rise them. The besieging force, in
the meantime, was daily augmented by recruits and volunteers, and now
amounted to about fifteen thousand men, distributed at various points.
About ten thousand belonged to Massachusetts, and were under the
command of General Artemas Ward, whose head-quarters were at
Cambridge. Another body of troops, under Colonel John Stark, already
mentioned, came from New Hampshire. Rhode Island furnished a third,
under the command of General Nathaniel Greene. A fourth was from
Connecticut, under the veteran Putnam. These bodies of troops, being
from different colonies, were independent of each other, and had their
several commanders. Those from New Hampshire were instructed to obey
General Ward as commander-in-chief; with the rest it was a voluntary
act, rendered in consideration of his being military chief of
Massachusetts, the province which, as allies, they came to defend.
There was, in fact, but little organization in the army. Nothing kept
it together and gave it unity of action but a common feeling of
exasperated patriotism.

The troops knew but little of military discipline. Almost all were
familiar with the use of fire-arms in hunting and fowling, but the
greater part were without military dress or accoutrements; most of
them were hasty levies of yeomanry, some of whom had seized their
rifles and fowling-pieces and turned out in their working clothes and
homespun country garbs. Such was the army spread over an extent of ten
or twelve miles, and keeping watch upon the town of Boston, containing
at that time a population of seventeen thousand souls, and garrisoned
with more than ten thousand British troops, disciplined and
experienced in the wars of Europe.

In the disposition of these forces, General Ward had stationed himself
at Cambridge, with the main body of about nine thousand men and four
companies of artillery. Lieutenant-general Thomas, second in command,
was posted, with five thousand Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode
Island troops, and three or four companies of artillery, at Roxbury
and Dorchester, forming the right wing of the army; while the left,
composed in a great measure of New Hampshire troops, stretched through
Medford to the hills of Chelsea.

We have already mentioned the peninsula of Charlestown (called from a
village of the same name), which lies opposite to the north side of
Boston. The heights which swell up in rear of the village overlook the
town and shippin