M.M. Ballou, "Washington Taking Command at Cambridge" Ballou's Pictorial (Boston, Saturday, July 7, 1855), vol IX., No. 1.-Whole No. 209. See related image from Ballou, and another passage in the Irving biography to which this text refers.

The second of July, 1775, was a day of the deepest import to our country. On that day, George Washington, entrusted by the Continental Congress with the chief command of the American army, and thus made the foremost man of the Revolution, entered upon the active duties of his office, and was received with enthusiasm by the little band of heroes assembled at Cambridge. Mr. Warren, the artist, has caught the spirit of the scene which Irving has thus described in a few graphic lines. "As he entered the confines of the camp, the shouts of the multitude and the thundering of artillery gave note to the enemy beleagured in Boston, of his arrival. His military reputation had preceded him and excited great expectations. They were not disappointed. His personal appearance, notwithstanding the dust of travel, was calculated to captivate the public eye; as he rode through the camp amidst a throng of officers, he was the admiration of the soldiery and of a curious throng collected from the surrounding country. Happy was the countryman who could get a full view of him to carry home an account of it to his neighbors. 'I have been much gratified, this day, with a view of General Washington,' writes a contemporary chronicler. 'His excellency was on horseback, accompanied by several military gentlemen. It was not difficult to distinguish him from all others. He is tall and well proportioned, and his personal appearance truly noble and majestic.'" The fair sex were still more enthusiastic in their admiration, if we may judge from the following passage of a letter written by the accomplished wife of John Adams, to her husband. "Dignity, ease and complacency, the gentleman and the solider, look agreeably blended in him. Modesty marks every line and feature of his face. Those lines of Dryden instantly occured to me: 'Mark his majestic fabric! He's a temple / Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine; / His soul's the deity that lodges there; / Nor is the pile unworthy of the god!'" The incident we have illustrated marks the commencement of Washington's career in the service of his country. How gloriously was the promise given by his bearing redeemed!