Part 12

=87. The Boston Tea Party.= When the ships carrying this cheaper tea arrived in Boston, Samuel Adams set a guard of armed men to keep the tea from being landed.

Town meeting followed town meeting. On December 16, 1773, the greatest one of all was held. Early that morning hundreds of country people started for Boston. They found the shops and stores closed and people standing on the street corners talking earnestly.

At ten o'clock the people met in the Old South Church, and voted that the tea should never be landed. They also sent the owner of the ships to the governor for permission to take the tea ships out of the harbor.

[Sidenote: =Permission to return tea denied=]

In the afternoon still greater crowds pushed and jammed into the seats, aisles, and galleries of that famous church. Samuel Adams was chairman. He made a speech. Other leaders spoke. One stirred the audience by asking "how tea would mix with salt water." Evening came, and candles were lighted. The owner of the tea vessels returned and said the governor would not give him the permission.

[Sidenote: =The Boston Tea Party=]

Immediately Samuel Adams arose and said: "This meeting can do nothing to save the country!" In a moment the war whoop of the "Mohawks" sounded outside. The crowd rushed out and found the people following a band of men disguised as Indians down where the tea ships lay at anchor. The "Mohawks" went on board, brought up the boxes of tea, broke them open, and threw the tea into the sea.

[Sidenote: =Paul Revere's first ride=]

That very night Samuel Adams sent fast riders to carry the news to the country towns. The next day, with letters to the leaders in other colonies in his saddlebags, Paul Revere, the great courier of the Revolution, started on his long ride to New York and Philadelphia. As he went from town to town and told the story of the Tea Party the people cheered him, spread dinners for him, built bonfires, and fired cannon. He saw thousands of people gather in New York and Philadelphia, and heard them declare that they would stand by Boston.

[Sidenote: =Boston Port Bill=]

Boston soon needed help, for the king and Parliament passed a law that no ship could enter or leave Boston Harbor, and another which forbade town meetings. Other hard laws were also passed, and an army was sent to Boston to force the people to obey them.

=88. The First Continental Congress.= We have seen a call go forth for a Congress at Philadelphia (1774). The Massachusetts legislature chose Samuel Adams and his cousin, John Adams, with two others to go to the Congress.

[Sidenote: =Strange visitors=]

But Samuel Adams was very poor and could not afford to dress in a style suited to meet the rich merchants of New York and Philadelphia and the great planters of the southern colonies. One evening while the family was at tea, in came the most fashionable tailor of the town to take his measure. Next came a hatter, and then a shoemaker. In a few days a new trunk at his door told the story, for in it were a suit of clothes, two pairs of shoes, silver shoe buckles, gold knee buckles, a cocked hat, a gold-headed cane, and a fashionable red cloak. What proof of the people's love for their neighbor!

[Sidenote: =Poor but loyal=]

Although Samuel Adams was a very poor man, George III did not have offices enough to bribe him or gold enough to buy his pen. Several times the king's officers had tried to do both, but they did not succeed.

[Sidenote: =What Samuel and John Adams saw on the way to Philadelphia=]

In a carriage drawn by four horses, the delegates to Congress were escorted by their friends right by the king's soldiers. The people of the large towns met them, escorted them, rang bells, fired cannon, feasted them at banquets, and talked of the Congress.

[Sidenote: =New and noble friends=]

At New York Samuel Adams and his friends were kept nearly a week. Many persons in carriages and on horseback came out to welcome them to Philadelphia, the city of William Penn. People were anxious to see the man who had written the "Circular Letter," who had driven the king's regiments out of Boston, who had planned the Tea Party, and whom the king could not bribe. Here, in Carpenter's Hall, for the first time, he met George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, Christopher Gadsden, who was called the "Samuel Adams of South Carolina," and many other noble men who became his life-long friends.

[Sidenote: =Other colonies to help Boston=]

Soon Paul Revere came riding into Philadelphia with the news that the patriots of Boston were in danger of being attacked by the British. The Congress immediately declared that if the British made war on Boston, it was the duty of every colony to help her people fight. It now looked as if war might come at any moment.

[Sidenote: =Minutemen=]

When Congress was over, Samuel Adams hastened home to help form, in all the Massachusetts towns, companies of minutemen ready to fight at a moment's warning. The next spring the news got out that British soldiers were going to Concord to destroy the powder and provisions collected there by the minutemen, and also to capture Samuel Adams and John Hancock and send them to England to be tried for treason. Paul Revere agreed to alarm the minutemen the moment the soldiers left Boston.

[Sidenote: =Alarming the minutemen=]

=89. Paul Revere's Midnight Ride.= Standing by his horse across the river from Boston, one April evening, waiting for signals, Paul Revere saw two lanterns flash their light from the tower of the Old North Church. He mounted and rode in hot haste toward Lexington, arousing the sleeping villages as he cried out: "Up and arm, the regulars are coming!" Soon he heard the alarm gun of the minutemen and the excited ringing of the church bells. He knew the country was rising.

At Lexington minutemen who guarded the house where Samuel Adams and John Hancock were sleeping ordered Revere not to make so much noise. "You will soon have noise enough," he shouted. "The regulars are coming!" And he rode on toward Concord.

[Sidenote: =The first conflict of the minutemen=]

=90. The Battle at Lexington and at Concord Bridge.= As the British soldiers reached Lexington at sunrise, April 19, 1775, the captain of the minutemen gave the command: "Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have war, let it begin here!" A bold speech for a captain of only about sixty men when facing as brave soldiers as Europe had ever seen! The minutemen stood their ground till seven were killed and nine wounded--nearly one third of their number. Then they retreated.

[Sidenote: =The retreat of the British=]

The British pushed on to Concord. But the minutemen, now coming from every direction, made a stand at Concord Bridge. Their musket fire was so deadly that the British started back, running at times to escape with their lives. At Lexington they fell upon the ground, tired out with the chase the minutemen gave them, and were met by fresh troops from Boston.

[Sidenote: =Many redcoats fall=]

Soon the British soldiers were forced to run again, for minutemen by hundreds were gathering, and they seldom missed their aim. From behind rocks, trees, fences, and houses they cut down the tired redcoats. Nearly three hundred British soldiers were killed or wounded before Boston was reached that night.

[Sidenote: =Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775=]

=91. The Battle of Bunker Hill.= Day and night for weeks minutemen from other New England colonies, and even from as far south as Virginia, marched in hot haste to Boston. The British general soon found his army in Boston entirely cut off from the mainland. He resolved to fortify Bunker Hill, but what was his surprise to wake one morning (June 17) and find the Americans under Colonel Prescott already building breastworks on the hill.

[Sidenote: =Three fierce charges=]

That afternoon three thousand picked troops, in solid columns and with bayonets gleaming, marched up the hill to storm that breastwork. "Don't fire till you can see the whites of their eyes!" said the commander of the minutemen. On came the lines of red, with banners flying and drums beating. From the breastworks there ran a flame of fire which mowed the redcoats down like grass. They reeled, broke, and ran. They rested. Again they charged; again they broke and ran. They were brave men, and, although hundreds of their companions had fallen, a third time the British charged, and won, for the Americans had used up their powder, and they had no bayonets. More than one thousand British soldiers fell that day. The Americans did not lose half that number. But among the killed was brave General Joseph Warren.

[Sidenote: =Adams and Hancock on the way to the second Congress=]

=92. The Second Continental Congress.= Just as the British were marching into Lexington on that famous April morning, Samuel Adams, with John Hancock, was leaving for Philadelphia, where Congress was to meet again. As he heard the guns of the minutemen answer the guns of the regulars, Adams said to Hancock: "What a glorious morning is this!"

The members from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York were escorted across the Hudson to Newark, New Jersey, and entertained at a great dinner, with speeches. Near Philadelphia a large procession of armed men and carriages met and escorted them into the city, where bells told of their coming.

When this Congress met, Samuel Adams seconded the motion of his cousin, John Adams, that George Washington, of Virginia, be made the general of all the American troops. He saw his own neighbor, John Hancock, made president of the Congress.

[Sidenote: =Samuel Adams among the first to favor independence=]

=93. The Declaration of Independence.= For more than a year Samuel Adams worked hard to get the Congress to make a Declaration of Independence. Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, introduced a motion into the Congress for independence. The Declaration was made, July 4, 1776, and Samuel Adams, as a great leader of the Revolution, had done his work.

But, with other noble men, he still labored with all his powers, in Congress and at home, to help America win her independence.

[Sidenote: =Governor of Massachusetts=]

After independence had been won, Samuel Adams still served his state, and was elected governor of Massachusetts only a few years before his death, which occurred in 1803, at the age of eighty-one.

SUGGESTIONS INTENDED TO HELP THE PUPIL

=The Leading Facts.= _1._ The French and Indian War put both England and her colonies in debt, but the king thought only of England's debt. _2._ Great opposition to the Stamp Act in all the colonies. _3._ Patrick Henry made a great speech against the Virginia parsons, and a second on the Stamp Act. _4._ He went to the first Continental Congress and made many friends; came home and made a great speech saying that war would come. _5._ Made governor of Virginia many times. _6._ Samuel Adams studied hard, failed in several occupations, and went into politics. _7._ Led the patriots against the soldiers, the Stamp Act, and planned the Tea Party. _8._ Samuel Adams sent to Continental Congress, where he made many friends. _9._ Urged a Declaration of Independence in 1776. _10._ Made governor of Massachusetts.

=Study Questions.= _1._ Why were the colonists happy because England defeated France? _2._ What was the Stamp Act, and why did men in America oppose this act? _3._ What did Patrick Henry say in his resolution and in his speech? _4._ Picture the scene while Patrick Henry spoke and afterwards. _5._ Why did not the Americans like the Tea Tax? _6._ Why did not the king like the American "Tea Parties"? _7._ What is a Congress; and why should Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams become good friends? _8._ Commit to memory a part of Henry's famous "liberty or death" speech. _9._ How did the people trust Patrick Henry? _10._ What did Samuel Adams do against the Stamp Act? _11._ What was the Circular Letter and why should the king be angry about it? _12._ Tell how Samuel Adams drove two regiments out of Boston. _13._ What caused a Congress? _14._ Tell what Samuel and John Adams saw and did on their way to Philadelphia. _15._ Why were people glad to see Samuel Adams? _16._ What made war seem likely to happen at any time? _17._ Read Longfellow's poem, "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." _18._ Give an account of the Battle of Lexington. _19._ Picture the retreat from Concord to Boston. _20._ Picture the charge of the British soldiers at Bunker Hill. _21._ What did Samuel Adams see on his way to the second Continental Congress? _22._ Who introduced the motion for independence into the Congress?

=Suggested Readings.= PATRICK HENRY: Cooke, _Stories of the Old Dominion_, 158-180; Brooks, _Century Book of Famous Americans_, 93-101; Magill, _Stories from Virginia History_, 116-128.

SAMUEL ADAMS: Dawes, _Colonial Massachusetts_, 42-72; Brooks, _Century Book of Famous Americans_, 10-30; Hart, _Camps and Firesides of the Revolution_, 162-166; Hawthorne, _Grandfather's Chair_, 153-189, 205, 206.

THE MEN WHO FOUGHT FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE WITH GUN AND SWORD

NATHAN HALE

[Sidenote: =Hale a leader in class affairs and athletic sports=]

=94. Nathan Hale, the Martyred Patriot.= Nathan Hale was born in Connecticut in 1755. He was brought up by his Puritan parents in the fear of God and in obedience to duty. At the age of sixteen Nathan left his native farm to enter Yale University. Here he soon became well liked for his gentle nature, lively spirit, and studious habits. In spite of his youth he was a leader in the affairs of his class and in all athletic sports. He graduated from college with honor and then taught school for almost two years. These were quiet days for the active young man.

[Sidenote: =Enrolled to fight for liberty=]

At this time the people were talking a great deal about their troubles with Great Britain. In secret, bands of young men were even forming companies of militia. Suddenly the news of the fight at Lexington came to the place where Nathan Hale was teaching. The citizens gathered in meeting and he made a speech, in which he said: "Let us march immediately and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence." The next day he and many others enrolled to fight for liberty.

Washington was in command of the Continental army at Boston and soon sent for Hale's company. None worked harder than he at drills, or did more to keep the men cheerful in hardships. On New Year's day, 1776, Congress made him captain for his bravery and faithfulness.

[Sidenote: =Captures a British war vessel=]

In the following spring Washington moved his army to New York. One night Nathan Hale and a small band of men slipped out into the harbor where a British sloop lay. They boarded the ship gently, locked the sailors in before they knew what had happened, then they sailed their prize past a British man-of-war and over to the American side. It was a brave feat, well carried out.

[Sidenote: =Offers to find out the British plans=]

Soon after, the American troops were badly defeated in the battle of Long Island. The army was half starved and losing hope. The British general, Howe, was preparing to attack again. If Howe should win, the American cause would be lost. Washington saw that it was necessary to find out the British plans, or he would be caught and his army destroyed. A brave man was needed to go into the British camp to spy out their plans. No one was willing to go. Hale had been sick, but when he heard of his country's need he offered himself. Friends pleaded with him in vain.

[Sidenote: =Passes the British lines safely=]

The young officer took off his uniform and put on the clothes of a schoolmaster. Under cover of night he was rowed to a place near the British camp. This was the last his friends saw of him. He spent several days with the British troops and got the needed information. On his return he passed safely through the whole British army. He went to the spot where the boat was to come for him. There he waited until the boat came into view and then walked down to the water's edge to meet it. A dozen muskets were leveled at him; instead of fellow-soldiers he found himself in the hands of the British!

[Sidenote: =Hale sentenced to death=]

[Sidenote: =Gives his life for his country=]

Hale was sent to New York immediately and placed before General Howe, to whom he said frankly that he was a spy. The British general wrote out his death warrant, "to be hanged to-morrow morning at sunrise." Not even the death of a soldier was to be his. His brutal guard refused to let him send a last letter to his people. Alone he spent the night, without the comfort of friend or minister. At daybreak he was dragged forth to execution. A crowd of strange people had gathered to see him die. It is said that the officer asked him if there was anything he wished to say. Brave to the last, Nathan Hale answered: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Thus, at the age of twenty-two, died Nathan Hale, who held his country dearer than his own life.

GENERALS GREENE, MORGAN, AND MARION, THE MEN WHO HELPED WIN THE SOUTH FROM THE BRITISH

[Sidenote: =Moultrie repulses attack on Charleston=]

=95. The War in the South.= Early in the Revolutionary War British vessels made an attack on Charleston, South Carolina (1776). But Colonel Moultrie, from his rude fort of palmetto logs, gave them such a welcome that they were glad to get away, and for two years the British gave the southern colonies little trouble.

[Sidenote: =Charleston surrenders to Cornwallis=]

But in 1778 another British army captured Savannah, Georgia. In 1780 the city of Charleston, South Carolina, with General Lincoln's entire army, surrendered to Cornwallis. Congress hastened General Gates to the South to check the British, but Cornwallis surprised Gates and cut his army to pieces near Camden.

[Sidenote: =Greene goes south to watch Cornwallis=]

=96. Nathanael Greene, the Quaker General.= Washington now chose Nathanael Greene, the "Quaker general," to go south, take command of the American army, and to watch Cornwallis, who had just defeated Gates. Greene was born in Roger Williams' old colony, and was ten years younger than Washington. His father was a farmer, a miner, and a blacksmith on week days, and a Quaker preacher on Sundays.

[Sidenote: =The "learned blacksmith"=]

As a boy Nathanael had plenty of hard work to do, and at thirteen could "only read, write, and cipher." But he was hungry for more knowledge, and began to study Latin, mathematics, philosophy, and history. Besides, he made iron toys, and sold them to buy books. His family got into a lawsuit, and Nathanael took up the study of law. He was called the "learned blacksmith."

[Sidenote: =He buys a musket=]

When Greene saw that King George was likely to force the Americans to fight, he joined the militia and went to Boston to buy a musket, a very unusual thing for a man in Quaker dress to do. He hid the gun in his wagon. There he watched General Gage drilling British soldiers. He persuaded one of them to go with him to drill his company of minutemen.

[Sidenote: =News from Lexington sends Greene to Boston=]

When the stirring news from Lexington reached him, Greene was among the first to start for Boston, and there Washington found him when he arrived to take command of the army.

Greene was made one of Washington's generals, and followed his great commander till Washington sent him to the South to win back that part of the country from Cornwallis.

He found only a small army in North Carolina, but he knew the southern men would fight if they had a chance, for the backwoodsmen had just killed or captured one thousand British soldiers at Kings Mountain.

[Sidenote: =Men who helped Greene in the South=]

Besides, he had some of the bravest and ablest leaders in America to help him, among them Daniel Morgan, Francis Marion, William Washington (a cousin of General Washington), Henry Lee (called "Light Horse Harry"), and Thomas Sumter.

[Sidenote: =Greene divides his army=]

Greene divided his army into two parts. He took one thousand men and marched into northeastern South Carolina, where Marion and Lee, with small bands of cavalry, stole upon the British outposts. In broad daylight they charged pellmell into Georgetown, captured the officer in command there, and got safely away before the British were over their fright.

[Sidenote: =Morgan goes to northwestern South Carolina=]

Greene sent General Morgan and Colonel William Washington with nine hundred men into northwestern South Carolina to threaten some British posts, and to encourage the patriots in the mountains. Very shortly after this, Washington and his cavalry swooped down on a party of British soldiers and captured two hundred fifty of them.

[Sidenote: =Tarleton sent to capture him=]

Cornwallis was now thoroughly roused, and resolved to put an end to such events. He therefore ordered his favorite cavalry officer, Colonel Tarleton, to take eleven hundred picked soldiers and capture Morgan and his men.

=97. General Morgan.= But Morgan was not the kind of man to be caught napping. When a young man, he had fought the French and Indians on the Virginia frontier.

[Sidenote: =Morgan's training=]

He was at Braddock's defeat. He had once knocked a British officer down for striking him. In an Indian fight he had been shot through the neck and thought himself dying, but, to escape being scalped, locked his arms tightly around his horse's neck, while the horse ran wildly through the woods.

At the head of a company of ninety-six Virginia backwoodsmen, Morgan had marched six hundred miles in twenty-one days, and joined Washington at Boston.

[Sidenote: =Burgoyne's compliment=]

Later, Washington sent him to join in the capture of Burgoyne, at Saratoga. His men did such splendid fighting that Burgoyne said to Morgan: "Sir, you command the finest regiment in the world!" Fighting in the woods of America, such a man was likely to be a match for any British officer.

When Morgan heard of Tarleton's approach he retreated to a good place for fighting, called the Cowpens. On the top of a long, rising slope he placed the Continental troops--men trained to fight. In the rear he hid Colonel Washington and his cavalrymen.

[Sidenote: =Morgan places his men=]

Some distance in front of the Continentals he placed the militia with orders not to retreat till they had fired twice. In front of the militia Morgan hid a company of deadly sharpshooters in the woods on the right and another company in the woods on the left.