[Footnote 16:  Revere (Re-veer’).]

135.  Colonel Washington at Mount Vernon; Congress makes him General Washington, and sends him to take command of the American army.—­At the time the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, Colonel George Washington was living very quietly at Mount Vernon.  His brother Lawrence had died, and Mount Vernon was now his home.  Washington was very well off:  he had a fine estate and plenty of slaves to do the work on it; but when he died, many years later, he took good care to leave orders that all of his slaves should be set free as soon as it could be done.

[Illustration:  WASHINGTON AT MOUNT VERNON.]

[Illustration:  WASHINGTON TAKING COMMAND OF THE AMERICAN ARMY AT CAMBRIDGE.]

Congress now made Colonel Washington general, and sent him to Cambridge, a town just outside of Boston, to take command of the American army.  It was called the Continental Army because it was raised, not to fight for the people of Massachusetts, but for all the Americans on the continent, north and south.  Washington took command of the army under a great elm, which is still standing.  There, six months later, he raised the first American flag.[17]

[Illustration:  THE NORTHERN STATES IN THE REVOLUTION.]

[Footnote 17:  See a picture of this and the other flags of the Revolution in paragraph 142.]

136.  American sharpshooters;[18] Washington’s need of cannon and powder; the attack on Canada; the British driven out of Boston.—­Men now came from all parts of the country to join the Continental Army.  Many of them were sharpshooters.  In one case an officer set up a board with the figure of a man’s nose chalked on it, for a mark.  A hundred men fired at it at long distance, and sixty hit the nose.  The newspapers gave them great praise for their skill and said, “Now, General Gage, look out for your nose.”

[Illustration:  “NOW, GENERAL GAGE, LOOK OUT FOR your NOSE.”]

Washington wanted to drive General Gage and the British soldiers out of Boston, but for months he could not get either cannon or powder.  Benjamin Franklin said that we should have to fight as the Indians used to, with bows and arrows.

While Washington was waiting, a number of Americans marched against the British in Canada; but the cold weather came on, and they nearly starved to death:  our men would sometimes take off their moccasins[19] and gnaw them, while they danced in the snow to keep their bare feet from freezing.

At last Washington got both cannon and powder.  He dragged the cannon up to the top of some high land overlooking Boston harbor.  He then sent word to General Howe, for Gage had gone, that if he did not leave Boston he would knock his ships to pieces.  The British saw that they could not help themselves, so they made haste to get on board their vessels and sail away.  They never came back to Boston again, but went to New York.