Footnote 182: On the previous day, General Putnam, with a strong detachment, broke ground at Cobble hill, where the M'Lean Asylum now stands. The object was to erect batteries for the purpose of cannonading Boston. It was expected the British troops would sally out of the city and attack them, and that expectation caused Washington to issue the order for all the troops to be ready for action at a moment's warning.[(Back)]
Footnote 183: Frothingham says, "Two British sentinels came off in the night to the detachment" of General Putnam.[(Back)]
Footnote 184: This remark refers to several blots of ink which disfigure the page of his Journal on which he was writing.[(Back)]
Footnote 185: That was the British storeship Nancy, captured off Cape Anne, and carried into that harbor, by Captain John Manly, commander of the American armed schooner Lee, one of the six vessels fitted out at Boston under the direction of Washington, before Congress had yet taken any measures to establish a navy. So valuable were the stores of the Nancy, that Washington supposed General Howe would immediately make efforts to recover her, and he had an armed force sent to Cape Anne to secure them. There were two thousand muskets, one hundred thousand flints, thirty thousand round shot for one, six, and twelve pounders, over thirty thousand musket-shot, and a thirteen-inch brass mortar that weighed twenty-seven hundred pounds. The arrival of these produced great joy in the camp. Colonel Moylan, describing the scene, says: "Old Put [General Putnam] was mounted on the mortar, with a bottle of rum in his hand, standing parson to christen, while god-father Mifflin [afterward General Mifflin] gave it the name of Congress."
On the 29th of November, Washington commenced planting a bomb-battery on Lechmere's point, with the intention of bombarding the British works on Bunker hill. They completed it in the course of a few days, entirely unmolested.[(Back)]
Footnote 186: The author did not expect to have his Journal published, or he would have omitted the entry here made. There seems nothing in it derogatory to his character, yet he has chosen words to express his thoughts not suited "to ears polite."[(Back)]
Footnote 187: Washington was now in hourly expectation of an attack from the British, and, knowing his own weakness, he considered his situation very critical. In vigilance alone seemed a security for safety.[(Back)]
Footnote 188: The Yankee love of trade and barter appears to have been very prevalent in the camp.[(Back)]
Footnote 189: New militia recruits from the country, who had never seen service.[(Back)]
Footnote 190: General Joseph Spencer, of East Haddam, Connecticut. He remained in service until 1778, when he resigned, left the army, and became a member of Congress. He held rank next to Putnam in the army at Boston. He died in 1789, at the age of seventy years.[(Back)]