[CHAPTER XVI—IN WHICH EZRA LISTENS TO A DARING PLAN, AND HOW THREE SPIES LISTEN TO IT LIKEWISE]
From the time that Washington reached New York, his progress toward Cambridge was a constant ovation. In all the towns he passed through he was received by committees of citizens. Addresses of welcome and praise were read to him, cannon were fired in his honor, and escorts met him and saw him on his way.
While he was no doubt gratified by all these signs of favor and indications of the people’s confidence, the general’s most earnest desire was to reach his destination and assume the command entrusted to him. At Springfield a committee of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress met him; a cavalcade of mounted citizens and troops escorted him into Cambridge on the second of July.
It was about two o’clock in the afternoon when the commander-in-chief entered the town. The streets were thronged with people; cheers met him upon every hand; people filled windows, sheds and roof tops to do him honor. The various colonial flags fluttered wildly; guns roared and the troops saluted their leader with critical satisfaction.
The next day General Washington assumed command of the army in due form. He at once rode about its posts and carefully examined the position of the enemy. Ezra, Nat and Gilbert Scarlett rode with the party that accompanied him, he having selected the two former as his messengers and the latter accompanying them because of his curiosity regarding the new leader.
“He looks,” Scarlett told Ezra, “like a man of unmistakable parts. Colonel Prescott, last night, was good enough to sketch his life and military acts for me, and I was much struck. At Braddock’s defeat he played the part, not only of a man, but of a most excellent officer.”
Slowly Washington reconnoitered the British lines. He found Howe strongly entrenching on Bunker Hill, advanced about half a mile from the late battle-field, with his sentries extending fully one hundred and fifty yards upon the Cambridge side of the Neck. Three floating batteries lay in the Mystic River, and a twenty-gun ship was at anchor below the ferry. On Roxbury Neck they were also strongly fortified. The bulk of the British army lay upon Bunker Hill; only a few light horse were at this time left in Boston.
Not a point of all this seemed to escape the observing eye of the Virginian; his comments and directions were listened to by Scarlett with close attention and deepening appreciation.
The American position had grown stronger since the Bunker Hill fight.
Entrenchments had been thrown up on Prospect and Winter Hills. From these the British camp was plainly in view at little more than a mile away. There was a strong work at Sewall’s Farm, which, afterward, Washington made stronger still. At Roxbury, General Thomas had thrown up a powerful fortification. The New Hampshire troops and a regiment of Rhode Island men held Winter Hill. General Putnam was in command at Prospect Hill with the greater part of his Connecticut regiments. The troops at Cambridge were all of Massachusetts Bay; and the bulk of Greene’s Rhode Islanders held Sewall’s Farm. Two other regiments of Putnam’s men and nine regiments of Massachusetts were stationed at Roxbury. Then there were some seven hundred men scattered along the coast to prevent descents of the enemy.