Bunker Hill, Battle of

Bunker Hill, Battle of (1775).Two months after the Revolutionary War began, on the night of 16–17 June 1775, about 1,200 Massachusetts soldiers set out to fortify Bunker Hill on the Charlestown peninsula, across the Charles River from Boston; by fortifying a position overlooking Boston, they intended to force the British to evacuate the town. In the dark, they mistakenly erected a redoubt on Breed's Hill, closer to Boston than planned. Later in the day, about 2,000 men from New Hampshire and Connecticut reinforced them. Shocked by this display of audacity, Maj. Gen. Thomas Gage, the British commander in Boston, sent Maj. Gen. Sir William Howe with 1,500 men (later reinforced to 2,500) to oust the Rebels. Howe planned to feign an attack on the redoubt while sending a strong force around its northeast flank on the low land along the Mystic River.

Howe underestimated the military capacity of his opponent. Thanks to the leadership of French and Indian War veterans, the Americans blunted his plan. John Stark and his New Hampshire men destroyed the outflanking force on the Mystic River beach, forcing Howe to convert the feint in front of the redoubt into a full attack. Three times he led his troops up the slope, and twice from behind their earthwork William Prescott's soldiers forced the British to retreat. With the Americans running out of ammunition, the third British attack overran the redoubt and forced the Rebels off the peninsula.

Victory cost the British over 1000 casualties, 40 percent, a loss, Gage wrote, “greater than we can bear.” The New Englanders suffered over 400 casualties, heaviest among the defenders of the redoubt. Their skill and tenacity reassured colonists everywhere that the Revolution would not be strangled in its cradle.

Bibliography

Allen French , The First Year of the American Revolution, 1934.
Thomas J. Fleming , Now We Are Enemies, 1960.
Richard M. Ketchum , The Battle for Bunker Hill, 1962.

Harold E. Selesky