Before the war closed a plan was engraved by Norman, a Boston engraver, which is the earliest to appear near the scene itself. This was a _Plan of the town of Boston with the attack on Bunker's Hill, in the peninsula of Charlestown, on June 17, 1775_ (measuring 11-1/2 × 7 inches), which is, however, of no topographical value as respects the action. It appeared in Murray's _Impartial History_ (1778), i. p. 430, and in An Impartial History of the War in America (Boston, 1781, vol. i.), and a reduced fac-simile of it is annexed.[578]
=C.= THE AMERICAN CAMP.—A variety of journals and diaries have been preserved, the best known of which is that of Dr. Thacher, a surgeon on Prospect Hill.[579]
The daily life of the Cambridge camp is best seen in the letters sent from it, and foremost in interest among such are those of Washington.[580] From the Roxbury camp there are letters of General Thomas in the _Thomas Papers_, where is one of Dr. John Morgan, the medical director. Several from Jedediah Huntington are preserved in the Trumbull Papers, and are printed in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, xlix.[581] The principal letters from the Winter Hill camp are those of General Sullivan,[582] and a few have been printed written at the Prospect Hill camp.[583]
Something of the spirit prevailing in Watertown, where the Provincial Congress was sitting, can be seen in the letters of James Warren and Samuel Cooper.[584]
There are in the library of the Amer. Antiq. Soc. at Worcester several orderly-books of the siege,[585] and others are preserved elsewhere.[586]
=D.= THE BRITISH CAMP.—The condition of Boston during the siege must be learned from various sources. The _Boston News-Letter_ was still published, but numbers of it are very scarce for this period, and no other of the Boston newspapers continued to be published in the town.[587] It was a convenient vehicle for the British generals, and any morsel of news likely to be distasteful to the patriots, like the intercepted correspondence of Washington and John Adams, was pretty sure to reach the American lines through its columns. The correspondence of the generals is preserved in the British Archives and in the papers at the Royal Institution (London), and occasionally some few letters, like those of Percy in the Boston Public Library, have been found elsewhere. It is charged that Gage's papers were stolen in Boston.[588] Some new glimpses were got when Fonblanque published his _Life of Burgoyne_.[589] The best accounts of the succession of events in the town and the daily life are found in Dr. Ellis's "Chronicles of the Siege",[590] and in Mr. Horace E. Scudder's "Life in Boston during the Siege", a chapter in the _Memorial Hist. of Boston_, vol. iii.,[591] which may be consulted (p. 154) for various sources respecting the details of the privations and amusements of the people and the garrison, and of the vicissitudes of its buildings and landmarks.[592] An account of the British works in Boston is given in Frothingham's _Siege of Boston_, and the _Mem. Hist. Boston_, iii. 79. The current record of the outposts, etc., is noted in Moore's _Diary of the Rev._, 109, etc. Carrington (_Battles_, 154) refers to a MS. narrative of experiences in the town by one Edw. Stow. Some of the correspondence of the Boston selectmen with Thomas, at Roxbury, is in the _Thomas Papers_. It is, however, to the diaries, letters, and orderly-books which have been preserved that we must go for the details of life in the beleaguered town.[593]