CHAP. even to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; XLIV. and for his aid those colonies readily left themselves 1775. bare, till small supplies could arrive from South CaroAug. lina and Georgia.

In all his wants, Washington had no safe trust but in the spirit of the country, and that never failed him. Between the twenty fifth of July and the seventh of August, fourteen hundred riflemen, a greater number than congress had authorized, arrived in the camp. A company from Virginia had Daniel Morgan for its captain, one of the best officers of the revolution. His early life was so obscured by poverty, that no one remembered his parents or his birth-place, or if he had had sister or brother. Self-supported by daily labor, he was yet fond of study, and selftaught, he learned by slow degrees to write well. Migrating from New Jersey, he became a wagoner in Virginia in time to witness Braddock's expedition. In 1774 he again saw something of war, having descended the Ohio with Dunmore. The danger of his country called him into action, which was his appropriate sphere. In person he was more than six feet high and well proportioned, of an imposing presence, moving with strength and grace, of a hardy constitution that defied fatigue, hunger, and cold. His open countenance was the mirror of a frank and ingenuous nature. He could glow with vehement anger, but passion never mastered his power of discernment, and his disposition was sweet and peaceful, so that he delighted in acts of kindness, never harbored malice or revenge, and made his house the home of cheerfulness and hospitality. His courage was not an idle quality;

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it sprung from the intense force of his will, which CHAP. bore him on to do his duty with an irresistible impetuosity. His faculties were only quickened by the 1775 nearness of danger, which he was sure to make the best preparations to meet. An instinctive perception of character assisted him in choosing among his companions those whom it was wise to betrust; and a reciprocal sympathy made the obedience of his soldiers an act of affectionate confidence. Wherever he was posted in the battle field, the fight was sure to be waged with fearlessness, good judgment, and massive energy. Of all the officers whom Virginia sent into the war, next to Washington, Morgan was the greatest; equal to every occasion in the camp or before an enemy, unless it were that he knew not how to be idle or to retreat. In ten days after he received his commission, he attracted to himself from the val ley a company of ninety six young backwoodsmen. His first lieutenant was John Humphreys; his second, William Heth; his sergeant, Charles Porterfield. No captain ever commanded braver soldiers, or was better supported by his officers; in twenty one days they marched from Winchester in Virginia to Cambridge.

In Maryland, Michael Cresap, then just thirty three years old, on receiving notice by the committee of Frederick, to raise a company, despatched a messenger beyond the Alleghanies, and at his bidding two and twenty of his old companions in arms, leaving behind them their families and their all, came swift as a roe or a young hart over the mountains. From the east side, so many volunteered that he could pick his men; and with light step and dauntless spirit they marched to the siege of Boston. Cresap moved

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CHAP. among them as their friend and father; but he was not destined to take a further part in the war. 1775. Driven by desperate illness from Washington's camp, he died on his way home at New York, where he was buried with honor as a martyr. The second Maryland company was commanded by Price, whose lieutenant was Otho Holland Williams.

Of the eight companies from Pennsylvania, William Thompson was colonel. The second in command was Edward Hand, a native of Ireland, who had come over as a surgeon's mate. One of the captains was Hendricks, long remembered for his stateliness of person, his mild and beautiful countenance, and his heroic soul.

The alacrity with which these troops were raised, showed that the public mind heaved like the sea from New England to the Ohio and beyond the Blue Ridge. On the fourteenth of June congress first authorized their enlistment, and in less than sixty days twelve companies were in the camp, having come on foot from four to eight hundred miles. The men, painted in the guise of savages, were strong and of great endurance; many of them more than six feet high; they wore leggings and moccasons, and an ash-colored hunting shirt with a double cape; each one carried a rifle, a hatchet, a small axe, and a hunter's knife. They could subsist on a little parched corn, and game, killed as they went along; at night, wrapped in their blankets, they willingly made a tree their canopy, the earth their bed. The rifle in their hands sent its ball with unerring precision, a distance of two or three hundred yards. Their motto was "LIBERTY OR DEATH." They were the first troops

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raised under the authority of the continental con- CHAP. gress, and they formed the best corps in the camp. Accustomed to the wild independence of the back- 1775. Aug. woods, they yet gave an example of subordination, discipline, and vigilance. Enlisted for a year only, many of them, both officers and men, continued in the service during the war, and distinguished themselves in almost every field. They taught the observing Frederic of Prussia to introduce into his service light bodies of sharp shooters, and their example has modified the tactics of European armies.

On the twenty ninth of July, a party of riflemen got behind the guard which the British had advanced on the side of Charlestown, and before it could be supported, killed two men and took five prisoners.

The New England men were not wanting in daring. On the ninth of August the Falcon was seen from Cape Ann in chase of two schooners bound to Salem. One of these was taken; a fair wind wafted the other into Gloucester harbor. Linzee, the captain of the Falcon, followed with his prize, and, after anchoring, sent his lieutenant and thirty six men in a whaleboat and two barges, to bring under his bow the schooner that had escaped. As the bargemen, armed with muskets and swivels, boarded her at her cabin windows, men from the shore fired on them, killing three and wounding the lieutenant in the thigh. Upon this Linzee sent his prize and a cutter to cannonade the town. The broadside which fol lowed did little injury, and the Gloucester men kept ip a fight for several hours, till, with the loss of but two, they took both schooners, the cutter, the barges, and every man in them. Linzee lost thirty five men,

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CHAP. or half his crew. The next day he warped off, carrying away no spoils except the skiff, in which the 1775. wounded lieutenant had been brought away.

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Meantime Gage endeavored to terrify the Americans and cheer his own soldiers, by foretelling the coming of thousands of Russians and Hessians and Hanoverians. Performing no one act of courage during the summer, he vented his ill humor on his unhappy prisoners; throwing officers of high rank indiscriminately into a felon's jail, to languish of wounds and even to undergo amputation. Pleading for "kindness and humanity" as the "joint rule for their treatment of prisoners," Washington remonstrated; but Gage scorned to promise reciprocity to rebels, menaced "dreadful consequences" for any any "barbarity" shown to British prisoners, and further replied: "Britons, ever preeminent in mercy, have overlooked the criminal in the captive; your prisoners, whose lives by the laws of the land are destined to the cord, have hitherto been treated with care and kindness; indiscriminately it is true, for I acknowledge no rank that is not derived from the king." Consulting with Lee, Washington, who knew Gage from the day when his want of presence of mind lost the battle on the Monongahela, rejoined: "I shall not stoop to retort and invective. You affect, Sir, to despise all rank not derived from the same source with your own. I cannot conceive one more honorable than that which flows from the uncorrupted choice of a brave and free people, the purest source and original fountain of all power. Far from making it a plea for cruelty, a mind of true magnanimity would comprehend and respect it." Towards his supercilious adversary, Washington