[Frederic Shonnard & W.W. Spooner (1900)] In the summer of 1775 the provincial congress ordered a complete reorganization of the militia of the colony, and required every mem-ber of that body, between the ages of sixteen and fifty, to provide himself with a musket and bayonet, a sword or tomahawk, a cartridge-box to contain twenty-three rounds of cartridges, a knapsack, one pound of gunpowder, and three pounds of balls. There were no reg-ulations as to uniform. Under this order Westchester County thor-oughly reconstructed its militia, deposing all officers of unsatisfac-tory or doubtful antecedents, and electing stanch patriots in their stead. The battle of Bunker Hill, on the 17th of June, had still farther widened the breach, which, indeed, now seemed incapable of being-closed. Three days previously George Washington had been ap-pointed by the continental congress commander-in-chief of the Amer-ican armies. On June 25 he arrived in New York on his way to the