adopted them in part at least as its own. The congress of his native state, who knew him well, had chosen him to guide their debates, and had recently raised him to high command in their army, proclaimed their "veneration for Joseph Warren, as for one whose memory is endeared to his countrymen, and to the worthy in every part and age of the world, so long as virtue and valor shall be esteemed among men."

The reports of the generals show the opinions in the two camps after the battle. "The success," wrote Gage to Dartmouth, "which was very necessary in our present condition, cost us dear. The number of killed and wounded is greater than our forces can afford. We have lost some extremely good officers. The trials we have had show the rebels are not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be; and I find it owing to a military spirit encouraged among them for a few years past, joined with uncommon zeal and enthusiasm. They intrench, and raise batteries; they have engineers. They have fortified all the heights and passes around this town, which it is not impossible for them to annoy. The conquest of this country is not easy; you have to cope with vast numbers. In all their wars against the French, they never showed so much conduct, attention, and perseverance as they do now. I think it my duty to let your lordship know the true situation of affairs."

On the other hand, Ward, in a general order, gave thanks to "the officers and soldiers who behaved so gallantly at the action in Charlestown;" and, in words which expressed the conviction of his camp, he added: "We shall finally come off victorious, and triumph over the enemies of freedom and America." The events of the day confirmed Washington in his habitual belief that the liberties of America would be preserved. To his English friends Franklin wrote: "Americans will fight; England has lost her colonies forever."

CHAPTER XV.

THE ARMY ROUND BOSTON.

JUNE 17-AUGUST 1775.

DURING the evening and night after the engagement the air trembled with the groans of the wounded, as they were borne over the Charles and through the streets of Boston to illprovided hospitals. To the end of the war, the courage of the insurgents in this battle of the people, and their skill as marksmen, never went out of mind. The loss of officers was disproportionately great; and the gloom of the British was deepened by the reflection that they had fought against their own kindred. The mortally wounded, like Abercrombie, had not the consolation that their memory would be held in honor.

America was, beyond any country in the world, the land of the most varied legislative experience; but in its remoteness from danger and its abhorrence of a standing army there was not any organized force except of the people as a militia; so that it had no choice of officers but from those of the militia who had chanced to see some short service in the French wars, retired English officers who had made their homes in America, or civilians.

On the day of the Bunker Hill battle the continental congress elected four major-generals. From deference to Massachusetts, the first of these was Artemas Ward, though he had not yet received a commission from that colony, and from his broken health was unfit for the station.

The Americans, with ingenuous confidence, assumed that Charles Lee, the son of an English officer and trained up from boyhood for the army, was, as he represented himself, a sol

dier of ability and large experience, and their friend from conviction of the equity of their cause. "From what I know of him," wrote Sir Joseph Yorke, then British minister at the Hague, "he is the worst present which could be made to any army." Reduced to half pay, he had "no chance of being provided for at home," and, as an adventurer, sought "employment in any part of the world." Clinging to England all the while and holding it "wretchedness itself not to be able to herd with the class to which he had been accustomed from his infancy," he looked upon the Americans as "bad company," and unworthy of independence. No position was too high for his conceit; yet he was too petulant to persevere even in intrigues to supplant his superiors. He wrote with vi vacity and sometimes with terseness, but never with feeling; for he had no sincerity and loved neither man nor woman. He was subject to "spleen and gloomy moods;" excitable almost to madness; alike violent and versatile. He passed for a brave man, but in sudden danger he quailed. His mobility, though sometimes mistaken for activity, only disguised his inefficiency. He was poor in council; prodigal of censure; downcast in disaster; after success, claiming honor not his own; ever ready to cavil and perplex. He professed to be a free-thinker; but he had only learned of scoffers to deny "the God of the Jews," curse the clergy, and hate orthodox dissenters. Ill-mannered, a great sloven, wretchedly profane, always with dogs about him, his numerous eccentricities were neither exaggerations nor caricatures of anything American, and disclosed an unsound mind. Having no fellow-feeling with the common people, he would have preferred a country of slaves under a lenient master to a democratic government. His sordid soul had no passion so strong as covetousness, and he was always seeking to escape spending money even on himself. Having been an aide-de-camp to the king of Poland, he claimed to "have passed through the higher military ranks in some of the most respectable services of Europe, and to be a major-general of five years' standing," and had waited upon congress with the thought of being chosen commander-in-chief. At the moment of accepting employment from a nation which was looking to France for sympathy, he assured his own king of his readiness to serve

against the natural hereditary enemies of England with the utmost alacrity and zeal. He often regretted having hazarded his "all" in the American cause. Yet congress elected him their second major-general, so that, on the retirement of Ward, he would stand next to Washington.

New York had been asked to propose the third majorgeneral; she had more than one citizen of superior military talent; but her provincial congress, limiting the choice to those who possessed "the gifts of fortune," selected Philip Schuyler. Montgomery hesitated, saying: "His consequence in the province makes him a fit subject for an important trust; but has he strong nerves? I could wish that point well ascertained with respect to any man so employed." The vote for him in congress was not without dissent.

For the fourth major-general, the choice fell upon Israel Putnam, of Connecticut. Wooster, as well as Spencer, of the same colony, stood before him in age and rank, and equalled him in love of country and courage; but a skirmish at East Boston, in which he took the lead, had been heralded as a great victory, and the ballot in his favor is recorded as unanimous. Of Massachusetts by birth, at the age of thirty-seven he began his career with the commission from Connecticut of a second lieutenant, and his service had been chiefly as a ranger.

Horatio Gates, a retired British officer who resided in Virginia, came next as adjutant-general with the rank of brigadier. On the twenty-first of June, Thomas Jefferson, then thirty years of age, entered congress, preceded by a brilliant reputation as a vigorous writer and a far-sighted statesman.

The twenty-second brought the great tidings of the battle near Bunker Hill. "A breach on our affections was needed to rouse the country to action," exclaimed Patrick Henry as he heard of the death of Warren. Congress proceeded to the election of eight brigadiers, of whom all but one were from New England. In deference to the choice of the congress of Massachusetts, the first was Seth Pomeroy; but he retired before receiving his commission. The second was Richard Montgomery, of New York, a Scotch-Irishman by birth, a soldier by profession, well-informed as a statesman, faultless in private life, a patriot from the heart. He was followed by David

Wooster, of Connecticut, a brave and upright man of sixty-five; William Heath, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, a patriot farmer, who held high rank in the train-bands and had read books on the military art; Joseph Spencer, of Connecticut, a man past sixty, a most respectable citizen, but, from age and inexperience, not qualified for councils of war; John Thomas, a physician, of Kingston, Massachusetts; and John Sullivan, an able lawyer and patriot statesman of New Hampshire. The last was Nathaniel Greene, of Rhode Island, unsurpassed in the fortitude which bears up against defeat.

Washington, who at that time was affluent, took delight in his beautifully situated home at Mount Vernon, where he gave an example of purity of life, of systematic order in the management of his estate, and benevolence to those in want. To his wife, whose miniature he wore on his breast from the day of his marriage to his death, he wrote on the eighteenth of June: "You may believe me, I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad if my stay were to be seven times seven years. I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid this appointment, from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, but, as a kind of destiny has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose. I shall rely confidently on that Providence which has hitherto preserved and been bountiful to me."

At a farewell supper, the members of congress rose as they drank a health to "the commander-in-chief of the American army;" to his thanks they listened in stillness, for a sense of the difficulties before him suppressed every festal cheer.

On the twenty-third he was escorted out of Philadelphia by the Massachusetts delegates and many others, with music, officers of militia, and a cavalcade of light-horse. "I, poor creature," said John Adams, as he returned from this "pride and pomp of war," "I, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown; others to eat the bread which I have earned." To his brother, Washington wrote confidingly; "I bid adieu to every kind of domestic ease,