acknowledged no authority but that of their several commanders, while the excitement and enthusiasm had called together not only true patriots, but adventurers of every description. To render matters still worse, this heterogencous multitude were almost without ammunition. But, notwithstanding the disorders that prevailed among them, there was the groundwork of a noble army. Intrenchments had already been thrown up, and a line of defense completed from the Mystic river to Roxbury, twelve miles in extent, entirely hemming in the British army. The encampment of the Americans presented a strange yet picturesque spectacle. Scarcely any but the Rhode Island troops had tents. The extemporaneous shelter thrown up evinced the craft of the frontiersman rather than the knowledge of the soldier. Here stood a collection of rude stone hovels, with an opening that looked like the entrance to a cavern; there a group of board pens, made of slabs and sticks patched with sails; while farther on were scattered turf mounds, hastily thrown up, and looking more like the home of the prairie wolf than the abodes of men; yet all showing where the strong-limbed citizen-soldier slept. The handsome marquees of the officers, here and there relieving the dilapidated, fragmentary character of the encampment, completed the singular spectacle.

On the 4th of July, a day made afterward still more aemorable by the glorious Declaration of Independence, Washington issued his first general order to the Continental army. In this, after expressing the hope that all jealousies of the different colonies would be laid aside, and the only contest be who should render the greatest aid to the common cause, and insisting on discipline and subordination, he says-"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 blessings of Heaven upon the means used for our safety and defense." Such an order read to an European army would have stunned them more than the announcement of treason in their commander. But Washington wished it understood at the outset, both by his troops and the whole world, that the cause in which he had embarked was a holy one, and must be disfigured by none of those excesses which are considered a necessary part of a camp life. Reverently fixing his eye on Heaven, he summons his followers to look thither also, ever fervently praying for that help which alone can come from above.

The organization of the army which followed, proved an annoying and a difficult task. At the very outset murmurs and discontent arose at the appointment of the superior officers by Congress. Selecting generals, not for their ability and long service, but according to their locality, or to please powerful friends, was one of the first false steps made by Congress, and from which it never receded throughout the war. This pernicious, perilous example, thus set at the very commencement of our national existence, the American government has ever since adhered to, with a pertinacity that no disgrace or humiliation can weaken. It covered us with defeat for two years in the war of 1812, and, but for the able officers given us by West Point, would have sent the army back discomfited from Mexico.

The excitement that prevailed among the troops, on this account, threatened to disrupt the army; but Washington, by promising to lay their complaints before Congress and get justice done, gradually allayed it. By arranging the brigades and regiments in such a manner that the troops from each colony should for the most part be under their own commander, he restored harmony. Still, many of them refused to sign the rules and regulations presented by

Congress; they had taken up arms to fight for liberty—not merely provincial, but personal liberty, and they were not going to sign it away to Congress any more than to Parlia ment. Military despotism was a bugbear that constantly stood in the way of thorough organization of a regular army. This constant doubt of the purity of his intentions and practical distrust of his measures and plans, arrested Washington at every step, and would have disgusted, irritated and disheartened any other commander. Even Congress exhibited this jealousy of his power, fettering and baffling him, so that his plans were not the reflex of himself, but rather a compromise of his own wisdom with the fears and demands and follies of those around him. There is no position so trying to a brave commander as this; the most perilous breach is far preferable to it. It is in such circumstances as these that Washington's moral character rises in its grand and beautiful proportions before us. With the hot blood and chivalric daring of a southron, joined to the prudence, forecast and wisdom of the sage, he added the patience, forbearance and meekness of a Christian. Such a combination is the rarest on earth. Thus, while the delays, inaction and incomplete organization of the army around Boston have furnished apparently solid ground for historians to underrate his military ability, they in fact enhance it, by showing him firm and uncomplaining under circumstances far worse to be borne than defeat. Had that army been like a single instrument in Washington's hands, wielded at his will, the siege of Boston would have exhibited a brilliancy of manoeuvre, an energy and daring of action, that would have astonished his adversaries; but, chaining his great soul and glowing heart to the wheels of a dilatory Congress and the clogs of prejudice and suspicion, he toiled slowly, patiently, like a bound giant, toward the object of his endeavors. He knew that the great majority of those who had gathered to his standard, however they might err

in judgment, were true men and patriots at heart, and example would tell on them in time. His practiced eye also soon discovered there were regiments whose noble devotion would carry them wherever he would lead. Morgan's riflemen were a splendid body of men, and the words inscribed on their breasts, "Liberty or Death," were symbolical of the brave hearts that throbbed beneath.

Pennsylvania and Maryland also responded to the call of Congress for troops, and the constant arrival of reinforcements kept the camp in a glow and filled the army with confidence and pride.