Cambridge. This roused our mettle, and we set into drilling and learning
manoeuvres with more zeal. At one time a rumor reached us that the
British fleet had bombarded Boston, and, I tell you, the men did turn
out. Some of them wanted to march right down to Boston. Everywhere the
people were crying 'to arms! to arms!' and we thought the war had
commenced, sure enough; but it didn't just then. However, there was
about thirty thousand men on the march to Boston, and they wouldn't turn
back until they found the report was a hoax. Soon after, the Provincial
Congress met, and they ordered that a large body of minute-men should be
enrolled, so as to be prepared for any attack. The people of our
province took the matter into their own hands, and organized a body of
minute-men without orders. Our company was included. We were all ready
for fight, but were determined that the red-coats should strike the
first blow; so we waited through the winter. In March, Gage saw that
great quantities of powder and balls were taken out of Boston into the
country, in spite of his guard on the Neck. Every market wagon, and
every kind of baggage, was stowed with ammunition. He then sent a party
of troops to Salem to seize some cannon and stores our men had placed
there; but Colonel Pickering, with a few men, made such a show, that the
red-coats marched back again, without accomplishing their object. Our
chief deposit of stores was at Concord, up here about twenty miles from
Boston; and when our militia-general found that Gage was sending out
parties to sketch the roads, with the aim of getting our stores into his
hands, he sent word to our company to be on hand, and, if we could, to
come up near Concord. John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and all of our other
big men, left Boston and went to Lexington, to keep the people moving
and ready for an attack."

"Dr. Warren stayed in Boston," interrupted Pitts, "to keep the others
informed of the movements of the red-coats."