Guns for General Washington by Seymour Reit Page B

frantically to a British battery positioned near the town gates!
    Washington and his men were startled. Colonel Knox grabbed his pistol, ready to defend the general. What fools they’d been, he thought. How careless! The British cavalrymen drew closer. The colonists turned, raced to their horses, leaped into the saddles, and galloped safely back to Roxbury. Henry shuddered when he thought of what might have happened if George Washington had been captured.
    Narrow escape or not, General Washington was kept busy. A large shipment of powder had arrived, sent from France to New York, then brought overland. This, plus thousands of round shot taken from the captured brig
Nancy
meant plenty of ammunition for the Ticonderoga weapons.
    Henry and Will worked day and night, and by the first of March they were able to report to the War Council that all was ready. General Washington’s master plan could now begin.
    Â 
    On the night of March 2, cannons began firing steadily from the rebel lines north of Boston.
    Paul Revere, Jr., reading by candlelight, heard them. Old Toby, rowing his skiff near the banks of the Charles River, heard them. Will Knox, working in Roxbury, heard them. And the British aboard their warships heard them, too.
    General Howe, peering from the deck of HMS
Somerset
, was very surprised. Why were the fool colonials wasting powder when they had so little to spare? And where did they get those new guns? Well, no matter. If the rebels wanted an artillery duel, he’d jolly well oblige them. The British commander snapped orders to his adjutant, and soon the guns of the fleet began answering the rebel barrage.
    For several hours cannons on both sides banged away loudly at each other, and the following night the duel was continued. Only light guns were being used, and in the darkness neither side did much damage. Which was just what Washington had expected. For the truth was, this sudden noisy barrage was simply a hoax—a clever diversion set up to fool the British and to draw their attention away from Dorchester Heights.
    During the daylight hours Washington’s ruse continued. He paraded an armed regiment along the ramparts of the Cambridge line as if preparing for battle. Knowing that spies would quickly tell the British, he assembled scores of wagons to carry the “wounded.” He also turned the main Cambridge barracks into a hospital for use in the coming “attack.”
    The British easily took the bait. Unaware of Henry’s Ticonderoga prizes, Howe and his officers concentrated only on Cambridge. They paced the decks of their ships, studied the northern lines with their telescopes, and worried about the activities in that area.
    While all this was going on, Henry and Will, with their artillerymen, worked like fiends to fortify Dorchester Heights. Washington had assigned many troopers, plus four hundred oxen, to the job of hauling the biggest guns up the steep hills and setting them in place. But winter winds had done their work. “The ground here is frozen solid,” Henry said unhappily to Will “It’s like iron. We’ll never be able to dig trenches.”
    Will frowned, his mind racing. “If we can’t dig
down
, let’s try building
up
.”
    The young soldier relished solving tough problems. In no time at all, he had his men gathering huge bundles of loose branches and tying them together tightly. These bundles were called fascines. Placed upright, jammed one next to the other, the fascines formed a solid, musket-proof wall. He also had dozens of empty barrels rounded up and filled with rocks and sand. These were hauled up the hill and placed in front of the fascines. The heavy barrels gave strength to the makeshift wall. They also had another use: If Howe’s marines stormed Dorchester Heights, the barrels, chained together, would be rolled downhill, smashing into the British lines.
    Once this crude parapet was in place, openings were cut for the