Abigail Adams and Her Times

, the British troops had occupied the town, while Washington and his army lay encamped in Cambridge and on Dorchester Heights, west of the city. In October, the British command was transferred

enabling them to pay their debts by burning their houses. It has been with difficulty that we have carried another humble Petition to the Crown, to give Br

ten short of provisions and ruled by an iron hand, they were having a forlorn time of it. One feels real compassion for the ancestor of "Tommy Atkins": he was probably a very good fellow at heart, as Tommy (to whom all honor!) is today. He had no personal quarrel with the people of Boston; he did not care whether they were bond or free, so he got his rations, his pint and his pipe. And here he was surrounded by black looks and scowling faces

h yielded fourteen cords of fine wood; made havoc generally. The grenadiers were quartered in West Church; two regiments of infantry in Brattl

triots. General Clinton was in the Hancock House, Earl Percy in that of Gardner Greene, Burgoyn

person; full of quips and cranks, and not always lacking in wanton wiles. John Adams quotes him as saying, when first the British troops occupied Boston, that "our grievances would now be red-dressed!" But my own thought of Mr. Byles recalls a story often told by my mother, which she may have heard in childhood from her grandfather, the old Revolutionary Colonel. It tell

a penknife?"

e you fo

l as if I shou

s, one chuckling,

ry description: no doubt the Tory maidens found the winter a very gay one. Faneuil Hall was turned into a theatre, and General Burgoyne wrote plays for it. A performance of

wait for an En

Praise or dismis

ask and deman

Action, at leas

Amusement thus c

ew Hours of

our arms, call th

spite of the B

Lawgivers, ya

n Custom, yet cal

he Favors you'v

all hanged upo

Example; decea

nder Arms as I'm

Love we alik

he laughter of

ye Comrades of

ge and high-s

h Fife make the C

waft it to WA

Hearts shall beat

Arms, and Long

f both be our B

End to the BO

e was in full swing; a comic actor held the stage, mimicking General Washington and holding him up to rid

rose and called, "Officers to their posts!" The assembly broke up in disorder. The officers summoned their men and hastened to Bunker Hill, where they arrived too la

as best they might through the dark, crooked streets, and their patriot sisters, who

s Masquerade,"[16] which used to thrill me as a child, and which I cannot even now read un

onth," that the real cold came. "When the days begin to lengthen, the cold begins to strengthen." Day followed day of keen, dry cold; night by night the ice "made," till a floor of crystal, solid as rock, lay about the peninsula of Boston. Washington

gail Adams write

s with the roar of cannon. I have been to the door, and find it is a cannonade from our army. Orders, I find, are come for all the remaining militia to repair to the lines Monday night by twelve o'clock. No sleep for me tonight. And if I ca

nues through th

y eve

firing, and my heart beat pace with them all night. We have had a p

though their notice was no longer ago than eight o'clock Saturday. And now we have scarcely a man, but our regular guards, either in Weymouth, Hingham

every shell which was thrown. The sound, I think, is one of the grandest in nature, and is of the true species of the sublime. '

a scene to us of which we could form scarcely any conception. About six, this morning, all was quiet. I rejoiced in a few hours' calm. I hear we got possession of Dorchester Hill last night; four thousand men upon it today; lost but one man. The ships are all drawn round the town. Tonight we sha

on of Dorchester Hill. I hope it is wise and just, but, from all the muster and stir, I hoped and expected more important and decisive scenes. I would not have suffered all I ha

n ground: carts whose wheels were bound with straw, and before which the road was strewn with straw, still further to deaden the sound. General Thomas was moving from Roxbury to South Boston with twelve hundred men. Silently, under cover of the darkness, and later of a thick white fog, under shelt

storm, Washington was strengthening his defenses. Howe looked, and realized that the game was up. Others realized it too: the selectmen of Boston quietly intimated to him that if he left the town uninjured, his troops would be suffered to embark undisturbed. Washington gave no sign; waited, his

of this mansion, (the Province House) repeats the wondrous tale, that on the anniversary night of Britain's discomfiture the ghosts of the ancient governors of Massachusetts still glide through the portal of the Province House. And, last