1775.

place of their recent session the Provincial Congress had made a considerable deposit of arms and ammunition. It was almost as well known to the patriots, at least, it was confidently believed by them, that the Governor had designs upon it, and they took their precautions accordingly. The Governor sent a detachment of eight hundred men to destroy or bring away the stores. An hour before midnight the troops stealthily left the town in boats. But they were watched, and, by signals before agreed upon, the movement was made known to the people on the other side. The next morning" was fired the shot heard round the world." Landing in Cambridge, the troops pushed on to Lexington, which April 19. they reached at daybreak. There they found a company of some seventy minute-men drawn up under arms. The British major in command called on them to disperse, and ordered his men to fire. Eight Americans were killed and several were wounded, and the party proceeded towards its destination. Reaching Concord, and occupying the bridge over the river of that name, at the further end of the town, they destroyed a part of the stores of which they had come in quest, while the militia collected on the other side and tried to remove the planks. The troops fired, killing Captain Davis, of Acton, and a private of his company. The fire was returned, and the soldiers retreated. As they retraced their steps they were assailed from the rear, and from behind stone-walls on both sides of their way. At Lexington, where they were received into a hollow square by Lord Percy, who had been sent out from Boston to reinforce them with nine hundred men, they gained a little rest under the protection of two pieces of cannon. But the day was waning, and it was necessary to resume the march. The alarm was now spread widely, and they were shot at all along their retreat by companies of marksmen who came up by the side roads.

In a desperate condition of exhaustion and de

moralization they reached cover at Charlestown after sunset. The eight years' war of American Independence was begun.

On the second day after their expedition to Concord, the British troops were withdrawn into Boston, where, before the end of the week, they and their comrades were surrounded by a force of some twenty thousand provincials, in a semi-circle extending from Dorchester to Charlestown. Massachusetts poured in its militia from north, south, and west. Joseph Spencer led three thousand minute-men from Connecticut, and John Stark twelve hundred from New Hampshire. The Quaker, Nathaniel Greene, came with three excellently well-equipped regiments from Rhode Island. General Gage, with a command now raised by reinforcements1 to the number of ten thousand disciplined and well-appointed soldiers, hoped that he might break the blockade and penetrate into the country. It was believed that he was about to make the attempt by crossing over the narrow channel which divides Boston from Charlestown; and to obstruct that design the Americans sent a party by night to build a work on high land of the latter town, since known as Bunker Hill. The next day a British force four June 17. thousand strong drove them from the position, with a loss to themselves of from a thousand to fifteen hundred men, killed and wounded, while the loss of the untrained provincials was reckoned at four hundred and fifty out of the whole force engaged, the number of which it seems to be impossible to state with precision, though it probably did not exceed twenty-five hundred, and perhaps did not exceed fifteen hundred. The Continental Congress which had met at Philadelphia in the preceding month appointed a General-in-Chief

1775.

1 "At the close of May and be- forcements from England had arginning of June, the expected rein- rived." (Mahon, VI. 53.)

July 3.

of "the armies raised and to be raised for the defence of American liberty." And on the sixteenth day after the fight at Bunker Hill, the roll of the New England drums on Cambridge Common announced the presence there of the Virginian, GEORGE WASHINGTON.