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^77

HISTORY

OF THE

Battle of Bunkers [Breed's] Hill,
On June 17, 1775,
FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES IN PRINT
AND MANUSCRIPT.

BY
GEORGE E. ELLIS.

WITH A MAP OF THE BATTLE-GROUND.

BOSTON:
LOCKWOOD, BROOKS, AND COMPANY.
* 1875.

Copyright,
George E. Ellis.
187 5-

Lamoriage :
Press of John Wilson &* Son*

THE

BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.

PREPARATIONS.
'"F^HE reader of the following pages is supposed to be
informed of the state of affairs in and around Boston
at the time of the opening of hostilities at Lexington and
Concord, between the provincials and the royal forces. The
expedition sent into the country by the British commander
on April 19th, to seize or destroy the military supplies which
had been gathered at Concord, under the full prescience that
they would be needed in the final rupture that could no
longer be averted, was but partially successful in its objects,
was inglorious in its whole character and results to the in
vaders, and decisive only in its effects upon the purpose and
resolve of an outraged people.
The Continental Congress at Philadelphia was still delib
erating, averting a declaration which would break the last
bond of allegiance to the mother country, and vainly hoping
still to settle the strife by negotiation. Reinforcements of
foreign troops and supplies were constantly arriving in Bos
ton. Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne came, as generals, on the
25th of May. Bitterness, ridicule, and boasting, with all the
irritating taunts of a mercenary soldiery, were freely poured
on the patriots and on the "mixed multitude" which com
posed the germ of their army yet to be. The British forces
had cooped themselves up in Boston, and the provincials
determined that they should remain there, with no mode of
exit save by the sea. The pear-shaped peninsula, hung to the
mainland only by the stem called the " Neck," over which the

4 . THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
tide-waters sometimes washed, was equally an inconvenient
position for crowding regiments in warlike array, and a con
venient one for the extemporized army which was about to
beleaguer them there.
•The islands in the harbor, which were, for the most part,
covered with trees and growing crops of hay and grain, with
horses, sheep, and cattle, were envied prizes for the soldiers,
who lacked fuel, fodder, and fresh meat. The daring enter
prise of those who lived in the settlements near on the main
land, attempting the ventures by night, or in the broad light
of day, had stripped these islands of their precious wealth,
much to the chagrin of the invaders. The light-house in the
harbor was afterwards burned. In the skirmishes brought on
by these exciting but perilous feats, especially in that attend
ing the successful removal of stock and hay on Noddle's
Island, now East Boston, and on Hog Island, the provincials
obtained some valuable implements and muniments, especially
four 4-pounders and twelve swivels. And from this begin
ning, all through the seven years of war that followed, the
rebels were largely indebted for their weapons and accoutre
ments, and much other material of prime necessity and value
to them, to their raids and privateering successes against the
enemy. The town of Charlestown, which lay under the enemy's
guns, had contained a population of between two and three
thousand. The interruption of all the employments of peace,
and the proximity of danger, had brought poverty and suffer
ing upon the people. They had been steadily leaving the
town, with such of their effects as they could carry with them.
It proved to be well for them that they had acted upon the
warning. It would seem that there were less than two hun
dred of its inhabitants remaining in it at the time of the battle,
when the flames kindled by the enemy and bombs from a
battery on Copp's Hill laid it in ashes.
On the third day after the affair at Concord, the Provincial
Congress again assembled, voted to raise at once 13,000 men,

THE PROVINCIAL ARMY. 5
to rally at Cambridge and the neighborhood, and asked aid
from the other provinces, to which Connecticut, Rhode Island,
and New Hampshire responded. The forts, magazines, and
arsenals, such as they then were, were secured for the coun
try. Then, for the first time, the'title of enemies became the
synonyme of the English, military or civil, and of those of
tory proclivities who sympathized with them. General Gage,
the commander, was denounced as the agent of tyranny and
oppression. An account of the affair on April 19th was sent
to England, with an address closing with the words, " Appeal
ing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to
die or be free."
By advice received from Lord Dartmouth, the head of the
War Department, General Gage issued a proclamation on the
1 2th of June, in which he declared the discontents to be in a
state of rebellion, offered a full pardon to all, with the excep
tion of Hancock and Samuel Adams, who would lay down
their arms and bow to his authority, and announced that mar
tial law was now in force.
This proclamation, issued on the first day of the week, was
to be illustrated by a fearful commentary before another Sun
day came. THE PROVINCIAL ARMY.
Of the 15,000 men then gathered, by the cry of war, at
Cambridge and Roxbury, all virtually, but not by formal
investment, under the command of General Ward, nearly
10,000 belonged to Massachusetts, and the remainder to New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. They have been
designated since, at various times and by different writers,
under the extreme contrast of terms, as an "organized army,"
and a " mob." Either of these terms would be equally inap
propriate. The circumstances under which the men who
were to constitute our army were drawn together, and the
guise in which they came, without other concert or preparation
than a wide-spread sense that almost any day with its alarm

6 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
and outrage might summon them from field, barn, and work
shop, will best define and describe them as they present
themselves before us now. The hardships they were to bear
and the services they were to perform may secure to them as
rightful a claim to be called soldiers as if they had been drilled
in Pickering or Steuben's manual, and had been accoutred
and armed with all the skill of a contractor and from all the
resources of an arsenal. Our troops were "minute-men"
extemporized into fragmentary companies and skeleton regi
ments. The officers, chosen on the village-green or in its
public-house, paying for the honor by a treat, or perhaps
because they kept the premises where the treat could be most
conveniently furnished, were not commissioned or ranked
as the leaders of an army for campaign service. The yeo
men of town and village had not come together at the sum
mons of a commander-in-chief through adjutant, herald, or
advertisement. They came unbidden, at an alarm from the
bell on their meeting-house, or from a post-rider, or from the
telegrams transmitted by tongue and ear. And they came
for what they were and as they were, with their light summer
clothing, in shirt and frock and apron ; with what was left
from their last meals in their pantries packed with a few
" notions " in sack or pillow-case, and with the ducking-guns,
fowling-pieces, or shaky muskets used in old times against the
vermin and game in the woods and the Indian skulking in
the thicket. And for the most part they were as free to go
away as they had been to come. They were enlisted after a
fashion, some prime conditions of which were their own con
venience or pleasure. They might stay, as some of them
expressed it, " for a spell, to see what was going on in camp,"
or they might plead the state of their farms, or the condition
of their families, as a reason — not an excuse — for going home,
with the promise of a return better prepared for what might
be wanted of them. Such of them as came from the sea
board might bring with them old sails for tents, while the
midsummer days made it scarcely a hardship to many to

THE PROVINCIAL ARMY. 7
have only the heavens for a roof. Generally their towns
were expected to keep them supplied with food.
The men who made the centre and the flanks of the camp
at Cambridge constituted an irregular and undisciplined as
semblage, with the spirit and intent of a military host, but
not yet organized into an army. They were without accou
trements or uniform, with no commissary, no military chest,
no hospitals, no roll-call, no camp routine. The Provincial
Congress had the matter of organization under debate two
days before the battle in Charlestown, and had appointed a
committee "to consider the claims and pretensions of the
colonels." Recruits and stragglers were continually coming in ;
and many groupings on the scene might have suggested a
picnic, had such a thing then been known, for .there were not
wanting mothers, daughters, and sisters, as lookers-on among
them. A most characteristic feature of the local and tradi
tional usages of Massachusetts is illustrated in the fact that
of the company of minute-men in Danvers, Asa Putnam, a
deacon of the church, was chosen captain, and the Rev. Mr.
Wadsworth, the pastor, his lieutenant.
The forces then mustered at Cambridge as a central camp,
and, stretching from the left at Chelsea almost round to Dor
chester on the right, for nearly three quarters of a circle,
were indeed not organized, nor yet had they any character
istic of a mere mob. They combined in fact four independent
armies, united in resistance to a foreign enemy. They cer
tainly did not constitute a national army, for there was as
yet no nation to adopt, maintain, and command them. They
were not under the authority of the Continental Congress, for
the authority of that Congress was not as yet acknowledged,
nor had that Congress as yet recognized those forces, nor
decided that it meant to come to the fight, and so would have
need of an army. General Ward was in command of the
Massachusetts soldiers. The New Hampshire regiments had
been put temporarily, and for the occasion, under his orders.
The soldiers coming with their officers from Connecticut and

8 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
Rhode Island were not under the command of Ward, save as
the friendly purpose which led them to volunteer their arms
in defence of a sister colony, would be accompanied by the
courtesy that would make them subordinate allies. Each of
the Provinces had raised, commissioned, and assumed the sup
ply of its respective forces, holding them subject to their
several orders. After the battle in Charlestown, the Com
mittee of War in Connecticut ordered their generals, Spencer
and Putnam, while they were on the territory of this Province,
to regard General Ward as the commander-in-chief, and sug
gested to Rhode Island and New Hampshire to issue the
same instructions to their soldiers.
These provincial troops also were respectively almost as
loosely organized and officered as was the combined army
which they helped to constitute. Their field-officers held
their places at the favor of the privates, and were liable to be
superseded or disobeyed ; while even after Washington took
the command of the adopted army, he was constantly annoyed
and provoked by the obstinate resolution of the soldiers to
assign place and rank according to their own inclinations and
partialities. It is evident that forces composed of such elements, drawn
together by the excitement of the hour, and subject at any
time to discord and disintegration, could act in concert only
by yielding themselves to the influence of the spirit which
had summoned them from farm and workshop at the busiest
season of the year, when each of them was most needed at
home. Yet many of those provincial soldiers, though undis
ciplined by any thing like regular service, were by no means
unused to the severities and exactions of a military life, hav
ing had experience in the Indian and French wars. They
had learned, above all the other accomplishments of their pro
fession, the art of covering themselves, especially their legs,
behind an earthen screen, the butt of a tree, a thicket of
bushes, or a stone wall.
One regiment of artillery, with nine field-pieces", had been

THE PROVINCIAL ARMY. 9
raised in Massachusetts, and put under command of the
famous engineer, Colonel Gridley. But this was not yet full
nor thoroughly organized. A self-constituted Provincial Con
gress discharged the legislative functions, and'a Committee of
Safety, elected by that congress, filled the executive place of
. Governor and Council, confining its directions chiefly to
military affairs. There was also a Council of War, with an
undefined range as to advice' and authority, sometimes mis
chievously interfering with or confusing or crossing the
arrangements, advice, and measures of the Committee.
General Artemas Ward was a conscientious and judicious
patriot. In the French war he had earned some military
experience and fame. He was in the expedition under Gen
eral Abercrombie, and returned with the rank of lieutenant-
colonel. In his civil and representative offices he. had warmly
espoused the cause of his country. On October 27, 1774, the
Provincial Congress, in which he was a delegate, appointed
him a general officer, and on May 19 following, Commander-
in-chief. As such he served at Cambridge till the arrival of
Washington. On the very day of the battle in Charlestown,
when the great chieftain was selected for his high service,
Ward was chosen by the Continental Congress as its first
major-general. Though he was only in his forty-eighth year
when he was burdened with the responsibility of the opening
warfare, his body was infirm from disease and exposure.
Lieutenant-General Thomas, two years the senior of Ward,
was second in command. He was distinguished for talents,
patriotism, and military qualities. He accepted his commis
sion on May 27. During the siege of Boston, that followed
the battle in Charlestown, he commanded a brigade at Rox-
bury, in proximity to the British lines. He afterwards took
possession of and intrenched Dorchester Heights, which bore
a similar relation and position to Boston on the south as did
those of Charlestown on the north, and he was thus the
instrument of driving the British soldiers from the town. He
died in May, 1776,' while in command in Canada.

10 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
General Seth Pomeroy, likewise famous in the border wars,
continued to serve under the appointment of the Provincial
Congress. General Israel Putnam preceded his Connecticut troops in
hurrying to the scene of war on the news of the affair at Lex
ington and Concord. His men soon followed him, with like.
enthusiasm. The New Hampshire troops, on their arrival at
Medford, made choice of Colonel John Stark as their leader.
Colonel Nathaniel Greene commanded a regiment from Rhode
Island. THE SCENE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.
The steady processes and transformations by which time,
expansive growth, the necessities of crowded human life,
enterprise, and improvement have changed the natural feat
ures of the scene now to be recalled, may require some effort
from those now on the stage to reproduce its distinctive
features. On no spot of this earth have such processes
wrought more effectually than in the neighborhood of Bos
ton. The visitor to the field of Waterloo is baffled in his
efforts to trace the manoeuvres of its great day, even by so
slight a change in its natural features as the removal of a
ridge of earth to build the mound on which rests the memo
rial of the Belgic lion. But the levelling of hill-tops, the
narrowing of river-courses by piers and wharves, the exten
sion of bridges, the filling in of thousands of acres of irri
gated flats, and the thick planting of dwellings, marts of
trade, and manufactories, have strangely transformed the sur
roundings of the storied summit. Some thirty years ago,
one who took his stand upon the top of the true Bunker
Hill, before its crown had been removed, could trace the
lines of the works which the British erected there with skill
and complication after they took possession of the town.
The battle summit, Breed's Hill, — not known by that name
till after the action, — has not been reduced at the top, but it

THE SCENE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. II
is so closed around that few of the points to which reference
has to be made in tracing the events of the day are visible
from it. Yet, by mounting the tall shaft, the visitor with an
instructed eye, looking in turn through each of its four win
dows, may with some satisfaction of his curiosity reproduce
some of the more important features of the scene. Those
who were the prime actors in it would doubtless prefer to
gaze upon it from their own monument as it now is. We,
however, try for the hour to restore their panorama.
The three quarters of a circle of headlands, slopes, penin
sulas, and eminences, once united by green levels, or divided
by watercourses, and embracing a circuit of more than
twenty miles, which we may now sweep from the windows of
the monument, was at the time arrayed in all the beauty of
its summer garb ; but it was stirring with all the signs of
military occupancy and activity. The wide-spread wings of a
patriotic army, such as has been described, extended over it,
enclosing a dark spot with a coveted prize in the good town
of Boston. Seaward, were the fair islands of the Bay. The
enemy was rich in every form of water-craft, ships of war,
gun-boats, transports, floats, and barges. But even with these
they had to be very watchful, as they ventured near the shore
of main or island ; for never were rats watched more patiently
at their holes by skilled mousers, than were they by keen-eyed
patriots, as yet not enrolled, but prospecting on their own
charges and gains. A portion of Colonel Gerrish's regiment
from Essex and Middlesex, and a detachment of New Hamp
shire troops stationed on the hills of Chelsea, formed the tip
of the left wing of the patriot array. All along the eastern
seaboard, to Cape Ann and Portsmouth, were watchful spies
on the alert to spread the alarm if the British should any
where attempt a landing. Colonels Reed and Stark, next in
the line, were stationed at Medford with their New Hamp
shire regiments. Lechmere's Point, at East Cambridge, was
guarded against the enemy's landing, to which it offered
great facilities, by parts of Colonel Little's and other regi-

12 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
ments. General Ward, with the main body of about 9,000
troops, and four companies of artillery, occupied Cambridge,
its college halls as they then were, its English church, the
vacated dwellings of some tories who had sought a change of
air, and the intervals of field and woodland.
The broad spaces of oozy and tide-soaked marsh, which
doubled the present width of the rivers, were about equally a
protection and a hindrance to military operations on either
side. We must forget such things as bridges, for there was
not one within the bounds of the historic scenes, save on the
side of Cambridge towards Brighton. The salt flats had no
causeways over them, and the shortest, even the only way
between any two places, was a great way round. All the
numerous points of highland, the farms, and the main roads,
were cautiously defended or guarded. Lieutenant-General
Thomas, with 5,000 troops of Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
and Connecticut, constituted the right wing of the army
at Roxbury and Dorchester.
Charlestown itself, like Boston, was also a pear-shaped
peninsula, swelling roundly to the sea, into which flowed the
Charles and the Mystic, whose waters approached so closely at
the stem or neck, uniting it to the mainland, that one might
stand upon it and toss a stone into the borders of either
river. Charlestown, too, like Boston, had originally its five
hill-tops, — for Boston's trimount designated only the three
peaks of its Beacon Hill, and it had, besides, its Fort Hill
and its Copp's Hill. The lowest of Charlestown's hills was
a place of graves, where some of the stones to this day show
the scars from the British cannon. The next, or Town Hill,
was the public centre of the municipality. Moulton's Point,
whence the bridge to Chelsea now starts, and where the British
forces made their first landing to assault the American works,
has been wholly levelled within a quarter of a century. Of
this, as of the other two summits, more is to be said by-
and-by. The patriot army, thus extended, could be reached for

THE BRITISH ARMY IN BOSTON. 13
assault by land only across Roxbury Neck, at which point,
however, the intrenchments of the enemy and the safeguards
of the provincials seemed to be equally secure. To a certain
extent, also, the exposure of so many places in the American
lines to injury from the armed ships and the floating batteries
of the British was offset by shoal waters, swamps, and inter
secting creeks. THE BRITISH ARMY IN BOSTON.
Such were the constitution and the disposition of the pro
vincial forces when they found themselves engaged in the
strange, but emergent, work of beleaguering their own chief
town of Boston. That little peninsula was thus completely
invested and hemmed in. A few days after the affair at
Lexington, when virtually the siege began, General Gage, the
British commander, at the solicitation of some of the leading
citizens assembled in Faneuil Hall, had, by a mutual under
standing, entered into an agreement that such of the inhabi
tants as wished to depart from the town should be at liberty
to do so, if they would leave their arms behind them and
covenant not to engage in any hostility against his army.
The agreement was availed of by many of the suffering and
frightened people, whose means of living and opportunities to
procure food were made precarious by the siege ; and they
removed with their families and such of their effects as they
could carry with them. The provincials reciprocated this
indulgence by allowing such of those within their lines and
of those who had been driven in from the country, as had
tory proclivities, to go into the town for a refuge. But the
original freedom and fulness of this understanding, on the
part of General Gage, were soon reduced by a very strict
examination of those who sought to go out of the town, and
by a rigid search of the effects which they wished to take
with them. The tories, who clung to his protection, likewise
objected to the free and loose privilege of withdrawal allowed
to those in sympathy with the rebels, and to making the town

14 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
a refuge only for the loyalists, as in the event of an assault
by the provincials their violence would have so much more
of excitement to inflame it, and so much less of caution or for
bearance to restrain it. Several of the inhabitants remained
in it from different motives : some as devoted loyalists ; some
as timid neutrals ; some as spies, to watch each hostile move
ment and to communicate it to their friends outside. Some of
these last, together with many deserters from the army, would
occasionally cross the waters by swimming, or in skiffs by
night, or would even contrive to pass the Roxbury lines, and
either enter the American army or seek farm-work in the .
country. For many years after the war there were scattered
over New England many stragglers, as well as some respect
able householders; who found it embarrassing, when ques
tioned, either to trace their heritage on this soil or to account
for their exile to it. The secret, known to themselves only,
was, that they were deserters, or the children of deserters.
The farming towns of New Hampshire and New York in this
way adopted many of the subjects of Great Britain, and more
still of the Hessian mercenaries.
Among those who did not leave Boston were some, both
loyalists and patriots, who remained there mainly to secure
and watch over property which they could not remove. After
hostilities commenced, General Gage, of course, regarded the
citizens as alike prisoners, either in the same sense in which he
was himself under restraint, or as abettors of those who were
his enemies. By the spies and deserters our officers generally
received full information of all that occurred in Boston during
the whole time of its investment by the provincials. The
word " British " had now become odious and exasperating ; and
though the regular army, encamped in the capital, might
affect to despise the undisciplined multitude which kept it in
such close quarters, it was compelled to regard its opponents
as powerful and formidable. The population of the town,
independent of the military, was then about 18,000. To all
those who were not in sympathy with them the British be-

THE BRITISH ARMY IN BOSTON. 15
haved in an insulting and exasperating manner. Only from
private letters, which came to light long after all risk from the
exposure of their contents had been quieted, did those of a
later generation learn the details of the sufferings and the
insults endured by some of those whose circumstances com
pelled them to remain in Boston. During the nine months
following the battle in Charlestown, through which the
beleaguered British were compelled to bear their confinement,
the constraint and sufferings of their own humiliation in
creased, and they avenged themselves by harsh and wanton
deeds of mischief and vengefulness. To show, as members of
the English Church establishment, their contempt of congre
gational places of worship, they removed the pews and pulpit
from the Old South meeting-house, and, covering the floor
with earth, they converted it into a riding-school for Burgoyne's
squadron of cavalry. The two eastern galleries were allowed
to remain, one for spectators, the other for a liquor-shop,
while the fire in the stove was occasionally kindled by books
and pamphlets from the library of a former pastor, Dr. -
Prince, which were in a room in the tower. One of the most
precious manuscripts of the early Plymouth Colony, Governor
Bradford's History, was purloined from that library, and car
ried to England. It was traced, only#a few years ago, to the
library of the Bishop of London, at Fulham ; and he allowed
a copy of it to be taken for publication by the Massachusetts
Historical Society. Brattle Street meeting-house was treated
with similar indignity. The steeple of the West meeting
house was destroyed, because it had been used for a signal-
station. The Old North meeting-house and several dwellings
were consumed for fuel. As the cold weather came on during
the siege, all who were in Boston, friends and foes alike, suf
fered extremely for the lack of vegetables and fresh provisions
and firewood, and the sills of the wharves were stripped for
that purpose.
At the time of the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord
there were about 4,000 British troops in Boston and at the

l6 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
Castle. The number was increased to more than 10,000
before the action in Charlestown. The best disciplined and
most experienced soldiers in the kingdom, many of them
freshly laurelled in the recent wars on the European continent,
composed the invading army. Gage, the governor, and com
mander-in-chief, had long resided in America, and had mar
ried here. He came originally as a lieutenant under Braddock,
and was with that general when he received his mortal wound.
He had been Governor of Montreal, had succeeded General
Amherst in command of the British forces on this continent,
and Hutchinson, as Governor of Massachusetts. He had con
stantly, and even violently, favored the oppressive measures
of the British ministry which brought on the war. He had
strongly fortified Boston by a double line of intrenchments
crossing the Neck, and by batteries there, and also upon the
Common commanding Roxbury and Cambridge, upon Copp's
Hill commanding Charlestown, upon Fort Hill, now levelled,
upon the northern extremity of the town commanding the
harbor, and upon West Boston Point. There were, besides,
at least twenty-five armed vessels in the harbor. Bating the
lack of fresh provisions and fuel, already referred to, the army
was lavishly supplied for camp and field.
THE COMBATANTS CONFRONTED.
Thus confronted, both armies seemed alike confident of
success and anxious for a trial, though each had its own
reasons for apprehension and the consciousness of weak
points exposed. The British were naturally mortified at their
condition as besieged. They looked with misgiving to the
heights on either hand, at Charlestown and Dorchester, and
were forming plans for occupying them, having decided, to
make a movement for that purpose on the iSth of June.
They regarded, or professed to regard, their opponents as
rude, unskilled, and cowardly farmers, and were nettled at
being kept at bay by an army of men in shirt-sleeves and

THE COMBATANTS CONFRONTED. 17
calico frocks, carrying fowling-pieces hardly any two of which
were of the same calibre.
The provincials did not feel their lack of discipline, nor
realize what would be the consequences of it, as they should
have done. They were restless under restraint ; they were
used, so far as they had had any military experience, only to
skirmishes, and thought such would be the contest before
them. Yet in the Council of War and in the Committee of
Safety there was a difference of opinion as to the safe and
expedient measures to be pursued. If the heights of Charles
town were once occupied by the provincials, they would have
to be held against a constant cannonade, if not also an assault.
The fire of the enemy could not long be returned, as there
were but eleven barrels of powder in the camp, and these
contained one-sixth of the whole stock in the province. Gen
eral Ward, and Joseph Warren, who was chairman of the
Committee of Safety, and had been elected major-general on the
14th of June, — not yet commissioned, — were doubtful about
the expediency of intrenching on Bunker Hill. General Put
nam was earnest in his advocacy of the measure. He said,
" The Americans are not at all afraid of their heads, though
very much afraid of their legs : if you cover these, they will
fight for ever." Pomeroy coincided with Putnam. He said
he was willing to attack the enemy with five cartridges to a
man, for he had been accustomed, in hunting with three
charges of powder, to bring home two or three deer. Daring
enterprise prevailed in the Council, and it was resolved that
the heights of Charlestown, which had been reconnoitred the
month previous by Colonels Gridley and Henshaw, and Mr.
Devens, should be fortified. On the 15th of June, the Com
mittee of Safety, by a secret vote, which was not recorded till
the 19th, advised the taking possession of Bunker's Hill and
Dorchester Heights. On the next day the Provincial Con
gress, as a counterblast to General Gage's proclamation, by
which Hancock and Adams had been excepted from the
proffer of a general amnesty, issued a like instrument, in
3

1 8 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
which his Excellency General Gage and Admiral Graves were
the scape-goats. \
It was amid the full splendor, luxuriance, and heat of our
summer, when rich crops were waving upon all the hills and
valleys around, that the Council of War decided to carry into
execution the vote of the Committee of Safety. We may put
aside the question as to prudence or promise of the enter
prise, as being equally difficult of decision and unimportant,
save as the misgivings of those who predicted that the defi
ciency of ammunition would endanger a failure, were proved
by the result to be well grounded. That result, as we shall
see, was that the intrepid provincials, with the aid of a hastily
raised earthen redoubt, a slight breastwork, and a rail-fence,
twice staggered and repulsed an assailing body of disciplined
soldiers of thrice their numbers, gallantly led on by coura
geous officers. On a third assault the provincials were driven
from hill and field, the probability being, as even some of the
assailants admitted, that if they had had ammunition and
bayonets they would have kept the ground and won the day.
On Friday, June 16th, the same day on which Washington
was officially informed in the congress at Philadelphia of his
appointment to the command of the continental army about
to be enlisted, General Ward issued orders to Colonels Pres
cott and Bridge, and the commandant of Colonel Frye's regi
ment, to have their men ready and prepared for immediate
service. They were all yeomen from Middlesex and Essex
counties, and were habituated to the hard labors of a farm
beneath a summer's sun. Captain Grfdley's new company of
artillery, and 120 men from the Connecticut regiment, under
the command of Captain Knowlton, were included in the
order. The whole force may have numbered, but could not
have exceeded, 1,200 men.

COMMANDER OF THE PROVINCIALS. 19

THE COMMANDER OF THE PROVINCIALS IN THE
BATTLE.
In 1818, a controversy arose concerning the command in
this action. Who was actually or rightfully its military head ?
This question, which most strangely and most unfortunately
became mingled with party politics, was very earnestly and
passionately discussed. As is usual in such cases where there
is more than one opinion or side for partisanship, there were
very many conflicting views and judgments. Every possible
or conceivable suggestion as to the command was advanced,
and had some degree of advocacy. Some maintained that
General Ward himself should be regarded as the responsible
officer of the day in all its operations. Others concluded that
there was really no commander, in full authority as such, on
the peninsula of Charlestown. Others still sought to propi
tiate the manes of the officers, whose respective champions
were urging rival claims for them, by dividing the honors of
the command among two, three, or four chief actors at the
various points where the critical movements of the day
occurred. The heroic young patriot, Joseph Warren, who fell
mortally wounded on leaving the redoubt, had the honor of
the day assigned to him as chief in authority. But there were
many who heard his own words, when Prescott offered to him
the command, that he had not yet received his commission,
and was on the ground only as a volunteer. And surely there
is no evidence either that he had been assigned the command
or that he gave any order in the whole action.
The ideal picture of " The Battle of Bunker Hill," painted
in London, by the Connecticut artist, Colonel John Trumbull,
in 1786, first made Putnam the central figure in the redoubt.
The Rev. Josiah Whitney, in a sermon at the funeral of General
Putnam, in 1790, asserted that the detachment sent from Cam
bridge was put under his command. Colonel Daniel Putnam,
son of the General, in a letter written in a most commendable
spirit, and in a dignified style of statement and argument, and

20 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
addressed to the officers of the Bunker Hill Monument Asso
ciation, in 1825, advocates his father's claims. As a youth of
fifteen, he says, he was with his father at Cambridge, in the
camp, and for years after conversed with him freely upon what
had then transpired. Most sincerely and most naturally the
son received the impression that his father was in command
of the expedition. But the careful reading of this letter will
show that the son's impression was a matter of inference.
The intrepid ardor of the General to have the enterprise under
taken at any risk, and his active movements and constant cir
cuits through the clay, might prompt that inference, as indicat
ing that he regarded himself as virtually charged with the direc
tion and oversight of the whole movement. But if so, his
command was assumed, for it certainly was not assigned to
him. Prescott received no orders from him. He felt himself
at liberty to move about at his pleasure, and he left the penin
sula for Cambridge at least twice during the day.
The only decisive authority which the parties to this heated
and acrimonious controversy would have admitted to be sat
isfactory, would have been the production of the official order
issued by General Ward. This, however, was not extant, or
not available. Judge Advocate Tudor, who presided at the
courts-martial instituted by General Washington on his arri
val at Cambridge, said that Colonel Prescott appeared to have
been in command. The contradictory and discordant state
ments of those who, having been engaged on the field at dif
ferent places and at different hours, were called upon in the
controversy forty years afterwards to give their depositions as
to who was the commander-in-chief, are to be accounted for
by the lapse of time and the effects of age, with, possibly, an
allowance for their own partialities or prejudices. Besides,
further and great allowances are to be made on account of
the confusion in the army, its partially organized and undis
ciplined condition above recognized, and the hurried and
unsystematic character and method of the expedition.
He who led the detachment and fulfilled the order doubt-

COMMANDER OF THE PROVINCIALS. 21
less received the order. The order was to intrench and to
defend the intrenchments. This order was fulfilled by night
and by day, by the body of men whom Prescott led from
Cambridge to Charlestown, and by the reinforcements who
joined the first detachment to co-operate with it. There is no
evidence that there was during the action any transfer of the
command by the coming on the ground of an officer of supe
rior rank to Prescott, or of any assumption of superior author
ity by such an officer. It might have been as dangerous then
as in the more recent crisis in the nation's fate, — to have done
what President Lincoln, in his own way, described as "swop
ping horses while crossing the river." Neither is there any
evidence that Prescott received an order during the day from
any other officer than General Ward. It is certain, and now
beyond all question, that he had the command of the day and
the action. In a letter which he wrote from Cambridge to
John Adams, a little more than two months after the affair,
he refers, in a most matter-of-fact way, to his having received
the order to march on the expedition with about 1,000 men,
and he mentions, in connection with several movements of
the day, his own directions as commander. As fair and im
partial a detail of the action and incidents of the day, as the
purpose and the means of presenting it will secure, will be
sufficient to satisfy the desire to set forth the simple truth.
William Prescott had been a lieutenant in the French war
at the taking of Cape Breton. While working on his farm at
Pepperell, he had been chosen by the " minute-men " as their
colonel. After the affair at Lexington he led his nren to
Cambridge. He was a member of the first Council of War.
On May 27, being nearly fifty years old, in the full vigor of
robust manhood, and of unquailing and dauntless courage, he
was commissioned as colonel of the " Massachusetts Army." *
* See note at the end.

22 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.

NIGHT WORK.
The longest days of the year in the latter half of June give
scarce seven hours for any enterprise that is to be done in
concealment and darkness. The scene of the work now in
hand was so near to a watchful enemy that even a loud sound
might ensure exposure. Colonel Gridley accompanied the
expedition as chief engineer. Three companies of Bridge's
regiment did not go ; but as small parties of other regiments
fell into the detachment, it may have had at the start about
I, ooo men. They took with them provisions for one day,
and blankets ; and the promise or expectation was that they
were to be reinforced in the morning.
Prescott was ordered to take possession of, to fortify, and to
defend Bunker's Hill, but to keep the purpose of the expedi
tion secret. Nor was this known to the men until they came
up with the wagons, on Charlestown Neck, laden with the
intrenching tools. The detachment was drawn up upon Cam
bridge Common, in front of the pastor's homestead, which
General Ward occupied as head-quarters, and prayer was
offered by the Reverend President of the College, Dr. Lang-
don, who had himself been a classmate of Samuel Adams.
The expedition was in motion about nine o'clock, the dark
ness just serving. Prescott, with two sergeants carrying
dark lanterns open in the rear, led the way. Though Pres
cott has frequently been represented in accounts and pic
tures of the battle as dressed in the working garb of the
farmer, and appears in Trumbull's ideal painting as wearing a
slouched hat and bearing a musket, he was in fact arrayed in
a simple and appropriate military costume, a three-cornered
hat, a blue coat, with a single row of buttons, lapped and
faced, and he carried his well-proved sword. This statement
may be thought a trivial correction, but it sometimes happens
that important facts depend upon small particulars. As the
commander was sensitive to the effects of summer heat and

NIGHT WORK. 23
expected warm service, he took with him a linen coat or ban
yan, now called a sack, which he wore in the engagement.
The order designated " Bunker's Hill " as the position to be
taken. But by mounting it, even to-day, we can ourselves
see that, cannonaded as it might be by shipping in the rivers,
and annoyed by defences put up by the enemy on Breed's
Hill, it would have been altogether untenable except in con
nection with the latter summit ; while for all purposes of
restraining and annoying the enemy in Boston, Breed's Hill,
with any reasonable works on its top, and its right and left
declivities, would be a far superior position. It would seem
that, outside of Charlestown, at least, the Hill on which the
engagement took place was not known by its present distinc
tive name till after the war. Charlestown Heights, or Bun
ker's Hill, was the comprehensive designation.
Much time, however, was consumed in deliberation, and the
natural hesitancy of a bewildered anxiety manifested by those
who, equally concerned for the success of an enterprise under
any circumstances fearfully hazardous, differed widely in
opinion as to the best course to be pursued. This hesitancy,
which was felt on the way, resulted in a provoking delay of
action after the detachment had crossed the neck and reached
the peninsula. It was only after the repeated and urgent
warnings of the engineer that any further postponement of a
decision as to the spot where the intrenchments should be
raised would make the whole enterprise a failure, that it was
concluded, even then not in accordance with the judgment of
all the advisers, to construct the works upon Breed's Hill. It
seems that the compromise, while allowing the occupancy and
Slefence of the lower summit to have the priority, carried with
it. a purpose to fortify Bunker's Hill as soon as possible after
wards. The deliberation and the delay brought on the mid
night hour before the engineer had traced the lines of the
proposed redoubt, and spades and pickaxes were busily plied
to raise the protecting shield of loose earth.
In the account of the engagement afterwards prepared by

24 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
the Massachusetts Congress, it is said that Breed's Hill was
occupied and fortified by a mistake. The reason for this
statement is not apparent to us. Probably if both summits
could have been simultaneously intrenched and defended by
troops well supplied with ammunition and artillery, the pro
vincials might have maintained their ground. But by oc
cupying Bunker's Hill alone, with such scanty military
appliances as they had, they could not have prevented the
landing nor thwarted the hostile operations of the enemy.
As the summits are not within musket-shot, and as the Brit
ish would certainly have occupied Breed's Hill, if it had not
first been secured by the provincials, our scant ammunition
and weak artillery would have been of but little avail.
The relative features of the two summits have not as yet
been essentially changed, except by the reduction and partial
.grading of the higher one, and the filling in of the quagmire
between them. Their highest points were about 130 rods
apart, Bunker's Hill lying a few rods north of a line drawn
westward from Breed's Hill, which is directly opposite to
Copp's Hill in Boston with a space of less than a mile,
including the river, dividing them. A straight road then,
as now, beginning at the narrowest point of Charlestown
Neck, ascended and crossed the summit of Bunker's Hill, at,
an elevation, beforel reduction, of 112 feet, descended to the
base, and there joined a road that completely encircled the
base of Breed's Hill, which has a height of about 62 feet.
One cross-road, now Wood Street, connected this encirclin°-
road with what is now the Main Street of Charlestown. Back
of the two summits the land sloped, with occasional irregu
larities, down to the Mystic River. An elevated point of
land, bearing east from Breed's Hill and extending towards
the bay, and called Morton's or Moulton's Point, swelled into
a summit 35 feet high, called Morton's Hill. This has now
been levelled. The bridge to Chelsea starts from this Point.
Between Breed's Hill and the Point much of the ground was
sloughy, and several brick yards and kilns were worked there.

NIGHT WORK.

25

Breed's Hill was then chiefly used by householders in Charles
town for pasturage, and was intersected by many fences.
Towards Mystic River and the Point some patches at the
time of the action were covered with tall, waving grass, ripe
for the scythe, while farther back, on the margin of the river,
at the base of the two summits, were fine crops of hay, just
mown, lying on the eve of the battle in winrows and cocks.
The fences and the tall, unmown grass, which were of great
advantage to the provincials in their stationary defences, were
grievous impediments and annoyances to the British in their
advances. There were then only two or three houses and
barns on the south-western slope of Breed's Hill. The edi
fices of the town were gathered around the present Square,
and extended sparsely along the Main Street to the Neck.
The monument occupies the centre of the redoubt, which
was eight rods square ; the southern side, running parallel
with the Main Street, was constructed with one projecting
and two entering angles. On a line with the eastern side,
which faced the Navy Yard, was a breastwork of nearly 400
feet in length, running down the hill towards the Mystic.
The sally-port opened upon the angle between this breast
work and the northern side of the redoubt, and was defended
by a blind. Colonel Gridley planned the works, which ex
hibited a combination of military science and Yankee in
genuity. No vestige of the redoubt now remains, but a
portion of the breastwork is distinctly visible. When a
square was cut around the monument grounds for house-lots,
more than a quarter of a century since, the remains of the
works raised by the British after the battle, lying west of the
monument, which had previously been plain to the eye, all
disappeared. Though the hands which spaded the bulwarks of earth on
that summit during the night of Friday, June 16th, were used
to daily toil, and brought to their unwonted midnight task
the most unflinching courage and determination, it was still a
work of dreadful anxiety. It was a bright starlight night of
4

26 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
midsummer, when the long hours of the day almost deny an
interval to the darkness, and we expect almost momentarily
after twilight in the west to behold the gray of morning in
the east. There was a remnant of a waning moon just before
midnight. A guard was stationed at the shore nearest Boston,
to anticipate any movement of the enemy. Prescott himself
went down there with Brooks, afterwards governor of the
State, then a major in Bridge's regiment, and heard from the
sentries relieving guard on the vessels the assuring cry, " All's
well." After a while, Prescott, thinking it impossible that
the sentries could be so hard of hearing, made another visit
to the river's brink, and, finding all secure, recalled the guard.
The work went on, and burdened moments accomplished the
results of ordinary hours. There was a scene and an enter
prise for the imagination to picture. Even the narrow space
between the shores was wider than the distance between
those midnight delvers and their enemies. At least five
armed vessels then floated in the middle of the stream. The
" Glasgow," on the line of Craigie's, or East Cambridge, Bridge,
with 24 guns and 130 men, commanded the summit of Bun
ker's Hill and the Neck, by which the peninsula commu
nicated with Medford and Cambridge. The " Somerset,"
with 68 guns and 520 men, lying near the draw of the present
easternmost bridge, commanded Charlestown Square and its
dwellings. The "Lively," with 20 guns and 130 men, lying
off the present Navy Yard, could throw its shot directly upon
the redoubt. The " Falcon," sloop of war, lying off Moulton's
Point, defended the ascent between the landing-places of the
British and Breed's Hill. The " Cerberus," of 36 guns, main
tained a continual fire during the assaults on the provincials.
These ships were most aptly moored fur the purposes of the
enemy, and it seems almost impossible that the sentries could
have been wakeful at their posts and not have heard the
operations of nearly a thousand men upon the Hill and
near it.

THE DAWN AND THE CONFLICT. 27
THE DAWN AND THE CONFLICT.
The four hours of darkness after the work of intrenchment
began at last gave place to the beams of early morning. On
that moment, when the sun sent forth the first heralds of his
coming, seems to have been suspended the fate of empires.
Could the provincials have been favored with a dull and heavy
fog, like that which afterwards gave them such help in de
laying the discovery of their works on Dorchester Heights,
allowing secret communication with Cambridge and more
secure defences, they might possibly have retained their posi
tion. How awfully in contrast with the spell of glory which
poured out over the darkened sky and the dew-sprinklcd earth
from the bursting radiance of the sun, was to be the scene on
which the sun would go down upon that green eminence.
That scene, where the heavens in their effulgence greeted the
earth in its loveliness, was to present at evening the most
shocking horrors of desolation and agony. If true patriotism,
if wise policy, at least if the love which Christian people
of the same blood and lineage should bear to each other, had
been allowed its full, free influence over the parties in the
approaching struggle, how much misery and fruitless wretch
edness might have been averted ! Even then it was not too
late for simple justice to have ensured peace. The blood shed
at Concord and Lexington, with the long list of antecedent
outrages, might have been forgiven by our fathers. They
had not in any case been the aggressors. They acted only
on the defensive. The blows which they struck were to ward
off other blows to follow those already received. There is no
evidence that the heights of Charlestown were occupied for
any other purpose than that of defence, to confine the enemy
to the narrow quarters into which they had intruded, and to
prevent a repetition of hostile incursions into the country.
When the morning sun displayed to the astonished invaders
the character of the last night's labor, and showed them the
workmen still employed with undismayed hearts and unex-

28 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
hausted hands, it was not even then too late for peace. Gage
and his officers, at least, if their hired subordinates did not,
should have honored, though they might not have feared, that
patriot band ; should have respected the spirit which controlled
them, and have counted the cost of the bloody issue. But
not one moment, not one word, perhaps not one thought, was
spent upon hesitation, intercession, or remonstrance.
The instant that the first beams of light marked distinctly
the outlines of the daring provincials and of their intrench
ments on the Hill, the cannon of the " Lively," which floated
nearest, opened a hot fire upon them, at the same time arous
ing the sleepers in Boston to come forth as spectators or
actors in the cruel tragedy. The other armed vessels, some
floating batteries, and that on Copp's Hill, 1,200 yards distant,
combined to pour forth their volleys, uttering a startling and
dismal note of preparation for the day's conflict. But the
works, though not completed, were in a state of such forward
ness that the missiles of destruction fell wellnigh harmless,
and the intrenchers continued to strengthen their position.
The earthwork was between six and seven feet high. The
enemy in Boston could scarcely credit their eyesight. Pres
cott, the hero of the day, with whom its proudest fame should
rest, was undaunted, ardent, and full of a bounding energy.
He devised and directed ; he encouraged his men ; he mounted
the works ; and with his bald head uncovered, and his com
manding frame, and his simple military insignia, he was a
noble personification of a patriot cause. Some of the men
incautiously ventured in front of the works, when one of them
was instantly killed by a cannon shot. This first victim was
at once interred, and his companions were warned of what the
day would bring nearer to them.
When the orders had been issued at Cambridge the pre
vious evening, to those who had thus complied with them,
refreshments and reinforcements had been promised in the
morning. Thus some of the weary men, who had not one
moment for sleep or repose, but had been tasked to the utter-

PREPARATIONS OF THE ENEMY. 29
most, might have inferred that they had done their work,
were entitled to relief, and were even at liberty to depart.
Some few did leave the Hill, and did not return. Those who
remained were exhausted with their toil, without food or
water, and the moTning was already intensely hot. Two
barrels of water had been knocked in pieces by a shot from
one of the vessels. Some of the officers, sympathizing with
the situation and sufferings of the men, requested Prescott to
send to Cambridge for relief by another detachment to hold
the works. He summoned a council of officers, but was him
self resolute against the petition, saying that the enemy would
not venture an attack, and, if they did venture, would be
repulsed ; that the men' who had raised the works were best
able to defend them, and deserved the honor of a sure victory,
and that they had already learned to despise the fire of the
enemy. The vehemence of the commander infused new spirit
into the men, and they resolved to stand the dread issue.
Prescott ordered a guard to the ferry to resist a landing there.
He was seen by Gage, who was reconnoitring from Copp's
Hill, and who asked of Counsellor Willard, at his side, " Who
is that officer commanding?" Willard recognized his own
brother-in-law, and named Colonel Prescott. " Will he fight ? "
asked Gage. The answer was, " Yes, sir, depend upon it, to
the last drop of blood in him ; but I cannot answer for his
men." Yet Prescott could answer for his men, and that
amounted to more than Willard's opinion.

PREPARATIONS OF THE ENEMY.
The measures of the enemy were undoubtedly delayed by
sheer amazement and surprise, on finding that the intrepidity
of the provincials had anticipated them in an enterprise which
they had deliberately decided to take upon themselves. In
the Council of War called by Gage, at the Province House,
all were unanimous that the enemy must be dislodged ; but
there were different opinions as to the manner of effecting

30 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
this object. The majority agreed with Generals Clinton and
Grant in advising that the troops should be embarked at the
bottom of the Common, in boats, and, under the protection of
the ships and floating batteries, should land at Charlestown,
and thus hold provincials and intrenchments at their mercy.
But General Gage overruled the advice, and determined upon
landing and making an attack in front of the works, fearing
that his troops, if landed at the Neck in Charlestown, would
be ruinously entrapped by the intrenchers and the main forces
at Cambridge.
The grounds for this difference of opinion among the royal
officers in council, as to the course to be pursued in an effort
to dislodge the provincials, were so obvious and natural, that1
they would seem to have been anticipated in the camp at
Cambridge, and to have had their influence there. All through
the day General Ward was apprehending that a landing might
be attempted at the Neck, and was of course distracted by
this apprehension as to the expediency and safety of weaken
ing his own force by sending further detachments to the
peninsula. The armed vessels of the enemy were very active
during the day in raking the low tongue of land between
Cambridge and Charlestown, and many who passed between
the two towns made a long circuit on the ridges bordering
upon Medford. The enemy did open a brisk cannonade upon
Roxbury ; and this increased the fears of General Ward, that
they might divide their forces, and, while assailing the in
trenchers in front or rear, rush out upon Cambridge or
Watertown, where the scanty stores were deposited. These
facts account for the hesitation of Ward to comply with the
urgent solicitations brought to him through messengers sent
frequently through the day from Prescott and Putnam, for
reinforcements on the peninsula.
By nine o'clock the bustle and array in Boston, visible from
the Hill in Charlestown, indicated that preparations were
making for an attempt to dislodge the provincials. Prescott
therefore abandoned his first confident opinion that he would

PREPARATIONS OF THE ENEMY. 31
not be assailed, and comforted himself and his men with the
assurance of immunity and of a glorious victory. He sent
Major Brooks to General Ward to urge the necessity of his
being reinforced by men and supplies. As Captain Gridley
would not risk one of his artillery horses on the road, laked
by gunboats and by the " Glasgow " frigate, Brooks had to go
on foot, and he reached head-quarters, where the Committee
of Safety was then in session, at about ten o'clock. Brooks's
urgency, seconded by the solicitations of Richard Devens, a
member of the committee and a citizen of Charlestown, in
duced Ward to order that Colonels Reed and Stark, then at
Medford, should reinforce Prescott with the New Hampshire
troops. The companies at Chelsea were then recalled, and
the order reached Medford at eleven o'clock. The men were
as speedily as possible provided with ammunition, though
much time was consumed in the preparation. Each received
two flints, a gill of powder, and lead for fifteen balls. They
had no cartridge boxes, and used horns, pouches, or their
pockets as substitutes. The lead organ-pipes of the English
Church in Cambridge were made serviceable for slugs, beaten
by the men into size and shape to suit the different calibre of
their guns.
General Putnam, burning with zeal and intrepidity, was
coursing through the whole day over nearly all of the con
tested field. He is said to have visited the redoubt in the
night or in the early morning. He was mounted ; and so
narrators, who were in or near the action, when questioned
at the time, or long afterwards, testified to seeing him in so
many places that he would appear to have been wellnigh
ubiquitous. Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the most distinguished and self-
sacrificing of the many patriots of the time, had not yet
accepted the commission already mentioned as offered him
on the 14th of June. He had twice maintained the cause of
his country, in the very teeth of British officers, on the annual
commemoration of the 5th of March. When the report of the

32 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
coming action reached him at Watertown, where he then was,
as acting president of the Provincial Congress and Chairman
of the Committee of Safety, though he was suffering from
illness and exhaustion, he resolved to join in the strife.
Wholly inexperienced as he was in military tactics, his deter
mination could not be shaken by the earnest remonstrances of
his friends. His presence and counsel were needed in the
Committee, but he persisted in his resolve. We must lament,
as all his contemporaries lamented, that his heroism outran
his prudence, and would not be restrained by duty in another
direction.

EMBARKATION AND LANDING OF THE ENEMY.
From their slightly fortified Hill the provincials could watch
and mark the hostile movements and preparations of the
British. General Howe was put in command of their detach
ment. The following extracts from his Orderly Book will
vividly reproduce a part of the arrangements : —
"General Morning Orders. Saturday, June 17, 1775.
The companies of the 35th and 49th that are arrived, to land as
soon as the transports can get to the wharf, and to encamp on the
ground marked out for them on the Common.
Captain Handheld is appointed to act as assistant to the deputy-
quartermaster-general, and is to be obeyed as such.
The ten eldest companies of Grenadiers, and the ten eldest com
panies of Light Infantry (exclusive of those of the regiments lately
landed), the 5th and 38th Regiments, to parade at half after eleven
o'clock, with their arms, ammunition, blankets, and the provisions
ordered to be cooked this morning. They will march by files to
the Long Wharf.
The 43d and 53d Regiments, with the remaining companies of
Light Infantry and Grenadiers, to parade at the same time, with
the same directions, and march to the North Battery. The 47th
Regiment and 1st Battalion of Marines will also inarch, as above
directed, to the North Battery, after the rest are embarked, and be
ready to embark there when ordered.

EMBARKATION AND LANDING OF THE ENEMY. 33
The r.est of the troops will be kept in readiness to embark at a
moment's warning.
One subaltern, one sergeant, one corporal, one drummer, and
twenty privates to be left by each corps for the security of their
respective encampments.
Any man who shall quit his. rank on any pretence, or shall dare
to plunder or pillage, will be executed without mercy.
The Pioneers of the Army to parade immediately and march to
the South Battery, where they will obey such orders as they will
receive from Lieutenant-Colonel Cleveland.
The Light Dragoons, mounted, to be sent immediately to the lines,
where they will attend and obey the orders of the officer command
ing there.
Two more to be sent in like manner to head-quarters.
Signals for the boats in divisions, moving to the attack on the
rebels intrenched on the heights of Charlestown : Blue Flag to
advance ; Yellow, to lay on oars ; Red, to land."
At noon, when it would seem that the provincials ceased to
work on the redoubt, twenty-eight barges, formed in two
parallel lines, left the end of Long Wharf, and made for Moul-
ton's Point, the most feasible and best protected landing-
place. The barges were crowded with British troops of the
5th, 38th, 43d, and 52d battalions of infantry, two companies
of grenadiers, and ten of light-infantry. These troops were
all splendidly appointed, with glittering firelocks and bay
onets, but sadly encumbered for the hot work before them and
the hot sun over them, by their arms and ammunition ; and it
would seem by the statement of their own historian, Sted-
man, that they carried a hundred pounds of provision,
intended to last for three days. Their regular and uniform
appearance, with six pieces of ordnance shining in the bows of
the leading barges, presented an imposing and alarming spec
tacle to our raw soldiery. Some of the regulars that had
lately arrived had been retained on board of the transports,
on account of the crowded state of Boston. A portion of
these were landed for the first time at Charlestown, and the
first spot of American soil upon which many of them trod
gave them their graves. 5

34 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
The officers were all men of experience and valor. Gen-'
erals Howe and Pigot, Colonels Nesbit, Abercrombie, and
Clarke, Majors Butler, Williams, Bruce, Spendlove, Smelt,
Mitchell, Pitcairn, Short, Small, and Lord Rawdon, were the
most distinguished. Captain Addison, allied to the author of
the " Spectator," had arrived in Boston on the day preceding
the battle, and had then received an invitation to dine with
General Burgoyne on the 17th, when a far different expe
rience awaited him, for he was numbered amonc>: the slain.
This detachment, landed at Moulton's Point about one o'clock,
defended by the shipping and wholly unmolested. They soon
discovered an egregious and provoking act of carelessness on
the part of their Master of Ordnance, in sending over cannon-
balls too large for the pieces. These were at once returned
to Boston, and were not replaced in season for the first action.
At the same time General Howe, the commander of the
detachment, requested of General Gage a reinforcement,
which he judged to be requisite the moment that he had a
fair view of the elevated and formidable position of the pro
vincials, as seen from the Point.
While these messages were passing, some of the British
soldiers, stretched at their ease upon the grass, ate in peace
their last meal, refreshing tlieir thirst from large tubs of
invigorating drinks, — a tantalizing sight to the hungry and
thirsty provincials. About two o'clock the reinforcement
landed at Madlin's ship-yard, about the middle of the present
' Navy Yard water-front. It consisted of the 47th battalion of
infantry, a battalion of marines, and some more companies of
grenadiers and light-infantry. The whole number of the
British troops who were engaged in the course of the action
did not fall short of, and perhaps exceeded, 5,000. In con
nection with this force, so far exceeding that of the provin
cials in numbers, and so immeasurably superior in discipline
and military appointments, we are to consider the marines
in the ships which cannonaded three points of the Hill, and
the six-gun battery on Copp's Hill, as engaging in the unequal

A PROVINCIAL OUTWORK. 35
contest. Contrasting a British regular with a provincial sol
dier, we are accustomed to ascribe immense advantages of
discipline to the former. Yet we are to remember that an
overpowering superiority of character and of cause was .on
the side of the latter. If we could have followed a recruiting
sergeant of Great Britain at that time, as 'he hunted out from
dram-shops and the haunts of idleness and vice the low and
depraved inebriate, the lawless and dissolute spendthrift,
seeing how well the sergeant knew where to look for his
recruits, we should have known how much discipline could do
for them, and how much it must leave undone. The provin
cials were not acquainted with .the terms and forms of military
tactics. But they knew the difference between half-cock and
double-cock ; and the more they hated the vermin which they
had been wont to hunt with their fowling-pieces, the straighter
did the bullet speed from the muzzle. But their superiority
consisted in the kind of pay which engaged them in their
ranks, not in pounds and shillings, but in a free land, a happy
home, laws of their own making, and rulers of their own
choice. A PROVINCIAL OUTWORK.
While the British troops were forming their lines, a slight
work was constructed, principally by the Connecticut troops,
sent by Prescott from the redoubt, under Captain Knowlton,
which proved of essential service to the provincials. A
double rail-fence, under a small part of which a stone-wall
was piled to the height of about two feet, ran from the road
which crossed the level between Bunker's and Breed's Hills,
towards the shore of the Mystic, with a few apple-trees on
each side of it. The provincials pulled up some other fence
material near by, and set it in a line parallel with this, filling
the space between with the fresh-mown hay on the ground.
The length of this slight defence was about 700 feet. It was
about 600 feet in rear of the redoubt and breastwork, and,
had it been on a line with them, would have left a space of

36 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
about ioo feet between the ends of the earthen and the
wooden and hay defences. Thus there was an opening of
about 700 feet on the slope of the hill between the intrench
ments and the rail-fence, which the provincials had not time
to secure. Part of this intervening space was sloughy ; and
as there were no means of defending it, save a few scattered
trees, the troops behind the breastwork, as we shall soon see,
were exposed to a galling fire from the enemy, on the third
assault, which largely contributed to the unfavorable result of
the conflict. The six pieces of British artillery were stationed
at first upon Moulton's Hill.
THE SUSPENSE.
All these preparations, visible as they were to thousands
of persons from hill-top, steeples, and roofs, were watched
with the intensest anxiety. The common persuasion and
apprehension were that General Gage would himself lead a
portion, if not the whole, of the residue of his army, in an
attack upon some other point in the semicircle. The heavy
cannonading of Roxbury was designed to detain the forces
there, so that they should not be of service for Charlestown.
A schooner, with 500 or 600 men, was directed to the Cam
bridge shore, but wind and tide proved unfavorable. In fear
of these movements, great caution was necessary in the at
tempt to send reinforcements to Breed's Hill. Captain
Callender was ordered there with his artillery. Gardiner's,
Patterson's, and Doolittle's regiments were stationed at differ
ent points between Charlestown Neck and Cambridge. This
Neck, though frequently crossed by our officers and men in
single file, was fearfully hazardous during the whole day, as
it was raked by a fire of round, bar, and chain shot from the
" Glasgow " and two gondolas near the shore. Some rein
forcements arrived from Medford before the engagement,
though General Stark had led them very moderately, insist
ing that " one fresh man in battle is worth ten fatigued ones."
General Putnam stopped a part of them to unite with a de-

THE SUSPENSE. 37
tachment from the redoubt in attempting to fortify Bunker's
Hill, which was of supreme consequence to the provincials if
they should be driven from Breed's Hill. Stark, with oaths
and encouragements, led on the remainder to the rail-fence.
It does not appear that much if any relief was sent during the
day in food or drink to the overtasked force in the redoubt.
It soon became a matter of urgency to the provincials to
seek the utmost possible help from their artillery. But it
amounted to very little. A few ineffectual shots had been
fired from 'Gridley's pieces on the redoubt, against Copp's
Hill and the shipping, when the pieces were removed and
planted with Captain Callender' s, in the unprotected space
between the fence and the breastwork. Here they would
have been of some service in defending our weakest and most
exposed point. But the officers and the companies who had
them in charge were wholly unskilled in their management ;
and, on the plea of having unsuitable cartridges, Callender was
drawing off the pieces to prepare ammunition, when Putnam
urged him to restore them to their position. They were fired
a few times, and soon afterwards were moved by Captain
Ford to the rail-fence.
General Pomeroy, at Cambridge, old as he was, was stirred
like the war-horse at the smell of the battle. He begged a
horse of General Ward, that he might ride to Charlestown ;
but, on reaching the Neck, and observing the hot fire which
raked it, he was afraid to risk the. borrowed animal. Giving
him then in charge to a sentry, he walked on to the rail-fence,
where his well-known form and countenance called forth en
thusiastic shouts. Colonel Little came up with his regiment,
and the men were stationed along the line, from the rail-fence
to a cart-way on the left. There were also reinforcements of
about 300 troops each from Brewer's, Nixon's, Woodbridge's,
and Doolittle's regiments, detachments of which were sta
tioned along the Main Street, in Charlestown. Colonel
Scammans, who was deprived of sense and courage, either by
confusion or fear, had been ordered by Ward to go where the

38 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
fighting was. He went to Lechmere's Point, East Cam
bridge, understanding, as he said, that the enemy were land
ing there. He was advised to go to the Hill. He chose to
understand the nearest hill, and so he posted himself on Cob
ble Hill, where now stand the Appleton Wards of the Mc
Lean Asylum, and occupied that useless position. General
Warren arrived just before the action. Putnam endeavored
to dissuade him from entering it ; but Warren could not be
thus wrought upon. He said he came only as a volunteer,
and instead of seeking a place of safety, wished to know
where the onset would be most furious. Putnam pointed to
the redoubt as the critical place. Prescott there offered to
receive Warren's orders ; but he repeated that he was happy
to serve as a volunteer.
The tune of " Yankee Doodle," which afforded the British
so much sport as ridiculing the provincials, was the tune by
which our fathers were led on to the contest. Let their ex
ample commend to us this only way of depriving ridicule of
its sting, for there is nothing which it so much annoys men
to spend in vain as their scorn.
Before the engagement began, Captain Walker, of Chelms
ford, led a band of about fifty resolute men down into Charles
town to annoy the enemy's left flank. They did great
execution, and then abandoned their dangerous position, to
attack the right flank on Mystic River. Here the Captain
was wounded and taken prisoner. He died of his wounds in
Boston jail.
THE FIRST ASSAULT, AND ITS REPULSE.
The British, in their attack, aimed at two distinct objects:
first, to force and carry the redoubt ; second, to turn the left
flank of the provincials, and to cut off their retreat. To ac
complish the former, General Pigot, who commanded the
British left wing, displayed under cover of the eastern slope
of the Hill, and advanced against the redoubt and breastwork.

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33 Charts Toun

THE FIRST ASSAULT, AND ITS REPULSE. 39
General Howe led the right wing, which advanced, angularly,
along the shore of the Mystic toward the rail-fence. The
artillery prepared the way for the infantry ; and it was at this
time that the blunder of the oversized balls was a great griev
ance to the enemy, as they had but a few rounds of proper
shot. It was of vital necessity that every charge of powder and
ball spent by the Americans should take effect. There was
none for waste. Some of the very last charges fired by them
on that day had been snatched from the cartridge-boxes of
their dead or wounded foes by a few venturesome individuals
who had got out of the precious article. The provincial offi
cers commanded their men to withhold their fire till the enemy
were within eight rods, and, when they could see the whites
of their eyes, to aim at their waist-bands ; also, " to aim at
the handsome coats, and pick off the commanders." As the
British left wing came within gunshot, the men in the redoubt
could scarcely restrain their fire, and a few discharged their
pieces. Prescott, indignant at this disobedience, vowed instant
death to any one who should repeat it, and promised, by the
confidence which they reposed in him, to give the command
at the proper moment. His lieutenant-colonel, Robinson,
ran round the top of the works and knocked up the levelled
muskets. When the space between the redoubt and the
assailants was narrowed to the appointed span, the word was
spoken at the moment. The deadly flashes burst forth, and
the green grass was crimsoned by the life-blood of hundreds.
The front rank of the assailants was nearly obliterated, as
were its successive substitutes, as the Americans were well
protected, and had been so deliberate in their aim. The
enemy fell like the tall grass before the practised sweep of
the mower. General Pigot was obliged to give the word for
a retreat. Some of the wounded were seen crawling with the
last energies of life from the gory heap of the dying and the
dead, among whom the officers, in their proportion, largely
outnumbered the privates. As the wind rolled away the suffo-

40 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
eating smoke, and the blasts of artillery and musketry for a
few minutes ceased, the awful spectacle, the agonizing yells
and shrieks of the sufferers, were distracting and piercing
The insanity of war never had a more full demonstration than
in that scene, when a corps of mercenaries that had crossed
the ocean in the service of a foreign despotism, with as little
intelligence as beasts, and with no conscience whatever, were
pitting themselves in vain efforts to wrest from men the heri
tage of country and freedom to which they were born, or which
they had made their own by the desert of earning it and
knowing how to improve it. Prayers and groans, foul, impi
ous oaths, and fond invocations of the loved and dear, were
mingled into sounds, which seemed scarcely of human utter
ance, by the rapturous shouts of a vengeful joy which rang
from the redoubt. This earth has not a sight nor a sound
more maddening in its passion or its woe than that which
only a battle-field yields to soldier or to man. Hell then-
gushes forth from its prison in the bowels of the earth and
the dark passions of the breast, and covers the fair surface
of the ground with the flames and yells of demoniac strife.
While such was the temporary fortune of the field near the
redoubt, General Howe, with the right wing, made for the
rail-fence, where Putnam, assisted by Captain Ford's company,
had posted the artillery with promise of advantage. Here, as
at the redoubt, some of the provincials had been tempted to
discharge their muskets while the advancing enemy paused
to destroy a fence which obstructed their progress. Putnam,
with an oath, threatened to cut down with his sword the next
offender who dared to risk the waste of another musket-charge.
The word was given when the enemy were within eight rods.
The artillery had already made a lane through the advancing
column, and now the fowling-pieces mowed down their vic
tims, especially the officers, with fatal celerity, The strong
lungs of Major McClary raised the voice of encouragement
above the roar of the cannon. The assailants were compelled
to retreat, leaving behind them heaps of the fallen ; while some

THE SECOND ASSAULT, AND ITS REPULSE. 41
of the flying even rushed to their boats, as if for the security
of another element. The British artillery had been sloughed
among the brick-kilns, besides lacking proper shot, and so
could do but little. The regulars did not take aim, and thus
their discharge passed high above the heads of the provincials.
The trees around were afterwards observed with their trunks
unscathed, while their branches had been riddled by bullets.
The passionate shout of victory echoed from the fence to that
from the redoubt, and even the coward was nerved to daring.
Now it was that our troops and our cause suffered from the
want of discipline, and from the confusion apparent in the
whole management of the action, originating in the extem
porized and imperfect preparation, and in the baffling secrecy
of the purposes of the enemy. The neck of land, ploughed
by the incessant volleys from the ships, and clouded by the
dust thus raised, was an .almost insuperable barrier to the
bringing on of reinforcements. Major Gridley, wholly lack
ing in spirit and skill, had been put in command of a battalion
of infantry, in compliment to his father. He lost, and could
not recover, his self-possession and courage. Though ordered
to the Hill, he advanced towards Charlestown, slowly and
timidly ; and, though urged by Colonel Frye to hasten, he
was satisfied with the scant service of firing 3-pounders from
Cobble Hill upon the " Glasgow " frigate. His captain, Trevett,
refused obedience to such weakness, and ordered his men to
follow him to the works. Colonel Gerrish, with his artillery
on Bunker's Hill, could neither be urged nor intimidated by
Putnam to bring his pieces to the rail-fence. He was un
wieldy by corpulence, and overcome with heat and fatigue.
His men had been scattered from the summit of Bunker's
Hill, where the enemy's shot had taken tremendous effect, as
it was supposed to be strongly fortified.
THE SECOND ASSAULT, AND ITS REPULSE.
The enemy rallied for a second attack. Though they had
sorely suffered, and some few of the officers were reluctant to

42 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
renew the fatal effort, the large body, like the General, would
have yielded to death in any form of horror before they would
have allowed a return to be carried to England that they
had given up the contested field to those whom they had
always described as cowards. At this crisis 400 fresh men
came over from Boston to repair the British loss, and Dr.
Jeffries, of Boston, accompanied them as surgeon. The regu
lars, a second time, steadily advanced, and, with the stoic
apathy induced by a battle-field, they even piled up the bodies
of their slaughtered comrades as breastworks for their own
protection. Their artillery was now drawn up by the road
which divided the tongue of land on the Mystic from the
Hill, to within 900 feet of the rail-fence. The object was
to bring it on a line with the redoubt, and to open a way for
the infantry. It was during this second assault that Charles
town was set on fire. Probably a double purpose was intended
in this act : first, that the smoke might cover the advance of
the enemy ; and second, to dislodge some of the provincials,
who, from the shelter of the houses, had annoyed the British
left wing. General Howe sent over to Burgoyne and Clinton
the order to fire the town ; and the order was fulfilled by car
casses thrown from Copp's Hill, which, aided by some marines
who landed from the " Somerset," completed the work of deso
lation. The fall of the meeting-house spire made a transient
spectacle. The old sites, where the first settlers reared their
common block-house for their worship, their stores, and their
defence, on the old town hill, over 200 dwellings, among them
that of the founder of the wilderness College, and the library
of Dr. Mather, shared in the ruin.
The provincials were prepared, at least in heart and pluck,
for the renewed attack. They had orders to reserve their fire
till the enemy were within six rods, and then to take deadly
aim. As before, the shot of the enemy was mostly ineffectual,
ranging far above the heads of the provincials. Still, some
of our privates fell, and Colonels Brewer, Nixon, and Buck-
minster, and Major Moore, were wounded, the last mortally,

THE SECOND ASSAULT, AND ITS REPULSE. 43 ¦
crying out in his death-thirst for water, which could not be
obtained nearer than the Neck, whither two of his men went
to seek it. The British stood for a time, the moments of
which were hours, the deadly discharge which was poured
upon them as they passed the measured line, while whole
ranks, officers and men, fell in heaps. General Howe stood
in the thickest of the fight, wrought up to a desperate deter
mination. For a time he was almost alone, his aids-de-camp,
and many other officers of his staff, lying wounded or dead.
But though he would not lead a second retreat, he was com
pelled to follow it, and to hear the renewed shout of victory
from the patriot band who had weighed the choice between
death and subjection. Thus the British were twice fairly and
completely driven from the Hill. There were at the time
candid and generous men in their army on the spot, and
others who from Boston were watching with their glasses
every incident of the action, who made the deserved acknowl
edgment to the prowess of the provincials, in admitting the
repeated repulse of the assailants. Men of the "same mag
nanimity in England, after possessing themselves of the facts
as thoroughly as possible from the information transmitted,
and from interviews with mutilated victims of the engage
ment, also paid the same tribute to the defenders of their
native soil. But these concessions of candor to the demands
of truth were exceptional. The transition was too violent
from what had been the estimate and report of the courage and
military efficiency of the provincials, to a readiness to admit,
unreduced and uncolored, the actual incidents of the day.
Contemporary and even more recent English histories give
wholly inadequate representations. Even Burke — if, as is
probable, he wrote the account in the " Annual Register " —
recognizes only one repulse, and this only in allowing that the
regulars " were thrown into some disorder."

44 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.

THE THIRD ASSAULT, AND ITS SUCCESS. ,
But now the fortunes of the day were to be reversed, so
far, and so far only, as to attach the bare name of victory to
the side of the assailants, and to give them the possession of
a field which would have been scarce too large for the burial
of their fallen comrades. The provincials encouraged them
selves with the hope that the two repulses which had com
pelled the regulars to retire with such loss would deter them
from a renewed attack. At least, it seemed as if there might
be such a protraction .of the issue as would allow of recupera
tion and reinforcement of the men and the works on the Hill.
It came to the knowledge of the provincials that some of the
British officers did remonstrate against leading their men to
another butchery, but their remonstrance was disdainfully
repelled by others. During the second assault, a provincial,
with incautious loudness of speech, had declared that the
ammunition was exhausted, and he had been overheard by
some of the regulars. General Clinton, who from Copp's
Hill had witnessed the two repulses of His Majesty's troops
with burning mortification, took a boat and crossed the
Charles as a volunteer, bringing with him added reinforce
ments. A new method of attack was now determined upon.
General Howe having discovered that weak point, the space
between the breastwork and the rail-fence, now led the left
wing, and resolved to apply the main strength of the assault
against the redoubt and the breastwork, particularly to rake
the latter with the artillery from the left, while he disguised
this purpose by a feigned show of force at the rail-fence.
The regulars now divested themselves of their heavy knap
sacks, some of them even of their coats. They were ordered
to stand the lire of the provincials, and then to make a reso
lute charge at the point of the bayonet. The three facts last
mentioned, viz., the knowledge by the enemy that the pro
vincials had spent their ammunition, the encouragement ot

THE THIRD AESAULT, AND ITS SUCCESS. 45
the presence of General Clinton, and the discovery of the
weak point in the defences, all contributed to nerve the
British to a third effort.
While these hostile preparations were in progress, the little
band of devoted patriots, — Prescott afterwards said that less
than 200 men were left in the redoubt, — exhausted almost to
complete prostration by their long and unrefreshed toil of the
night and the bloody work of the noonday, had time to sum
mon their remaining energies, to resolve that the last blow
should be the heaviest, to think upon the glory of their cause,
and the laurels they should for ever wear. The few remaining
rounds of powder were distributed by Prescott himself. The
very few and favored men whose muskets were furnished with
bayonets — and there were not fifty of them — stood ready to
repel the charge to the utmost ; and those who were without
this defence, as well as without ammunition, resolved to club
their muskets and wield their heavy stocks, while the ferocity
of despair strung every nerve. Even the loose stones of the
intrenchments were gladly secured as the last stay of an
unflinching resolution.
A body of reinforcements, fresh and resolute, and provided
with bayonets, might even then have forced the regulars to a
third and final retreat ; but, as before remarked, unavoidable
confusion prevailed in the American camp. The Neck of
land, the only line of communication, wore a terrible aspect
to raw recruits, who had to dodge the missiles as they passed
over it, and could at best transport only their own bodies.
General Ward was without staff-officers to convey orders. The
regiments which had been stationed along the route, to wait
further commands, were overlooked. Colonel Gardiner, though
thus left without orders, panting to join the strife, led 300
men to Bunker's Hill, where Putnam first set them upon
intrenching, but soon urged them to action at the lines. The
Colonel commanded his men to drop their tools and follow,
He was leading them to the post of dangerous service when
he received a mortal wound in the groin from a musket-ball.

46 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREEDS] HILL.
As he was borne off the field, he bade his men to conquer or
die. Deprived of their leader, but few of them engaged in
the action. His son, a youth of nineteen, met him as he was
carried by, and, overcome with grief, sought to aid him, but the
father commanded him to march to his duty. Colonel Scam-
mans remained on Cobble Hill, but a detachment of Gerrish's
regiment, under their Danish adjutant, Ferbiger, rushed tow
ard the fence. A few of the Americans occupied the two
or three houses on the slope of Breed's Hill, and annoyed, for
a time, the left flank of the enemy.
The artillery of the British effected its murderous purpose,
raking the whole interior of the breastwork, driving its de
fenders into the redoubt, sending the balls there after them
through the open sally-port, and reducing the area of the con
flict. Lieutenant Prescott, a nephew of the commander, had
his arm disabled, and was told by his uncle to content himself
with encouraging his men. But, having succeeded in loading
his musket, he was passing the sally-port to seek a rest from
which to fire it, when he was killed by a cannon-ball. It was
clear that the intrenchments could no longer be held ; but the
resolution to yield them only in the convulsion 'of a last effort
nerved every patriot arm.
The British officers were seen to goad on some of their
reluctant and shrinking men with blows from their swords.
It was for them now to receive the fire, and to reserve their
own till they could follow it by a thrust of the bayonet. Each
shot of the provincials was true to its aim. Colonel Aber-'
crombie, Majors Williams and Spendlove fell. General Howe
was slightly wounded in the foot. Hand to hand and face to
face were exchanged the last savage hostilities of that day.
Only a ridge of loose-heaped earth divided the grappling com
batants, whose feet were slipping in the gory sand, while they
joined in the mortal strife. When the enemy found them
selves received with stones, the missiles of a more ancient
warfare, they knew that their work was nearly done, as they
now contended with unarmed men. Young Richardson, of

THE THIRD ASSAULT, AND ITS SUCCESS. ' 47
the Royal Irish, was the first who scaled the parapet, and he
fell, as did likewise the first line of those that mounted it,
among whom Major Pitcairn, who had shed the first blood at
Lexington, was shot by a negro soldier. It was only when
the redoubt was crowded by the enemy and the defenders in
one promiscuous throng, and fresh assailants were on all sides
pouring into it, that Prescott, no less, but even more, a hero,
when he spoke the reluctant word, ordered a retreat. A
longer struggle would have been folly, not courage. Some of
the men had splintered their musket-stocks in fierce blows ;
nearly all were defenceless, yet was there that left within
them, in a dauntless soul, which might still help their country
at its need. The few exceptional cases of cowardice or weak
ness, which presented themselves as the catastrophe closed,
demand no apology, no mention even, when no one could
merit the epithet of craven who had stood as more than an
onlooker through tha,t day.
Prescott gave the crowning proof of his devoted and mag
nanimous spirit, when he cooled the heat of his own brain,
and bore the bitter pang in his own heart, by commanding an
orderly and still resisting retreat. He was the hero of that
blood-dyed summit, the midnight leader and guard, the
morning sentinel, the orator of the opening strife, the cool
and deliberate overseer of the whole struggle, the well-skilled
marksman of the exact distance and the point of aim at which
a shot was certain death ; he was the trusted chief in whose
bright eye and steady nerve men read their duty ; and when
conduct, skill, and courage could do no more, he was the
merciful deliverer of the remnant. Prescott was the hero of
the day, and wherever its tale is told, let him be its chieftain.
Whose statue other than his should grace the monumental
summit beside, not beneath, that of Warren, the "Volunteer" ?
The troops still left in the redoubt now fought their strag
gling escape through the encircling enemy, turning their faces
towards the foe, while they retreated with backward steps.
Gridley, who had planned and defended the works, received a

48 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
wound, and was borne off. Warren was among the last to
leave the redoubt, and at a short distance from it a musket-
ball through his head killed him instantly. ~ When the corpse
of that illustrious patriot was afterwards identified by Dr.
Jeffries, General Howe thought that this one victim well
repaid the loss of numbers of his mercenaries. It appears
from the recently published memoir of Dr. John Warren,
the brother of the General, and then a young physician at
Salem, that it was several days before he was certified of the
sad affliction to himself. He came to Cambridge the next
morning, and learned only that his brother was missing. In
endeavoring to pass a sentinel at the new British lines, he
received from the thrust of his bayonet a wound which he
bore through life.
It is not strange that, both in English and American reports
and hasty narratives of that day, and in some subsequent
notices of it, Warren should have been represented as the
commander of the provincial forces. His influence and his
patriotism were equally well known to friend and foe. There
is no more delicate task than that of dividing among many
heroes the honors of a battle-field, and the rewards which fame
apportions for devoted services. Yet the high-minded will
always appreciate the integrity of the motive which seeks
to distinguish between the places and the modes of service,
where those who alike love their country enjoy, at their own
peril, the opportunity of winning the laurels of heroism and
devotion. The council chamber and the forum and the high
place in the public assembly offer to the patriot statesman the
scenes and occasions for securing remembrance and honor for
his name. The battle-field must retain the same appropriate
privilege for the patriot soldier, whose skill and tactics, courage
and inspiring fervor, can plan and guide a critical enterprise,
for there alone can he earn his own wreath. Let the chivalry
and the magnanimity of Warren for ever fill a brilliant page in
our revolutionary history. But let not a partial homage attach
to him the especial honor to which another has a rightful

THE THIRD ASSAULT, AND ITS SUCCESS. 49
claim. It was no part of his pure purpose, in mingling with
his countrymen on that hill, to monopolize its honors, and to
figure as its hero. It is enough that he stood among equals,
without selfish rivalry, in devotion and patriotism. Let it be
reriiembered that he did not approve the measure of thus
challenging a superior enemy with such insufficient prepara
tion and means. The more honorable, therefore, was his self-
sacrifice in giving the whole energy of his will to falsify the
misgivings of his judgment. Here, then, is his claim, which,
when fully met, leaves the honors of that summit to the mili
tary leader of the heroic band.
While such was the issue at the redoubt, the left wing,
under Putnam, aided by some reinforcements which had
arrived too late, was making a vigorous stand at the rail-
fence. But the retreat at the redoubt compelled the res
olute defenders to yield with slow and reluctant haltings, as
their flank was opened to the enemy. Putnam pleaded and
cursed,— a misuse of emphasis for which he afterwards hum
bled himself before his puritan church, — he commanded and
implored the scattering bands to rally, and he vowed that he
would win them the victory. His great and absorbing pur
pose through the whole day was to fortify Bunker's Hill. It is
doubtful whether he was at all in the redoubt during the action,
though the painter Trumbull, perhaps from Connecticut parti
ality, drew him as the commander there. To effect his object,
he passed and repassed between Cambridge and Charlestown,
sending for tools to the redoubt, and endeavoring to rally the
flying, even when there was no longer a hope. So completely
was he identified with the consuming zeal for fortifying the
higher hill in the rear, that the traditionary rehearsals from
the lips of some survivors represented him as on horseback,
buried under and surrounded by heaps of intrenching tools,
enough for a cart load. His furious ardor may, or may not,
have needed the control of a cool, deliberating judgment, and
of that prime essential of the soldier which is called "conduct."
His courage was unquestionable. He is here fairly presented
7

50 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
by the writer, according as a careful examination of author
ities, and a review of widely different estimates and judgments
of him by others, assign to him his share in inspiriting a
patriotic enterprise.
General Pomeroy likewise implored the disintegrated forces
to rally ; but in vain. The last resistance at the rail-fence
was of the utmost service, as it prevented the enemy from
cutting, off the retreat of the provincials who straggled back,
each, for the most part, his own leader, towards Cambridge.
Yet the enemy were in no condition to pursue, as they were
alike exhausted, and were content with the little patch of
ground which they had so dearly purchased. The provincials
retreated to Cambridge by the marsh road, and by the higher
route over Winter Hill, able to rescue only one of the six pieces
of artillery which they had brought to the field. The battle
had occupied about two hours, the provincials retreating about
five o'clock. The British lay on their arms all night at Bun
ker's Hill, discharging their pieces against the Americans, who
were safely encamped upon Prospect Hill, at the distance of a
mile. Between the two positions, at the right, was a slight
elevation, known as Ploughed Hill, because under cultivation.
This was afterwards called Mount Benedict, as the site of the
Ursuline Convent, and has a humiliating history. Ploughed
Hill and Prospect Hill are now both reducing their summits
to raise the adjacent low lands.
Prescott, with garments pierced and rent, hastened to head
quarters to make return of the orders he had received. He
was indignant at the loss of the ground, and implored General
Ward to commit to him three fresh regiments, promising that
with them he would at once win back what had been sacri
ficed. But he had already honorably done all that his country
might demand of him in that first trial. He bitterly com
plained that the reinforcements, which might have given to
his triumph the completeness of a victory, had failed him.
A year afterwards, when he was in the American camp at
New York, he was informed how narrowly he had escaped

THE RECKONING. 5 1
t
with his life. A British sergeant who was brought into the
camp, on meeting there with Prescott, called him by name.
Prescott inquired how or where he had known him. The
man replied that he knew him well, and that his acquaintance
began at the battle in Charlestown. Prescott had there been
pointed out to him as the commander, and in the first two acts
had been singled out by him with a deliberate aim. Though
Prescott's position at each time was such as to convince the
sergeant that the shot would be fatal, he was unharmed.
On the third assault, impelled by the same purpose, he had
charged Prescott at the point of the bayonet ; but the strong
arm and the sword of the commander thrust aside the weapon,
and the baffled sergeant judged him to be invulnerable.
THE RECKONING.
The number of the provincials in the whole action of the
day, including the occasional reinforcements, and those who
came only to cover the retreat, did not exceed 4,000. Of these
115 were killed, 305 were wounded, and 30 were taken pris
oners, making our whole loss 450. Prescott's regiment suffered
most severely.
The whole British loss was estimated by the Provincial Con
gress, on their best information, at 1,500, and as returned by
Gage, was 1,054, among them 13 commissioned officers killed,
and 70 wounded. Of the killed were 1 lieutenant-colonel,
2 majors, and 7 captains. Loud and agonizing was the wail
ing in Boston, when through that night and all the next
Sunday boats, drays, and stretchers, and all the means of
transport, were put to service to carry the wounded and the
dying from the fearful scene". The hospitals were crowded
with the sufferers, and many places designed for quite other
purposes were put to that exigent use. The sympathies of
the inhabitants of the town were engaged alike for friends
and foes. The following brief extract from a letter from Mr.
Grant, one of the surgeons of the British army in Boston, to
a friend in Westminster, written on the sixth day after the

52 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
battle, revives the realities of the occasion. " I have scarce
had time sufficient to eat my meals, therefore you must expect
but a few lines. I have been up two nights, assisted by four
mates, dressing our men of the wounds they received the last
engagement. Many of the wounded are daily dying, and
many must have both legs amputated. The provincials had
either exhausted'their ball, or they were determined that every
wound should prove mortal. Their muskets were charged
with old nails and angular pieces of iron, and from most of
our men being wounded in the legs, we are inclined to believe
it was their design, not wishing to kill the men, but to leave
them as burdens on us, to exhaust our provisions and engage
our attention, as well as to intimidate the rest of the soldiery."
The stir and business of the British forces on their occu
pancy of the heights which they had so dearly won may best
be gathered from Howe's Orderly Book, under the date of
the day following. "General Howe's Orders.
Heights of Charlestown,
June 18th, at nine o'clock morning.
The troops will encamp as soon as the equipage can be brought
up. Tents and provisions may be expected when the tide admits of
transporting them to this side.
The corps to take the duty at the intrenchment near- Charles
town Neck, alternately. The whole (those on the last-mentioned
duty excepted) to furnish the third of their numbers for work, with
officers and non-commissioned officers in proportion, and be relieved
every four hours.
The parties for work to carry thefr arms, and lodge them securely
while on that duty.
General Howe expects that all officers will exert themselves to
prevent the men from straggling, quitting their companies or pla
toons, and, on pain of death, no man to be guilty of the shameful
and infamous practice of pillaging in the deserted houses.
When men are sent for water, not less than twelve, with a non
commissioned officer, to be sent on that duty.

THE RECKONING.

53

The 47th Regiment to continue at the post they now occupy.
The soldiers are by no means to cut down trees, unless ordered.
General Howe hopes the troops will in every instance show an
attention to discipline and regularity on this ground, equal to the
bravery and intrepidity he, with the greatest satisfaction, observed
they displayed so remarkably yesterday. He takes this opportunity
of expressing his public testimony to the gallantry and good con
duct of the officers under his command during the action, to which
he in a great measure ascribes the success of the day. He con
siders particularly in this light the distinguished efforts of the
Generals Clinton and Pigot.
The corps of Light Infantry will relieve the Grenadiers at the
advanced intrenchment this evening, at seven.
When the 52d Regiment encamps, an officer and twenty men of
that corps will remain at the post they now occupy."
" General Orders.
Head-quarters, Boston, 19th June, 1775.
The Commander-in-chief returns his most grateful thanks to
Major-General Howe for the extraordinary exertion of his military
abilities, on the 17th instant. He returns his thanks also to Major-
General Clinton and Brigadier-General Pigot for the share they took
in the success of the day, as well as to Lieutenant-Colonels Nesbit,
Abercrombie, Gunning, and Clarke, Majors Butler, Williams, Bruce,
Tupper, Spendlove, Smelt, and Mitchell, and the rest of the offi
cers and soldiers, who, by remarkable efforts of courage and
gallantry, overcame every disadvantage, and drove the rebels from
their redoubt and s'trongholds on the heights of Charlestown, and
gained a complete victory." "June 27th, 1775.
The preservation of the few houses left in Charlestown (as much
as possible) unimpaired, being an important object, any of the sol
diers detected in future in attempting shamefully to purloin any
part of these buildings will assuredly be punished most severely.
The General considers such instances of devastation and irregular
ity a disgrace to discipline."
But though the sword was lifted against our fathers by their
own brethren, and in a cause which we must pronounce to
have been unrighteous and tyrannical, we feel impelled to pay

54 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
a just tribute to the bravery and gallantry of the British offi
cers and soldiers upon the field. To climb boldly and march
forward, as they did thrice, and bare their bosoms to the
weapons of desperate men, was a trial of their prowess which
allows us to withhold from them no praise or glory which we
give to our patriots, save that belonging to those who were
the champions of the better cause. The highest honor which
we can bestow upon the heroism of the enemy, is, in regret
ting that the King and his ministers found such devoted ser
vants. THE FRUITS OF THE PATRIOT STRUGGLE.
Now, if it were to be affirmed that the intrenching and
the daring, though desperate, defence of Breed's Hill was the
most critical, or, at least, the most important, action of our
Revolutionary War, the assertion might be set down to the
account of a rhetorical exaltation, to local partiality, or to an ill-
proportioned estimate of other conflicts. Rival claimants might
arise as the champions of the fame of our other battle-fields.
Yet, without a word or a figure of exaggeration, the battle of
June 17th may be ranked as chief in importance in the calen
dar of our fights. The whole protracted struggle was deci
sively influenced through its seven years by this, its initiatory
contest. The battle was fought by the provincials in earnest,
with determined spirit, with proud success, though not with
temporary victory ; and therefore it gave the impulse of a good
beginning to the whole conduct of the war. The risks of the
enterprise were fearful, almost appalling, as seen by our wisest
and boldest counsellors. But they counted the cost up to that
critical point at which high-souled and resolved men know
that if they deliberate and hesitate any further, they lose
their heroism in fondling their discretion. Let us make a
brief review of the accomplished effects of the battle.
It accomplished what, in all cases of strife and discord, it is
very needful, yet not always easy, to bring fully into decision, —
it drew a line of division, no longer to be blurred, between the

THE FRUITS OF THE PATRIOT STRUGGLE. 55
two contending parties, and brought them to a positive issue.
There were then several links of union between England and
her American provinces, formed by the various orders, classes,
and coteries, gathered especially in this neighborhood. Some
of our most honored and disinterested countrymen, and some
of the British officers, engaged with protracted shrinking and
with extreme reluctance in the hostilities. We had among us
not only Tories and Republicans., Monarchists and Sons of
Liberty, but timid and cautious hesitants, and attached friends
to the restricted exercise of kingly, in opposition to demo
cratic, authority. There were moderate and immoderate men
of both parties, neutral and lukewarm doubters of no party.
While reading the inner history of the period, we readily im
agine the thousand social ties and domestic relations, the
civilities of neighborhood and the common interest in the land
across the water, which might well make it a difficult thing, a
work requiring time, and even blood, to separate the people
of this single province into two parties distinct at every point,
so that they might face each other as 'enemies. Had it not
been for the skirmish at Lexington and Concord, it is prob
able that matters might have remained quiet a little time
longer, and that the colonists might have wasted many morei
words of petition upon the ministry. But the affair of the
17th of June at once put a stop to any further halting between
two opinions.
Again, that action was of primary importance from its
nerving influence upon the patriots, who, unknown to them
selves, had before them a war of weary protraction and
exhausting drain, partaking largely of reverses and discour
agements. They learned this day to what they were equal in
the confidence that God was on their side, making their cause
just and good. That work of a summer's night was worth
its cost to them. They lacked discipline, artillery, bayonets,
powder and ball, food ; and, the greatest want of all, they lacked
the delicious draught of pure, cool water for their labor-worn
and heat-exhausted frames. They found that desperation would

56 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
supply the place of discipline ; that the b'unt end of a musket,
wielded with strong arms, might be "as deadly as the thrust of
a bayonet, and that a heavy stone might level an assailant as
well as a charge of powder. As for food and water, the
hunger they were compelled to bear unrelieved, and they
cooled their brows only by the thick, heavy drops which
poured before the sun. Yet it was their opening combat, and
proudly did they bear away its laurels even upon their backs,
which the failure of ammunition and reinforcements compelled
them through part of their retreat to turn to the enemy. They
did show their backs once to those who had already twice
indulged them with the same spectacle ; and, if they retreated,
it was not in abandonment of their cause, but that they might
save their faces for later and bolder opportunities of confront
ing the foe. Their opening combat decided the spirit and
the hope of all their subsequent campaigns. They had freed
themselves during the engagement from all that human re
luctance which they had heretofore felt in turning deadly
weapons against the breasts of former friends, yes, even cf
kinsmen. On that eminence, the first bright image of liberty
of a free native land kindled the eyes of those who were ex
piring in their gore ; and the image passed between the living
and the dying to seal the covenant, that the hope of the one,
or the fate of the other, should unite them here or hereafter.
It was the report of that battle, which, transmitted by swift
couriers over the length and breadth of the continent, would
everywhere prepare the spirit to follow it up with determined
resistance to every future act of aggression. How can we
exaggerate the relative importance of this day's action ? Did
it not, in fact, not only open, but make the contest, dividing
into two parties not only those determined for the ministry or
for enfranchisement, but also all timid, hesitating, reluctant
neutrals ? It was impossible after this to avoid taking a side.
It rendered all reconciliation impossible, till it should offer
itself in the shape of independence. It echoed the gathering
cry that brought together our people from their farms and

THE FRUITS OF THE PATRIOT STRUGGLE. 57
workshops, to learn the terrible art which grows more merci
ful only as it is more ferociously, that is, skilfully, pursued.
The day needs no rhetoric to magnify it in our revolutionary
annals. When its sun went down, the provincials had parted
with all fear, hesitation, and reluctance. They found that it
was easy to fight. The awful roar of the death-dealing en
ginery associated itself in their minds with all their wrongs, and
all their hopes, and with the sweet word of liberty. The pen
with which petitions had been written, they foifnd to be, for its
use, a child's toy. Words of remonstrance left no impression
on the air. There was but one resource. From the village
homes and farm-houses around, amid the encouraging exhor
tations, as well as the tearful prayers of their families, the
yeomen took from their chimney-stacks the familiar and well-
' proved weapons of a life in the woods, and felt for the first
time, not indeed what it was to have a country, but what they
had to do to keep it.
Another token of the relative importance of this day's con
flict was the effect which the announcement of it in England
produced upon the ministry and the people. An infatuated
cabinet had provoked the war under the grossest misappre
hension of the character and courage of the inhabitants of
this province. An infatuated Parliament listened approv
ingly to speeches ratifying the measures of that ministry
as of easy enforcement. The local information of our former
governor, Pownall, the philosophy of Burke, and the tender
appeals of Lord Chatham, had in vain pleaded with lords
and commons that only conciliatory measures could availwith
a race of men, Englishmen themselves, the descendants of
exiles who had sought a heritage of freedom in a tamed wil
derness. The last three royal governors of Massachusetts
had represented the provincials as under the control of a few
ambitious leaders, demagogues, and revolutionists, who, by
exciting speeches, cajoled and flattered the duped people.
All that needed to be done by Parliament was to silence these
fustian leaders. The principal cajoling proved to have been
8

58 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
practised on the English people, who had been told that one
regiment of the King's troops would sweep the provincials off
the continent. The battle gave them a simple Rule of Three.
If so many of his Majesty's soldiers had been necessary to
reduce the square feet of ground on the peninsula of Charles
town, how many would be needed to sweep the continent ?
General Gage's account of the battle, acknowledging the
loss of 226 killed and 828 wounded, was received in Lon
don, July 25th. While the ministry received with dismay
this official intelligence, and kept it back from publication,
many private letters accompanying it in its transit antici
pated with exaggerations its humiliating details. These
being made public, the ministry gave forth their own ver
sion in the "Gazette" in as favorable a tone as was possible,
from the despatches of Gage, Howe, and Burgoyne. The
last of these wrote to Lord Stanley that " the day ended
with glory." General Gage wrote to Lord Dartmouth, the
head of the War Department : " The rebels are not the despi
cable rabble too many suppose them to be ; and I find it owing
to a military spirit encouraged among them for a few years
past, joined with an uncommon degree of zeal and enthu
siasm, that they are otherwise."
On the reception in England of the accounts of the battle
by the provincials, with their comments and resolves for the
future, the English people were excited by varying feelings of
sympathy for us, or vengeful hate against us, and either poured
forth contempt and complaint against the ministry, or demanded
of them more violence. The revenue which was promised
to the exchequer of Great Britain from the taxation of the
colonists was found to involve enormous charges for its col
lection, — in the cost of sending regiments of its own subjects,
and of foreign mercenaries, with munitions of war, coals, fag
ots, vinegar, porter, hay, vegetables, sheep, oxen horses, and
clothing — a good proportion of which fell into the hands
of privateering provincials — across three, thousand miles of
water. In the words of the old saying, "A great deal of good

THE FRUITS OF THE PATRIOT STRUGGLE. 59
money was sent after what was bad." Highlanders were
enlisted with the promise of receiving farms here "whose
owners had been driven into the interior."
The provincial account of the battle, dated July 25th, was
sent to Arthur Lee, the agent in London, who caused it to be
published. In September, three pestiferous vessels from here
arrived at English ports, with sick and mutilated officers and
men, and with the widows and children of the slain, wretched
spectacles and wretched sufferers.
The conduct of the battle on the part of the British generals
was the subject of criticism, censure, and ridicule from the
authorities and the people. Ingenious plans were set forth
by which the British, unscathed, might have routed or en
trapped the provincials, as if they had been so many lambs.
The despatches which had been repaired and transmitted
to General Gage, directing his future movements, were accom
panied by others, recalling him and committing the command
to Howe. The latter, unmanned and dispirited, was to fare
no better than did his predecessor. Remonstrances, petitions,
and public meetings in England in opposition to the war, the
reluctance of soldiers to enlist, the high bounties paid, and
the increasing number of the avowed and secret friends of
the Americans, were other effects of our opening battle.
The British strongly fortified both Bunker's and Breed's
Hills, posting their advanced guards upon the Neck. Thus
they had two peninsulas and a little more room, offering
them one great advantage, but no more. The cool heights of
Charlestown were a refuge in the hot weather from the deadly
atmosphere of Boston, which was one vast hospital. But the
enemy had double labor and anxiety in defending their works
against an insulting, vexatious, and ever-watchful foe quite
near to them, and in the ensuing winter were exposed to
severe sufferings from the intense cold and driving snow
storms, with insufficient shelter and no fuel. Nor did the
possession of Charlestown at all increase their facilities for
obtaining fresh provisions, in which the interior country

6o

THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.

abounded. They had had little of the kind since the affair
at Lexington. Handbills were printed at Cambridge, and
sent floating on the wind across the lines into the rebel camp,
taunting them with the contrast in their bills of fare.
Thus : —

Prospect Hill.
i. Seven dollars a month.
2. Fresh provisions,and in plenty.
3. Health.
4. Freedom, ease, affluence, and
a good farm.

Bunker's Hill.
1. Threepence a day.
2. Rotten salt pork.
3. The scurvy.
4. Slavery, beggar}', and want.

A British officer, writing from Boston, July 25, to a friend
in London, says, they felt themselves worse off than the rebels,
like a few children in a large crowd, insulted and menaced,
and dreading an attack when the long nights came. He
adds : " They know our situation as well as we do ourselves,
from the villains that are left in town, who acquaint them with
all our proceedings, making signals by night with gunpowder,
and at day out of the church steeples. About three weeks
ago, three fellows were taken out of one of the latter [the
West Church], who confessed that they had been so employed
for seven days. Another was caught last week swimming
over to the rebels with one of their general's passes in his
pocket. He will be hanged in a day or two." This officer
and his friends would have had many more such tricks to
report had their eyes been sharper.
It would be of interest, were this the place for it, to sketch
in some detail the experiences and the anxieties of both
armies during the heats of the summer, the mellowness of the
autumn, and the severities of the winter that followed upon the
collision between them that has just been reviewed. As one
in that series of miscalculations and blunders which charac
terized the whole conduct of the military leaders here, as of
the parliamentary leaders in England, the successor of Gage
failed to possess himself of the heights on the other side of

THE FRUITS OF THE PATRIOT STRUGGLE. 6l
Boston before Washington occupied them, and held the Brit
ish army under his guns. It was the middle of March. Our
great chief was willing to allow General Howe a few days to
pack up and take his fleet to other waters," because any moles
tation of him would have involved injury to the people of Bos
ton and their property.
It is pleasant to close this rehearsal of a strife, amid scenes
now smiling in all the loveliness and prosperity of a century of
peace, by reference to a symbol more expressive even than that
of a sword beaten into a ploughshare. When the first beams
of the morning exposed to the view of the enemy the work
which Colonel Prescott had been doing in the night, the sloop-
of-war " Falcon," in command of Captain Linzee, lying in the
river, poured forth with her consorts the rattling shot in bom
barding it. The grandson of the American commander, the
late William Hickling Prescott, the accomplished and distin
guished historian, and a man honored and endeared to all who
knew him, married the granddaughter of Captain Linzee.
For many years the swords of these two officers, crossed
peacefully, ornamented one of the friezes of the library of the
historian. And now, with an appropriate inscription for the
legacy, they grace an apartment of the library of the Massa
chusetts Historical Society.

02 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.

NOTE.
The writer of the preceding pages indulges here in some personal
references, slight as they concern himself, more important as they
relate to others.
For a period of thirty consecutive years, 1840-1869, he, being
then a resident of Charlestown, stood each year, on the morning
and evening of the anniversary of the battle, on the heights which
it made memorable, walked the grounds and reviewed the surround
ings of the scene. On the first of those years, — sixty-five years
having elapsed since the conflict, — and for a few that followed, the
historic scene in many of its interesting features was comparatively
unchanged. On the top and skirts of Bunker's Hill there were but
few dwellings amid its open pasture-grounds, and on the northern
and western parts of it the ridges and trenches, the lines and the
bastions of the elaborate fortifications made by the British while
they held it, were easily traceable. Moulton's Hill, at the entrance
upon the bridge to Chelsea, where the regulars landed and lunched,
was then at its full elevation, and brick-kilns, tan-yards, and sloughy
ground occupied most of the space between it and the slope of
Breed's Hill. The skirts of both Bunker's and Breed's Hill down
to the shore of the Mystic, were, for the most part, in their earlier
condition, enabling one to trace the relation of the simple defences
made by the rail-fence, and the breastwork and redoubt. There
were many points on Breed's Hill from which a view was offered of
Copp's Hill, and of the route of our forces from Cambridge. The
slopes of Breed's Hill, on all the four sides, which have since been
wholly removed for streets and dwellings, were then as nature left
them. The Fitchburg, Boston and Maine, and Eastern Railroads,
had not then spanned the river with their bridges. When strangers
from abroad, and visitors, asked the writer's company in their out
look upon the scene, it had in large measure a self-explanatory
aspect. He watched diligently the spades and picks of the laborers
as they removed the earth on the sides of the hill. The depth of the
levelling is indicated now by the height of the banks bordering the
remnant that makes the site of the monument. Many cannon-
balls, the missiles of the British ships and battery, came to light,
of which the writer picked up two.
While in 1840, and for a short time afterwards, the natural feat-

NOTE.

63

ures of the scene and its surroundings were so little changed, there
were many persons living in the town and its neighborhood who
had personal knowledge and vivid remembrances of things seen
and heard on the memorable day which laid the town in ashes.
Men and women, who were not quite fourscore years of age, as
well as those who were older, who had been born and brought up
in the town, and had, as children, been removed from it by their
parents on the eve of the battle, to watch it from the neighboring
hill-tops, and those who had even done some service on the day,
were still lingering here or in the adjoining towns. Of what they
had themselves seen and known they were interesting and trust
worthy relators. They were the less so as reporters of what they
had heard from others. Confusion of memory and imagination, of
course, would in some instances qualify the reliance to be given to
their narrations. The writer had occasion to make allowance for
that peculiar characteristic of aged and communicative persons, by
which, when they are consulted as oracles about wonders and catas
trophes, they are apt to substitute the remembrances, experiences,
and narratives of others for their own. Enough there were, how
ever, of surviving actors, witnesses, and sharers in the excitements
and distresses of that day, to give efficient help to one who had its
scenes and their surroundings before him, and had diligently read
its printed and manuscript memorials, with the effort to reproduce
its realities. There was a pathos in the relations of some of these
aged people, which unerringly distinguished between the impres
sions written deep in the distresses of memory, and those caught
by the imagination from the tales of others. Those who had seen
the happy homes of their childhood, with their little treasures, melt
away in the conflagration ; those who had heard the roar of the mus
ketry and cannon, and had looked upon the wounded borne off to
some chance shelter ; those who were the first to return impov
erished and homeless to the scene of ruin, marked by tottering
chimney-stacks, cellars of rubbish, and charred well-sweeps, to re
claim at least their spot of redeemed soil, — might be trusted by one
who listened to them as speaking the truth.
The grandparents of Ex-Mayors Timothy Thompson Sawyer and
Richard Frothingham — who are cousins — left their home in
Charlestown on the evening of the 19th of April, and crossed the
river into Maiden, thence to look upon the wreck of so much that
was dear to them. On their return to the scene of ruins, their son,
Timothy Thompson, was the first male child born on the spot, Feb.

64 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
24, 1777. His mother lived to enjoy the visit of Lafayette, the
laying of the corner-stone of the Monument, and the delivery of
Webster's oration, at its completion, and died in 1848, in her ninety-
third year. The memory of the venerable lady held what was not
to be found in books. The newspapers and posters of the time
were filled with advertisements of things lost or stolen. In many
cases members of scattered families were, for some time, ignorant
of each other's whereabouts.
The many ancient tombs in the burial-hill, with their armorial
bearings and their extinct names, show that a number of families,
once resident with ample means in the town, have lost their places
on the list of inhabitants, and left no representatives. Such of
them as were living at the time, driven from their homes and re
duced to want, never returned again.
In 1 84 1, the writer was invited by a military company to prepare
and deliver an " oration," for a celebration, in connection with the
civil authorities of the anniversary of the battle for that year. In
undertaking the task, he found to his surprise that there was not
to be had in print nor in manuscript any extended, authentic, and
adequate production that might be called a History of the Battle,
written within a half century after it, by any actor or spectator,
giving a connected account of the preparation, the conduct and
events in detail which it involved. Returns, ¦ reports, and results
communicated to the authorities of the time, for specific purposes,
fragmentary sketches, extracts from journals, letters, and news
papers, there were in abundance, but no narrative reaching the
standard of an historical monograph. Perhaps an exception should
be made to the sweep of this statement, in a recognition of the
earnest efforts of the late Colonel Samuel Swett, of Boston, who in
1818 contributed to an edition of Humphrey's "Life of General Put
nam," " An Historical and Topographical Sketch of Bunker Hill
Battle." This was prepared while the contention was waging
fiercely among the champions of the different names claimed for
the chief or the divided honors of the command on the 17th of June.
Colonel Swett twice enlarged his sketch, and published it in a
pamphlet, with much new and valuable matter gathered by his in
quiries from his military friends and many survivors of the field.
His laborious and zealous investigations were most opportunely
pursued ; and their results in their last form were made public in
1826 and 1827, in connection with the then recent ceremonies at
the laying of the corner-stone of the monument. He too, however,

NOTE. 65
was charged with exhibiting the spirit, prejudices, and favoritism of
a partisan. Though he says that " Colonel Prescott led the way "
from Cambridge, he adds, " General Putnam having the principal
direction and superintendence of the expedition." Now that the
original witnesses and actors are all departed, each subsequent
investigator must make the best use he can of all primary and
secondary authorities. Mr. Richard Frothingham, born and living
under the shadow of the monument, in his admirable " History of
the Siege of Boston," first published in 1849, ana< since revised, has
given a most elaborate and faithful history of the battle.
The present writer had been privileged for some years by the
acquaintance and kindly regards of the late Judge William Prescott,
and of his son, the late eminent historian, William Hickling Pres
cott, — son and grandson of Colonel Prescott. On learning of
the task in which the writer was engaged, both these honored men
expressed their warmest interest in his inquiries, and contributed to
aid them. The venerable Judge was then in his seventy-ninth year.
Those Who remember him, while recalling the grace and dignity,
the purity and elevation of his character, will also be reminded of
the exquisite modesty and retiring reserve which were so observable
in him. He had read in silence the many publications from the
year 1818, in which different writers had appeared as champions or
advocates of the claims of the several officers to the command of
the detachment sent to Charlestown on the night before and on the
day of the battle. Of course his filial feelings and his sense of
justice were aggrieved by the dispute and pleas which deprived his
honored and patriotic father of his rightful laurels. But he entered
no remonstrance ; he neither wrote nor publicly spoke on the side
which he well knew to be that of simple truth. He was content in
the belief that the time would come, with the investigation, and the
voice and the pen that would set the facts of the case on the page
of history. He was himself a youth in his thirteenth year on his
father's farm in Pepperell on the day of the battle, and his father
lived twenty years after it. With frank and assured confidence he
communicated to the writer that his father always regarded and
spoke of himself as in full command at the battle, as having
received and fulfilled the order of General Ward to intrench and
defend the works, as having conducted the movements of the day,
and made return of its issue at head-quarters.
With such opportunities and helps, the " oration " asked for was
prepared, delivered, and then published. The historical details in
9

66 THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
it, with original documents, and an account of the monument, were
afterwards brought together by the writer into a small volume,
published anonymously by Mr. C. P. Emmons, of Charlestown, in
1843. Several thousand copies of this publication have been
issued, and it is now out of print. In a number of the " New York
Historical Magazine " for June, 1868, devoted to the battle, this pub
lication is referred to and quoted as " Emmons's Sketches." The
matter of the oration and of the book is substantially given in the
preceding pages.
Sincerely and thoroughly convinced as the writer became, through
his investigations, that Colonel Prescott was the trusted and the
responsible leader and commander in the action at Charlestown,
he assigned to him all the honors which belonged to him as such,
without needing to reduce in any respect the laurels of his asso
ciates, except in not subordinating him, as others had done to them.
It is believed that for the first time the full truth was then set
forth in connection with historic details. One recognition especi
ally rewarded the writer. He therefore ventures to put in print a
letter which he received from Judge Prescott, acknowledging the
gift of a copy of his " Oration." He hardly need apologize for not
mutilating it, by suppressing the personal compliments which it con
tains. The letter was written from the Judge's summer residence.
"Nahant, July 19th, 1841.
My dear Sir, — I heartily thank you for the copy of the excellent
and eloquent oration which you had the goodness to send me. It is by
far the most intelligible and correct account I have seen of that rather
confused battle. I beg you to believe we are not unmindful of the very
kind and flattering terms in which you have spoken of my father, not
forgetting his descendants. I have always thought — indeed known
— that the accounts commonly given of that action were incorrect, at
least, and you may be assured it afforded me no little pleasure to find
that an orator selected to commemorate the anniversary in a town whose
inhabitants were witnesses to the battle, was able, and had the independ
ence at ^ this late day, upon a careful examination of facts, to do justice
to Colonel Prescott in apportioning the honors of the battle-field among
the heroes ofthe day. This oration, though but a pamphlet in form, will,
I doubt not, lead the way to more correct views on the subject. The
loss ofthe record of the appointment to the command, the great popular
ity of some names, and the efforts of friends, doubtless contributed to
making and keeping alive the erroneous impressions that have more
or less prevailed. No friend of Colonel Prescott ever wrote a line, or
took an affidavit or declaration on the subject, to my knowledge. General

NOTE. g7
"Dearborn's statement was wholly .unknown to me till I saw it in print
and then I much regretted its appearance. It is a delicate and difficult
task, as you observe, to distribute the honors of a battle among the leaders •
and it is more especially so when the rank of officers is unsettled, orders
are wanting, and the action somewhat confused. But the principle you
have adopted, to leave it to be determined by the parts acted by the
different competitors, one would think, could not be complained of.
• I am particularly pleased with your just remarks on the effects of the
battle. They ought not to be overlooked or forgotten. The Americans
lost the field, it is true; but they won a great moral victory, which was
felt in every battle to the end of the war. It made the brave Howe a
cautious, if not timid, commander.
I am, my dear Sir,
Ever respectfully and very faithfully yours,
William Prescott."
That the Judge should have shared with his father thirty-three
years of their joint lives, and not have the fullest means of knowing,
in filial confidence, the place which he had filled and the service
he had performed on the memorable day, is, of course, inconceiv
able. The more rare and impressive are the modesty and the self-
respecting dignity which he manifested, when pens and tongues
were so busy and so emphatic in the championship of other names
as leaders and commanders, in not entering into the controversy
in his father's advocacy. The writer was also assured by Judge
Prescott — indeed he has it in writing from his own pen — that
Colonel John Trumbull, the painter, in 1786, of the fancy piece of
the " Battle of Bunker Hill," in which Putnam appears as the com
mander of the redoubt, at Judge Prescott's dinner-table, expressed
his sincere regret at the error he had committed, and his desire
and purpose to rectify it.
It was not through any set purpose of depreciating the rightful
claims of one, or of exaggerating those of another, in the discharge
of honorable and responsible services, nor with any object of con
founding the truth of history, that such divergences of statement
and displacement of official services had come into the rehearsal of
the events of the day. The confusion of the whole action, from its
start to its close j the traversing of the field by some, and the sta
tionary places of others ; the relative importance assigned to vari
ous positions and movements on it ; the different reports which
different pairs of eyes made to different observers; and the conclu
sion drawn by individuals that the highest military rank carried
with it the right of command, — these, and various other obvious

68 THE BATTLE OE BUNKER'S [BREED'S] HILL.
suggestions, will go far to explain the facts we have recognized in
the championship of one or another of our officers. As a conse
quence, however, Colonel Prescott had been, to say the least, de
preciated on the canvas and on the pages of many narratives.
Even in the local territorial awards recognized in the distribution
of memorials in the town of Charlestown, this relative neglect,
though never intended, had a significant manifestation. Up to
1857, Charlestown had four conspicuous public grammar-school
edifices, and four contiguous streets, bearing with admirable pro
priety the names, respectively, of Winthrop, Harvard, Warren, and
Bunker Hill. Winthrop, as first resident governor of the Colony,
with the charter, had come to Charlestown on another 17th of June,
1630, and began its settlement. Harvard, a revered minister of the
town, and the founder of the college, had died, and was buried
here. Warren had fallen on the Hill, and received all the honors of
the, patriot. Bunker Hill Street crossed over the brow of that sum
mit, and the school-house, so named, was at its base. There was'
also a street bearing the name of Putnam. A short side-street had
the name of Prescott.
When, in 1857, the increase of the population made another and
a very large school-edifice necessary, the writer, being a member of
the school committee of Charlestown, then become a city, availed
himself of the opportunity to urge the recognition of the name of
"Prescott." He succeeded in his object, and was privileged by an
appointment to deliver the address inaugurating the spacious build
ing, Dec. 15, 1857.
Of course, the distinguished historian, then living in Boston, was
asked to give his personal presence on an occasion meant to do
honor to a name borne through three generations, by soldier, judge,
and scholar. The writer was well aware of that shrinking diffi
dence of his which had in no case ever yielded to the many attempts,
made alike in America and in Europe, to draw from him, in answer
to compliments, a speech either at the dinner-table or on the plat
form. He was not surprised, therefore, in receiving, in answer to
the invitation, a note, from which the following is an extract: "You
know my infirmity in the way of public speaking. To talk frankly
with you, I should not be satisfied to be present on that occasion, so
complimentary to myself, and sit like a dumb dog, as if I were not
sensible of the distinguished honor conferred on me. . Yet, as I have
got on so far [sixty-one years] without opening my lips in public,
I feel that it is now too late to begin."

NOTE. 6g
Mr. Prescott, however, yielded his objections, on the assurance of
immunity for his " infirmity," — a rare one for Americans. The
mayor of .the city, — the Hon. T. T. Sawyer, — who received him,
the Honorable George S. Boutwell, Secretary of the Massachusetts
Board of Education, Mayor Rice of Boston, and other guests of the
occasion with generous hospitality, in his felicitous official address,
said: " It is a common custom to give to public buildings names
which shall express some idea of goodness, of usefulness, or of honor,
or which shall connect the memory of some good or great man, or
thing, with the edifice, and keep fresh in the mind the lesson which
the name may convey. To this building we have attached the
name of ' Prescott.' It will be suggestive of manliness, of faith
fulness, and of learning. It has character and accomplishment to
recommend it ; tried merit, rather than ephemeral greatness, for the
basis on which it rests ; and we have confidently adopted it for its
appropriateness and value. We are on the soil of Bunker Hill
[near the site of the ' Rail Fence '], and we are in the presence of
one of Massachusetts' noblest sons ; and if we may appropriate the
influence of both, and there is any value in a name, we can commit
no error in adopting that of ' Prescott.' "
In the writer's dedicatory address, after an allusion to the histo
rian's labors and fame, in his presence, he added : " If you were not
here, I should say more. I must also respect the contract on which
you come, — that the reserve which, in spite of your busy skill with
your pen, has kept your lips closed upon all public occasions shall
not be rudely broken in upon here by the necessity of a speech.
Your presence in silence is a speech to us. I know you will not
esteem it among the least of the encomiums lavished upon you by
royal courts, elect academies, and the great Republic of Letters,
diat a school in which thousands are to be trained in wisdom bears
your name, and that of your father, mother, and grandfather."
Mr. Prescott rose and said, " There is no greater honor."
On the occasion of this visit, the grandson of the Commander on
June 17th was taken to see the statue of General Warren, on the
Hill. Fie may have thought that a companion statue would find a
rightful position there.

Cambridge : Press oi John Wilson & Son.

This preservation copy
was printed and bound at
Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc.,
in compliance with U.S. copyright law.
The paper used meets the requirements
of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
R S D C
1999

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