Boston in June of 1775 was already a city choking on powder smoke, rumor, and fear. Since the redcoats had marched out to Concord two months earlier and came running back under fire, everything had changed. The countryside had risen. Thousands of armed men now surrounded the city. The roads were blocked. Tempers were short. British soldiers camped uncomfortably close to colonists who hated their presence. Governor General Thomas Gage, once seen as a somewhat moderate military administrator, now found himself barricaded in Boston, his authority mocked by the very people he had come to govern. And on June 12, 1775, he played his last card.