CHAPTER XIII

FIRST PERIOD OF THE WAR-1775-1777

FIRST YEAR-1775

249. Battle of Lexington. The first blood of the war was shed at Lexington, a small village eleven miles from Boston, on the highway to Concord. General Gage determined to secure the military stores which the patriots had collected at Concord, and to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who had escaped to Lexington. Gage had received orders from

Hancock, and to spread the alarm. Revere crossed by boat to Charlestown, where he waited until a lantern, hung in the belfry of the Old North Church, gave the signal that the British were starting by way of the bay and the Charles River, through Cambridge. Paul Revere now set out on his famous midnight ride, by way of Medford and Lexington, everywhere arousing the people. When he reached the house in Lexington where Hancock and Adams were asleep, a man on guard cried out: "Don't make so much noise!" "Noise!"

shouted Revere, "You'll soon have noise enough. The regulars are coming!" The two fugitives made good their escape, while Revere pressed on, with his startling message, to Concord. The farmers from the country around soon swarmed into Concord by the hundreds.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;

And so through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm

A cry of defiance and not of fear

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo forevermore!

Through all our history to the last.

—From Longfellow's “Ride of Paul Revere."

Eight hundred British soldiers, under Major Pitcairn, encountered about fifty minute-men in a skirmish at Lexington. Seven Americans were killed. Pushing on to Concord, a sharp battle was fought at Concord Bridge, where a large number of minute-men from the country around had hurriedly gathered. The British destroyed what was left of the stores and then fell back to Lexington under American fire. Here they were re-enforced, but beating a disorderly retreat to Boston they were followed all the way by the minute-men who kept firing at them from the shelter of trees, houses, and walls. Nearly three hundred of the king's soldiers were left, dead or dying, along the road, while the dead and wounded of the patriots numbered about ninety.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard round the world.
-Emerson's "Concord Hymn.”

250. Second Continental Congress. The Second Continental Congress began its session on May 10, 1775, in the Old State House (now Independence Hall), Philadelphia. At its sessions:

(a) it voted to raise an army of twenty thousand, the expenseof which was to be paid by the united colonies;

(b) George Washington was appointed, by unanimous vote, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army;

(c) a petition to the king was prepared.

To this petition the king responded with the declaration that the Americans were rebels and traitors, and must be forced to

GEORGE WASHINGTON

submit to the rule of the British crown. He even went so far as to hire soldiers from foreign powers to help him subjugate his rebel colonies. This Congress continued with occasional adjournment until March 1, 1781, when it was succeeded by the Congress of the Confederation.

251. Capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point. On the day that the Second Continental Congress convened for the first time a company of "Green Mountain

Boys" from Vermont, under Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, surprised the British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga. Entering the fort in the night, Ethan Allen found the commander in bed. He ordered him to surrender. "In whose name?" demanded the bewildered officer, who had just been aroused from sleep. "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Con

tinental Congress!" replied Allen. No resistance was attempted. (Allen was an infidel, and as such his writings, especially his "Oracles of Reason," are considered highly objectionable from a Catholic standpoint. Allen's daughter, however, became a Catholic and joined the community of hospital nuns at Montreal, where she lived a saintly life.)

Crown Point was taken a few days later. By the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point the patriots gained possession of valuable and sorely needed military stores. They furthermore obtained control of Lakes Champlain and George, the coveted water route between New York and Canada.

252. Battle of Bunker Hill. General Gage, having received re-enforcements from England, under command of Generals. Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne, now commanded at Boston a force of about eight thousand men. In his plans to fortify the heights, now known as Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill, Gage was forestalled by the Americans. The latter, led by Colonel Samuel Prescott, who was aided by Generals Warren and Putnam, quietly fortified the hill during the night. The next morning General Gage was both surprised and chagrined to find that he had been out-generaled. Forces under General Howe prepared at once to storm the American works. In two desperate attacks the British were driven back with a loss of one-third of their number, and only the exhaustion of American ammunition made their third assault a success (June). The British lost more than one thousand men, the Americans less than four hundred and fifty. Among the slain on the American side was the noble patriot, General Joseph Warren, commander-in-chief of the Massachusetts militia. The death of General Warren was the most serious loss in a single life during the war. The English lost Major Pitcairn.

The Bunker Hill conflict inspired the Americans with courage and hope. They learned that their troops were equal to those of the British army. The English learned the same lesson. They were astonished at the fighting qualities which the

colonists displayed at the Lexington encounter and at the battle of Bunker Hill.

253. Washington in Charge of the Army. On July 2, 1775, Washington took command of the American army under an elm tree (which is still standing, 1914), near Harvard University, Cambridge. The army which he found encamped before Boston was poorly clad, ill-equipped, and disorderly. How un

CRAIGIE HOUSE, THE HOME OF LONGFELLOW
(Washington's Headquarters, 1775)

disciplined the American recruits were may be seen from the following incident: a captain asked a private to get a pail of water for the men. He received as answer, "I shan't. It's your turn now, captain; I got it last night." Washington spent the fall and winter in organizing the army. In this difficult task he was aided by Generals Greene (next to Washington the ablest commander in the war), Sullivan, Putnam, Gates, and others. By extraordinary exertions the army was