settlement, big and little, learned the facts as
rapidly as couriers on horseback could carry them,
and the thirteen colonies arrayed themselves against
one of the most powerful monarchies of the world.
The story is too well known to need recalling
here, save as it draws Nathan Hale toward his
doom. Within a few days after the fatal igth of
April, four thousand Connecticut volunteers were
on their way to Boston to help Massachusetts in its
earliest struggle with the English. Ununiformed,
undisciplined, straight from whatever had been
their ordinary vocation, with whatever they owned
in the way of arms and ammunition, they went
hurrying toward Boston. Israel Putnam, renowned
veteran of the "Old French War," was
plowing in his fields at Pomfret, Connecticut, when
he heard the stirring news. Leaving his plow in the
furrow, he hastened to his house, left a few orders
for the management of his farm and the comfort of
his family, and marched at the head of a body of
volunteers toward the camp near Boston. We
are told that, in some households, families sat up
all night, the fathers melting their pewter plates
into bullets for ammunition to be used by their
sons, and the mothers and sisters fashioning for
them, with all possible speed, the clothing they
could not go without.

[[40]]

p039 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p040w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p041

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