“The fate of this whole army and the town is at stake, not to say the fate of America.” Washington agreed. This was precisely the rumpus he’d yearned for. Anticipating a British lunge toward Dorchester, he had organized a counterstrike. Two floating batteries and forty-five bateaux—each capable of carrying eighty men—were positioned up the Charles River. Under General Putnam, four thousand troops in Cambridge stood ready to make an amphibious assault on Boston while much of Howe’s army was beating toward the heights. General Sullivan would land at the powder house on the west edge of town
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