"Shut them up! Starve them out! Drive them into their ships, and send their ships out to sea!"
To add to the disheartening situation, Charlestown lay in ashes, having been set on fire by the enemy's shells at the battle of Bunker Hill; there were no well-constructed works throughout the whole line of fortifications; insubordination was popular among the troops, who called it independence; and still worse, jealousies prevailed among the troops of different Colonies.
The larger part of the army, nearly ten thousand, belonged to Massachusetts, and they were in the worst plight of all. Washington made the following magnanimous apology for them:
"This unhappy and devoted province has been so long in a state of anarchy, and the yoke has been laid so heavily on it, that great allowances are to be made for troops raised under such circumstances. The deficiency of members, discipline, and stores can only lead to this conclusion: that their spirit has exceeded their strength."
"The rebel army are in so wretched a condition as to clothing and accoutrements, that I believe no nation ever saw such a set of tatterdemalions. There are few coats among them but what are out at elbows, and in a whole regiment there is scarce a whole pair of breeches."
Nevertheless, the material for an army in such a crisis was good. The famous General Nathaniel Greene of Rhode Island organized three regiments in that province after the Concord fight, and he was there with his men, "the best disciplined and appointed troops in the army." Connecticut also raised a respectable force, and put them under the command of General Israel Putnam, who left his plough in the furrow, and galloped off to Boston; and they were there. The brave Colonel Stark of New Hampshire, with his "Green Mountain boys," was there also. Other officers of ability were doing all they could with an undisciplined army, while the rank and file were eager to drive the foe out of Boston. A leader like Washington was needed to organize and manipulate this rough mass of material. A chief like him, too, was indispensable to elevate their moral condition; for drunkenness, revelry, lewdness, profanity, gambling, not to mention other evils, abounded.
The following was Washington's first order to the army:
"The Continental Congress having now taken all the troops of the several Colonies which have been raised, or which may be hereafter raised, for the support and defence of the liberties of America, into their pay and service, they are now the troops of the United Provinces of North America; and it is hoped that all distinctions of Colonies will be laid aside, so that one and the same spirit may animate the whole, and the only contest be, who shall render, on this great and trying occasion, the most essential service to the great and common cause in which we are all engaged. It is required and expected that exact discipline be observed, and due subordination prevail, through the whole army, as a failure in these most essential points must necessarily produce extreme hazard, disorder, and confusion, and end in shameful disappointment and disgrace. The general most earnestly requires and expects a due observance of those articles of war established for the government of the army, which forbid profane cursing, swearing, and drunkenness. And in like manner he requires and expects of all officers and soldiers, not engaged on actual duty, a punctual attendance on divine service, to implore the blessing of Heaven upon the means used for our safety and defence."
Rev. William Emerson was a chaplain in the army, and he wrote as follows of the wonderful change Washington wrought in a short time: