CHAPTER portant battle had been already fought. Largely re-enXXXI. forced by the arrival of additional troops, under Generals. 1775. Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton, distinguished and accom

plished officers, the British army in Boston had been increased to twenty regular regiments, amounting to upward of ten thousand men. Thus strengthened, Gage had June 12. issued a proclamation of martial law, offering pardon, however, to all who would forthwith return to their allegiance, John Hancock and Samuel Adams excepted, whose guilt was too flagitious to be overlooked. The New England army before Boston, sixteen thousand strong, consisted of thirty-six regiments, twenty-seven from Massachusetts, and three from each of the other colonies. John Whitcombe, who had led a regiment in the French war, and Dr. Joseph Warren, president of the Congress and chairman of the Committee of Safety, June 15. had been appointed first and second major generals of the Massachusetts forces.

To make the blockade of Boston more complete, by order of the Committee of Safety, Colonel Prescott, with about a thousand men, including a company of artilJune 16. lery with two field pieces, marched at nightfall to take possession of Bunker Hill, a considerable eminence just within the peninsula of Charlestown, and commanding the great northern road from Boston. By some mistake, Prescott passed Bunker Hill and advanced to Breed's Hill, at the southern end of the peninsula, and much June 17. nearer Boston. Before morning the troops had thrown up a considerable redoubt, greatly to the surprise of the British, who opened immediately a fire upon them from the ships in the harbor and the batteries in Boston. Under the direction of Gridley and of Knox, late commander of a Boston artillery militia company, the provincials labored on undisturbed by the fire. By noon they had

Such

XXXI.

thrown up a breast work extending from the redoubt, CHAPTER down the northern slope of the hill, toward the water. Cannon mounted in the redoubt would command the 1775. harbor, and might make Boston itself untenable. To avert this threatened danger, three thousand men, picked corps of the British army, led by Generals Howe and Pigot, embarked in boats from the wharves in Boston, June 17. and landed at the eastern foot of Breed's Hill. was the want of order and system in the provincial camp, and so little was the apprehension of immediate attack, that the same troops, who had been working all night, still occupied the intrenchments. General Putnam was on the field, but he appears to have had no troops and no command. The same was the case with General Warren, whom the rumor of attack had drawn from Cambridge. Two New Hampshire regiments, under Stark, arrived on the ground just before the action began, and took up a position on the left of the unfinished breastwork, but some two hundred yards in the rear, under an imperfect cover, made by pulling up the rail fences, placing them in parallel lines a few feet apart, and filling the intervening space with the new-mown hay which lay scattered on the hill. Other troops had been ordered to Charlestown; but, owing to some misapprehension, they did not arrive in season to take part in the battle. The supply of ammunition was very

About three in the afternoon of a brilliant summer's day, the British troops advanced toward the redoubt, supported by a redoubled fire from the ships and the batteries. The neighboring hills, and the roofs and steeples of Boston, were crowded with anxious spectators. The assailants pressed forward till within a hundred yards of the provincials, when they were suddenly check

CHAPTER ed by quick and heavy volleys from the redoubt and XXXI. breastwork, delivered with the unerring aim of marks1775. men. Before a fire so deadly the regulars wavered,

broke, and fell back in disorder to the landing place.
Soon, however, they were rallied by their officers, and
again brought up to the charge. During the first at-
tack some scattering shots had come from the houses
on the British left. Infuriated by repulse, Gage gave
orders for setting the village of Charlestown on fire.
The wooden buildings burned rapidly, and the tall spire
of the meeting-house was soon wrapped in flames.
While this conflagration added new horrors to the scene,
the British line again moved forward. Again the same
fatal fire drove them back in confusion to the landing
place. General Clinton passed over from Boston to give
his assistance. The troops, by great efforts on the part
of the officers, were rallied and led a third time up the
hill, and now with better success. The powder of the
provincials began to fail, and no supply was at hand.
Some British artillery pushed into the gap between the
breastwork and the rail fence, planted their pieces, and
swept the breastwork from end to end.
The grena-

diers assailed the redoubt on three sides at once, and
carried it at the point of the bayonet. Pending the
main attack, the British light infantry advanced upon
Stark's troops behind the rail fence, but were warmly
received, and kept at bay till the redoubt was carried;
after which the whole body of the provincials made good
their retreat over Charlestown Neck, under an incessant
fire from the floating batteries, which did, however, but
little mischief.

The provincials might consider such a defeat as little less than victory. Out of three thousand British troops engaged, over one thousand were killed or wounded—a

XXXI.

loss such as few battles show. The ministry were so CHAPTER little satisfied with the accounts sent them of this trans. action, that Gage was superseded in command. The 1775. provincial loss was four hundred and fifty; but among the slain was General Warren. Ardent, sincere, disinterested, and indefatigable, his death was deeply deplored. He left an infant family, with small means of support; for whom, by the zeal and perseverance of Arnold, the Continental Congress was at last pushed to make some provision. The battle of Bunker Hill figures in history as having tested the ability of the provincials to meet a British army in the field. That, however, was a point on which the provincials themselves never had any doubts, and the battle, at the moment, was less thought of than now. Nor were the men engaged in it all heroes. The conduct of several officers on that day was investigated by court martial, and one, at least, was cashiered for cowardice.

Heath was appointed major general in Warren's place, June 20. and a similar commission was given to Frye, both colonels in the Massachusetts army, and Frye commander-inchief of the Massachusetts forces at the unfortunate capture of Fort William Henry. But these commissions, and the other previous ones, were soon superseded by the new continental appointments. About a fortnight after the battle of Bunker Hill, Washington, attended by sev- July 2 eral ardent young men from the southern provinces, arrived in the camp and assumed the command. He found there excellent materials for an army, but great deficiencies of arms and ammunition, and great defects of discipline and organization. To prevent the British, not greatly inferior in numbers, and perfectly armed, equipped, and disciplined, from penetrating into the country, it was necessary to guard a circuit of eight or nine

CHAPTER miles.

Washington established his head-quarters at XXXI. Cambridge. Ward, in command of the right wing, was 1775, stationed at Roxbury; and Lee, with the left, on Prospect Hill. Joseph Trumbull, a son of the governor of Connecticut, and commissary for the troops of that province, was appointed commissary general of the consolidated army. The post of quarter-master general was given by Washington, under authority from Congress, to Mifflin, who had followed him from Philadelphia as an aid-de-camp. The post of secretary to the commanderin-chief was bestowed on Joseph Reed, another Philadelphian; but, on Reed's return to Philadelphia a few months afterward, Washington selected for that important and confidential duty Robert H. Harrison, a lawyer of Maryland, with whom he had formerly had business relations, and who continued for several years to discharge its responsible duties very much to the general's satisfaction. Edmund Randolph, a nephew of Peyton Randolph, but whose father, the attorney general of Virginia, was a decided Royalist, had accompanied the commander-in-chief to Boston, and acted for a while as aid-de-camp. But he was presently recalled to Virginia by his uncle's sudden death.

The camp was soon joined by some companies of riflemen from Maryland, Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania, enlisted under the orders of Congress. One of the Virginia companies was led by Daniel Morgan, formerly a wagoner, in which capacity he had been wounded at Braddock's defeat. A man of Herculean frame and indomitable energy, his qualities as a partisan soon made him distinguished. Otho H. Williams, lieutenant of one of the Maryland companies, rose ultimately to the rank of brigadier. These new auxiliaries, most of whom were