USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, Vol. III > Part 14
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2 [Gage was afterward blamed for not putting his gun-boats on the Mystic also. - ED.]
3 [The defence on Copp's Hill, at the time of the battle, was an earthwork made in part of barrels filled with sand, and mounted six heavy guns and howitzers. - ED.]
4 [Dr. John C. Warren owns a small oil-painting which is sup- posed to represent the burning of the town. An officer is direct- ing an incendiary. Women are flying with affright. The story usually goes that some men landed from the war-ships to assist in starting the conflagration. The painting is thought to resemble Trumbull's style. Dr. II. J. Bigelow found it many years ago, labelled as a Trumbull and called " The Burning of Charlestown," in a dealer's shop in Boston, and gave it to Dr. J. Mason War- ren. - ED.]
5 But never got them. The master of ordnance was "making love to the school-master's daughter." The guns were served with grape.
ON THE FIELD.'
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THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
the burning town, moved to the attack a second time. The result in both attacks was the same as before. Colonel Prescott thought it even more destructive than at first. The officers remonstrated; even goaded the men with their swords. The dead in some cases lay within a few yards of the works. Putnam said: " I never saw such carnage." Howe, who had pro- mised his men to march at their head, held his promise. He bore a charmed life. Three times he was left alone. In the several attacks made by his column, one company of the Fifty-second lost every man as killed or wounded. The English broke so completely that the fugitives filled the boats. For a considerable time no further attack was made. Many of the American officers thought the day was their own; but the regiments ordered from Cambridge, to reinforce them, did not arrive. After the battle several officers were tried for cowardice on account of their slowness in bringing relief at this time. Howe sent for reinforcements. Four hundred marines, under Small, were sent to him; and with them came General Clinton. But for this help he would have lost the battle.1
Howe now, for the first time, bade his men lay aside their knapsacks, move in columns, and trust to the bayonets. More important was the discovery which he had made, with a soldier's eye, that the north end of the breastwork was uncovered, and his resolution to advance his field-pieces far enough to rake it. He made this his object now, only demonstrating against the terrible fence on the American left, without approaching it ; and, with these skilful dispositions, moved forward on both attacks for the third time. They were wholly successful. Howe himself led the attack on the breastwork. Prescott recognized him, and was soldier enough to know it would succeed; but he held and encouraged his men. Few of them had three rounds of powder left, but he instructed them to hold their fire till the British were within twenty yards. This they did, and the enemy faltered under the volley,2 but reached the ramparts and were sheltered by them. Pitcairn, commanding the marines, was here mortally wounded. As, man by man, the Englishmen struggled over the redoubt,3 Howe's artillery swept the breastwork which ran from it. His
1 [Dr. John Jeffries crossed with the rein- The Regulars heard it, turned about, charged forcements of four hundred men that Gage sent
John Jeffries.
over. See N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Jan. [861, p. 15 .- ED.]
2 [General Greene, writing from the Roxbury Camp the next day (June 18), speaks of the re- pulse the third time, and adds a bit of camp gossip: " It is thought they would have gone off, but some of the Provincials imprudently called out to their officers that their powder was gone.
their bayonets, and forced the entrenchments." - ED.]
8 Lord Rawdon, who was one of them, and was afterward popularly and probably incorrectly said to have carried the colors, was afterward Earl of Moira, governor of India from 1812 10 1818, and a favorite of George IV.
[The reader is referred to the frontispiece for what is considered a contemporary view of the battle, as seen from Beacon Hill. The original sketch is in the possession of Dr. Tho- mas Addis Emmet, of New York, and was first brought to the attention of the public in Harper's Monthly, in 1875.
The designer for the cut followed a careful
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
leading companies soon passed round its northern end. Prescott, to avoid being shut in, gave the order to retreat. Most of his men had fired every round of powder.
The retreating men passed between two successful English columns, which hardly dared fire, however, as their own friends were mingled with their enemies. Yet Warren was killed at this jtincture, Gridley wounded, as was Bridge, also, for the second time.
The rail-fence, where Stark commanded, had not been attacked seri- ously. The men here held their ground, and covered the retreat of their
tracing of it which was kindly lent by Mr. Benson J. Lossing.
The spectator is supposed to be on Beacon Hill, one hundred and thirty-eight feet above the sea, and the higher hill, Bunker Hill, beyond which the white smoke rises, is one hundred and ten feet high, and a little less than a mile and a half distant. Breed's Hill, where the re- doubt is, is sixty-two feet above the sea. The two summits were one hundred and thirty rods apart.
Frothingham, Siege of Boston, p. 121, gives a profile view of the Charlestown peninsula at this time, copied from a contemporary drawing. It is reproduced by Lossing in his Field-Book, and in Bryant and Gay's United States, iii. 377. The Pennsylvania Magazine, September, 1775, has a folding "very elegant engraving of the late battle at Charlestown, June 17, 1775," as the title-page describes it. Barnard's New Complete and Au- thentic History of England has a "view of the attack on Bunker's Hill, with the burning of
AFTER THE BATTLE.
The annexed cut is from the same source. The redoubt is seen on the top of the hill ; and of the broken fences a British account says : " These posts and rails were too strong for the columns to push down, and the march was so retarded by getting over them, that the next morning they were found studded with bullets, not a hand's breadth from each other."
These sketches were taken for Lord Rawdon, then on Gage's staff, and remained in the pos- session of his descendants till the dispersion of the late Marquis of Hastings's library, when they were bought by Dr. Emmet.
Charlestown, June 17, 1775;" drawn by Mr. Millar ; engraved by Lodge (11} × 8 inches). There is a view of the hill-top, with the monu- ment erected on Bunker Hill by the Freemasons to the memory of Warren in 1794, in the Analectic Magazine, March, 1818; and it is reproduced in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1875, p. 65. A view of the monument only is given in Snow's History of Boston, p 309; and one is also given in the frontispiece of the present volume. Other carly views of the battle are described in Winsor's Readers' Handbook of the American Revolution, P. 58 .- ED.]
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THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
less successful comrades. They were withdrawn in regular order, after the fugitives from the redoubt passed them. At the summit of Bunker Hill, l'utnam attempted to rally the army behind the works he had been building. He stood by a cannon till the bayonets were almost upon him; but the retreat could not be checked, and the English troops in triumph took possession of the hill about five o'clock in the afternoon.
John Stark
Clinton advised Howe to push on to Cambridge. Ward, on his part, dreaded such an attack; but Howe satis- fied himself with turning two field-pieces on the retiring enemy.
Prescott was mad with disappointment. He reported to Ward, and told him that with three fresh regiments, with bayonets and powder, he would take the hill again; but Ward was only too well pleased if he were left without attack.1 Ward knew, what he would not tell to any man even to save his reputation, that he had in store that day only sixty-nine hundred pounds of powder, - not half a pound for every soldier in his command.
It was hardly an hour and a half between the first attack and the victo- rious capture of the summit of Bunker Hill. In that period the attacking force had lost two hundred and twenty-four killed, and eight hundred and thirty wounded. If, as Gage said, he had about two thousand men in the attack, this would have been a loss of more than one half the force ; but in fact his full force was somewhat larger than this. Of the killed and wounded, one hundred and fifty-seven were officers. The American loss was one hundred and fifty killed, two hundred and seventy wounded, and thirty taken prisoners.2
The impression then made on Howe and Clinton governed them through the war. They never again led troops against intrenched men. It will be found thus that this first battle, in the terrible lesson it taught, was really the battle decisive of the seven years which followed.3 We now know that the English officers thought their privates misbehaved. It is certain that in many instances they ran, - even to their boats. But when one reads that every man was killed or wounded in one company, he does not ask many questions as to the courage of the survivors. Burgoyne says in a private letter to Lord Rochford : " All the wounds of the officers were not received
1 [The apprehension that the result of the battle would instigate Gage to send a force to disperse the Provincial Congress, is shown by an order passed at Watertown, June 18, direct- ing the secretary to look after the records and papers of that body, and to have a horse ready "for that purpose in any emergency." (Massa- chusetts Archives, cxxxviii. p. 159.) " 11 is ex- pected they will come out over the Neck to-night, and a dreadful battle must ensue."- Abigail Adams to John Adams, June 18, 1775. - En.]
2 [" Our prisoners were brought over to the Long Wharf, and there lay all night, without any VOL. III -12.
care of their wounds, or any resting place but the pavements, until the next day, when they ex- changed it for the jail, since which we hear they are civilly treated."- Abigail Adams to John Adams, July 5, 1775. The Congress at Water- town, June 27, 1775, requested General Thomas "to supply our wounded friends in Boston, pris- oners, with fresh meat, in case he can convey it to them and to them only."- Massachusetts Archives, cxxxviii. p. 174 .- ED.]
3 [Creasy, Decisive Battles of the World, gives Saratoga that pre-eminence; but Washington at once recognized the importance of Bunker Hill.
.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
from the enemy ; " but he begs that this shall not pass, even in a whisper, to any but the king.
All that night and all the next day, carts, wagons, and chaises, bearing wounded men, were passing from the wharves to hospitals, barracks, and lodging-houses. The tradition of the next generation told ghastly stories of blood trickling on the pavement from the wagons which bore wounded men.
A hot summer followed upon this battle-day, which was the hottest of all. Washington, on July 3, beneath the now historic elm, took the command of the American army, and made his headquarters for a few days in the house belonging to the president of the college ; he then moved them to the famous mansion now the home of Longfellow. The blockade by land became closer than ever. Privateers audaciously cut off vessels approaching with stores.1 While few of those events passed which work their way into general history, or even light up historical novels, the diaries and letters of the time show that there was not a week without its subject for excitement or, at least, conversation.2
On July 12, Major Greaton, of Roxbury, burned the hay which the English had made on Long Island. On the twentieth, Major Vose of Heath's regiment dismantled and burned the light-house, and made a raid on Point Shirley. Another party, under Major Tupper, afterward drove off the force which tried to rebuild it.3 On July 11, Lee, in Cambridge, began a correspondence with Burgoyne; the first in a series of flirtations with old loves, which ripened into treason. Desertions from Gage's army, which on October 10 became Howe's, were not frequent. Howe says that they lost
1 [Washington early commissioned (October, 1775) John Manly as captain, who sailing from Marblehead in the schooner "Lee," in No- vember, 1775, captured military stores, which soon were in the Cambridge Camp. Washing- ton had not long before written to Congress that the "fortunate capture of an ordnance ship would give new life to the camp." Manly died in 1793, in his house at the North End. There
Fohn Manley
is a portrait of him in Preble's History of the Flag. - ED.] The earliest commission to priva- teers is dated September 2.
2 " They carry off cattle under the guns of the fleet." - Earl Percy to his father.
3 [The light-house, at this time standing at the harbor's entrance, was the original structure of 1716, modified somewhat by repairs in 1757, when it had been injured by fire. It became, early in the siege, an object of concern for both sides ; and more than one expedition, condueted
by the Provincials, destroyed the destructible parts of it. Washington, in general orders, Aug. 1, 1775, thanked Major Tupper and his men "for gallant and soldier-like behavior in possessing themselves of the enemy's posts at the light-house."
Details of various exploits in the harbor will be found in Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 110; Evacuation Memorial, p 142; Pattee's History of Braintree and Quincy. In the Massachu- setts Archives, cxxxviii., are various state- ments of depredations of the Regulars upon stock and other property upon the islands. Such a schedule of property thus lost, by Joshua Henshaw of Boston, is at p. 415 of
that volume. Major John Phillips, who was commander of the Castle from 1759, had surrendered the charge on Hutchinson's order, which in the summer of 1770 took it from the care of the Province and placed it in the keep- ing of the troops. The same officer was later made fort-major of the fortress. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., February, 1872, p. 207. After the evacuation, Sept. 1, 1776, Lieut .- Colonel Revere was directed by General Heath to take command of Castle Island. N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., July, 1876. - ED.]
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THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
but thirty-three men by desertion through the seven months after April 19. Of every one of these desertions the American accounts .give some detail. Each deserter had his romance with which to gild his reception. One of them, in July, said that Gage had but nine hundred men well enough to be under arms.1
A private note from Putnam to Moncrieffe, an old fellow-soldier, accom- panies a present of fresh meat, which Moncrieffe loyally sent to the hos- pitals. Before August was over, Gage was glad to renew the treaty for sending out the poor civilians from Boston; and he and Howe sent out several parties after this time. It will be remembered, however, that Boston was still a town of gardens, and that the people were not unused to pro- viding their own summer vegetables from their own land. Gage made the admiral send marauding expeditions up and down the coast for sheep and other provisions ; but even a raid of a thousand sheep went but little way in feeding twenty thousand hungry people.2
Dr. Andrew Eliot, who remained in town, in a letter of July 31, thanks his parishioner, Daniel Parker, for two quarters of fresh mutton which he had sent from Salem. He distributed broth from it to thirty or forty sick people. The writer of these lines, at this late day, expresses the thanks of his great-great-grandmother for her share. At an auction sale of oxen and sheep, picked up on the coast by the marauding navy, cattle brought from fifteen to thirty-four pounds, and sheep thirty shillings and upwards. To the Patriots these prices seemed enormous. As early as July the English had begun to kill their milch cows, and the beef was sold at forty or fifty cents the pound. In the winter a camp-follower named Winifred McOwen re- ceived one hundred lashes for killing the town bull and selling the beef.3
So soon as the Government received Gage's account of Bunker Hill he . was recalled. It was under the pretence that he was to be sent back in the next spring; but really he was disgraced, and he was never appointed to command again.4 Howe took the command. He and Gage had both recommended that Boston should be abandoned and New York taken in- stead. Lord Dartmouth, for the Government, expressed the same idea as
1 [We have no estimate of the desertions from the American camp, but the British orderly- book notes their occurrence. This from Adju- tant Waller's : -
"8 July, 1775. The advanced sentries not to suffer those of the rebels during the night to come forward from their day posts ; if they see them advance, they must call and order them to return to their former station, which if they disobey, the seatries are immediately to inform the corporal of the guard of their having come forward ; but they are not to fire unless they see occasion in their own defence, or to alarm the guard. The advanced guards and sentries are to fire on any of the rebels they perceive en- deavoring to prevent deserters coming in."
Lists of deserters from Massachusetts regi- ments for the later period, 1777-So, are in Mass. Revolutionary Rolls, ix. But these men did not, like the English, pass over to the enemy. - ED.]
? " And what have you got, by all your designing,
But a town, without dinner, to sit down and dine in ? " - Ballad of the Time.
3 [Forage became scarce by midsummer in 1775. We find in Waller's orderly-book : -
" 19 July, 1775. The officers of the army are desired to send their horses to grass at Charlestown, as they cannot at present be supplied with forage."
Major Donkin, in his Military Collections, p. 113, says : " Cæsar, in the African war, fed his cavalry with sea-wrack, or jingle, washed well in fresh water. This might have been a good sub- stitute for hay at Boston, which was very scarce in 1775."-ED.]
4 [Gage sailed for England, Oct. 10, 1775. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1876, p. 316. General W.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
early as September. When Howe was afterward asked why he did not then abandon Boston, he said he had no transports; but he had as many in Octo- ber as he had in the next March, when the evacuation came.1
A census, taken by Gage's order in July, showed a civilian population of 6,573. The army was then 13,500 strong. The privates were a wretched set. The sternest discipline did not keep them in order. Irish in large numbers, Scotch, German, and English were cooped up together. Thefts, robberies, and nameless insults were daily perpetrated. As early as the sixth of June, Waller's orderly-book contains this order: "The commanding offi- cer [Percy] observes such profligacy and dissipation and want of subordi- nation, that he orders a roll to be called four times a day." In a week, - " he is sorry to take notice that the tents and camp furniture are in the most shameful and filthy condition." Drunkenness and licentiousness were not checked by such punishments as eight hundred and a thousand lashes, inflicted by order of courts-martial. Five hundred lashes were very frequent. Indeed, the cat was in use daily. Winifred McOwen, the woman spoken of above as killing the bull, was sentenced to receive her hundred lashes on the bare back, in the most public places of the town.
The civilian population was steadily decreasing by death, and the occa- sional parties sent out by the English generals.2 On September 27 news came of a change of the admiral, and of more reinforcements. In October, so anxious was the dread of attack, that for several nights the army was held in readiness to resist it. As winter came on, many houses before exempted were seized for barracks. As late as November 9, some of the regiments were under canvas. On November 19 a ship arrived with fowls, sheep, etc., probably the only arrival of the large stores of this kind shipped from England. Late in November, Manly, in an American privateer, took the "Nancy," an ordnance ship, with large stores of ammunition. Howe wrote home that now the rebels had the means to burn the town he was afraid they would do so, and the contemporary correspondence is full of propo- sals " to smoke out the pirates."
The " pirates " made themselves as comfortable as they could. Some of the old historical buildings were burned for firewood, - Winthrop's house, alas ! among them, and no one, in a hundred and fifty years, had made a picture of it. Some of the grenadiers were quartered in the West Church. Two regiments of infantry were in Brattlc Street meeting-house,3 and in
H. Sumner married a niece of Gage, and came into possession of an original portrait of him, which he had engraved for his History of East Boston, and bequeathed to the State. It is now in the State Library. - ED.]
I [Howe kept up an occasional cannonading ; but he made no threatening movement for a month, till, November 9, he sent a raiding party to Lechmere point to steal cattle, which failed of its purpose. Moore's Diary of the American Revolution, i. 166 .- ED.]
2 [ Howe issued a proclamation, October 28,
1775, forbidding specie, beyond five pounds, to be carried out of Boston by any one departing. -ED.]
3 [It is but a few years since this old land- mark disappeared, which
" Wore on its bosom, as a bride might do,
The iron breastpin which the rebels threw,"
as Holmes phrases it. The ball, thrown from the Cambridge shore, hit the front and fell to the pavement, and was subsequently picked up and lodged in the place where it struck. A model
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THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
the sugar-house adjoining it. "The pillars saved" the church from being a riding school, as the record says with reference to the " Pillar of fire." The Old South meeting-house was used for a riding school by the Seven- teenth Dragoons. The officers still had their horses, and they got up sleighing parties within the narrow limits of the town, as winter closed in.1 The king's birthday was celebrated with enthusiasm. Even Patriots still pretended that it was the ministry they were fighting, and drank the health of the king, who was really their most bigoted enemy. The Patriot gentle- men made a point of maintaining the most scdulous outward courtesy to the officers of their king. Faneuil Hall was at first used as a storehouse for furniture and other property; but it was cleaned out for a theatre when General Burgoyne, and his friends among the officers, needed it for that purpose. In September they performed Zara, a tragedy translated from Voltaire, and not yet wholly forgotten, thanks to Miss Edgeworth's Helen. Burgoyne wrote the prologue and epilogue. The female parts were taken by Boston young ladies, whose names have not come down to us. The play was repeated several times, the profits being devoted to the widows and children of the soldiers. Burgoyne has the credit of writing another play, The Blockade of Boston, which was performed after he had sailed for home. It was on January 8, when this play was in full progress, and an actor ridiculing General Washington was on the stage, that a sergeant rushed in, crying: "The Yankees are attacking the works on Bunker Hill." This seemed a part of the play, till the highest officer present, an aide-de-camp,2 ordered, "Officers to their posts!" The play was at an end. Major Knowl- ton, who had commanded at the rail-fence on the day of the battle, had renewed his visit to Bunker Hill, burned a bakehouse and some other buildings, and carried off several prisoners.3 The Patriot ladies, who had refused to go to the play, made merry over the misadventures of their less squeamish sisters, who had to come home, frightencd, without their gallant escorts.
General Sullivan had attempted this raid the week before, but had been disappointed because the ice was not strong enough to bear his men. The mildness of the winter caused constant annoyance to Washington, who was now provided with ammunition, and was eager to cross the ice on the Back Bay and attack the town. He had insulted it by floating batteries once or twice, but with no serious attack.4 Why Howe, fairly crowded as he was, had never renewed his own plan for taking Dorchester Heights, does not appcar; but in February, 1776, he writes to Lord Dartmouth : 5 -
of the old meeting-house, showing the ball in place, is now in the gallery of the Historical So- ciety .- ED.]
1 Hon. J. T. Austin's MS. notes.
2 Not General Howe, as an exaggerated tra- dition has it.
8 [See contemporary accounts given in Moore's Diary of the American Revolution, i. 193, 199-ED.]
4 [Abigail Adams writes, Oct. 21, 1775: " A floating battery of ours went out two nights ago, and moved near the town, and then discharged their guns. Some of the balls went into the Workhouse ; some through the tents in the Com- mon; and one through the sign of the Lamb Tavern." - ED.]
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