George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 7, 4th edition.

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Not till the news reached Cambridge of this

Chap. Xxxix} 1775. June 17.

second landing at Charlestown, was Ward relieved from the apprehension, that the main body of the British would interpose themselves between Charlestown and Cambridge. Persuaded of the security of the camp, and roused by the earnest and eloquent entreaties of Devens, of Charlestown, himself a member of the committee of safety, Ward consented to order reinforcements; among them his own regiment, but it was too late.

The whole number of Americans on the ground at that time, including all such as crossed the causeway seasonably to take part in the fight, according to the most solemn assurances of the officers who were in the action, to the testimony of eye witnesses, to contemporary inquirers, and to the carefully considered judgment of Washington, did not exceed one thousand five hundred men.

Nor should history forget to record that, as in the army at Cambridge, so also in this gallant band, the free negroes of the colony had their representatives. For the right of free negroes to bear arms in the public defence was, at that day, as little disputed in New England as their other rights. They took their place not in a separate corps, but in the ranks with the white man, and their names may be read on the pension rolls of the country, side by side with those of other soldiers of the revolution.

Two days after the massacre at Lexington, Gage had threatened, that if the Americans should occupy Charlestown heights, the town should be burned. Its inhabitants, however, had always been willing that the threat should be disregarded. The time for the