Volume 4, Chapter 20, Forcing the British out of Boston
The securing of the South was not the only decisive military victory gained by the American revolutionaries in first half of 1776.
Another was the forced evacuation of Boston by the British.
It is true that the British were contemplating an eventual shift of their base from Boston
to New York where Tories and provisions would be plentiful and the inner parts of the colonies
accessible to attack.
But the British were driven out much sooner than they had planned.
The idle siege army in front of Boston had its troubles and the end of 1775 saw a huge
and the huge turnover as enlistment terms were up and new enlistments were secured.
It was clear to the Americans that Boston could only be taken if the great guns that
had been captured at Ticonderoga could be brought to bear.
But how to transport them over land across the ice and the steep New England hills?
The answer was supplied by young Boston bookseller and amateur student of military engineering
Colonel Henry Knox, head of the American Army Artillery. Asking Washington to be sent
to transport the guns, Knox arrived at Ticonderoga in early December. He conceived a fantastically
ambitious plan of dragging 16 big cannon howitzers and mortars, weighing over 120 tons in all,
On forty-three sledges, over three hundred miles of snow and ice, the sledges had to
be constructed and then dragged by eight yoke of oxen, slowly driven by whips. Whenever
a big cannon broke through and sank beneath the ice, it was laboriously hauled up again.
Knox finally completed the journey of his wondrous caravan in early February. It was
was a remarkable achievement, a feat at which soldiers and engineers still marvel.
Now that the Continental Army had the guns, Washington, ever eager for military glory
in the classical European manner, and drastically underestimating the number of British troops,
proposed a direct frontal assault upon Boston. On three previous occasions, without the guns,
He had impatiently urged such an attack, and each time had been opposed by a unanimous
war council of his generals. The Council of War again demurred, and General Ward sagely
proposed to place the guns upon the unaccountably still unoccupied Dorchester Heights, commanding
Boston to the south, just as Breeds Hill and Bunker Hill commanded it to the north. Washington
Men grudgingly accepted the plan, which was agreed to by all the generals.
The American Army, given something sensible to do for the first time since Bunker Hill,
worked with renewed enthusiasm.
The operation began on the night of March 2, 1776, with three nights of cannonading
from the northwest, diverting British attention from Dorchester Heights.
On the night of March 4, under cover of the bombardment, General John Thomas took 2,000
men and 360 carts and with splendid efficiency constructed two forts on Dorchester Heights.
The Americans could perform this remarkable feat of constructing the entire works in one
night by using a novel plan suggested by Colonel Rufus Putnam, employing frames on top of the
on top of the ground that required little digging in the frozen earth.
The British awoke on the morning of March 5 to look up in amazement at the American
heavy guns on the heights.
General Howe sadly remarked that,
The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army could do in months.
As at bunker, he decided on March 7 to give up and evacuate, for it was not safe for the
The British fleet to remain in the harbor under the guns of Dorchester. He had planned
to move at his own will to New York, but was now forced to move to Halifax, a military
base unquestionably safe for the British, to await the arrival of supplies. The understandably
fearful citizens of Boston soon obtained a promise from Howe that he would not burn the
Washington took no official notice of the promise when it was conveyed to him, but he abided by its terms, and Boston was spared much devastation and bloodshed.
Finally, Howell and the British troops, carrying with them no fewer than 1,000 Tories in flight,
embarked on March 17 in a mighty armada of over 170 ships, soon setting sail for Halifax.
It was truly a great victory.
Boston, the spearhead of the revolution, the focal point of British military oppression,
had at last been liberated.
And in their hasty flight, the British had been forced to leave behind them an enormous
amount of supplies and military equipment.
As the Duke of Manchester was soon to declare in the House of Lords, let this transaction
be dressed in what garb you please.
The fact remains that the army, which was sent to reduce the province of Massachusetts
Bay has been driven from the capital and the standard of the provincial army now waves
and Triumph over the Walls of Boston.