“Wet and sloppy,” “through mud and mire,” without food or tents, seventy-five miles in three and a half days.

 From 1776 by David McCulough. Page 25.

In April, when the call for help first went out after Lexington and Concord, militia and volunteer troops from the other New England colonies had come by the thousands to join forces with the Massachusetts regiments—1,500 Rhode Islanders led by Nathanael Greene, 5,000 from Connecticut under the command of Israel Putnam. John Stark’s New Hampshire regiment of 1,000 had marched in snow and rain, “wet and sloppy,” “through mud and mire,” without food or tents, seventy-five miles in three and a half days. The Massachusetts regiments, by far the strongest of the provincial troops, possibly numbered more than 10,000.