Volume 4, Chapter 7, The Battle of Bunker Hill
While the Congress was in process of choosing the heads of the Continental Army, a pitched
battle was being fought at Boston. The famous Battle of Bunker Hill, later touted as a great
American victory, was neither a victory nor did it take place at Bunker Hill. At the end
At the end of May, the Crown had sent a triumvirate of eminent generals to assist and implicitly
to pave the way for superseding General Gage. These prestigious arrivals were General Sir
William Howe, an ardent Whig, who as a candidate for Parliament had pledged never to accept
a command against the Americans, Young General Sir Henry Clinton, and the dashing General
John Burgoyne
Ordered by the Crown to proclaim martial law in Massachusetts, General Gage allowed General
Burgoyne to write the inflammatory proclamation, which on June 12 denounced the Americans as
rebels and traitors, and offered pardon to all laying down their arms except for the
irredeemable Sam Adams and John Hancock.
Stunned by the proclamation, the Americans yearned to retaliate, but this yearning grew
far stronger when they learned the following day that the British had decided to seize
and fortify unoccupied Dorchester Heights, a peninsula south of Boston.
The city of Boston was confronted on two sides by peninsulas with heights commanding the
Town, on the North, Charlestown Peninsula, on the South, Dorchester Heights.
Sensing the folly of battling the British directly for the Heights, the Massachusetts
Committee of Safety on June 15 urged the occupation and fortification of Bunker Hill on Charlestown
Peninsula.
The American Council of War was split on the issue.
The two best generals, Artemus Ward and Joseph Warren, who had been made a general by the
Provincial Congress, had long counseled against fortifying Bunker Hill, for the narrow neck
of the peninsula endangered the entire force, especially should their scanty ammunition
give out. Besides, without artillery, the Americans could not use the position against
In this situation, General Clinton urged a swift and immediate landing behind the American lines at Charlestown Neck, cutting off the Americans from the rear and seizing the entire force with ease.
But Gage would not accept such a sneaky and un-military tactic.
General Howe, he insisted, would mount a frontal assault against the strongest American position.
The rebels would panic and run at the sight of the advancing British regulars.
Such a display of force would restore the British honor, Tarnished at Concord.
This typical contempt of the British military for the Americans led them into a disastrous blunder.
Even the advantage of speed was scorned as the British made their leisurely way to the tip of the peninsula, allowing the Americans to complete their emplacements.
A series of frontal assaults up Breed's Hill allowed the Americans to fight in their best manner, in quasi-guerrilla fashion, employing rifle fire from behind emplacements.
The Americans were only partially at an advantage, however, for their precious mobility had been
surrendered in favor of fixed positions.
In addition, they were in short supply of ammunition and far from an escape route.
As a result, repeated frontal assaults by the British finally succeeded, Breed's Hill
was overrun and the Americans were routed out of the peninsula.
were enormous on both sides, the Americans suffering over 400 casualties and the British
over a thousand, amounting to over 40% of Howe's forces. Indeed, the Battle of Bunker
Hill, actually of Breeds Hill, and sensibly known to contemporaries as the Battle of Charlestown,
was the bloodiest single conflict on the American continent until 1815. The gravest single loss
to the Americans was General Warren, who died in the rout.
As for the British, perhaps the most fitting casualty at Bunker Hill was the killing of
Major John Pitcairn by a Negro rebel, the same Pitcairn who had been sure that if he
drew his sword but half out of the scabbard, the whole bandit of Massachusetts Bay would
flee before him.
Now the bandit had cut him down.
The American defeat would have been yet far more severe if the advice of General Clinton
had not once again been ignored. He urged swiftly seizing advantage of the route by
pressing forward to destroy the demoralized American forces and capture Cambridge. Had
General Howe agreed, Clinton might have dealt the revolution a devastating blow, which was
This is precisely what the astute General Ward now feared, but how, beginning the rapid development of an unerring talent for making the wrong decision, chose instead to stop, dig in and fortify Bunker Hill.
Thus the victory went to the British in that they had conquered the Charlestown Peninsula, but their preposterous tactics, born of overconfidence, had decimated their army.
As in so many military engagements in history, the battle was a tragic comedy of errors on both sides,
with Britain's technical victory bought at an enormous price. For their part, contemporary
Americans did not have the temerity to claim the battle as a mighty victory, and the entire
Their operation was rightly denounced as rash and unfortunate.