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At earliest break of day it was announced to General Howe that “two strong rebel redoubts capped Dorchester Heights.” The news spread quickly, after the excitements of the night. There was no more easy slumber in the royal bed-chamber of British repose, nor in the luxurious apartments of the favored subjects of George III., in the city of Boston, on that fifth day of March, 1776.

“If the Americans retain possession of the Heights,” said Admiral Shuldham, “I cannot keep a vessel in the harbor.”

General Howe advised Lord Dartmouth that “it must have been the employment of at least twelve thousand men.”

Another British officer said, “These works were raised with an expedition equal to that of the genii belonging to Aladdin’s lamp.”

Lord Howe said, further, “The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army would have done in a month.”

“Perhaps,” said Heath, “there never was as much done in so short a space.”

The reader of this narrative, whether citizen or soldier, cannot fail to be interested in some account of the extreme simplicity with which the construction of these works had been carried on. The earth, at that time, was frozen to the depth of eighteen inches, rendering the use of pick-axe and shovel, and all intrenching-tools, of little use; besides, the noise of their handling would have betrayed the workmen. The secret of Washington’s silent preparatory work, and the accumulation of such heaps of material behind his headquarters, is revealed. Hoop-poles, for hurdles and fascines,—branches cut from apple orchards, and along brooks, for abatis, even as far out as the present suburban towns of Brookline, Milton, Mattapan, and Hyde Park, had been accumulated in great quantities. Large bales of compressed hay, which were proof against any ordinary cannon-ball, had been procured also, so that the merely heaping up and arranging these under the personal direction of Engineer Putnam, according to a plan fully digested in advance, was but easy work for a class of country soldiers peculiarly “handy” with all such materials. Then, on the tops of the improvised redoubts, were barrels filled with stones. These, at the proper time, were to be rolled down the hill, to disconcert the formal array of steadily advancing British regulars.