Part of Putnam’s troops were now sent back to Cambridge; a part were ordered forward to occupy Boston. General Ward, too, with five hundred men, made his way from Roxbury, across the neck, about which the enemy had scattered caltrops or crow’s feet,[57] to impede invasion. The gates were unbarred and thrown open, and the Americans entered in triumph, with drums beating and colors flying. By ten o’clock the enemy were all embarked and under way: Putnam had taken command of the city, and occupied the important points, and the flag of thirteen stripes, the standard of the Union, floated above all the forts. On the following day, Washington himself entered the town, where he was joyfully welcomed. He beheld around him sad traces of the devastation caused by the bombardment, though not to the extent that he had apprehended. There were evidences, also, of the haste with which the British had retreated—five pieces of ordnance with their trunnions knocked off; others hastily spiked; others thrown off the wharf. “General Howe’s retreat,” writes Washington, “was precipitate beyond anything I could have conceived. The destruction of the stores at Dunbar’s camp, after Braddock’s defeat, was but a faint image of what may be seen at Boston; artillery carts cut to pieces in one place, gun carriages in another; shells broke here, shots buried there, and every thing carrying with it the face of disorder and confusion, as also of distress.”[58] To add to the mortification of General Howe, he received, we are told, while sailing out of the harbor, despatches from the ministry, approving the resolution he had so strenuously expressed, of maintaining his post until he should receive reinforcements. As the smallpox prevailed in some parts of the town, precautions were taken by Washington for its purification; and the main body of the army did not march in until the 20th. “The joy manifested in the countenances of the inhabitants,” says an observer, “was overcast by the melancholy gloom caused by ten tedious months of siege;” but when, on the 22d, the people from the country crowded into the town, “it was truly interesting,” writes the same observer, “to witness the tender interviews and fond embraces of those who had been long separated under circumstances so peculiarly distressing.”[59] Notwithstanding the haste with which the British army was embarked, the fleet lingered for some days in Nantucket Road. Apprehensive that the enemy, now that their forces were collected in one body, might attempt by some blow to retrieve their late disgrace, Washington hastily threw up works on Fort Hill, which commanded the harbor, and demolished those which protected the town from the neighboring country. The fleet at length disappeared entirely from the coast, and the deliverance of Boston was assured.