"Prescott there offered the command to him, as Putnam had just done; but Warren again declined, saying, 'I come as a volunteer, to learn from a soldier of experience.' This though three days before he had been elected a provincial major-general.
"After the British had landed and before the battle began, Col. John Stark arrived with his New Hampshire troops. Except Prescott he brought the largest number into the field. He was a very brave man, and so cool and collected that he marched leisurely across the isthmus, raked by the cannon of the enemy; and when one of his captains advised a quickstep, he replied, 'One fresh man in action is worth ten fatigued ones.'
"There was not time for him to consult with Prescott. They fought independently,—Prescott at his redoubt, Stark and Knowlton, and Reed's regiment to protect its flank.
"Months before that,—two days after the battle of Concord,—Gage had threatened to burn Charlestown in case the Americans should occupy the heights. So an order was now given to set it on fire, and it was done by shells from Copp's Hill; the houses being mostly of wood, two hundred of them were soon in flames.
"The British thought to be protected in their advance by the smoke of the burning houses, but a gentle breeze, the first that had been felt that day, arose and wafted it aside, so that they were not hidden from the eyes of the Americans.
"It was somewhere between two and three o'clock when the British began their approach. They were in two columns, one led by Howe, the other by Pigot, Howe no doubt expecting to get into Prescott's rear and force him to a surrender. But I will give another extract from Bancroft.
"As they began to march, the battery on Copp's Hill, from which Clinton and Burgoyne were watching every movement, kept up an incessant fire, which was seconded by the 'Falcon' and the 'Lively,' the 'Somerset' and the two floating batteries; the town of Charlestown, consisting of five hundred edifices of wood, burst into a blaze; and the steeple of its only church became a pyramid of fire. All the while the masts of the British shipping and the heights of the British camp, the church towers, the house tops of a populous town, and the acclivities of the surrounding country, were crowded with spectators to watch the battle which was to take place in full sight on a conspicuous eminence."
"Oh, Papa," pleaded Gracie, as he paused for an instant, "please tell it. I like that so much better than listening to reading."
"Quite a compliment to me as a reader," he returned with an amused look.
"No, sir, as a talker. I like to hear you tell things," she responded, with a sweet, engaging smile.