ranked as the leaders of an army for campaign service. The yeomen of town and village had not come together at the summons of a commander-in-chief through adjutant, herald, or advertisement. They came unbidden, at an alarm from the bell on their meeting-house, or from a post-rider, or from the telegrams transmitted by tongue and ear. … And for the most part they were as free to go away as they had been to come. They were enlisted after a fashion, some prime conditions of which were their own convenience or pleasure. … Such of them as came from the seaboard might bring with them old sails for tents, while the midsummer days made it scarcely a hardship to many to have only the heavens for a roof. Generally their towns were expected to keep them supplied with food. … The forces then mustered at Cambridge as a central camp, and, stretching from the left at Chelsea almost round to Dorchester on the right, for nearly three quarters of a circle, were indeed not organized, nor yet had they any characteristic of a mere mob. They combined in fact four inde·pendent armies, united in resistance to a foreign enemy. … Each of the Provinces had raised, commissioned, and assumed the supply of its respective forces, holding them subject to their several orders. After the battle in Charlestown, the Committee of War in Connecticut ordered their generals, Spencer and Putnam, while they were on the territory of this Province, to regard General Ward as the commander-in-chief, and suggested to Rhode Island and New Hampshire to issue the same instructions to their soldiers. … General Artemas Ward was a conscientious and judicious patriot. In the French war he had earned some military experience and fame. … On October 27, 1774, the Provincial Congress, in which he was a delegate, appointed him a general officer, and on May 19 following, Commander-in-chief. As such he served at Cambridge till the arrival of Washington. On the very day of the battle in Charlestown, when the great chieftain was selected for his high service, Ward was chosen by the Continental Congress as its first major-general. Though he was only in his 48th year when he was burdened with the responsibility of the opening warfare, his body was infirm from disease and exposure. Lieutenant-General Thomas, two years the senior of Ward, was second in command. … General Israel Putnam preceded his Connecticut troops in hurrying to the scene of war on the news of the affair at Lexington and Concord. His men soon followed him, with like enthusiasm. The New Hampshire troops, on their arrival at Medford, made choice of Colonel John Stark as their leader. Colonel Nathaniel Greene commanded a regiment from Rhode Island. … A few days after the affair at Lexington, when virtually the siege began, General Gage, the British