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WASHINGTON AT FOUR PERIODS OF HIS MILITARY CAREER.
[Etching from H. H. Hall’s Sons’ engraving.]
CHAPTER V.
WASHINGTON IN COMMAND.
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On the twenty-first day of June, 1775, Washington left Philadelphia for Boston, and on the third day of July assumed command of the Continental Army of America, with headquarters at Cambridge.
At this point one is instinctively prompted to peer into the closed tent of the Commander-in-Chief and observe his modest, but wholly self-reliant attitude toward the grave questions that are to be settled, in determining whether the future destiny of America is to be that of liberty, or abject submission to the Crown.
For fully two months the yeomanry of New England had firmly grasped all approaches to the City of Boston. This pressure was now and then resisted by efforts of the garrison to secure supplies from the surrounding country farms; which only induced a tighter hold, and aroused a stubborn purpose to crowd that garrison to surrender, or escape by sea. The islands of the beautiful bay and of the Nantasket roadstead had become miniature fields of daily conflict; and persistent efforts to procure bullocks, flour, and other needed provisions, through the boats of the British fleet, only developed a counter system of boat operations which neutralized the former, and gradually restricted the country excursions of the troops within the city to the range of their guns.