during the whole day, and asked of Prescott "that the intrenching tools might be sent off." It was done; but, of the large party that took them away, few returned; and Putnam found no leisure to fortify the crown of the higher hill.

To abundant equipments of every kind the British troops in Boston, though in number hardly more than five thousand effective men, added experience and exact discipline. Taking advantage of high water, the Glasgow sloop-of-war and two floating batteries had been moored where their guns raked the isthmus of Charlestown. Between the hours of twelve and one, by order of General Gage, boats and barges, manned by oars, all plainly visible to Prescott and his men, bore over the unruffled sheet of water from Long Wharf to Moulton's Point in Charlestown the fifth, the thirty-eighth, the forty-third, and the fifty-second regiments of infantry, with ten companies of grenadiers, ten of light infantry, and a proportion of field artillery—in all about two thousand men. They were commanded by Major-General Howe, who was assisted by Brigadier-General Pigot. It was noticed that Percy, pleading illness, let his regiment go without him. The British landed under cover of the shipping, on the outward side of the peninsula, near the Mystic, with a view to outflank the American party, surround them, and make prisoners of the whole detachment.

The way along the banks of the river to Prescott's rear lay open; he had remaining with him but about seven or eight hundred men, worn with toil and watching and hunger; he knew not how many were coming against him; his flank was unprotected; he saw no signs of re-enforcements; the enemy had the opportunity to surround and crush his little band. "Never were men placed in a more dangerous position." But Howe, who was of a sluggish temperament, halted on the first rising ground and sent back for more troops.

When Prescott perceived the British begin to land on the point east by north from the fort, he made the best disposition of his scanty force, ordering the train of artillery with two field-pieces, and the Connecticut forces under Knowlton, "to go and oppose them."

About two hundred yards in the rear of the unfinished breastwork a fence with two rails, of which the posts were set

in a low stone wall, extended for three hundred yards or more toward the Mystic. The mowers had but the day before passed over the meadows, and the grass lay on the ground in cocks and windrows. There the men of Connecticut, in pursuance of Prescott's order, took their station. Nature had provided "something of a breast work," or a ditch had been dug many years before. They grounded arms and made a slight fortification against musket-balls by interweaving the newly mown grass between the rails, and by carrying forward a post and rail-fence alongside of the first, and piling the fresh hay between the two. But the line of defence was still very far from complete. Nearer the water the bank was smooth and without obstruction, declining gently for sixty or eighty yards, where it fell off abruptly. Between the rail-fence and the unfinished breastwork the space was open, and remained so; the slough at the foot of the hill guarded a part of the distance; nearly a hundred yards were left almost wholly unprotected.

Brooks, afterward governor of Massachusetts, one of Prescott's messengers, had no mode of reaching head-quarters but on foot. He found the general anxious and perplexed. Ward saw the imprudence of risking a battle for which the army was totally unprepared. To the committee of safety, which was in session, the committee of supplies expressed its concern at the "expenditure of powder;" "any great consumption by cannon might be ruinous;" and it is a fact that the Americans, with incomplete companies composed of "raw, irregular, and undisciplined troops," enlisted chiefly within six weeks, commanded, many of them, by untried officers, gathered from four separate colonies, with no reciprocal subordination but from courtesy and opinion, after collecting all the ammunition that could be obtained north of the Delaware, had in the magazine for an army, engaged in a siege and preparing for a fight, no more than twenty-seven half-barrels of powder, with a gift from Connecticut of thirty-six half barrels more.

Ward determined, if possible, to avoid a general action. Apprehending that, if re-enforcements should leave his camp, the main attack of the British would be made upon Cambridge, he refused to impair his strength at head-quarters; but he ordered the New Hampshire regiments of Stark, stationed at

Medford, and of Reed, near Charlestown neck, to march to Prescott's support.

When word was brought that the British were actually landing in Charlestown, the general regarded it as a feint, and still refused to change his plan. But the zeal of individuals admitted of no control. The welcome intelligence that the British had actually sallied out of Boston thrilled through men who were "waiting impatiently to avenge the blood of their murdered countrymen." Owing to the want of activity in Ward, who did not leave his house during the whole day, all method was wanting; but, while the bells were ringing and the drums beating to arms, officers who had longed for the opportunity of meeting the British in battle, soldiers who clung to the officers of their choice with constancy, set off for the scene of battle, hardly knowing themselves whether they were countenanced by the general, or the committee of safety, or the council of war; or moved by the same impetuous enthusiasm which had brought them forth on the nineteenth of April, and which held "an honorable death in the field for the liberties of all America preferable to an ignominious slavery."

The septuagenarian Seth Pomeroy of Northampton was roused by the continuance of the cannonade, and rode to Charlestown neck; there, thoughtful for his horse, which was a borrowed one, he shouldered his fowling-piece, marched over on foot, and, amid loud cheers of welcome, took a place at the rail-fence.

Joseph Warren, after discharging his duty in the committee of safety, resolved to take part in the battle. He was entreated by Elbridge Gerry not thus to expose his life. “It is sweet and becoming to die for one's country," was his answer. Three days before, he had been elected a provincial major-general. He knew the defects of the American camp, the danger of the intrenched party, and how the character of his countrymen and the interests of mankind hung in suspense on the conduct of that day. About two o'clock he crossed Bunker Hill unattended, and with a musket in his hand. He stood for a short time near a cannon at the rail-fence in conversation with Putnam, who was ready to receive his orders; but Warren declined to assume authority, and passed on to the redoubt,

where the chief attack was expected. There Prescott proposed that he should take the command; but he answered as he had done to Putnam: "I come as a volunteer, to learn from a soldier of experience;" and in choosing his station he looked only for the place of danger and importance.

Of the men of Essex who formed Little's regiment, full a hundred and twenty-five hastened to the aid of Prescott; Worcester and Middlesex furnished more than seventy from Brewer's regiment, and with them the prudent and fearless William Buckminster of Barré, their lieutenant-colonel. From the same counties came above fifty more, under John Nixon of Sudbury. Willard Moore of Paxton, a man of superior endowments, led about forty of Worcester county; from the regiment of Whitcomb of Lancaster, there appeared at least fifty privates, but with no higher officers than captains. Not more than six light field-pieces were brought upon the ground; and these, from want of ammunition, were scarcely used.

At the rail-fence there were, as yet, but the Connecticut men whom Prescott had detached. The two field-pieces had been deserted by the artillerymen. After the British had landed, and just before they advanced, a party of New Hampshire levies arrived, conducted by Colonel John Stark, who, next to Prescott, brought the largest number of men into the field. When they came to the isthmus, which was raked by cannon, Dearborn, one of his captains who walked by his side, advised a quick step. "One fresh man in action is worth ten fatigued ones," replied Stark; and he marched leisurely across Charlestown neck through the galling fire. The rugged trapper was as calm as though he had been hunting in his native woods. At a glance upon the beach along Mystic river, "I saw there," he related, "the way so plain that the enemy could not miss it." While some of his men continued the line of defence by still weaving grass between the rails, others, at his bidding, leaped down the bank, and, with stones from adjacent walls, threw up a breastwork to the water's edge. Behind this, and wholly exposed on the side of the water, he posted triple ranks of his men; the rest knelt or lay down. The time allowed him no opportunity of consulting with Prescott; they fought independently; Prescott to defend the redoubt, Knowl

ton and Stark, with Reed's regiment, to protect its flank. These are all who arrived before the beginning of the attack; and not more than a hundred and fifty others of various regiments, led by different officers or driven by their own zeal, reached the battle-ground before the retreat. From first to last Putnam took an active interest in the expedition; and the appointment of Prescott to its command was made with his concurrence. Without interfering with that command, he was now planning additional works on Bunker Hill, now mingling with the Connecticut troops at the rail-fence, now threatening officers or men who seemed to him dilatory or timid, now at Cambridge in person, or again by message, demanding re-enforcements, ever engaged in aiding and encouraging here and there, as the case required. After the first landing of the British, he sent orders by his son to the Connecticut forces at Cambridge, "that they must all meet and march immediately to Bunker Hill to oppose the enemy." Chester and his company ran for their arms and ammunition, and marched with such alacrity that they reached the battleground before the day was decided.

While the camp at Cambridge was the scene of confusion, Howe caused refreshments to be distributed abundantly among his troops. The re-enforcements which he had demanded arrived, consisting of several more companies of light infantry and grenadiers, the forty-seventh regiment, and a battalion of marines. "The whole," wrote Gage, "made a body of something above two thousand men;" "about two thousand men and two battalions to re-enforce him," wrote Burgoyne; "near upon three thousand," thought very accurate observers, and a corps of five regiments, one battalion, and twenty flank companies, more than seventy companies, must, after all allowances, be reckoned at two thousand five hundred men or more. It comprised the chief strength of the army.

Not till the news reached Cambridge of this second landing at Charlestown was Ward relieved from the apprehension that the main body of the British would interpose themselves between Charlestown and Cambridge. Persuaded of the security of the camp, and roused by the earnest entreaties of Devens of Charlestown, himself a member of the committee