THE FIRST CHEERS from the American lines had been heard as early as nine that morning, when the men on Prospect Hill and Dorchester Heights saw clearly what was happening. In no time small boys came running across the Neck from Boston to deliver the news that the “lobster backs” were gone at last.
Puzzled that British troops appeared still to be manning the fortifications on Bunker Hill, even as the fleet was getting under way, General Sullivan mounted his horse and cantered off for a closer look, only to discover that they were hay dummies set up by the fleeing redcoats.
It was early afternoon when the first troops from Roxbury—500 men who had already had smallpox and were thus immune—crossed the Neck and marched into Boston, drums beating, flags flying, and led by Artemus Ward on horseback.
By all rights, it should have been Washington who made the triumphal entry, but in a characteristically gracious gesture he gave the honor to Ward, the “thorough New England man” who had been his predecessor as commander and the first and most persistent in favoring a move on Dorchester Heights—though how much this may have figured in Washington’s decision is impossible to know.
Washington remained at Cambridge where he attended Sunday services conducted by the chaplain of Knox’s artillery regiment, the Reverend Abiel Leonard of Connecticut, who chose for his text Exodus 14:25: “And they took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily; so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians.”
Washington rode into Boston the following day, Monday, March 18, and took a close look at the place for the first time, after eight and a half months of studying it through the lenses of his telescope almost every day in every kind of light and from every possible angle. He came without fanfare. His purpose, as he reported to Congress, was to appraise the damage done and see what the enemy had left behind.
The town, although it had “suffered greatly,” was not in as bad shape as he had expected, he wrote to John Hancock, “and I have a particular pleasure in being able to inform you, sir, that your house has received no damage worth mentioning.” Other fine houses had been much abused by the British, windows broken, furnishings smashed or stolen, books destroyed. But at Hancock’s Beacon Hill mansion all was in order, as General Sullivan also attested, and there was a certain irony in this, since the house had been occupied and maintained by the belligerent General James Grant, who had wanted to lay waste to every town on the New England coast. “Though I believe,” wrote Sullivan, “the brave general had made free with some of the articles in the [wine] cellar.”
The last desperate efforts of the British to destroy whatever could be of use to the Americans were in evidence everywhere—spiked cannon, shattered gun carriages and wagons. Ships left behind at the waterfront had been scuttled, their masts cut away. And as Dr. Thacher noted with concern, smallpox was “lurking” still in several parts of town.
But the surprise for Washington was how much had not been destroyed or carried off, so great had been the chaos and rush of the enemy in the last days. An inventory of British goods compiled by Thomas Mifflin, now the quartermaster general, listed 5,000 bushels of wheat at the Hancock wharf, 1,000 bushels of beans and 10 tons of hay at the town granary, 35,000 feet of good planks at one of the lumberyards. There were more than a hundred horses left by the British. Indeed, there was nearly everything that was needed but beef, gunpowder, and hard money. Washington estimated the total value at perhaps 40,000 pounds, but after further examination that figure would be raised to 50,000 pounds.
The other surprise was the strength of the enemy’s defenses. The town was “amazingly strong…almost impregnable, every avenue fortified,” he wrote. But if this gave rise to any second thoughts about his repeated desire to send men against such defenses, or the wisdom of his council of war in restraining him, Washington kept such thoughts to himself.
Just as he had shown no signs of despair when prospects looked bleak, he now showed no elation in what he wrote or in his outward manner or comments.
On March 20, Washington put Nathanael Greene temporarily in command of the town, while he returned to Cambridge to concentrate on his next move. Certain that Howe intended to sail for New York, he had already sent five regiments in that direction. But with the British fleet still hovering below Castle Island, he dared not send more, and worried now that Howe’s withdrawal might be a trick, that the plan was to come ashore somewhere near Braintree and double back to outflank Dorchester and Roxbury.
On the night of March 20, Boston and the whole south shore were rocked by a tremendous explosion when British engineers Montresor and Robertson blew up Castle William. The morning after, in heavy snowfall, Howe’s fleet dropped still further down from the town, to anchor in Nantasket Road off Braintree.
Those on board the ships were as puzzled by Howe’s intentions as anyone. “We do not know where we are going, but are in great distress,” one Loyalist wrote. They had been cooped up now in the harbor for nearly two weeks. One man, wracked with despair, threw himself overboard and was drowned. But to most on board, any destination would be welcome after what they had been through. “You know the proverbial expression, ‘neither hell, hull nor Halifax’ can afford worse shelter than Boston,” wrote an officer in description of the prevailing mood.
At last, on March 27, ten days after the evacuation of Boston, the fleet was again under way, and this time heading for the open sea. When several Loyalists gathered at the rail of one of the ships expressed confidence that they would be returning soon in triumph, a prominent Boston merchant, George Erving, turned and said solemnly, “Gentlemen, not one of you will ever see that place again,” words long remembered by the five-year-old son who stood beside him.
Merchant Erving had sided with the Loyalists primarily because he thought the rebellion would fail. But the success of Washington’s army at Boston had changed his mind, as it had for many.
By day’s end the fleet had disappeared over the horizon, bound not for New York but for Halifax.
IV
FAST RIDERS CARRIED THE NEWS to Providence and Newport, Hartford and New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, then on to Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, 1,100 arduous miles from Boston. For all who believed in the American cause, it was the first thrilling news of the war.
“The joy of our friends in Boston, on seeing the victorious and gallant troops of their country enter the town almost on the heels of their barbarous oppressors was inexplicably great,” reported the New Haven Journal.
“The British,” said the New York Constitutional Gazette, “were completely disgraced.”
Free men under arms had triumphed, with all the world watching, and in the “admirable and beloved” Washington, the country had a hero, as the citizens of Philadelphia and members of Congress read in the Evening Post of March 30:
To the wisdom, firmness, intrepidity, and military abilities of our admirable and beloved general, his Excellency George Washington, Esq.; to the assiduity, skill, and bravery of our other worthy generals and officers of the army; and to the hardiness and gallantry of the soldiery, is to be ascribed, under God, the glory and success of our arms, in driving from one of the strongest holds in America, so considerable a part of the British army.
Congress ordered a gold medal struck in Washington’s honor. “The disinterested and patriotic principles which led you to the field have also led you to glory,” read a formal letter of gratitude.
Those pages in the annals of America will record your title to be a conspicuous place in the temple of fame, which shall inform posterity, that under your directions, an undisciplined band of husbandmen, in the course of a few months, became soldiers.
“What an occurrence is this to be known in Europe?” wrote Elbridge Gerry of the Massachusetts delegation in Congress. “How are Parliamentary pretensions to be reconciled to facts?” What was especially wondrous was that the British had been driven from Boston by only “about the
thirtieth part of the power of America.”
It would be six weeks before the news reached London, and on May 6, a storm of criticism and recrimination erupted in Parliament, led by the same ardent Whigs whose real power was no more than it had ever been. In the House of Commons, Colonel Isaac Barre, Lord Cavendish, and Edmund Burke spoke severely against the administration, as Lord North and Lord Germain defended the management of the war.
In the House of Lords, in defense of the ministry, the Earl of Suffolk patiently and correctly explained that abandoning Boston had been the established policy since the previous October.
“Let this transaction be dressed in what garb you please,” answered the Duke of Manchester, “the fact remains that the army which was sent to reduce the province of Massachusetts Bay has been driven from the capital, and that the standard of the provincial army now waves in triumph over the walls of Boston.”
At the headquarters in Cambridge, the Boston selectmen and a delegation from the legislature of Massachusetts came to offer their gratitude to Washington for saving the town “with so little effusion of human blood,” and to shower him with praise. Harvard, in the spirit of the moment, conferred an honorary degree on the man who had had almost no formal schooling.
Responding to such tributes, Washington was duly modest and gracious, and in truth they meant more than he showed. He was happy to “hear from different quarters that my reputation stands fair,” he wrote privately to his brother. He hoped it would be remembered also that none of what happened had come easily or predictably.
We have maintained our ground against the enemy under [a]…want of powder, and we have disbanded one army and recruited another within musket shot of two and twenty regiments, the flower of the British army, when our strength has been little if any superior to theirs, and at last have beat them in a shameful and precipitate manner, out of a place the strongest by nature on this continent, strengthened and fortified in the best manner and at an enormous expense.
He was proud of the part he had played and wanted to say something about that, at least to his brother, and about the misconceptions he had been obliged to maintain.
I believe I may, with great truth, affirm that no man perhaps since the first institution of armies ever commanded one under more difficult circumstances than I have done…. Many of my difficulties and distresses were of so peculiar a cast that in order to conceal them from the enemy, I was obliged to conceal them from my friends, indeed from my own army, thereby subjecting my conduct to interpretations unfavorable to my character.
An attack by Howe on Dorchester Heights had been his “utmost wish,” and he could “scarce forbear lamenting the disappointment” he felt. Like others, he attributed the storm of March 5 to the intervening hand of God. He did not “lament or repine at any act of Providence,” he told Joseph Reed, for “in great measure” he had become a convert to the view of the poet Alexander Pope that “whatever is, is right.”
For the Loyalists who had fled with the enemy, he had only contempt. “Unhappy wretches! Deluded mortals!” he called them. He had heard of some committing suicide and thought it would be well if more did the same. “By all accounts a more miserable set of beings does not exist.”
But then he had little time to dwell on such matters. “I am hurried in dispatching one brigade after another for New York and preparing for my own departure,” he informed Reed.
THE SIEGE had been the stunning success it was proclaimed, and Washington’s performance had been truly exceptional. He had indeed bested Howe and his regulars, and despite insufficient arms and ammunition, insufficient shelter, sickness, inexperienced officers, lack of discipline, clothing, and money. His patience with Congress had been exemplary, and while he had been saved repeatedly by his council of war from his headlong determination to attack, and thus from almost certain catastrophe, he had accepted the judgment of the council with no ill temper or self-serving histrionics.
He had kept his head, kept his health and his strength, bearing up under a weight of work and worry that only a few could have carried.
Having struggled with his festering dislike of New Englanders, he had proven a keen judge of character and ability and pinned his hopes on such untried born-and-bred Yankees as Greene and Knox. Without Knox, there would have been no triumph at Dorchester Heights. Henry Knox, in sum, had saved the day. And while Nathanael Greene had not played so spectacular a part as Knox, the troops under his command were distinguished as the best disciplined in the army, and he himself had emerged as Washington’s ideal lieutenant. In Greene and Knox, Washington had found the best men possible, men of ability and energy who, like Washington, would never lose sight of what the war was about, no matter what was to come. All important, too, was the devotion and loyalty these two young officers felt for Washington.
After the “miracle” of Dorchester Heights, Washington was never again to speak ill of New Englanders because they were New Englanders.
He had no illusions about the gravity of what lay ahead. Nor did many of the wisest heads in Congress. The humiliation the British had been subjected to, John Hancock warned Washington, could well make them an even more formidable foe.
What may be their views, it is indeed impossible to tell, with any degree of exactness [Hancock wrote]. We have all the reason, however, from the rage of disappointment and revenge, to expect the worst. Nor have I any doubt, that as far as their power extends, they will inflict every species of calamity upon us.
But great political change was in the offing, Washington sensed, as he confided to Joseph Reed in one of the last letters written from his Cambridge headquarters. This he attributed in good part to the pamphlet Common Sense, published earlier in the year, the author of which, Thomas Paine, was as yet unknown.
My countrymen, I know from their form of government and steady attachment heretofore to royalty, will come reluctantly into the idea of independency [Washington wrote], but time and persecution brings many wonderful things to pass, and by private letters which I have lately received from Virginia, I find Common Sense is working a powerful change there in the minds of many men.
“The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth,” Paine had written. “Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation.”
ONE AFTER ANOTHER the regiments were departing for New York. An army that had moved not at all for nearly a year was on the march, leaving New England for the first time.
The huge bastions that encircled Boston were left standing, but only a holding force under General Ward remained to keep watch.
To most of the men the prospect of being on the move was extremely welcome. Spirits were higher than they had ever been. The soldier’s life, many decided, had much to be said for it after all.
Most of those in the ranks had no idea where they were bound, but were glad to be going. One soldier, John Lapham of Duxbury, wrote to his “Honored Parents” to send a pair of shoes as quickly as possible, “for I expect that I shall march off soon, but whither we shall go I do not know nor can I tell.”
Generals Heath and Sullivan and their forces had already departed. General Greene and five regiments followed on April 1. Three days later, on Thursday, April 4, Washington rode off from Cambridge.
Part II
Fateful Summer
The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.
—General George Washington
July 2, 1776
Chapter Four
The Lines are Drawn
I would not be understood that I should choose to march, but as I am engaged in this glorious cause, I am will[ing] to go where I am called.
—Lieutenant Joseph Hodgkins
I
FOR TWO WEEKS AND MORE, the army was on the move, its long, irregular columns winding through the untroubled countryside of lower Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, where open fields and low-lying wooded hills were only now showing the first faint signs of spring
.
In scores of market towns and crossroad hamlets the local citizenry came out to cheer and offer food and drink, or just to stand at gateposts and kitchen doorways taking in the spectacle of so many of their countrymen armed and on the march, whole regiments passing for hours at a time. Large armies—large armies of any kind—were an unfamiliar sight to Americans. No army of such size as this had ever been seen before anywhere in the colonies.
And the army was stepping along “with great expedition,” as General Heath wrote, with high-ranking uniformed officers like Heath on horseback, stragglers and trains of heavy baggage wagons struggling to keep up. Hurry was the order of the day, every day. He must “hasten his march” to New York, Nathanael Greene had been instructed by Washington. Henry Knox and his artillery were to move “as speedily as possible” by “the directest road thither.” Several times Washington referred to his own “extreme hurry.”
On April 5, the day the commander paraded into Providence, it seemed all Rhode Island had come to catch sight of him. Two of Greene’s regiments served as escort (none were to turn out “except those dressed in uniforms,” all “washed, both face and hands clean, their beards shaved, their hair combed and powdered”). At an elegant banquet provided by the “gentlemen of the town” at Hackers Hall, Washington was feted and toasted befitting a national hero. But at first light the next day he was on his way again, with no time to spare.
John Greenwood, the fifer, would remember everyone moving “at great speed.” A five- or six-mile march before breakfast was usual, fifteen to twenty miles a day about average, however seasonably wet and unpredictable the weather or miserable the roads, which, with the frost still coming out of the ground, could be slick with mud even on fair days.
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