General Howe had superseded General Gage some time before this exploit.
Quickly as possible, General Howe began to bombard the new fortifications on Dorchester Heights. All through the day he cannonaded the little American army, and, under the cover of the bombardment, prepared to land twenty-five hundred picked men at night, and carry the Heights by storm. His guns did little damage, however, through the day.
Washington was present in person, encouraging the soldiers, and directing them in strengthening the fortifications.
Under the darkness of night General Howe sent twenty-five hundred of his best soldiers, in transports, to capture the "rebel works." But a furious northeast storm arose, and beat upon them with such violence that it was impossible to land. They were compelled to postpone the attack until the next night. But the storm continued, and even increased. The wind blew a gale and the rain descended in torrents all through the following day and night, shutting up the enemy within their own quarters, and allowing the Americans time to multiply their works and render them impregnable.
When the storm ceased, an English officer declared that the Americans were invincible in their strong position. That General Howe was of the same opinion is evident from the fact that he decided to evacuate Boston.
Had General Howe been able to land his troops on the first night, as he planned, there is little doubt that Washington would have been driven from the Heights as the Americans were driven from Bunker Hill, so that the intervention of the storm seemed peculiarly providential. When Washington issued his order, months before, for the strict observance of the Sabbath and daily religious service by the army, General Lee, who was a G.o.dless scoffer, remarked, derisively, "G.o.d is on the side of the heaviest battalions."
But in this case the storm favored the _weakest_ battalions.
General Howe conferred with the authorities of Boston, and promised to evacuate the city without inflicting harm upon it if the Americans would not attack him. Otherwise he would commit the city to the flames, and leave under cover of the mighty conflagration. Washington wrote to him:
"If you will evacuate the city without plundering or doing any harm, I will not open fire upon you. But if you make any attempt to plunder, or if the torch is applied to a single building, I will open upon you the most deadly bombardment."
Howe promised: yet such was the disposition of the British soldiers to acts of violence, that he was obliged to issue an order that soldiers found plundering should be hanged on the spot; and he had an officer, with a company of soldiers and a hangman, march through the streets, ready to execute his order.
It was not, however, until the 17th of March that the embarkation of the British army commenced. About twelve thousand soldiers and refugees embarked in seventy-eight vessels. The refugees were Americans who favored the British cause (called Tories), and they did not dare to remain in this country. Washington wrote about these refugees:
"By all accounts there never existed a more miserable set of beings than those wretched creatures now are. Taught to believe that the power of Great Britain was superior to all opposition, and that foreign aid was at hand, they were even higher and more insulting in their opposition than the regulars. When the order was issued, therefore, for embarking the troops in Boston, no electric shock, no sudden clap of thunder, in a word, the last trump, could not have struck them with greater consternation. They were at their wits" end; chose to commit themselves, in the manner I have above described, to the mercy of the waves at a tempestuous season, rather than meet their offended countrymen."
With exceeding joy Washington beheld the "precipitate retreat" of the British army from Boston, but fired not a gun. One of General Howe"s officers wrote afterwards:
"It was lucky for the inhabitants now left in Boston that they did not, for I am informed that everything was prepared to set the town in a blaze had they fired one cannon."
We have intentionally pa.s.sed over several incidents, with the rehearsal of which we will bring this chapter to a close.
When Washington a.s.sumed the command of the American army, he left his Mount Vernon estate in charge of Mr. Lund Washington, continuing to direct its management by correspondence. He expected to return to his home in the autumn, and so encouraged his wife to believe. But in this he was sorely disappointed. His thoughtful and benevolent character appears in one of his early letters to his agent:
"Let the hospitality of the house with respect to the poor be kept up.
Let no one go hungry away. If any of this kind of people should be in want of corn, supply their necessaries, provided it does not encourage them to idleness; and I have no objection to your giving my money in charity to the amount of forty or fifty pounds a year, when you think it is well bestowed. What I mean by having no objection is, that it is my desire that it should be done."
Many Americans feared that the enemy might send a war vessel up the Potomac and destroy the Mount Vernon residence and capture Mrs.
Washington. She was earnestly advised to leave, and repair to a place of safety beyond the Blue Ridge. But Washington sent for her to come to him at Cambridge.
She was four weeks travelling from Mount Vernon to Cambridge. She performed the journey in her own carriage, a chariot drawn by four fine horses, with black postilions in scarlet and white liveries. This was an English style of equipage, and the public sentiment of that day demanded that the commander-in-chief should adopt it. She was accompanied by her son, and was escorted from place to place by guards of honor. Her arrival in Cambridge was the signal for great rejoicing. The army received her with the honors due to her ill.u.s.trious husband.
She immediately took charge of Washington"s headquarters, and soon became as popular in the domestic and social circle as her husband was in camp and field. It was at Cambridge that she was first called "Lady Washington."
As an ill.u.s.tration of Washington"s rigid discipline, an incident is related of his manner of suppressing a disturbance. It was during the winter he was besieging Boston.
A party of Virginia riflemen met a party of Marblehead fishermen. The dress of the fishermen was as singular to the riflemen as that of the riflemen was to the fishermen, and they began to banter each other.
Snow-b.a.l.l.s soon began to fly back and forth, and finally hard blows were interchanged. A melee occurred, in which a thousand soldiers partic.i.p.ated.
Hearing of the disturbance, Washington hastened to the scene, and, leaping from his horse, he seized two burly Virginians by the neck, and held them out at arm"s length, at the same time administering a rebuke in words that scattered the combatants as suddenly as a cannonade would have done.
The British army committed many depredations in Boston during the year they held possession of it. They tore out the pulpit and pews of the Old South Church, and converted it into a riding-school for General Burgoyne"s light-horse regiment. They took down the North Church and used it for fuel. They used up about three hundred wooden houses in the same way.
In the winter a theatre was established for the entertainment of the British soldiers. At one time a British officer wrote a farce ent.i.tled, "The Blockade of Boston," to be played on a given evening. It was a burlesque upon Washington and the American army. It represented the commander-in-chief of the American army as an awkward lout, equipped with a huge wig, and a long, rusty sword, attended by a country b.o.o.by as orderly sergeant, in a rustic garb, with an old fire-lock seven or eight feet long.
The theatre was filled to overflowing on the night the farce was announced. It happened that, on the same night, General Putnam sent a party of two hundred men to surprise and capture a British guard stationed at Charlestown. His daring exploit was successful, though his men were fired upon by the garrison of the fort. The thunder of artillery caused a British officer to believe that the Yankees were in motion, and he rushed into the theatre, crying, "The Yankees are attacking Bunker Hill!"
At first the audience supposed that this announcement was part of the play. But General Howe, who was present, undeceived them by calling out, "Officers, to your alarm posts!"
The farce turned out to be tragedy, and the curtain fell upon the scene.
The audience scattered like a flock of sheep.
The failure of the British to hold Boston was extremely mortifying to General Howe and the English Government. When the king"s regiments first took possession of the city, one of the officers wrote home:
"Whenever it comes to blows, he that can run the fastest will think himself well off, believe me. Any two regiments here ought to be decimated if they did not beat in the field the whole force of the Ma.s.sachusetts Province."
General Gage said to the king, before leaving England to take command of the forces in Boston, "The Americans will be lions so long as the English are lambs. Give me five regiments and I will keep Boston quiet."
When General Burgoyne was sailing into Boston Harbor to join his king"s army, and his attention was called to the fact that a few thousand undisciplined "rebels" were besieging a town garrisoned by five or six thousand British regulars, he exclaimed in derision:
"What! ten thousand peasants keep five thousand king"s troops shut up?
Well, let us get in and we"ll soon find elbow-room."
He failed to find "elbow room" until he put out to sea.
To be driven out of Boston, when such a result was considered impossible by the foe, was doubly humiliating to the sons of Great Britain. It was proportionably glorious to American patriots, and they took possession of the city with exultation and devout thanksgivings to G.o.d.
Congress unanimously adopted a eulogistic resolution, rehearsing the valor and achievements of the commander-in-chief, and ordered a gold medal, with appropriate inscription, to be struck off, and presented to him as a token of the country"s grat.i.tude.
XVIII.
DEFENDING NEW YORK.
"What next?" inquired General Putnam.
"That is a difficult question to answer until I know General Howe"s destination," replied Washington.
"Then you don"t think he is going home?" continued Putnam facetiously.
"Not yet, though I wish he might; then I would go home, too."
"But seriously, where do you think he is going?" urged Putnam.
"I fear that he is bound to New York, for that is a port more important to him than even Boston." Washington spoke as if he were greatly perplexed.
"Well," added Putnam in his resolute way, "if he is bound for New York it won"t do for us to be fooling about here long."
"No; and if I were certain that his destination were there, I should put you in command of that post at once," said Washington. "Besides the importance of the position to him, the large number of Tories in that town is a great inducement for him to strike there. Governor Tryon has been plotting something with them, and who knows but his appearance there will be the signal for them to rise against their own country."