Yet there must have been something more to call forth the confidence then so quickly given, and which no one ever long withheld.

All felt dimly, but none the less surely, that here was a strong, able man, capable of rising to the emergency, whatever it might be, capable of continued growth and development, clear of head and warm of heart; and so the New England people gave to him instinctively their sympathy and their faith, and never took either back.
The shouts and cheers died away, and then Washington returned to his temporary quarters in the Wadsworth house, to master the task before him.

The first great test of his courage and ability had come, and he faced it quietly as the excitement caused by his arrival passed by.

He saw before him, to use his own words, "a mixed multitude of people, under very little discipline, order, or government." In the language of one of his aides:[1] "The entire army, if it deserved the name, was but an assemblage of brave, enthusiastic, undisciplined, country lads; the officers in general quite as ignorant of military life as the troops, excepting a few elderly men, who had seen some irregular service among the provincials under Lord Amherst." With this force, ill-posted and very insecurely fortified, Washington was to drive the British from Boston.

His first step was to count his men, and it took eight days to get the necessary returns, which in an ordinary army would have been furnished in an hour.