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The fourth of March closed, and the night was mild and hazy. The moon was at its full. It was a good night for rest. Possibly such a whisper as this might have pervaded the Boston barracks, and lulled anxious royalists to slumber. “Surely the rebels cannot afford further waste of powder. They impoverish themselves. Sleep on! Boston is safe!” Not so! As the sun went down, the whole American camp was alive with its teeming thousands; not ostentatiously paraded upon parapet and bastion, but patiently awaiting the meaning of a mysterious hint, which kept even the inmates of hospital tents from sleeping, that “Washington had promised them Boston on the morrow.”

From “early candle-lighting” to the clear light of another dawn, incessant thunder rolled over camp and city. The same quick flashes showed that fire ran all along the line; and still, the occupants of camp and city, standing by their guns, or sheltered from their fire, dragged through the night, impatiently waiting for daylight to test the night’s experience, as daylight had done before.