Читать книгу Washington the Soldier онлайн

102 страница из 123

Just after sunset, on that New England spring evening, from Lechmere Point, past Cobble Hill, and through the long range of encircling batteries, clear to the Roxbury line on the right, every mortar and cannon which could take Boston in range opened fire upon the quiet city.

But this was only a preliminary test of the location, range, and power of the adversary fire. The British guns responded with spirit, and equally well disclosed to competent artillery experts distributed along the American lines, the weight, efficiency, and disposition of their batteries so suddenly called into action.

At sunrise of March 2d, the American army seemed not to have heard the cannonading of the previous night; or, wondering at such a waste of precious powder, shot, and shell, rested from the real experience of handling heavy guns against the city and an invisible foe, at night. And through the entire day the army rested. No parades were ordered. Only the formal calls of routine duty were sounded by fife and drum. No heads appeared above the ramparts. The tents were crowded with earnest men, tilling powder-horns, casting or counting bullets, cleaning their “firelocks,” as they were called in the official drill manual of those times, and writing letters to their friends at home. The quiet of that camp was intense, but faces were not gloomy in expression, neither was there any sign of special dread of the approaching conflict, which everybody felt to be immediately at hand. As officers went the rounds to see that silence was fully observed, it was enough to satisfy every curious inquirer as to its purpose,—“It is Washington’s order.” And all this time, behind the American headquarters, Rufus Putnam, civil engineer, Knox, Chief of Artillery, Mifflin, Quartermaster-General, and General Thomas, were ceaselessly at work, studying the plans and taking their final instructions from the Commander-in-Chief.