10:36 AM EDT on Friday, June 2, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer

George Washington arrived at Cambridge on July 2, 1775, wet from rain and tired from the long ride. There was no pomp to greet the arrival of the Army's new commander in chief. A planned reception had been canceled on account of the heavy rain.

The next day Washington rode out to inspect the troops camped in a 9-mile arc west of Boston. He sat a horse well, and he rode wearing a blue coat with buff-colored facings, epaulets on each shoulder, buff underdress, an elegant dress sword and a black cockade (a flower-like ornament) pinned to his hat. The American Revolution was not driven by the poor; rather its engineers were the wealthy, such as Nathanael Greene and Washington, men who had something to gain by getting King George III and his corrupt bureaucrats out of their pockets.

Washington was a combat veteran of the French and Indian War. As a 23-year-old officer at Braddock's Defeat, he'd had two horses shot from under him and heard four musket balls whiz through his coat.

Washington was among the richest men in America with 54,000 acres, 100 slaves and a $100,000 dowry from his marriage to Martha Custis. His instructions to a London tailor show that he stood 6 feet 3 inches tall, a head taller than most men of his time.

Greene, one of Washington's newly minted brigadier generals, wrote on July 4, 1775: His Excellency General Washington has arrivd and is universally admired. The excellent Charactor he bears, and the promising Genius he possesses gives great spirit to the Troops. . . .

Washington's appearance may have boosted the morale of the troops, but the look of the troops encamped about Boston did little to boost the spirits of Washington. In a letter to his cousin, Washington described the New Englanders in his command as an exceedingly dirty and nasty people.

The Rev. William Emerson rode over from his Concord home to have a look at the army camps and wrote to his wife they are as different in their form as the Owners are in their Dress, and every tent is a Portraiture of the Temper and Taste of the Person that incamps in it. Some are made of Boards, some of Sailcloth, and some partly of one and partly of the other. Others are made of Stone and Turf, and others again of Brick and others Brush. Some are thrown up in a hurry & look as if they could not help it -- meer necessity -- others are curiously wrought with doors & windows, done with Wreathes and Withes in a manner of a Basket. Some are the proper Tents and Markees that look as the regular Camp of the Enemy.

This "proper" camp outfitted with marquees -- large tents with canvas fringe for superior officers -- was the camp of the Roadislanders , Emerson wrote, who are furnished with Tent Equipage in the most exact English Taste.

Greene's Rhode Island camp must have been a welcome sight for Washington. Because of his clean camp and the deportment of his troops, Greene's stock began to rise among the other generals.

My task is hard and fatigue great, Greene confessed in a letter to his brother, Jacob. I go to bed late and rise Early. . . . But hard as it is if I can discharge my Duty to my own Honor and to my country['s] satisfaction, I shall go through the Toil with Chearfulness. My own officers and Soldiers are generally well Satisfied, nay I have not heard one complaint.

The General officers of the Neighbouring Camps treat me with the greatest Respect much more than my Station or Consequence entitle me to.

Greene's diligence earned him a commission as brigadier general in the Army of the United Colonies; months after being deemed unsuitable as officer material by the Kentish Guards, he was now at 32 the youngest general in the United Colonies.

Washington had a few battle-hardened generals in his camp: Col. William Prescott, a hero of the recent battle at Bunker Hill; Col. John Stark, an Army Ranger in the French and Indian War; and Israel Putnam, or "Old Put," a 5-foot-6-inch dynamo. At 57 years old, Putnam was already a legend. He too served as a Ranger in the French and Indian War, had survived a shipwreck and supposedly was once rescued while tied to a stake just as tribal warriors were setting him afire.

Washington was a shrewd observer of character. As he looked over the officers at his command he favored two young, unseasoned men with increasing responsibilities -- Nathanael Greene and his big book-loving buddy Henry Knox.

In late July 1775, the Rhode Island camp moved from Roxbury to Prospect Hill, just a half-mile from the British troops holding Charlestown.

Greene and his Rhode Islanders were placed under the command of Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, a true original. By birth he was an English aristocrat, but his behavior showed little of the upper class. He was tall, big-nosed and thin. No matter how nice the uniform, he could not keep clothes mended and clean; he traveled with a retinue of small yappy dogs, including at least one Pomeranian, that he lavished with his attention. Lee had fought in America in the French and Indian War. He reached the rank of major in the British Army before becoming a soldier of fortune in the Polish Army, where he rose to the rank of major general. When Lee joined their side in the struggle for independence, the Colonists were impressed -- here they had a British officer with military knowledge and experience. But they soon realized that they also had an odd duck.

Like Washington, Lee was often exasperated by the rawness of the troops under his command, though he too had praise for the Rhode Islanders. Our troops are Generally healthy and under pretty good discipline for the time, Greene wrote shortly before the move to Prospect Hill. General Lee gives them high encomiums and I flatter myself that they deserve it.

Siege of Boston

The siege of Boston was a nasty drawn-out affair that tried men's patience on both sides. Greene had to reprimand his men for "voiding their excrements about the fields" raising a stench in the summer heat and for failing to shovel dirt over the dug latrines when they did use them.

Dysentry ran rampant through the American camp, and the British too were losing 10 soldiers a week, dead due to camp sickness.

The Americans didn't have enough troops to storm a fortified city, and after the slaughter at Bunker Hill, the British didn't dare to venture out.

So the two sides lived day after day, spying on each other through telescopes.

Sometimes the British would bombard American camps, though the shelling was sparely returned -- the American supply of gunpowder ran dangerously low. First returns told Washington he had 485 quarter casks of gunpowder, but in August he was told that there had been a mix-up. American stores of powder actually stood at 35 half barrels -- enough to fire just nine rounds per man.

British shells lit the skies, shrieked like banshees and made the ground shudder, occasionally with effect.

In late summer Greene ordered a party of 500 Rhode Islanders to join 500 New Hampshiremen in a "fatigue party" fortifying the works on Plowed Hill, a redoubt overlooking the Mystic River. Among the work party was Augustus Mumford of East Greenwich, a man who had led a fundraising drive to aid Boston residents left poor and hungry by the siege. A cannonball fired from the British position on Bunker Hill scored a direct hit on Mumford's head.

Augustus Mumford became the first Rhode Islander to die fighting for the United States of America.

gcarbone@projo.com / (401) 277-7434

A continuing series.

Sources for today's installment

Batchelder, Samuel F. "The Washington Elm Tradition," Cambridge Historical Society Proceedings for 1925, Vol. 18.

Boatner III, Mark M. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, Pa., 1994.

Buchanan, John. The Road to Guilford Courthouse. Buchanan; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: New York, Chichester, Weinheim, Brisbane, Singapore, Toronto, 1997.

Ketchum, Richard M. The Winter Soliders. Copyright 1973. Henry Holt and Company: New York. Owl Books Edition, 1999.

Langguth, A.J. Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution. Touchstone: New York, 1988.

McCullough, David. 1776. Simon & Schuster: New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: 2005.

Scheer, George F., and Rankin, Hugh F. Rebels & Redcoats. De Capo Press Inc.: copyright 1957 by The World Publishing Company.

Showman, Richard K., ed. The Papers of Nathanael Greene, Vol. I. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1976.