, with
which to form breastworks and redoubts. During these two busy nights
the enemy's batteries were cannonaded and bombarded from opposite
points, to occupy their attention, and prevent their noticing these
preparations. They replied with spirit, and the incessant roar of
artillery thus kept up, covered completely the rumbling of wagons and
ordnance.

As soon as the firing commenced, the detachment under General Thomas
set out on its cautious and secret march from the lines of Roxbury and
Dorchester. Everything was conducted as regularly and quietly as
possible. A covering party of eight hundred men preceded the carts
with the intrenching tools; then came General Thomas with the working
party, twelve hundred strong, followed by a train of three hundred
wagons, laden with fascines, gabions, and hay screwed into bundles of
seven or eight hundred weight. A great number of such bundles were
ranged in a line along Dorchester Neck on the side next the enemy, to
protect the troops, while passing, from being raked by the fire of the
enemy. Fortunately, although the moon, as Washington writes, was
shining in its full lustre, the flash and roar of cannonry from
opposite points, and the bursting of bombshells high in the air, so
engaged and diverted the attention of the enemy, that the detachment
reached the heights about eight o'clock without being heard or
perceived. The covering party then divided; one half proceeded to the
point nearest Boston, the other to the one nearest to Castle Williams.
The working party commenced to fortify, under the directions of
Gridley, the veteran engineer, who had planned the works on Bunker's
Hill. It was severe labor, for the earth was frozen eighteen inches
deep; but the men worked with more than their usual spirit; for the
eye of the commander-in-chief was upon them. Though not called there
by his duties, Washington could not be absent from this eventful
operation.

The labors of the night were carried on with activity and address.
When a relief party arrived at four o'clock in the morning, two forts
were in sufficient forwardness to furnish protection against
small-arms and grape-shot; and such use was made of the fascines and
bundles of screwed hay, that, at dawn, a formidable-looking fortress
frowned along the height. Howe gazed at the mushroom fortress with
astonishment, as it loomed indistinctly, but grandly, through a
morning fog. "The rebels," exclaimed he, "have done more work in