hat
you give all assistance possible in forming an army. Our all is at
stake. Death and devastation are the instant consequences of delay.
Every moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may deluge our country
in blood, and entail perpetual slavery upon the few of your posterity
who may survive the carnage. We beg and entreat, as you will answer to
your country, to your own consciences, and, above all, as you will
answer to God himself, that you will hasten and encourage, by all
possible means, the enlistment of men to form an army, and send them
forward to headquarters at Cambridge, with that expedition which the
vast importance and instant urgency of the affair demand."

Two days after the fight, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety resolved
to enlist 8,000 men, an event which our old friend Liberty Bell
celebrated by a vigorous tolling. All over the colonies a spirit of
determination to resist spread like lightning, and the shot that was
heard around the world was certainly heard very distinctly in every nook
and corner of New England, and of the old Atlantic States. Naturally,
there was at first a lack of concentration and even of discipline; but
what was lacking in these features was more than made up for by bravery
and determination. As John Adams wrote in 1818, the army at Cambridge at
this time was not a National army, for there was no nation. It was not
even an army of the United Colonies, because the Congress at
Philadelphia had not adopted or acknowledged the army at Cambridge. It
was not even the New England army, for each State had its separate
armies, which had united to imprison the British army in Boston. There
was not even the Commander-in-Chief of the allied armies.

These anomalies, of course, righted themselves rapidly. Gage's
proclamation of martial law expedited the battle at Bunker Hill, which
was brought about by the impatience of the British troops, and by the
increased confidence among the colonists, resulting from the fights at
Lexington and Concord. It is true, of course, that the untrained
American troops failed to vanquish the British army at Bunker Hill, but
the monument at that spot celebrates the fact that for two hours the
attacks of the regulars were withstood. A prominent English newspaper
described the battle as one of innumerable errors on the part of the
British. As William Tudor wrote so graphically, "The Ministerial troops
gained the hill, but were victorious losers. A few mo