n numbered in 1775 nearly two and one half million souls. Of
these, the slaves formed about 500,000. The three largest Colonies,
Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania contained 900,000
inhabitants, of which a little more than one half were slaves.
Pennsylvania, the third Colony, had a total of 300,000, mostly white,
while South Carolina had 200,000, of whom only 65,000 were white.
Connecticut, on the other hand, had 200,000 with scarcely any blacks.
The result was a very mottled population. The New Englanders had
already begun to practise manufacturing, and they continued to raise
under normal conditions sufficient food for their subsistence. South
of the Mason and Dixon line, however, slave labor prevailed and the
three great staples--tobacco, indigo, and rice--were the principal
crops. Where these did not grow, the natives got along as best they
could on scanty common crops, and by raising a few sheep and hogs. As
the war proceeded, it taught with more and more force the inherent
wastefulness of slave labor in the South. It was inefficient, costly,
and unreliable.

The Battle of Bunker Hill was at once hailed as a Patriot victory,
but the rejoicing was premature, for the Americans had been forced
to retreat, giving up the position they had bravely defended.
Nevertheless, the opinion prevailed that they had won a real victory
by withstanding through many hours of a bloody fight some of the best
of the British regiments.

Washington took command of the American army at Cambridge, he was
faced with the great task of organizing it and of forming a plan
of campaign. The Congress had taken over the charge of the army at
Boston, and the events had so shaped themselves that the first
thing for Washington to do was to drive out the British troops. To
accomplish this he planned to seal up all the entrances into the town
by land so that food could not be smuggled in. The British had a
considerable fleet in Boston Harbor, and they had to rely upon it to
bring provisions and to keep in touch with the world outside.

Washington had his headquarters at the Craigie House in Cambridge,
some half a mile from Harvard Square and the College. He was now
forty-three years old, a man of commanding presence, six feet three
inches tall, broad-shouldered but slender, without any signs of the
stoutness of middle age. His hands and feet were large. His head was
somewhat small. The blue-gray eyes, set rather far apart, looked out
from hea