And how did the Provincials, as the British called the Americans, regard
the situation? They saw clearly and without glamour the deadly nature of
the struggle upon which they had entered and the strength of the opposing
army against which they must measure their own strength.
The people of Massachusetts for miles around Boston were now in a state of
great excitement. Farmers, mechanics, men in all walks of life flocked to
the army, and within a few days the Americans, sixteen thousand strong,
were surrounding the British in Boston.
While the people of Massachusetts were in the midst of these stirring
scenes, an event of deep meaning to all the colonies was taking place in
Philadelphia. Here the Continental Congress, coming together for the
second time, was making plans for carrying on the war by voting money for
war purposes and by making George Washington commander-in-chief of the
Continental army, of which the troops around Boston were the beginning.
Thus did the colonies recognize that war had come and that they must stand
together in the fight.
[Illustration: President Langdon, the President of Harvard College,
Praying for the Bunker Hill Entrenching Party on Cambridge Common Just
Before Their Departure.
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