- APR Zo

Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth
Branch Connecticut Society
ofthe
Sons of the American Revolution

THE BRITISH ATTACK AT BUNKER HILL
by

Francis Parsons

Publication No. 3

Published by the Branch
through the favor of
Captain Clarence Horace Wickham
192 1

Chl6^Z%S

THE BRITISH ATTACK
at BUNKER HILL

A Paper read at a meeting
of the Colonel Jeremiah
Wadsworth Branch, Con
necticut Society of the Sons
of the American Revolu
tion, Hartford Club, April
9, 1920.

By
Francis Parsons

Author of ''Modern MiUtia Training," "Elisha Williams — Soldier,
Minister, President of Yale College, " etc.

Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth Branch
Connecticut Society
Sons of the American Revolution
Elected October 21st, 1920
Officers 1920-1921
George S. Godard, President
F. Clarence Bissell, Vice-President
Charles G. Stone, Secretary-Treasurer
Frank B. Gay, Historian
Rev. Arthur Adams, Ph.D., Chaplain
Leverett Belknap, Necrologist
Edward W. Beardsley, Auditor
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Meigs H. Whaples
Term expires in 1921
Edwin W. Schultz (New Britain)
Term expires in 1922
John Spencer Camp
Term expires in 1923
BOARD OF MANAGERS
Dr. George C. F. Williams
Clarence H. Wickham Martin Welles
Charles Hopkins Clark Charles G. Stone
Louis R. Cheney Frank B. Gay
Andrew J. Sloper (New Britain) Leverett Belknap
Harry R. Williams Herbert H. White
John M. Parker, Jr. Alfred Spencer, Jr.
STANDING COMMITTEE
George H. Sage, Chairman
Albert C. Bates Dr. Frederic T. Murlless, Jr.
Lucius B. Barbour George B. Alvord

The British Attack at
Bunker Hill

The fight at Bunker Hill was, in a sense, an im
promptu engagement. It assumed the proportions
of a battle with a suddenness that necessitated swift
decisions by the commanders on both sides and hurried
dispositions of troops. Under these circumstances
it is natural that the action should have left a train
of discussion even more pronounced than, with old
battles, is generally the case, as to whether these deci
sions and dispositions were the best that could have
been made in the contingencies that occurred. Com
mentators have also speculated uselessly, of course,
but at length, on what different and momentous
results might have followed from other courses of action.
It may be a surprise to many readers to learn that
there is even a difference of opinion as to what did
actually occur at Bunker Hill. For every American
school boy is supposed to know the story of that
portentous day. Was it not simply the account of
three frontal assaults of the provincial lines which
were partly entrenched, party defended only by the
famous Rail Fence?
In a general way the answer is in the affirmative.
Yet the tactical and strategic plan of these attacks,
their variation at different points, the timing of them,
their method and sequence, are still matters of some
controversy. A review from the British standpoint
of the old story, in the light of such recent discovery
and comment as is at hand, may even now be of some
interest. It has been often stated that the fortification on the
night of June 16-17, 1775, of the Charlestown heights
was undertaken by the provincial authorities with the
— 3 —

purpose of forestalling the occupation of the same
heights by the British. While this statement is accu
rate so far as it goes, some amplification of it is needed
for an intelligent understanding of what followed.
We know now that the anticipated British action
involved something more than mere occupation of
this particular vantage point. The seizure of the
Charlestown peninsular, agreed upon by the British
generals on June I2th and scheduled for the i8th, was
in fact to be merely an incident of a far-reaching plan
which if successful would have resulted in raising the
siege of Boston. Simultaneously with the occupation
of the Charlestown area a British attack was to be
launched against the opposite end of the American
lines at Dorchester, and pushed through to Roxbury.
The heights above Charlestown were to be used as a
kind of advanced base from which the American
left wing would be rolled back upon the Cambridge
headquarters, while the American right was des
perately engaged in the region of Dorchester and
Roxbury. This plan of the British generals obviously involved
a great battle, covering an extended terrain, but if
reasonable co-ordination on the different sectors was
attained, and the undisciplined enemy acted as raw
troops usually did act under tension, success seemed
assured. The military leaders of the colonists, however, were
promptly informed through their loose but effective
espionage system of the proposed move. They un
doubtedly realized that if they waited inactively
for such a movement to develop they were in all
probability lost. Something had to be done and
done quickly.
Putnam had before this been urgent for the occupa
tion of the heights of Charlestown and Ward, com
manding the Massachusetts troops, now fell in with
the proposal so far as to detail for this purpose about
eight hundred Massachusetts men, to whom were
added one hundred and twenty Connecticut men
under Captain Knowlton of Ashford. Apparently the
purpose was to establish at least a foot-hold in advance

upon one of the points where the approaching British
drive was to be made and to impede and clog that
drive, so far as proved practicable, without risking too
much. The comparatively small numbers of the
detail, however, and also Ward's tardiness in reinforcing
it later — on both of which points much criticism
has been spent — were doubtless due to Ward's per
fectly natural belief, first, that the detail would en
trench on Bunker Hill proper, not on Breed's Hill,
and that the British would not concentrate imme
diately against these hasty works in that position, and,
secondly, that when the attack came it would be part
of the larger effort which he knew had been planned,
in which event he would need the main part of his
forces around Roxbury, Dorchester and the approaches
to Cambridge from Charlestown Neck. In the light
of modern knowledge it would seem that he had much
reason for this belief and for the caution he showed.
But that part of the Charlestown heights known
locally as Breed's Hill was within twelve hundred yards
of the British batteries on Copp's Hill in Boston.
The provincial detail, after a good deal of discussion
among their officers, built their little fortification
there instead of upon Bunker Hill proper, which was
then behind them. In this advanced position they
literally looked down upon the decks of the Lively,
the Symmetry, the Glasgow, and other enemy war
ships in the harbor. To the British it was intolerable
that that small earthwork, erected in a few hours
of darkness, should remain in the rebels' hands. What
Ward intended as a stop-gap against an attack coming
twenty-four hours later became for the British not
only a challenge but an actual and immediate menace.
At a hastily called council of war it was decided that
the only thing to do was to go out and take it. Possibly
the first thought was still to continue the larger scheme
of June 1 2th, anticipating by a day the seizure of
Charlestown. This is evidently what Ward believed
and the fact that the first British troops sent to the
Charlestown promontory carried three days' rations
has been cited as evidence that his belief was correct.
But as the task of taking and holding the Charlestown
— 5 —

heights grew more difficult as the day wore on, more
troops were required and the greater plan was aban
doned. The first theories of the British generals as to the
method of taking the colonists' Redoubt differed. The
Charlestown peninsular was shaped like a pear, and a
neck of land, corresponding to the stem, connected
it with the mainland. Clinton and a majority of the
council favored the occupation of this neck and the
cutting off by this means of the defenders of the Redoubt.
Gage, however, over-ruled this plan, apparently on
the ground that such action would violate the cardinal
principle of grand tactics to the effect that an attack
ing force should never place itself between two enemy
bodies. For this decision Gage has been severely
criticised. The rest of the story should show how far
that criticism was deserved. It is sufficient here to
emphasize the fact that at the time the decision was
made a frontal assault of the small rebel post looked
like a comparatively easy task.
This task was entrusted to the senior major-general.
Sir William Howe, brother of Admiral Lord Howe, then
in England, and of George, Lord Viscount Howe,
beloved alike by all British and Colonial soldiers who
served with him, and who was killed at Ticonderoga
in 1758.
Sir William Howe seems to have been the least
attractive of these brothers. Though he was a brave
man his personal character had many defects. He
was in fact a type of the hard-living, selfish, fearless
British officer of the period. Nearly forty-six years
of age at the time of the battle, he had made some
enemies who did not hesitate to voice their opinions
that his advancement was due to his connection with
the reigning family of Great Britain, his mother having
been the natural daughter of George I. He was there
fore a cousin of his sovereign. He was an Eton boy,
and entered the army early as a cornet in the Duke of
Cumberland's dragoons. Personally he seems to have
been sensual and to a degree unscrupulous. He hated
business and was sullen and gloomy in manner. He
had, however, the faculty of attaching his friends

warmly to himself — perhaps because he spent much
of his time carousing with them. Though as Americans
we can not be in the least proud of the unprincipled
American girl who, during his three years' service in
America, was openly known as Howe's mistress, some
writers have not hesitated to assert that she unwittingly
performed a patriotic service through her demoralizing
influence. In Howe's defence we must remember his
training and the life of men of rank in his day. Better
men morally than he have been physical cowards, but
no one has ever questioned his personal bravery —
and surely no man ever exhibited greater steadiness
under conditions making for demoralization and even
panic than did Howe at Bunker Hill.
With Howe as second in command went Brigadier
General Robert Pigot. Of his personal character we
know little except that he was a good soldier and
received steady advancement in which his services
in this battle had their share. He was made major-
general in 1777 and lieutenant-general the following
year while still serving in the American war. In 1783
he succeeded to the hereditary baronetcy of his family
which had perhaps its chief claim to fame through the
ownership of the "Pigot Diamond." In stature he
was very short.
At the time of the battle each line regiment of the
British army had as part of its organization one com
pany of grenadiers and one of light infantry. Fre
quently these "flank companies," as they were termed,
were detached from their units and brought together,
respectively, as special corps for special work. This
course was followed in this instance, Howe taking over
with him from Boston, toward twelve o'clock, to
Moulton 's Point, the easterly part of the Charlestown
peninsular, ten companies of grenadiers, ten of light
infantry and the battalions then in Boston of the Fifth
and Thirty-eighth Regiments — about 1,100 men in
all. These were soon followed by the battalions in the
Boston garrison of the Forty-third and Fifty-second
Regiments. With these came the artillery, twelve
— 7 —

guns in all — four light twelve-pounders, four 5>^-inch
howitzers and four light six-pounders. Only eight
of these guns got into action. This addition brought
Howe's force to about i,6oo men. Pigot came over
with the second part of the expedition.
Howe formed his force in three lines on Moulton 's
Hill, under the shelter of which he had landed, sent
out advance guards to his right and left fronts and
went forward to reconnoitre. II
It seems necessary to recur to a homely simile in
order to assist the reader to visualize the situation.
Imagine the pear which represents the Charlestown
peninsular laid on this page in such a way that the
stem — Charlestown Neck — is at the upper left-hand
corner, the pear being in such a diagonal position that
its longitudinal axis corresponds roughly with a line
drawn from the upper left-hand to the lower right-
hand corner. An excrescence bulges out toward the
right from the lower end of the pear. This ex
crescence represents Moulton's Point, with its low
hill, where Howe's attacking party is now formed.
Boston lies at the bottom of the page. The American
Redoubt on Breed's Hill, seventy-five feet above the
water, is situated approximately over the core of the
pear, and fronts the bottom of the page.
As Howe advanced to reconnoitre he found himself
facing, about eight hundred yards away, the easterly,
or right-hand side of the Redoubt as he looked toward
it. It is obvious that he could not have observed this
part of the earthwork very clearly from Boston. He
now perceived that from the upper right-hand, or
north-east, corner of the fort the rebels had run out
an earthen breastwork, diagonally toward their rear,
nearly one hundred yards long. It terminated at
a little gully, on the opposite side of which men —
Knowlton 's Connecticut farmers, they were — were
working fast at building three little low walls, like
terraces, one behind another, on the shoulder of the
small ravine. — 8 —

Nor was this the end of the defences, for from this
miniature redan the provincials were beginning to
occupy an extemporized sort of line, running through
an obtuse angle, down toward the shore of the penin
sular on Howe's right front, where a bluff, eight or
nine feet high, overhung the beach of the Mystic
River. Though on comparatively lower ground this
line traversed a slight rise known locally as the "Tongue
of Land." It was marked for most of the way by
ordinary pasture fences, the lower parts generally of
loose stone, the upper of posts and rails. Howe could
see the rebels along the part of the line nearest the fort
and its breastwork reinforcing the upper part of one
of these fences with hay from the hay-cocks piled up
near by a few days before. They were stuffing this in
between the rails already in position and others brought
from neighboring fences which they were placing
close to and parallel with the first, till the line began
to look like a "hedge," as Lieutenant Page of Howe's
staff, the only member of his military family who
lived to reach England, afterward called the frail
defence in his map, or the "breastwork of brush,"
as Lieutenant De Berniere termed it in his. This, of
course, was the beginning of the Rail Fence.
Five hundred yards or so behind the line marked by
the hay fences the rounded summit of Bunker Hill
rose to a height of one hundred and ten feet above the
water, and down through the green fields of its southern
slopes, under the bombardment of the ships and the
Copp's Hill batteries, Howe saw groups of men filter
ing through to the fence line. Indeed the British
general must have noticed either during this recon
naissance or shortly afterward, a considerable body
of men in pretty good military formation coming over
the brow of Bunker Hill and heading down the slope
for the lower ground across which the fences stretched.
Though Howe did not know it these were Stark and
his New Hampshire boys whom the British commander
had occasion to remember all his life. Afterward
Stark told a friend that as he came down Bunker Hill
at the head of his regiment he saw the British troops'
— 9 —

way ahead of them so plainly that it could not be
mistaken. It cannot be doubted that Howe saw his way as
instantly as did Stark. Not only technical military
training, but plain common sense, led inevitably to
the conclusion that the course to pursue was to make
the main attack across the comparatively low pastures
and hay fields against the extemporized "hedges," push
through this weak line, then swing around to the left
and take the Redoubt in the rear, at the same time
demonstrating against it in front.
In this connection the beach of the Mystic on Howe's
right — the easterly and north-easterly shore of the
Charlestown peninsular — was a part of the terrain
that immediately became of extraordinary interest to
him. It was sheltered from the fields above it by
the little bluff and was wide enough, allowing for the
incoming tide, for troops to march in platoon front.
The rebel line seemed to end at the top of the bluff —
if indeed at this time it had extended as far as that.
Here was a ready-made "covered way" that led directly
around the enemy's left.
Howe returned to his main lines with his plan of
attack undoubtedly outlined in his mind. Undoubtedly,
too, he now realized that he had a more formidable
undertaking assigned him than he and his colleagues
had anticipated at their council of war. The affair
was growing. It looked as if a genuine battle, not
merely a skirmish with an amateur out-post, was on
hand. In spite of the bombardment, men continued
to sift down Bunker Hill toward the American left
and the "hedge "was extending toward the water and
was rapidly filling with a thick line of men. As they
observed the imposing array sent against them, these
American irregular troops were building up what was
evidently to be their fighting line with ever growing
numbers. The extent of the impending conflict was
increasing by its own momentum. It was at least a
question whether more British troops would not be
needed and to be on the safe side Howe sent over to
the city for them, meanwhile ordering the force now
— IO —

landed to take their dinner from the three days' rations
they had brought with them.
These last reinforcements were the Forty-seventh
Regiment of the line, the First Battalion of Marines
and the three companies each of grenadiers and light
infantry still remaining in Boston, belonging to the
Eighteenth, Twenty-second and Sixty-third Regi
ments.* Howe estimated that this brought his strength
to 2,200 "rank and file," which means a total, including
officers, non-commissioned officers and drummers, of
something over 2600.
The last arrivals — whatever the time of their ap
pearance — landed near the village of Charlestown, to
the left ofthe point where the earlier landings had been
made. The Marines and the Forty-seventh, either at
first or later in the action, formed the extreme left of
the British left wing, the whole of which was placed
under Pigot's command. On the right of the Forty-
seventh the six companies of grenadiers and light in
fantry were stationed, and on their right came the
Forty-third which was marched over from Moulton's
Hill. Gradually other troops were moved toward the
left to connect with these. Detachments of the Thirty-
eighth and the Fifth had been posted as advance guards
on Howe's landing and had taken position toward his
left front where they were sheltered from the Redoubt
by walls and by a shoulder of Breed's Hill. The
Thirty-eighth now gathered up its outpost and was
ready to advance on the right of the Forty-third.
This was the end of Pigot's command. Next came
the troops in Howe's immediate charge — the Fifty-
second and the Fifth whose mission was to support
the massed companies of grenadiers that brought the
line on the right to the top of the bank along the
Mystic. Probably on the first assault these two line
*Some question has been raised as to whether these last reinforcements ar
rived in time to participate in the earlier assaults. Howe's letter of June 22d
reads as if they did. On the other hand Burgoyne's letter to Lord Stanley
seems to connect Clinton's going over from Boston for the last assault on the
Redoubt with his observation of two battalions sent to reinforce Howe's left
standing on the beach near Charlestown in uncertainty which way to march —
as if these reinforcements had not been previously engaged. For present
purposes the question is perhaps not material except to note that without
this accession Pigot's force, in the earlier attacks, would have seemed very
small for the task assigned it. — II —

regiments were formed to the left rear of the grenadiers
who were to advance over the hay fields, crossed by
the heavy fences and dotted here and there with single
trees, against the Rail Fence.
The significant thing, however, about the British
formation for attack was Howe's disposition of the
massed light infantry. To the ten companies originally
sent over he added one from his reinforcements. Four
of these light companies — those of the Twenty-third,
Fourth, Tenth and Fifty-Second Regiments — had
been sent forward toward the Rail Fence as an advance
guard and formed in a depression a little less than half
way from the Hill to the Fence. These companies
now moved by their right on to the Mystic beach
where they formed the van of the light infantry column
that gathered there — the light company ofthe Twenty-
third, or Welsh Fusileers leading — the remaining
seven companies forming in the rear of these four.
To any impartial observer it must have seemed
inconceivable that this strong column, eleven companies
deep, sheltered by the bank on its left, could fail, if
only through its weight and momentum, to break
through and around to the rear of the provincial line.
As by the preliminary movements of these light troops
their purpose became obvious to the enemy Howe must
have noticed that from the end of the Rail Fence above
the shore men were dropping down to the beach and
hastily piling up an impromptu breastwork of stones
and sand. These were Captain John Moore and his
neighbors from Amoskeag who were later supported
by Walker with his Chelmsford men and the Charles
town company of Gardner's regiment commanded by
Josiah Harris who received his death wound there
late in the action. But this evident understanding
of his intentions could not have disturbed Howe. No
reasonable person could imagine for a moment that a
few boys and farmers could stop that magnificent
column of light infantry.
Toward three o'clock the various units had reached
their starting points and the stage was set for the
drama that foUowed.  12 —

It was indeed a spectacular occasion. In most
battles the extent of the fighting is so great, the action
so broken and locaHzed, that a spectator can obtain
only the vaguest idea of what is happening. But the
anxious and excited watchers who on that historic
summer afternoon crowded the house-tops of Boston
and thronged the neighboring hills were like the spec
tators in the gallery of a theatre. "No national drama,"
said Webster years afterward, "was ever developed
in a more interesting and dramatic first scene," and
Burgoyne who watched the fight from Copp's Hill
wrote back to England that it was a sight for a young
soldier that the longest service might not furnish again.
The hot sunshine, slightly tempered by the gentle south
westerly breeze, brought every detail into prominence.
The scarlet uniforms, white cross-belts and glittering
arms of the British troops as they moved to their
stations gave all the effect of a pageant.
There is always a kind of moral influence in what
ever strikes the sense of sight as impressive. Not only
the fine appearance of the British battalions, but the
inherent logic of the situation, undoubtedly led the
on-lookers, with feelings of confidence or of consterna
tion, according to their sympathies, to prepare them
selves to witness within a brief time the smothering
of those dun rebel lines by these red-coated storming
troops from overseas — veterans of many battles.
Howe took post on the right with the grenadiers
whose objective was the Rail Fence. Below him, on
his right, on the Mystic beach, the massed light in
fantry column was moving slowly forward. Howe
had sent some of the guns ahead toward some old brick
kilns that approximately marked the left of the grena
diers' sector, with the customary purpose of preparing
the way for the infantry attack, but the guns were of
little use till later in the day as they got mired in the
soft ground that extended southerly from the bottom
of the little gully at the end of the fort's flanking breast
work. Their effect was further nullified early in the
afternoon by the fact that through an unpardonable
— 13 —

error the solid shot furnished was too large for the
pieces, grape being finally substituted.
As a rule American writers have paid little attention
to the personnel of the British storming party at Bunker
Hill. Most of these regiments were famous in the annals
of the British army and had seen service on many
historic battle fields. All of them were destined to
participate honorably in future wars of the empire,
including the Great War just ended. The Welsh
Fusileers, whose light company led the light infantry
detachment, was called the Prince of Wales' Regiment
and was noted for its distinguished service, a large
part of it overseas, and incidentally for the smartness
of its uniform and equipment. The distinctive "flash"
of black ribbon, a relic of the old queue, which its of
ficers are entitled to wear at the back of the collar, is
familiar to those who have served with the British in
recent years. The Forty-third and Fifty-second Regi
ments forming now the First and Second Battalions
respectively of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, had
still further glory before them as part of the Light
Division in the Peninsular War, and the Fifty-second
by its movement at the close of the battle of Waterloo
on the flank of the Old Guard is thought by many
students to have been the main cause of Napoleon's
defeat. In 1765 the Thirty-eighth Regiment, now
the First Battalion of the South Staffordshires, had
returned to England from the West Indies after a
foreign service of fifty-eight years, and since 1774 it
had been in America. The Forty-seventh, which later
became the First Battalion of the North Lancashire
Regiment, had been at Louisburg and Quebec and
later served in the Peninsular and Crimean Wars, the
Indian Mutiny and South Africa.
Many of the officers had seen brilliant service, others
were destined for great things. James Abercrombie,
who commanded the grenadiers, was a son of the Aber
crombie who commanded the expedition against Ticon
deroga, in 1758, and had slept on the same blanket
with Putnam in the forests about Lake George. Major
Spendlove of the Forty-third, had served for more than
— 14 —

forty years in his regiment, had been wounded on the
Plains of Abraham and at the capture of Martinique
and Havana. Pitcairn, who was in immediate com
mand of the Marines, was the same officer who had
ordered the troops to fire on the minutemen on Lexing
ton Green, In spite of the popular disrepute among us
that action has brought him, it is due to his memory to
say that he was a man of honor, and a courteous and
accomplished gentleman. Nicholas Addison, a cap
tain in the Fifty-second, was a descendant of Joseph
Addison and was a favorite of Burgoyne. The name of
Thomas Oldfield, at this time a boy of nineteen, who
served as a volunteer with the Marines, became a
synonym for the most gallant courage. While Napoleon
was on his way to St. Helena he remembered the
intrepid bravery that carried this man to his death in
a sortie from St. Jean D'Acre, and spoke of it to the
officers in whose charge he was. George Harris, captain
of the grenadier company of the Fifth, afterward served
with great distinction in India, and was raised to the
peerage, becoming the first Lord Harris of Sering-
patam and Mysore. His lieutenant, Francis Rawdon-
Hastings, afterward Baron Rawdon, Earl of Moira,
had probably as remarkable a career as any man who
stood that day on the Charlestown peninsular. Per
sonally attractive, and brought by virtue of his position
into the closest connection with the life of the court,
he became an intimate of the Prince of Wales and a
brilliant figure in the English society of his time. At
one period he was a great friend of Sir William Hamilton
and his beautiful young wife. He seconded the Duke
of York in his famous duel with Lennox of the Cold
stream guards in 1798, and himself challenged the Duke
of Richmond during a controversy in the House of
Lords over his execution of a prisoner in the American
war. It was to him that Thomas Moore dedicated his
"Epistles, Odes and Other Poems." His social and
political success was crowned in 18 13 by his appoint
ment as governor-general of India where he carried out
a bold and energetic policy, in striking contrast to the
line of action pursued by his predecessors. On the day
of Bunker Hill he was still a boy, but he acquitted
— 15 —

himself so well that Burgoyne wrote home to England:
"Lord Rawdon behaved to a charm. His name is
established for life." Ill
About half-past three the British Attack began to
develop and here we get into the domain of controversy.
What really happened at Bunker Hill.''
Substantially all modern commentators agree that
under the British scheme the main blow was to be
struck by the light infantry on the extreme British right.
But how did the scheme actually work out under the
almost unprecedented conditions in which the advance
instantly became involved?
These conditions centered, as it were, in the fact that
as the advance proceeded, even after some of the units
deployed and began volleying, there was practically
no return fire from the provincial defences. There
were, it is true, a few scattering shots, but as soon as
these broke the silence of the enemy lines the British
could see men who seemed to be officers moving briskly
along the hidden ranks evidently threatening the men
who had fired. At the Redoubt one officer even jumped
to the parapet and kicked up the leveled muskets. On
the extreme British left there was a patter of shots from
among the Charlestown houses which annoyed consider
ably Pigot's extreme left units and probably caused
some losses, growing more serious as the troops went
on. But on the whole the American line was quiet.
Clinton, watching with Burgoyne from Copp's Hill
across the harbor, could not understand the situation
and began to speculate as to whether the rebels had
abandoned the works or were going to refuse a battle.
In June, 1868, Henry B. Dawson, in a comprehensive
article in The Historical Magazine, of which he was
then editor, developed with much ingenuity the theory
that the refused American left flank, where were the
Rail Fence and below it on the beach the breastwork
of stones and sand, was attacked unsuccessfully three
times before there was any assault whatever upon the
Redoubt on Breed's Hill which constituted the right
— 16 —

of the provincial position, and which, in that writer's
judgment, was assaulted separately three times.
In an equally comprehensive address before the
Bunker Hill Monument Association, published in the
proceedings of that association for 1907, Lieutenant
Colonel Horace N. Fisher, fortified by certain pre
viously unpublished letters in the Dartmouth and
Sackville collections of manuscript, argued that while
there were only three attacks in all, the first of these
was confined to the Mystic beach. Colonel Fisher's
theory is that upon the unexpected failure of the light
infantry here the rest of the 3*"itish advance was
halted before getting into action and that the subse
quent assaults were two in number — the first against
the whole American line, the second concentrated
upon the Redoubt.
It is rather singular that in the case of such a com
paratively simple battle, in a limited and open terrain,
so much uncertainty as to events should have arisen.
The difficulty in arriving at the truth is that so much of
the evidence is conflicting. It is believed, however,
that a preponderance of it may be discerned.
Though Dawson's theory is cited with approval by
Tarbox in his "Life of Israel Putnam," it has not been
generally accepted. Dawson was essentially a contro
versialist — he led the anti-Putnam party in the old
dispute over the American command at Bunker Hill —
and in this instance he seems rather to have interpreted
the data on the battle in the light of a pre-conceived
idea. Colonel Fisher makes out a good case, though
his statement of it is in somewhat fragmentary form.
He seems to rest his general theory of the battle very
largely upon Howe's statement in his recently dis
covered letter to his brother dated June 22d, that the
Redoubt was taken on the second assault. This is
unquestionably an important piece of contemporary
evidence. Yet it runs counter to the general testi
mony. How can we account for Howe's statement
and can we accept it as against the greatly preponder
ating testimony of other participants that the Redoubt
— in fact, the whole American line — was assaulted
three times? — 17 —

We must remember that Howe, in his position with
the grenadiers before the Rail Fence, could not see the
front of the Redoubt. He was exceedingly busy that
afternoon with the appalling events occuring near
him. His attention must have been concentrated for
the time being at first upon the object of the grenadiers
and light infantry under his immediate command of
getting around the American left, and later upon
steadying these fine troops in the utterly unexpected
disaster that came upon them. Certainly he could not
have followed closely the events in a different part of
the field which he could not see. We believe that he
intended the first advance against the Redoubt to be
in the nature of a demonstration. But the distance from
Pigot's base of attack to the fortification was shorter
than from Howe's starting point to the Rail Fence.
Very likely Pigot got ahead over his shorter route
faster than was anticipated, while the sandy beach
made slow marching for the light infantry who were to
drive the entering wedge on the British right. (It is
interesting to note that Howe believed the provincial
left would have been quickly forced except for the
intervening fences that obstructed the grenadiers.)
The unforeseen withholding of the insurgents' fire led
the attack on and on. It would have been fatal for
Pigot, once fairly started, to have hesitated. Is it
not possible that, while intending a demonstration, to
be pushed home on the success of the light infantry and
grenadiers on the right, Pigot was drawn into an actual
assault of the fort by the fact that the men in that
earthwork simply allowed him to approach unmolested?
It is not incredible that Howe, writing a familiar
letter five days after the fight, should have had his
original theory uppermost in his mind. While we can
not, of course, accuse him of intentional misrepre
sentation, we can not forget the fact that he instinctively
would have been inclined to put the most favorable
construction possible on events and to have remem
bered the first advance against the Redoubt, not as
an assault, but as the demonstration which in intention
it was. — 18 —

The present writer cannot convince himself of the
truth of Colonel Fisher's theory that the first of the
three attacks was carried out only by the light infantry
and was thus confined to the Mystic beach. The
testimory of General Dearborn and of Judge James
Winthrop that the first fire came from the right
of the American line, or the Redoubt, at least supports
the old theory of three assaults on that little fortress.
Swett asserts that at the moment of the attack on the
Redoubt the British right was about one hundred yards
from the Fence, and his story, like that of all the earlier
commentators, including the official American accounts,
is of three attacks along the whole front. It is impos
sible to overlook this general agreement. A logical
explanation of it may be found in the fact that Howe's
plan for driving around the American left and going
slowly elsewhere till that was accomplished, was upset
by the remarkable failure of the provincials not only
to give ground anywhere, but even to open fire till
the whole British advance had gone so far that it was
inextricably involved in the initial forward move.
To summarize: Is it not possible to find our way
between the old theory that there were three suc
cessive assaults against the whole provincial front,
and the recently evolved doctrine that the first attack
was limited to the repulse of the light infantry on the
Mystic beach? Tactically the first fighting should
have been confined to the beach, but through the
withholding of the provincial fire this became impossible
because, when the light infantry were stopped at the
distance of about eight rods from |their |enemy, the
grenadiers on their left had come too far forward to
pull out. Nevertheless the significant part of this
advance was the fight on the beach. Meanwhile over
on the British left, Pigot, who could not easily rime
his advance by the progress of the light infantry beca;use
of the features of the terrain, and who was doubtless
led on by the silence of the Redoubt, got ahead of his
schedule and drew the first burst of fire of the day from
that earthwork.
Thus the first attack was a wave that broke irregu
larly and intermittently against the provincial barrier.
— 19 —

Encountering unexpected conditions, it developed un
expected results. As to the subsequent assaults there
is no doubt that, in spite of Dawson's arguments, they
were two in number.
That first American fire when it came was a withering
blast that lasted for an appreciable time. The occasional
firing by the British as they came on was in the form of
the old-fashioned volleys delivered with little, if any,
individual aim and with practically no effect. But the
rebel marksmen did not shoot on general principles
or for moral effect. They waited till their prey was so
close they could not miss and then deliberately shot, as
they had been accustomed to shoot at the game in
their forests, to kill. On the Mystic beach John Moore
had driven a stake in the sand eight rods in front of
his breastwork and told his men to let drive when the
first British files reached it. The Welsh Fusileers had
seen many casualties in its famous history, but it is
safe to say that never before had any of its units suf
fered as did its light company on that sandy beach
under the fire of those Amoskeag minutemen and
farmers. The light infantry, however, did not give up
at once. In spite of the sickening slaughter there was
an effort to push through, but the remarkable thing
about the enemy's fire was that it continued, and the
successive files went down around Moore's stake like
pins in an alley. In a few moments Howe's plan of
getting around the provincial left here was for the time
being completely frustrated.
In the fields on the left of the light infantry, the
grenadiers fared as badly. It is difficult to accept
Colonel Fisher's statement that the grenadiers did
not deploy on the first advance.* We find nothing in
*In support of Colonel Fisher's assumption that the grenadiers did not deploy
on this advance he quotes an unidentified British officer who is said to have
written that the grenadier battalion was "served up in companies in front of the
grass fence before they could deploy." So far as his researches have gone
the present writer has been unable to find the source of this quotation and
Colonel Fisher s death has prevented direct verification. Is it possible that
the above quotation has been confused with a statement of "an officer in
,?~1'°" '"..^ '^"^¦" ^^^^d J"ly ^. 1775, and quoted by Dawson, p. 367 from
The Detail and Conduct of the American War," as follows: "Our Light-
infantry were served up in Companies against the grass fence, without being
able to penetrate . ."> The similarity of phraseology is certainly
striking. — 20 —

the general story to support this view. On the contrary
Captain Chester of Wethersfield, Connecticut, a man
of intelligence and education, wrote that the British
right deployed soon after advancing. Frothingham,
the historian of the siege of Boston, distinctly states
that the grenadiers deployed into line in the first
attack. Judge Thomas Grosvenor of Pomfret, Con
necticut, who was at the Rail Fence, asserts that the
British, (on the first advance) "displayed into line at
about the distance of a musket shot." An anonymous
British officer writing from Boston July 5, 1775, says
that the attacking force "should not have been brought
up in hne, but in columns."
On this deployment it seems to have been discovered
that the grenadiers' line was too short to cover the
ground assigned it and the light company of the Thirty-
fifth was withdrawn from the column on the beach
and filled the vacant interval between the grenadiers'
right and the top of the bank. This company was the
third unit from the rear of the column of light troops
and from this we may estimate the distance by which
the van of the light infantry was at this time in
advance of the grenadiers. In other words the attack
by the British right was in echelon, left refused — the
light infantry forming the advanced unit, the grenadiers
on their left rear, and the Fifth and Fifty-second con
tinuing the echelon to the left. This was the natural
formation for executing Howe's plan.
It must have taken some restraint on the part of
Reed, Stark and Knowlton at the Fence to have kept
their men quiet when the storm burst on the beach at
their left, but they too held their fire a few moments
longer till the buttons of the grenadiers' uniforms and
the whites of their eyes could be seen. When the long
volley crashed out from the "hedge" it was followed
by the same results as on the beach but on a wider
front and a greater scale. It was augmented, too, by
the fire of at least two field pieces placed near the little
redan across the gully from the end of the fort's flank
ing breastwork. These guns, partially enfilading the
grenadiers and opposing a frontal fire to the two line
regiments on their left, did great execution.
— 21 —

The slaughter was terrific. It is said that the dead
and wounded lay in windrows. The officers sprang
to the front in the effort to rally the shaken ranks and
lead them on and the American marksmen picked off
these officers with a deadly deliberation, two or three, it
is said, firing together to make sure of their effect.
It is a significant feature of the battle not only that
the provincial officers were able to control their raw
troops so far as to effect the withholding of fire in the
face of intense provocation till the storming force was
within eight or ten rods, but also that this course of
action should have been unanimously agreed upon
throughout the whole provincial line. It was of course
a development of the ambuscading and forest warfare
with which many of the older officers and men were
familiar. From the standpoint of military tactics it
was the impressive lesson of the day. From Bunker
Hill dated the development of marksmanship in pitched
battles. In our view of the action it was just before the check
on the British right that over in front of the Redoubt
Pigot's "demonstration," which had been trans
formed into an assault, had met the same fate as befell
the grenadiers and light infantry. In Pigot's case
the situation had been further complicated by the
desultory firing from the outlying Charlestown houses
and barns. Toward the latter part of the advance
this had developed sufficiently to compel Pigot's
extreme left units to change front to their left and to
divert them partially from the assault. This fire
had been so annoying that on the repulse word was
sent over to Boston and the village was soon beginning
to burst into flame from the hot shot fired into it from
the Copp's Hill batteries. At the time this action was
bitterly resented by the provincial authorities but,
in the situation that existed, it was unquestionably
justified. On the British left, where the field of battle was
smaller, and the slopes to the Redoubt steep and with
out much cover, the retreat seems to have been pre
cipitate, but on the right, efforts were made to hold
the grenadiers and line regiments, as they reeled back-
— 22 —

ward, with sporadic success here and there where
groups of men were halted and the officers tried to
get them into some semblance of formation. It was soon
seen, however, that the disaster had been so shattering
that no co-ordination could be obtained in the fire
zone and the groups drifted back toward Moulton's
Hill and the shore.
To say that from the British standpoint the situation
had taken an unforeseen turn is to put the matter
mildly. Here, in place of the comparatively easy vic
tory that had been looked for, was sudden ghastly
disaster, not unmixed with those elements that pro
duce in the human mind unreasoning consternation, and
in the physical constitution the paralysis of abject
fear. All soldiers expect to face death. But to meet it
suddenly in a thousand hideous forms and on the scale
of a massacre, while conscious of defenselessness and
inadequacy — that is something that invites the in
sanity of terror. There must have been a moment or
two, as the British battalions broke, when Howe and
his officers considered with a degree of dismay what
would happen if the victorious rebels should swarm
over their defences and force the fight down to the
water's edge. Howe had no reserves except a guard
at his boats and with Boston harbor in his rear there
was no way of further retreat. But though some of
the American troops jumped over their works and
made as if to pursue the retreating enemy, their officers
were shrewd enough to stop at its inception a move
that, while alluring at the moment, would have been
disastrous in the end. For, however precarious Howe's
situation may have seemed temporarily, any such
advance would have come instantly under a con
centrated artillery fire from the ships and the Boston
batteries, and while these inexperienced troops had
fought well under cover and on the defensive, their
cohesion and control in an aggressive movement in the
open under the severe punishment of the guns pre
sented entirely different possibilities.
— 23 —

Back at their starting points, and with the danger
of pursuit rapidly vanishing, the re-organization of the
decimated British units proceeded rapidly. Orders for
a second advance were issued and the determination
of the leaders, at least, was evidenced by the word
"the works must be taken" which spread through the
ranks. The burning of Charlestown doubtless added
its moral quality of encouragement. It was expected
that the heavy smoke which at first blew across the
British front would furnish concealment for a time.
By a freak of ill luck for the British, however, the wind
shifted slightly as the red-coated troops moved forward
for the second time and their manoeuvres became as
evident to the enemy as at first.
It was at this point that the British commander made
what seemed to some contemporary and to many
modern commentators, a vital mistake. Gage may
have had reasonable grounds for vetoing the landing
and main attack at Charlestown Neck, but he at least
saw that that neck was swept by an almost continuous
fire from floating batteries or "gondolas," which
materially interfered with the reinforcement of the
provincial forces on the peninsula and rendered the
narrow isthmus a place of great danger, though the
American losses there were surprisingly small. If,
however, after the lesson of the first advance, even a
single floating battery had been towed up the Mystic
and anchored where it could enfilade the east end of
the Rail Fence, Bunker Hill would have made a dif
ferent story. Stedman, a British officer who later
served in the American war and who wrote a history
of it, claims that the Symmetry which drew little water
and mounted eighteen nine-pounders, could have
gone far enough up the Mystic to have been used for
this purpose. Such a weight of artillery would inevi
tably have been diastrous to this end of the provincial
line. Incidentally Stedman supports the present view
of the action by his statement that another error on
the part of his countrymen was that "instead of con
fining our attack to the enemy's left wing only, the
assault was made on the whole front."
— 24 —

Confidence in the face of difficulties is, however, one
of the admirable traits of the British soldier. He has
always fought an up-hill fight through to the end and
Bunker Hill furnished one of the most conspicuous
illustradons in history of his capacity to do this. Per
haps this confidence was sufficient in Howe's case,
when the first shock of the set-back had passed, to
convince him that any flanking aid from the water
was unnecessary; perhaps he did not think of it. At
any rate, no such move was undertaken, and the
scarlet ranks moved up again to their doom.
In the domain of morale there was of course this
fundamental difference between the first and second
attacks — in the first the fate that met the advance
was in the nature of a surprise; in the second the men
knew what awaited them. At a certain close distance
they would encounter a deliberate and withering
blast of death. They were offering themselves as easy
targets for men who, whatever their lack of discipline,
had proved themselves deadly marksmen and in whom
it was reasonable to infer that a heartening experience
had now bred an undoubted confidence.
The spirit of the attacking troops was also threatened
by the purely physical fact that their way lay across
fields where their dead and wounded lay in all the dis
figurement and agony that the missiles of that day
inflicted. From this fact alone it must have been a
nerve-racking, physically sickening march, growing
worse as the long rows of casualties marking the limit
of the first attack were approached. One who watched
the scarlet ranks coming forward left the record of his
astonishnient at the discipline that brought these men
on, stepping over their fallen comrades "as if they had
been logs of wood." As an exhibirion of moral and
physical courage that advance should remain forever
memorable. Colonel Fisher's theory is that in the first attack,
which in his view was carried on solely on the beach
by the light infantry, that fine corps was so cut up that
it was incapacitated for participation in the second
— 25 —

attack, except the light company of the Thirty-fifth
which, as we noted, held the right of the grenadiers'
line. However this may be, it is clear that the early
part of the action demonstrated pretty clearly the
impossibility of forcing the extreme left of the American
line on the beach except concurrently with a general
advance. General Wilkinson states that the Hght
infantry was repulsed three times and Dr. Dexter who
watched the fight from the Maiden side of the Mystic,
whence the beach formed the foreground of the battle
field, left his record that the light infantry as well as
the grenadiers retreated twice.
On the whole it seems probable that the remnants
of the light infantry co-operated in the second attack
on the beach as before, but that the echelon formation
as to these troops was abandoned.
Except for this difference in the use of the light
infantry and the fact that the burning of Charlestown
released certain of Pigot's troops from the necessity of
diversion toward that village, the second attack was
similar to the first and met the same fate. In their
confidence the provincials allowed the King's troops
to come even nearer than before, and it is said that
some single soldiers of the Fifth and Fifty-second
Regiments, plunging desperately forward through the
smoke of the long volley, got into the American lines at
the entrenchment, dying there an instant later. The
Fifth Regiment seems to have been directed around
the head of the marshy ground, the Fifty-second directly
against the entrenchment. The British did not at once
fall back, and the firing at close quarters continued for
nearly twenty minutes.
As before the British losses were frightful. "I never
saw sheep lying thicker in a sheep fold," said Stark,
"than the British Regulars in front of my Hne." From
the record of the Fifty-second Regiment, cited by
Drake, it appears that all of the grenadier company
were killed or wounded — another account says that
eight escaped. There were only three men left un-
wounded in the light company of the Thirty-fifth,
five in the grenadier company of the Twenty-third,
and four in that of the Fourth. All these losses
— 26 —

did not, it is true, occur in this assault. They rep
resent the casualties of the whole action, but they —
with others in like proportion — are a sufficient com
mentary on the deadliness of the fighting at any time,
Howe was with the left of the grenadiers. At one
time he was left alone except for a servant — all of his
staff being killed or wounded that day — and his own
escape was miraculous. It is said that his white silk
stockings took a reddish tinge from the bloody grass
he walked through. Apparently it was near him that
Abercrombie, commanding the grenadiers, fell mortally
wounded into the arms of young Rawdon, crying out
not to hang his old friend Putnam,
From the Copp's Hill battery in Boston, where Clin
ton and Burgoyne were anxiously watching the progress
of the fight, the events close in front of the Fence
could not be followed distinctly, but the repulse of
Pigot's troops in the second assault of the Redoubt
was as clearly visible as the smoke permitted, Pigot's
defeat was as definite and as costly as Howe's, In
the end the British retreated in what seemed un
pleasantly like a rout, some of the men in utter aban
donment even jumping into the boats moored at the
shore. The sight was too much for Clinton and without
waiting for orders he left Burgoyne, his junior, in
charge at Copp's Hill and had himself rowed over to
the Charlestown shore, where, ranking Pigot, he led
his men on the left in the final assault.
Sir Henry Clinton was a fine officer. He had been
appointed major-general in 1772 and was at this time
thirty-seven years of age. His death occurred twenty
years later while he was governor of Gibraltar, Oddly
enough, he was a nadve of Newfoundland, of which
his father, a younger son of the sixth Eari of Lincoln,
had been governor, and his first military service had
been with the New York militia. In the fighting in
Flanders under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick he had
acquired an enviable reputation. His gallantry at
Bunker Hill led to his promotion to lieutenant-general
in September of this year and in 1776 he was made
— 27 —

general. His later services in the American War are
well known,
Howe's plan was now radically altered. He was
convinced of the impossibility of forcing the provincial
left where the Rail Fence, apparently such a frail
defense, had proved a stronghold. The alternative
was to concentrate on the Redoubt. Dispositions
to this end were at once instituted. Not only in the
general scheme, but in the individual de.tails were
changes made. The men had suffered severely from
the heat and they were now directed to unsling their
heavy packs. Some even imitated their enemies and
taking off their coats fought in their shirt-sleeves. The
orders seem to have been pretty general that the mus
kets were not to be loaded. The works were to be taken
by the bayonet. It was in the guise of strictly "shock
troops" that the British force moved doggedly out
again to accomplish its purpose,
A re-arrangement of this force had been made. The
Fifth Regiment had been moved over to the left, taking
post between the Forty-seventh and the Thirty-eighth
opposite the south front of the Redoubt. What was
left of the massed light infantry and grenadiers demon
strated against the Fence, though at least part of the
grenadiers seem to have moved eventually by their
left and, with the Fifty-second, come around against
the entrenchment and finally against the Redoubt.
The artillery had got out of the morass, and in this
as well as in the second attack rendered valuable aid,
particularly against the entrenchment. CHnton, at
the extreme left, led the Marines and part of the
Forty-seventh diagonally leftward up the slopes of
Breed's Hill around to the westerly side of the
httle fort. Here he seems suddenly to have come
under the fire of a body of reinforcing provincials, who
lined a stone wall and filled two unburnt structures on
the hne of Green Street which ran in practical extension
of the Rail Fence line in the left rear (from the British
standpoint) of the Redoubt. In the judgment of
Colonel Fisher, which is entitled to the highest consider-
— 28 —

tion, this fire was so severe that it was found necessary
to silence it before the assault could be pushed home.
There may, however, have been some over-lapping
of action here, for it is hard to estimate that any ot
Chnton's men, not having allowed in advance for the
diversion necessary to reduce this force, got as tar
ahead as the vicinity of Green Street before the con-
centradon of the attack on the Redoubt, which seems
at the end to have converged with considerable rapid
ity. The British formation, too was changed. Instead
of deploying into the old batde hne, the units held
what some authorities claim was a column formation,
or what the anonymous correspondent of Rivingtoris
Gazette speaks of as an advance "in open order, the men
often twelve feet apart in the front, but very close
after one another in extraordinary deep or long files" —
a disposition approximating the present infantry skir
mish drill formation known as squad columns. Though
the men were widely separated, laterally, the align
ment from front to rear and the depth of the arrange
ment would naturaUy give at any distance the effect
of a column.
Prescott says that at the end there were not more
than two hundred men in the Redoubt with him.
Their ammunition was almost gone and was only
slightly replenished by the field-gun cartridges which
were now of no further use for their original purpose,
the gun platforms having broken down. It was hur
riedly arranged that those defenders who had bayonets
or pikes should remain at the most exposed points
while the others, after their first volley, should fall
back to the rear of the Redoubt and use their last
ammunition against such of the storming troops as
came over the parapet.
This time the British columns did not delay to fire
but carne steadily on. The Connecticut and New
Hampshire men at the Fence waited for another attack
that never came. At the end they saw the bulk of
the troops before them shifdng to the westward against
the entrenchment and fort. The Bridsh field guns
were enfilading the end of the former earthwork, and
— 29 —

many of its defenders were retreating into the Redoubt.
The resistance at the entrenchment does not seem to
have been very determined, but from the Redoubt
the assaulting columns met the same fierce volley
they had encountered before. Again the front files
went down under that deadly, short-range fire, and
there was a momentary hesitation. Though in general
there was no return fire, apparently on the extreme
British left some of the Marines under Clinton, who
had come around to the right after driving in the Green
Street line, fired some scattering shots as we gather
from Adjutant Waller's account. "We were now in
confusion," he says, "after being broke several times
in getting over the rails &c. I did all I could to form
the two companies on our right, which at last I effected,
losing many of them while it was performing. Major
Pitcairn was killed close by me, with a captain and a
subaltern, also a sergeant, and many of the privates;
and had we stopped there much longer the enemy
would have picked us all off. I saw this and begged
Colonel Nesbit of the Forty-seventh, to form on our
left, in order that we might advance with our bayonets
to the parapet. I ran from right to left and stopped
our men from firing; while this was doing, and when
we had got in tolerable order, we rushed on, leaped the
ditch and climbed the parapet under a most sore and
heavy fire,"
The accounts are vague as to who was the first of
the British to enter the earthwork. One account
relates that young Richardson, a lieutenant of the
"Royal Irish" was the first man on the parapet where
he was instantly killed with the shout of "Victory!"
on his lips. Another story is that of Dalrymple, a
lieutenant of the Sixty-third Grenadiers, who is said
to have scaled the earthen walls near the point where
the entrenchment was built into them, being shot to
pieces there as he caUed his men to follow. The tale
goes on to tell pf the sergeant of the company who
thereupon took command and led his few remaining
comrades into the works before any other commis-
soned officer scaled them. Other traditions claim the
— 30 —

honor of the first entrance for other heroes. The fact
is that everything was in confusion. To the defenders
it seemed as if the red-coats came over the wall in
a dozen different places at once. Pigot himself, who
was a little man, climbed up by the aid of a tree at
the south angle of the south front, and sprang in,
sword in hand. The Massachusetts men with the
remaining ammunition at the rear of the fort delivered
their fire as the first of the British appeared, and then
in an instant it became a fierce hand-to-hand fight.
The officers used their swords freely, men fired into
each other's faces, lunged at each other with bayonets,
fought with clubbed muskets and even stones. The
British suffered heavily, especially in officers. The
three captains of the Fifty-second, among whom was
Nicholas Addison, fell on the parapet or the earthwork
near it. Pitcairn was pierced by three bullets, the
last one fired by a negro, and fell on the slopes of the
Redoubt, cheering on his devoted marines, among
whom was his son. George Harris was wounded on
the crest of the hill, and was thought to be dying, but
a few days later was able, through the courtesy of his
surgeons and an arrangement of mirrors, to enjoy
the unusual sensation of looking at his own brains,
which, as his subsequent distinguished career amply
demonstrated, had not been in the least damaged by
the rebel musket ball that tore off most of his scalp.
For some time Prescott would not give the word to
retreat, and his men fought desperately. The smoke
and the dust that rose from the dry earth, trampled
under the feet of hundreds of combatants, added to
the confusion. In this mist friend and foe were mingled.
At last Prescott saw that it was useless to hold out,
and ordered the Redoubt abandoned. He had delayed
so long himself that he had to cut his way through the
Bridsh, skillfully parrying bayonet thrusts with his
long sword, and not running, but "stepping long," as
one of his men proudly tells us. His Jiat was pierced
by buUets, and his long blue banyan torn by bayonets,
but he won safely through. Poor Warren was not so
fortunate. Conspicuous in his fine clothes, he had
waited undl the last, and then retreated over the
— 31 —

northwest side of the Redoubt, He had gone a rod
or so, when, while trying to rally some of his men, a
musket ball fired at close range, entered the back of
his head. He fell forward, raising his hand mechani
cally to the wound, and in a few moments he was dead,
Trumbull has pictured Major Small of the Royal
Marines in the act of saving the dying patriot, supported
by a negro, from a grenadier's bayonet thrust, but
Small told Major Alexander Garden, in 1791, that
Warren was dead when he reached him. There is a
tradition that Warren's last words were spoken to
John Chester of Wethersfield, but it is doubtful if the
Connecticut men were close enough to the Redoubt
at that time to make this possible. For an hour or
more the body lay under a little tree near the spot
where the briUiant young patriot had fallen. It was
soon indentified by Dr. Jeffries of Boston, who had
come over with Clinton, but too late to prevent the
stripping of some of the fine apparel.
The victors took possession of the Redoubt with
cheers and began the pursuit of the retreating garrison.
There is good authority for the statement that it was
at this time that most of the American losses occurred.
For a while, in the rear of the Redoubt, the hand-to-
hand fighting continued, friend and foe being mingled,
and as the provincials began to extricate themselves
and drift up Bunker Hill, they came under a punishing
fire not only of their pursuers but of the ships and
batteries which had at all times made the southern
slopes of Bunker Hill a place of great danger. It is
easy to understand why there had been difficulty in
getting reinforcements forward earlier in the day.
Burgoyne, however, has left his testimony that the
retreat was not a rout, but was "covered with bravery
and military skill." This was due to the behavior of
the provincials who had hitherto defended the strong
hold of the Rail Fence — particularly to the Con
necticut men on the westward end of that line nearest
the fort. Knowlton had seen at the beginning that
his fatigue party had double the number of cartridges
issued to their Massachusetts comrades and that
forethought now had its reward. Furthermore the
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original Connecticut detachment had been augmented
by fresh troops — Coit's and Clark's and Chester's
companies. These were all good troops, well equipped
and supplied with ammunition — particularly Chester's
command which was one of the crack organizations of
the heterogeneous American army.
In their pursuit the British found themselves unable
to turn the line of the Fence from the west just as they
had been unable to force its easterly end earlier in the
afternoon. Furthermore, the galling fire they came
into from their right as they advanced beyond the
captured Redoubt unquestionably slowed up the pur
suit and enabled the men who had been in the Redoubt
and earthwork and who were not injured, to escape.
Indeed only thirty of the three hundred and five Ameri
can wounded fell into the hands of the victors, and of
these two-thirds were mortally hurt. This in itself
is evidence that the retreat could not have been pre
cipitate. Nevertheless is was obviously impossible for the
Connecticut and New Hampshire men to hold their
ground. They feU back over the summit of Bunker
HiU, which Putnam all day had been feverishly striving
to fortify, and where the old soldier now stood beside the
only American field-piece saved, till the British bayo
nets were almost on him, begging his boys to make one
more stand, and in his desperation uttering the good,
round oaths he afterward publicly apologized to his
church for using, IV
It was not long after five o'clock that the fighting
died down and the British were left in possession of a
field thickly strewn with their own dead and wounded,
Clinton, who was comparatively fresh and had
personally experienced only victory, urged Howe to
continue the pursuit across the Neck, It would have
been a foolhardy move, for the hiUs of the mainland
were swarming with bodies of provincials already
beginning to dig in, and Howe refused. Clinton would
have been interested to know that at almost this time
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Prescott, in the bitterness of a defeat he felt unmerited,
was promising Ward that if he were only furnished
with enough troops he would go back and sweep the
victorious British into the sea.
But Howe had no intention of pushing further. Even
such a phlegmatic and selfish spirit as his could not fail
to have been appalled by the events through which,
by a miraculous chance, he had just come ahve. Of
his force of something over twenty-six hundred, one
thousand and fifty-four were killed, or wounded, a
frightful proportion. The provincial losses were about
four hundred and twenty, but it is difficult to compute
any proportion here because the numbers on the
American side shifted with the events of the after
noon, and are uncertain at the best. Some estimate
that as many as three thousand provincial troops were
in action at different times, but this is doubtless an
exaggeration. Dawson believes that not more than
fifteen hundred provincials were engaged at any one
time, though we think he underestimates the Massa
chusetts forces.
The Boston streets saw many distressing sights as
the dead and wounded officers and the wounded men
were brought over to the town, the groans of those
badly hurt and the cries of women and children proving
more unnerving to many than the sight of the field
had been. A procession of carriages soon took its way
from the landing stages into the town, bearing dead
and wounded, the first carriage containing the mortally
wounded major and the three dead captains of the
Fifty-second, among the dead poor Addison who had
only arrived from England the day before and who was
to have dined with Burgoyne that evening.
To his dying day Howe remembered the lessons of
Bunker Hill. Doubtless it would be a somewhat
imaginative conjecture to attribute his growing morose-
ness, his increasing desire to dull memories by question
able distractions, his lack of initiative, his gradual
loss of grip, to the events of this summer afternoon.
He was too sophisticated, too cynical a person to
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exhibit such a permanent reaction to a single experience.
The gradual deterioration, which, with every oppor
tunity for a briUiant career, his life illustrated had
probably a far more subtle causation. But at least
on his military philosophy and conduct the fight at
Bunker Hill had its effect, and never afterward, if it
was in any way avoidable, did he allow troops under
his command to make a frontal assault on an en
trenched enemy.
The effect of Bunker Hill on combat tactics is obvious
and has already been alluded to. It is a significant
fact that in that curious little volume called "Inchiquin,
the Jesuit's Letters," published in this country in 1810,
the anonymous author characterizes the inhabitants
of the United States as "a free and martial people
from whom the riflemen and sharpshooters
that have become the most efficacious divisions of
the armies of Europe, learnt their manual."
Professor Albert Bushnell Hart has said that what
the British really laid down at Bunker Hill was their
military prestige. It seems to the writer that the
statement needs some qualification. In so far as the
result of the battle was a sense of encouragement
to the revolting colonies and an assurance that the
veteran troops of Britain were far from invincible, the
assertion is quite true. But with the increasing years
has come a keener appreciation of the amazing courage
and discipline the British battalions exhibited on that
occasion. So far as that feature is concerned the story
of the battle has added to, rather than detracted from,
the prestige of the British army. The descendants of
the Americans who fought that day will be quite as
ready as any one else to agree with Fortescue, who, in
his history of that army, maintains that "the return of
the British Infantry to the third attack, after two such
bloody repulses, is one of the very greatest feats ever
recorded of them."

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