John Adams

by David McCullough

The American bombardment of Boston had begun March 2 and 3. “No sleep for me tonight,” she wrote, as the house trembled about her. On March 5 she described a more thunderous barrage: “the rattling of the windows, the jar of the house and the continuous roar of the 24-pounders.” The night before, working at great speed, Washington’s men had moved the guns from Ticonderoga to commanding positions on the high ground of the Dorchester Peninsula, south of Boston, looking over Boston Harbor and the British fleet. With hundreds of ox teams and more than a thousand American troops at work, breastworks had been set up and cannon hauled into place, all in a night and to the complete surprise of the British. Abigail was told that the British commander, on seeing what they had accomplished, remarked, “My God, these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.” Days of fearful tension followed until Sunday, March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, when she went again to the top of Penn’s Hill to see a spectacle such as no one could ever have imagined—the British were abandoning Boston. General William Howe had struck an agreement with Washington. If allowed to depart in peace, the army would not leave Boston in flames. The entire fleet, “the largest fleet ever seen in America,” was lifting canvas in a fair breeze and turning to the open sea. “You may count upwards of one hundred and seventy-sail,” she wrote. “They look like a forest.”