for armed conflict. Around the same time, Gen. Gage began receiving detailed intelligence on the Provincial Congress's activities. On February 21, 1775, the Provincial Congress appointed Church and Joseph Warren a committee to make an inventory of medical supplies necessary for the army and, on March 7, voted them the sum of five hundred pounds for the purchase of such supplies. On May 8, 1775, after the Revolutionary War had begun, Church became a member of an examining board for surgeons for the army. A June 19 resolution ordered "that Dr. Church, Dr. Taylor, and Dr. Whiting be a committee to consider what method is proper to take to supply the hospitals with surgeons and that the same gentlemen be a committee to provide medicine and other necessaries for hospitals." As the chairman of a subcommittee of the Committee of Safety, he signed a report on May 12 which recommended a system of defensive works on Prospect Hill and Bunker Hill. Colleagues noted, however, that he had insisted on entering Boston soon after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and while there he was seen in conference with British General Thomas Gage; he claimed to have been arrested and released. Director General In May, Church went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to consult the Continental Congress about the defense of Massachusetts colony. On July 27, that body authorized the establishment of a Medical Department of the Army with a Director General and Chief Physician who would be head of both the Hospital Department of the first Army Hospital and of the first headquarters of regimental surgeons (located in the Henry Vassall House, Cambridge, MA). In the meantime, on July 2, General George Washington had arrived at Cambridge to take command of the colonial forces, and Church was one of the committee appointed to receive him. Church had difficulty administering his department, and the regimental surgeons. A storm of complaints poured into Army headquarters, and Washington was compelled to order an investigation of the Medical Service. In his own defense, Church complained that rivals were jealous of his position and reportedly asked for permission to leave the Army. In the meantime, an incident arose which brought him before an Army court martial on October 4, 1775. "Criminal correspondence" and court martial In July 1775, Church had sent a cipher letter addressed to a Major Cane, a British officer in Boston, through a former