Massachusetts understood the immediate demand, having now drawn the fire of the hitherto discreet adversary, and promptly declared that the necessities of the hour required from New England the immediate service of thirty thousand men, assuming as her proportionate part a force of thirteen thousand six hundred. This was on the twenty-second day of April, while many timid souls and some social aristocrats were still painfully worrying themselves as to who was to blame for anybody’s being shot on either side. On the twenty-fifth day of April, Rhode Island devoted fifteen hundred men to the service, as her contribution to “An Army of Observation” about Boston. On the following day, the twenty-sixth, Connecticut tendered her proportion of two thousand men. Each Colonial detachment went up to Boston as a separate army, with independent organization and responsibility. The food, as well as the powder and ball of each, was distinct, and they had little in common except the purpose which impelled them to concentrate for a combined opposition to the armed aggressions of the Crown. And yet, this mass of assembling freemen was not without experience, or experienced leaders. The early wars had been largely fought by Provincial troops, side by side with British regulars, so that the general conduct of armies and of campaigns had become familiar to New England men, and many veteran soldiers were prompt to volunteer service. Lapse of time, increased age, absorption in farming or other civil pursuits, had not wholly effaced from the minds of retired veterans the memory of former experience in the field. If some did not realize the expectations of the people and of Congress, the promptness with which they responded to the call was no less worthy. Massachusetts selected, for the immediate command of her forces, Artemas Ward, who had served under Abercrombie, with John Thomas, another veteran, as Lieutenant-General; and as Engineer-in-Chief, Richard Gridley, who had, both as engineer and soldier, earned a deserved reputation for skill, courage, and energy. Connecticut sent Israel Putnam, who had been inured to exposure and hardship in the old French War, and in the West Indies. Gen. Daniel Wooster accompanied him, and he was a veteran of the first expedition to Louisburg thirty years before, and had served both as Colonel and Brigadier-General in the later French War. Gen. Joseph Spencer also came from Connecticut. Rhode Island intrusted the command of her troops to Nathaniel Greene, then but thirty-four years of age, with Varnum, Hitchcock, and Church, as subordinates. New Hampshire furnished John Stark, also a veteran of former service; and both Pomeroy and Prescott, who soon took active part in the operations about Boston, had participated in Canadian campaigns.