Battle of Bunker Hill

Background

After the fighting at Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775, some 15,000 New England militia under Artemas Ward closed the land approaches to Boston. Thomas Gage's garrison, about 6,000 men, could not be starved out: the Royal Navy held the harbour and brought in supplies and reinforcements. On 25 May HMS Cerberus landed three major-generals, William Howe, Henry Clinton and John Burgoyne.

Two pieces of high ground overlooked the town: Dorchester Heights to the south and the hills of the Charlestown peninsula across the water to the north. On 12 June Gage settled on a plan to seize Dorchester first and then the Charlestown heights, with the attack set for 18 June. Word leaked out; on 13 June a committee in Exeter, New Hampshire, passed on a report of the plan, and on 15 June the Massachusetts Committee of Safety resolved to act first. Ward ordered Bunker Hill fortified.

The Charlestown peninsula ran about a mile south-east from the narrow Charlestown Neck, with the Mystic River on its north side. Bunker Hill, 110 feet high, stood near the Neck; the lower Breed's Hill, 62 feet, lay nearer the town and Boston. On the night of 16 June Colonel William Prescott led about 1,200 men on to the peninsula with entrenching tools. He, Israel Putnam and the engineer Richard Gridley chose to dig on Breed's Hill, apparently against their orders. The forward position threatened Boston and made a battle much more likely, but it also put the force further from its only line of retreat across the Neck.

The armies

The British force was drawn from Gage's regulars: the grenadier and light infantry companies, the 5th, 38th, 43rd, 47th and 52nd Foot, and Major John Pitcairn's Marines, with the 63rd Foot and 2nd Marines sent across later. Howe commanded in the field, with Brigadier Robert Pigot leading the left wing. The fleet under Admiral Samuel Graves and the battery on Copp's Hill gave fire support. The regulars were disciplined but were attacking uphill in summer heat, in wool coats and burdened with kit; their field guns had been supplied with shot of the wrong size.

The provincials were a militia army without a single commander on the field. Ward stayed in Cambridge; Prescott held the redoubt; Putnam moved between the hills; Joseph Warren, newly named a major-general, fought as a volunteer. Prescott's, Frye's and Bridge's Massachusetts regiments dug the works, joined by Connecticut men under Captain Thomas Knowlton, John Stark's and James Reed's New Hampshire regiments and more Massachusetts units. They had six guns and very little powder.

Black and Native soldiers fought among them. The National Park Service counts about 150 Patriots of Color in the battle, while George Quintal's study identifies 103 by name. They included Peter Salem, Salem Poor and Barzillai Lew, and at least fifteen Native men from the Mashpee Wampanoag, Hassanamisco Nipmuc, Tunxis, Mohegan and Pequot peoples.

The battle

Night and morning. Through the night of 16–17 June Prescott's men threw up a square earthen redoubt, about 130 feet a side, on Breed's Hill. At about 4 a.m. HMS Lively saw the work and opened fire. Graves stopped her, but Gage overruled him, and the ships and the Copp's Hill battery bombarded the hill for hours with little effect. Prescott saw that the redoubt could be outflanked to the north and had a breastwork dug from it towards the low ground on the Mystic side.

The British land. In the early afternoon boats carried Howe's first wave, about 1,500 men, to Moulton's Point at the south-east tip of the peninsula; by about 2 p.m. it was ashore. Howe saw the defences and waited for reinforcements, including the 47th Foot and the 1st Marines. The pause let the provincials strengthen their left. Knowlton's Connecticut men lined a rail fence running back towards the Mystic, stuffing it with hay. Stark's New Hampshire regiments arrived and extended it with a stone wall down to the waterline, where the low tide had opened a strip of beach. Stark is said to have set a stake about 100 feet in front and forbidden any man to fire until the regulars passed it. Meanwhile many reinforcements stopped short of the Neck, which was under naval fire, or milled about on Bunker Hill. Around 3 p.m. the British set Charlestown alight with incendiary shot and a landing party.

The first assault. Howe planned to turn the American left. The light infantry advanced in column along the narrow beach, the grenadiers against the rail fence, while Pigot's wing demonstrated against the redoubt. Stark's men held their fire until the column was close, and the light infantry were driven back along the beach with heavy loss; the grenadiers were also beaten back from the fence.

The second assault. Howe tried again, this time with Pigot attacking the redoubt and Howe's men going for Knowlton's fence rather than the beach. Both attacks were stopped by close-range volleys, and Pigot pulled his men back after about half an hour.

The third assault. Clinton, watching from Boston, sent over about 400 fresh men of the 2nd Marines and the 63rd Foot, crossed himself and rallied some 200 walking wounded. Howe now made the flank attack a feint and threw his main weight at the redoubt in column, the men without their packs and relying on the bayonet. The defenders were almost out of powder; by now perhaps 700 to 800 remained on Breed's Hill, about 150 of them inside the redoubt. After a last volley, in which Pitcairn was mortally wounded, the regulars went over the walls and carried the redoubt with the bayonet. Warren was killed as the defenders fled from the redoubt.

The withdrawal. Stark's and Knowlton's men at the fence covered the retreat and kept the hill from being cut off; Burgoyne, watching, called it no flight. Putnam tried and failed to make a stand on Bunker Hill, and five of the six guns were abandoned. By about 5 p.m. the provincials had crossed the Neck towards Cambridge, and the British held the peninsula.

"The whites of their eyes". The order not to fire until the enemy was close was real, and participants' depositions record several versions of it, one of them about the whites of the eyes. But it is credited variously to Prescott, Putnam, Stark and Gridley, the Revolutionary-era histories do not mention it, and the phrase was older than the battle. It is best treated as a figure of speech of uncertain attribution, not anyone's documented words.

Aftermath

The British took the ground but paid heavily: 226 killed and 828 wounded, about 40 per cent of those engaged, among them 19 officers killed and some 100 killed or wounded. No other single engagement of the war cost them more. The provincials lost about 450, including roughly 140 killed and 30 captured, most of whom died of their wounds. Clinton wrote that a few more such victories would have ended British rule in America, and wanted to press on to Cambridge; Howe, after three costly assaults, would not.

The battle changed little on the map. The siege went on; George Washington, already on his way to take command, heard the news in New York. Gage was recalled and replaced by Howe in October. The British command concluded that the rebellion would not be put down cheaply: Gage asked for a large army, Britain hired German auxiliaries, and British planning became more cautious about frontal attacks on well-defended lines.

For Americans the battle soon became a moral victory, proof that militia could stand against regulars. Folklore added more, including the "whites of their eyes" line and the story, debated, that Peter Salem fired the shot that killed Pitcairn. Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the 221-foot granite obelisk on Breed's Hill in 1825; it was dedicated in 1843. The National Park Service now also tells the stories of the battle's Black and Native soldiers, such as the Mohegan Samuel Ashbow, who fought at the rail fence and was killed.

Wargaming it

Bunker Hill is a compact battle, two to three thousand men a side on a peninsula about a mile long, fought in a few hours of one afternoon. It suits regimental or company-level rules, with each company of the grenadiers, light infantry and line battalions as a unit and the provincial regiments as fragile but steady-behind-cover blocks. A 6 ft by 4 ft table can hold the whole field from Moulton's Point to the Neck.

The key terrain is simple and decisive: the redoubt and breastwork, the hay-filled rail fence, Stark's stone wall on the beach, the burning town on the British left, and the Neck behind the Americans under naval gunfire. The defender's problems are ammunition and command. Give the provincials a strict powder allowance and let reinforcements dribble across the Neck, or stall on Bunker Hill, under rules for poor command. The British problem is time and nerve: each repulse costs officers.

The what-ifs are good. Could Howe have turned the beach flank at the first attempt, before Stark arrived? What if the provincials had held Bunker Hill rather than Breed's, or had the powder to stop the third assault, as Prescott believed? Could Howe, as Clinton wanted, have pushed on to Cambridge that evening? A points-free scenario with the historical forces and a victory condition of British losses, rather than ground, captures the battle best.

Maps and pictures