ristocrat, and a
churchman, Washington came to Cambridge to pass over the heads
of native generals to the command of a New England army, among a
democratic people, hard-working and simple in their lives, and
dissenters to the backbone, who regarded episcopacy as something
little short of papistry and quite equivalent to toryism. Yet the
shout that went up from soldiers and people on Cambridge common on
that pleasant July morning came from the heart and had no jarring
note. A few of the political chiefs growled a little in later days at
Washington, but the soldiers and the people, high and low, rich and
poor, gave him an unstinted loyalty. On the fields of battle and
throughout eight years of political strife the men of New England
stood by the great Virginian with a devotion and truth in which was no
shadow of turning. Here again we see exhibited most conspicuously
the powerful personality of the man who was able thus to command
immediately the allegiance of this naturally cold and reserved people.
What was it that they saw which inspired them at once with so much
confidence? They looked upon a tall, handsome man, dressed in plain
uniform, wearing across his breast a broad blue band of silk, which
some may have noticed as the badge and symbol of a certain solemn
league and covenant once very momentous in the English-speaking world.
They saw his calm, high bearing, and in every line of face and figure
they beheld the signs of force and courage. Yet there must have been
something more to call forth the confidence then so quickly given, and
which no one ever long withheld. All felt dimly, but none the less
surely, that here was a strong, able man, capable of rising to the
emergency, whatever it might be, capable of continued growth and
development, clear of head and warm of heart; and so the New England
people gave to him instinctively their sympathy and their faith, and
never took either back.

The shouts and cheers died away, and then Washington returned to his
temporary quarters in the Wadsworth house, to master the task before
him. The first great test of his courage and ability had come, and he
faced it quietly as the excitement caused by his arrival passed by. He
saw before him, to use his own words, "a mixed multitude of people,
under very little discipline, order, or government." In the language
of one of his aides:[1] "The entire army, if it deserved the name, was
but an assemblage of brave, enthusiastic, undisci