CHAPTER XIV.

BUNKER HILL.

JUNE 16-17, 1775.

THE army round Boston was "a mixed multitude," as yet "under very little discipline, order, or government." Ward was enjoined to obey the decisions of the committee of safety, whose directions reached him through the council of war. Of the private men, great numbers were able-bodied, active, and unquestionably brave, and there were officers worthy of leading such men. But a vicious system of granting commissions to those who raised companies or regiments had opened the to officers without capacity, and the real strength of the army was inferior to the returns. From an insufficient supply of tents, troops were quartered in the colleges and private houses. There was a want of money, of clothing, of engineers, but, above all, of ammunition. "Confusion and disorder reigned in every department."

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Each colony had its own militia laws, so that there was no uniformity in discipline. Of the soldiers from the other colonies, only the New Hampshire regiments had as yet been placed under the command of Ward. Of the men of Connecticut, a part were with Spencer at Roxbury; several hundred at Cambridge with Putnam, the second brigadier, who was distinguished for bold advice, alertness, and popular favor, and was seen constantly on horseback or on foot, working with his men or encouraging them. He repeatedly but vainly asked leave to advance the lines to Prospect Hill. Yet the army never doubted its superiority to its enemy; and danger and war were becoming attractive.

The British forces gave signs of shame at their confinement. The secretary of state frequently assured the French minister at London that they would take the field, and that the Americans would soon tire of the strife. The king of England, who had counted the days necessary for the voyage of the transports, was "trusting soon to hear that Gage had dispersed the rebels, destroyed their works, opened a communication with the country," and imprisoned the leading patriots of the colony.

The peninsula of Boston, at that time connected with the mainland only by a very low and narrow isthmus, had at its south a promontory then known as Dorchester neck, with three hills commanding the town. At the north lay the peninsula of Charlestown, in length not much exceeding a mile, in width a little more than half a mile, but gradually diminishing toward the causeway, which kept asunder the Mystic and the Charles. Near its north-eastern termination rose the round, smooth acclivity of Bunker Hill, one hundred and ten feet high, commanding both peninsulas. The high land then fell away by a gradual slope for about seven hundred yards, and just north by east of the town of Charlestown it reappeared with an elevation of about seventy-five feet, which bore the name of Breed's Hill. These heights of Dorchester and Charlestown commanded Boston.

About the middle of May a joint committee from the committee of safety and the council of war, after a careful examination, recommended that several eminences within the limits of the town of Charlestown should be occupied, and that a strong redoubt should be raised on Bunker Hill. A breastwork was thrown up across the road near Prospect Hill, and Bunker Hill was to have been fortified as soon as artillery and powder should be supplied; but delay would have rendered even the attempt impossible. Gage, with the three majorgenerals, was determined to extend his lines north and south, over Dorchester and Charlestown. The execution of the plan was fixed for the eighteenth of June.

This design became known in the American camp, and raised a desire to anticipate the movement. Accordingly, on the fifteenth of June, the Massachusetts committee of safety

informed the council of war that, in their opinion, Dorchester Heights should be fortified; and they recommended unanimously to establish a post on Bunker Hill.

In searching for an officer suited to the enterprise, the choice fell on William Prescott of Pepperell, colonel of a regiment from the north-west of Middlesex, who himself was solicitous to be employed in the perilous duty, and on the evening after the vote of the committee of safety, a night and day only in advance of the purpose of Gage, a brigade of one thousand men was placed under his command.

Soon after sunset, the party, composed of three hundred of Prescott's own regiment, detachments from those of Frye and of Bridge, and two hundred men of Connecticut, under the gallant Thomas Knowlton of Ashford, were ordered to parade on Cambridge common. They were a body of husbandmen, not in uniform, bearing for the most part fowling-pieces which had no bayonets, and carrying in horns and pouches their stinted supply of powder and bullets. Langdon, the president of Harvard college, who was one of the chaplains to the army, prayed with them fervently; then, as the late darkness of the midsummer evening closed in, they marched for Charlestown in the face of the proclamation, issued only four days before, by which all persons taken in arms against their sovereign were threatened under martial law with death by the cord as rebels and traitors. Prescott and his party were the first to defy the menace; he was resolved "never to be taken alive."

When, with hushed voices and silent tread, they and the wagons laden with intrenching tools had passed the narrow isthmus, Prescott called around him Richard Gridley, an experienced engineer, and the field officers, to select the spot for their earthworks. The committee of safety had proposed Bunker Hill; but Prescott had "received orders to march to Breed's Hill." He obeyed the orders as he understood them; and with the ready assent of his companions, who were bent on straitening the English to the utmost, it was upon the eminence nearest Boston and best suited to annoy the town and shipping in the harbor that, under the light of the stars, the engineer drew the lines of a redoubt of nearly eight rods square. The bells of Boston had struck twelve before the first sod was

thrown up. Then every man of the thousand plied in his turn the pickaxe and spade, and with such expedition that the parapet soon assumed form and height, and capacity for defence. "We shall keep our ground," thus Prescott related that he silently revolved his position, "if some screen, however slight, can be completed before discovery." The Lively lay in the ferry between Boston and Charlestown, and a little to the eastward were moored the Falcon, sloop-of-war, and the Somerset, a ship of the line; the veteran not only set a watch to patrol the shore, but, bending his ear to every sound, twice repaired to the margin of the water, where he heard the drowsy sentinels from the decks of the men-of-war still cry: "All is well."

The few hours that remained of darkness hurried away, but not till "the line of circumvallation was already closed." As day dawned, the seamen were roused to action; and every one in Boston was startled from slumber by the cannon of the Lively playing upon the redoubt. Citizens of the town, and British officers, and tory refugees, the kindred of the insurgents, crowded to gaze with wonder and surprise at the small fortress of earth freshly thrown up, and "the rebels," who were still plainly seen at their toil. A battery of heavy guns was forthwith mounted on Copp's Hill, which was directly opposite at a distance of but twelve hundred yards, and an incessant shower of shot and bombs was rained upon the works; but Prescott, whom Gridley had forsaken, calmly considered how he could best continue his line of defence.

At the foot of the hill on the north was a slough, beyond which an elevated tongue of land, having few trees, covered chiefly with grass, and intersected by fences, stretched away to the Mystic. Without the aid of an engineer, Prescott himself extended his line from the east side of the redoubt northerly for about twenty rods toward the bottom of the hill; but the men were prevented from completing it "by the intolerable fire of the enemy." Still, the cannonade from the battery and shipping could not dislodge them, though it was a severe trial to raw soldiers, unaccustomed to the noise of artillery. Early in the day a private was killed and buried. To inspire confidence, Prescott mounted the parapet and walked leisurely

backward and forward, examining the works and giving directions. One of his captains, perceiving his motive, imitated his example. From Boston, Gage with his telescope descried the commander of the party. "Will he fight?" asked the general of Willard, Prescott's brother-in-law, late a mandamus councillor, who was at his side. "To the last drop of his blood," answered Willard. As the British generals saw that every hour gave fresh strength to the intrenchments of the Americans, by nine o'clock they deemed it necessary to alter the plan previously agreed upon, and to make the attack immediately on the side that could be soonest reached.

The day was one of the hottest of the season. After their fatigues through the night, the American partisans might all have pleaded their unfitness for action; some left the post, and the field officers, Bridge and Brickett, being indisposed, could render their commander but little service. Yet Prescott was dismayed neither by weariness nor desertion. "Let us never consent to being relieved," said he to his own regiment, and to all who remained; "these are the works of our hands, to us be the honor of defending them." He despatched repeated messengers for re-enforcements and provisions; but at the hour of noon no assistance had appeared. His men had toiled all the night long, had broken their fast only with what they had brought in their knapsacks the evening before, had, under a burning sky, without shade, amid a storm of shot and shells, continued their labor all the morning, and were now preparing for a desperate encounter with a vastly superior force; yet no refreshments were sent them, and during the whole day they received not even a cup of cold water, nor so much as a single gill of powder. The agony of suspense was now the greater, because no more work could be done in the trenches; the tools were piled up in the rear, and the men were waiting, unemployed, till the fighting should begin.

The second messenger from Prescott, on his way to the head-quarters at Cambridge, was met by Putnam, who was hastening to Charlestown. The brigadier seems to have seen that the successful defence of the peninsula required intrenchments on the summit of Bunker Hill. He therefore rode up to the redoubt on Breed's Hill, where he did not appear again