Military History. 295 



since through the streets of the queer little New England capital, 

 with its stately mansions, its gable-roofed shops, and crooked, 

 sidewalklcss, cobble-paved streets, inarched out the bright red col- 

 umns which under Howe and Clinton and Pigot moved up the 

 sides of Bunker Hill, on whose green slopes the serried ranks 

 melted away before the blaze of Prescott's muskets, and whose 

 soil drank up with eager thirst the flowing life-blood of Warren 

 and Pitcairn, and many another brave and gallant hero — Pro- 

 vincial and British alike. And now in these same streets the drum 

 is again calling men to arms, and along Cornhill, — now Washing- 

 ton Street, — by the Old South, so lately a riding school for Eng- 

 lish troopers, roll the guns of Craft's artillery. Here too come 

 detachments from Colonel Marshall's and Colonel Whitney's regi- 

 ments and the Continentals whom General Ward has detailed, 

 — undoubtedly with a thrill of satisfaction as he recalls the anx- 

 ious June day when he commanded at Cambridge a twelvemonth 

 since. By the bookstore of Daniel Henchman where General 

 Knox had been an apprentice, the troops turn into King Street 

 and passing the Town House march over the spot where Captain 

 Preston and the men of the 29th regiment shot down the people 

 on the night of March 5, 1770, and thence to Long Wharf where 

 they are to embark. 



What a flood of memories the place awakens ! It was here 

 that Governor Shirley, returning in 1745 from the reduction of 

 Louisburg, landed amid the acclamations of the people and the 

 salutes of the shipping, and was received by the Cadets under 

 Colonel Pollard, the Troops of Horse, the Chelsea company, and 

 Colonel Wendell's regiment ; here too in May, 1774, the Cadets re- 

 ceived General Gage, then Governor of the Province, and here on 

 the 17th of June of the following year General Gage embarked 

 the regiments which at Charlestown lost for England an empire, 

 and in America wrote in blood one of the earliest and most mem- 

 orable pages in the history of a new nation. And now like a beau- 

 tiful picture, on this calm summer morning lie the blue waters of 

 Boston harbor and of our own, both dotted with islands fresh in 

 the bright green of early summer, and both reflecting the white 

 sails which hang like the snowy wings of great gulls over them. 

 Beneath some of these frown the guns, and over them floats the 

 cross of St. George, while in the distance a pine tree on a white 

 ground marks the anchorage of a Yankee cruiser. Meanwhile 

 too, from all the towns and villages around, comes the same tap- 

 tap of the drum and the cheery note of the fife, and down to the 

 water side march the militia, — the militia which the frequent 

 alarms of the past year, the occasional skirmish with the enemy, the 

 work in the trenches at Dorchester, and the manning of the lines 

 at Roxbury, have made into veteran soldiers. Now they respond 

 with unusual alacrity. The hilltops are covered with eager and 

 anxious spectators for miles around. With them we watch the 

 embarkation, and then the long hours of the bright summer day 



