army while it remained on her soil. For that end five thousand of her militia were summoned to the field. The army officers of Massachusetts had instilled into the mind of Washington a dread of calling in the LVI. Dec. 19. CHAP. minute-men and militia, lest they should destroy the little subordination he had been laboring to establish, 1775. and refuse to remain a moment longer than they themselves might choose. The result dispelled his fears; and on the nineteenth of December, 1775, he wrote to congress: "The militia that are come in both from this province and New Hampshire are very fine looking men, and go through their duty with great alacrity. The despatch made both by the people in marching, and the legislative powers in complying with my requisition, has given me infinite satisfaction." But the neglect of congress had reduced his army to a state of disintegration by their dilatory and inadequate provision for new enlistments. The troops before Boston were a mixture of transient militia whose frequent mutation called for a constant renewal of elementary instruction, and new recruits. There was a dearth of bayonets, a want of at least two thousand muskets; the artillery was poor, and was chiefly a gathering from accidental sources. There was no store of powder. There was no money in the military chest, for the persons designated to sign the bills were too indolent to act with promptness. Some members of congress were specially eager to give profitable occupation to shipbuilders among their constituents, and, with a strange perversity, what little powder was obtained was withheld from Washington for vessels which could not be prepared for sea before more ample stores would arrive. They refused to consider that Washington's inactivity was due in part to themselves, in part to causes, which, anxious as he was "to keep above water in the esteem of mankind," he was compelled LVI. Dec. 22. to conceal from the public, from his friends, and even CHAP. from most of his officers. Yet the chimney-corner heroes among the legislators grew impatient at the 1775. slowness of the war, and, after a long and serious debate, on the twenty second carried a resolution authorizing Washington "to attack Boston in any manner which he might deem expedient, notwithstanding the town might thereby be destroyed." In forwarding the resolve, Hancock announced it as having been adopted after a long and most serious debate, and added: "May God crown your attempt with success. I most heartily wish it, though individually I may be the greatest sufferer.” 1 Jan. Receiving what was plainly a direction to attack 1776. the British forces in spite of his want of arms, ammunition, and money, and in the moment of his greatest perplexity from deficiencies and changes of men, Washington, for the first time in his military career, was compelled to show the spirit with which he encountered a complication of difficulties. Repelling the accusation of inactivity, he answered the superior civil power with dignity: "It is not perhaps in the pages of history to furnish a case like ours: to maintain a post within musket-shot of the enemy for six months together without powder, and at the same time to disband one army and recruit another within that distance of twenty odd British regiments, is more, probably, than ever was attempted." But the order of congress was never Feb. out of his mind; and when his army was reorganized, and the shallow bay west of Boston was frozen over, on the sixteenth of February, he called together his general officers, as his instructions required of 1 Wiebke: Die ersten Jahre des Freiheitskrieges, 169. CHAP. him, and urged them to sanction a general assault on LVI. the town. Success might be hoped for, if officers and 1776. men, who were accustomed to fight from behind de Feb. fences, would encounter the enemy with unflinching courage on open ground. But the brigadiers had discoursed on the subject with the field-officers of the regiments, and had found them reluctant; the council of war disapproved the proposal as exceedingly hazardous, and advised only to prepare for taking possession of Dorchester hill, with a view of drawing out the enemy. Washington reported to congress the almost unanimous overruling of his opinion by his military advisers, and added for himself: "I was ready, willing, and desirous of making the assault, under a firm hope, if the men would have stood by me, of a favorable result." His situation was irksome; the whole continent was anxiously expecting some great event, and he was restrained by the want of the means necessary for any military operation. The state of his army gave him many an uneasy hour when all around him were wrapped in sleep; and he often considered how much happier would have been his lot, if, instead of accepting the chief command, he had taken his musket on his shoulder, and entered the ranks. "In the worst event,” said he, "my lands on the Ohio will serve for an asylum." Could he have justified the measure to posterity and his own conscience, he would gladly have retired at once to the backwoods, even though it had been to live in a wigwam; but he never countenanced the thought of sending back his commission to his hard task-masters. If he had not consulted the public good more than his own tranquillity, he would have put every thing on the cast of a die, and forced a |