Young Folks' History of Boston by Hezekiah Butterworth

Author:Hezekiah Butterworth [Butterworth, Hezekiah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2018-02-08T23:00:00+00:00

Washington's headquarters were at first in the old buff-colored, gambrel-roofed house which may still be seen just east of the Common. In this house Oliver Wendell Holmes was born, and here he wrote "Old Ironsides." Washington's permanent headquarters was the house now occupied by Henry W. Longfellow, a short distance from Harvard Square.

After the battle of Bunker Hill, General Putnam fortified Prospect Hill, and covered the town of Cambridge from an advance by the enemy. Works had been thrown up on Winter Hill; these were strengthened. All the roads leading out of Boston were seized and guarded. The British took possession of Dorchester Heights, and strengthened their position on Bunker Hill.

Quiet reigned in the hostile camps. But Boston was invested by the Provincials.

July passed with little action in the field by either army. In August a reinforcement of fourteen hundred riflemen, chiefly backwoodsmen of the Shenandoah Valley, arrived in the American camp. In September Washington received about three tons of gunpowder from Rhode Island.

Winter came, a severe one to the Provincials, a terrible one to the British in the invested city. Food there became scarce and dear; luxuries there were none; complaining was everywhere heard. To make the supplies last as long as possible General Howe sent seven hundred of the poorest inhabitants out of the town. To provide fuel he caused houses to be demolished.

Washington, knowing the distress within the town, now began to plan an assault upon it. It was decided at a council of war to make an attempt to seize Dorchester Heights, and thus to bring the enemy directly under the American guns.

The first thing to be done was to deceive the British in regard to the point it was intended to attack. With this object, Washington ordered his troops to bombard the town from various hills on the west. This attack began on March 2. It continued for three nights, and the British were completely deceived by it, and the Heights were left unprotected.

While they were watching the bombardment in the west, preparations were rapidly made in the south to advance upon the Heights.

On the night of the 4th of March, a strong detachment, under General Thomas, set out from Roxbury. It was a hazy but not very cold winter's night. There was little or no snow on the ground, which was, however, frozen hard.

First went eight hundred picked patriots, who acted as a covering party. Following these were carts with entrenching tools, such as pickaxes and spades; then came twelve hundred men, as a working party, to throw up breastworks; then rumbled along two hundred carts, with fascines (fagots for building ramparts) and bundles of hay.

They moved very silently and cautiously; meanwhile they could hear the roar of the cannon in the west, where the bombardment to distract the attention of the British was going forward. At last they ascended the Heights, creeping up its sides. The carts were arranged in convenient spots, and the working party took their tools, while the others kept guard at various points on the hill.

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