Washington was so stunned by the report he did not utter a word for half an hour.

 From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 28.

Washington knew little about Boston. He had been there only once and but briefly twenty years before, when he was a young Virginia colonel hoping for advancement in the regular army. And though each side dispatched its spies, he put particular emphasis on “intelligence” from the start, and was willing to pay for it. Indeed, the first large sum entered in his account book was for $333.33, a great deal of money, for an unnamed man “to go into Boston…for the purpose of conveying intelligence of the enemy’s movements and designs.”

The fear that the British were preparing an attack was ever present. “We scarcely lie down or rise up, but with expectation that the night or the day must produce some important event,” wrote one of Washington’s staff.

It was in the first week of August, at the end of his first month as commander, when Washington learned how much worse things were than he knew. A report on the supply of gunpowder at hand revealed a total of less than 10,000 pounds, and the situation was not expected to improve soon. Very little gunpowder was produced in the colonies. What supplies there were came mainly by clandestine shipments from Europe to New York and Philadelphia by way of the Dutch island St. Eustatius in the Caribbean. At present, there was powder enough only for about nine rounds per man. According to one account, Washington was so stunned by the report he did not utter a word for half an hour.