The

American Historical Review

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THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL

HERE is in Carlyle's Life of Frederick the Great an account of a curious conversation which took place in December, 1745, between Frederick and D'Arget, the secretary of Valori, the French ambassador at Berlin. It was at the close of the Second Silesian War, from which Frederick, then only thirty-three years. of age, had emerged victorious, thenceforth to be till he died the leading figure in European political action. He was just entering on the eleven years of more or less broken peace which preceded the Seven Years' War. D'Arget, at the instance of Valori, had suggested some grand political combinations in which Frederick. was to figure as the "Pacificator of Europe." The King listened. to him, and then replied: "It is too dangerous a part for playing. A reverse brings me to the verge of ruin: I know too well the mood I was in last time I left Berlin ever to expose myself to it again! If luck had been against me there, I saw myself a monarch without a throne; . . . A bad game that; . . . I am not in alarm about the Austrians. . . . They dread my army; the luck that I have. . . . I would not henceforth attack a cat except to defend myself." And so, says Carlyle, Frederick "seems to have little pride in his Five Victories'; or hides it well... and at times acknowledges, in a fine sincere way, the omnipotence of Luck in matters of War."1

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On the 14th of October, 1895, the centenary of the death of Colonel William Prescott, who commanded in the redoubt at Bunker Hill, was commemorated at Boston, and Dr. William Everett then delivered an address marked by a high order of eloquence and much reflection. A month later, on the 13th of November, there was unveiled at Hartford, Conn., a bronze statue 1 Carlyle, Frederick II., Book XVI., chap. i.

of Colonel Thomas Knowlton, of Ashford, the gallant officer who commanded the Connecticut troops which covered Prescott's left, and whose death a year later at Harlem Heights was not the least of the grievous losses sustained by the American army in the disastrous New York campaign of 1776. These events, and the addresses they called forth, revived the memory of two of the most interesting and important military operations in the struggle for American Independence, in both of which, also, "the omnipotence of, Luck in matters of War" made itself felt in a way not to be overlooked.

And first of Bunker Hill. The affair of the 17th of June, 1775, on the peninsula of Charlestown, opposite Boston, affords, indeed, one of the most singular examples on record of what might be called the "balancing of blunders" between opposing sides, and of the accidental inuring of all those blunders to the advantage of one side. So far as the American, or what we call the patriot cause, was concerned, the operation ought to have resulted in irretrievable disaster, for on no correct military principle could it be defended; and yet, owing to the superior capacity for blundering of the British commanders, the movement was in its actual results a brilliant success; and, indeed, could hardly have been made more so had the Americans controlled for that occasion the movements of both sides, and so issued orders to their opponents. Looking over the accounts of that battle and examining the ground upon which it was fought, it is difficult to understand how the Americans could knowingly have put themselves in such an untenable position; much more how the British should so utterly have failed to take advantage of the mistakes of their inexperienced antagonists.

In 1775 Charlestown, including Breed's Hill, was a peninsula of limited size and hilly formation, connected with the mainland by a single narrow causeway, which was, at times of sufficiently high tide, itself overflowed. When, therefore, on the night of the 16th-17th of June, Colonel Prescott led his force across the causeway, and established it upon Breed's Hill, he put himself and those who followed him in a trap where, with an enemy having complete control of the sea, and so commanding his rear and both flanks, it was merely necessary to snap the door and hold him, utterly powerless either to escape or to resist. He had literally thrust his head into the Lion's mouth.

Consequently, when the guns of their ships woke up the British officers in Boston on the morning of the 17th of June, had there been any, even a moderate, degree of military capacity in their

commander, he would have ejaculated his fervent thanks to Heaven that his enemy had thus delivered himself into his hands; and proceeded incontinently to "bag" him. To do this, it was only necessary for him to move a sufficient detachment round by water to the causeway connecting Charlestown with the mainland, seize it securely under cover of the fire of his ships and floating batteries, there establish himself, and quietly wait a few hours for the enemy to come down to surrender, or come out to be killed. To bring this result about he might not have been compelled to fire a single gun; for his enemy had not even placed himself upon the summit of Bunker Hill, which overlooked and commanded Charlestown Neck, but had absolutely moved forward to the lower summit of Breed's Hill, between Bunker Hill and Boston, from which point, with a powerful and well-equipped enemy in undisputed control of the water, he would have been unable to escape and powerless to annoy. His position would have been much that of a rat when the door of a trap is securely sprung behind it. The only alternative to an ignominious surrender would have been a general engagement on open ground; for, with his line of communication cut off, unable to advance, unable to retreat, and unable even to strike or worry his adversary, between whom and himself he had interposed Bunker Hill, the only course open to Prescott would have been the hurried abandonment of his redoubt; and a scramble to get possession of the summit of Bunker Hill. Had he succeeded in doing that, the patriot army would still have been hopelessly cut in two, and mere starvation would within twentyfour hours have compelled the Americans to choose between surrender and an almost hopeless aggressive movement. In case of a general engagement, the patriots, a mere mob, must attack a wellarmed and disciplined opponent, on ground of his own selection and protected by the guns of a fleet. Such an engagement, under the circumstances then existing, could, in all human probability, have had but one result. The patriot forces must have been routed and dispersed; for, hardly more than a partially armed militia muster, they were without organization or discipline, only inadequately supplied with weapons, artillery, or munitions, and, except on Breed's Hill, unprotected even by field-works.

The untenable position into which the patriots had got themselves, and the course to pursue in dealing with them, were, from a military point of view, so obvious that, in the council of war that morning held in Boston, the proper military movement was at once urged, it is said, by a majority of the British officers with Clinton at their head. Instead of following it, a sufficient force of

British was sent across to Charlestown, landed directly in the face of their enemy, and proceeded to take the American intrenchments. by assault; finally, after great loss, doing so, and absolutely driving the rat out of the trap, of which the British commander had left the door wide open.1 A more singular exhibition of apparently unconscious temerity on one side, and professional military incapacity on the other, it would be difficult to imagine.

Under these circumstances, it becomes somewhat curious to consider the actuating causes of the operations on that day. Who was responsible for what occurred?

It is sometimes asserted that, so far as the Americans were concerned, their object was to force the fight with a view to firing the colonial heart, and that the result entirely justified the calculation. This may be true. Nevertheless, on the other side, it is apparent that, unless the American commanders calculated with absolute certainty upon the utter incapacity of their opponents, by the precise move then made they placed the cause which they had at heart in most imminent jeopardy, and came dangerously near quenching the so-called fire in the colonial heart in a sickening drench of irretrievable disaster; for if, instead of attacking the American line in front exactly at the point where it was prepared for attack and ready to resist, the British had operated by sea and land in their rear, it is difficult to see what could have saved the patriot cause from a complete collapse. If Colonel Prescott and his detachment had been obliged to surrender, and on the evening of June 17 had been ignominiously marched prisoners into Boston,

1 As a matter of criticism from a military point of view, the facts and conclusions here set forth are so obvious that they must suggest themselves to any one on an examination of the maps, and much more if familiar with the ground. Yet in the extensive literature relating to Bunker Hill fight only here and there are passing references to be found. The subject is mentioned in an incidental sort of way, without apparent appreciation of the possible consequences involved, or the reflection implied upon those on either side responsible. Yet as long ago as August, 1789, Jeremy Belknap wrote: "I have lately been on the ground and surveyed it with my own eye, and I think it was a most hazardous and imprudent affair on both sides. Our people were extremely rash in taking so advanced a post without securing a retreat; and the British were equally rash in attacking them only in front, when they could so easily have taken them in the rear.' (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Series V., Vol. III., p. 159.) Gordon in his history (Vol. II., p. 51) dwells upon it, using the correct phrase in the assertion that the British commander "might have entrapped the provincials by landing on the narrowest part of Charlestown Neck, under the fire of the floating batteries and ships of war." But, of the modern writers, Frothingham scarcely alludes to the subject in his text; while Devens, himself a soldier of experience, only refers to it incidentally and in a passing way (Centennial Anniversary, p. 87), and Carrington's criticism (Battles of the American Revolution, p. 113) is of the most meagre possible description. Bancroft devotes to it three lines. Fiske (The American Revolution, Vol. I., p. 138) states the case clearly and correctly.

it would only have remained for Gage, by a vigorous movement next day from Charlestown in the direction of Cambridge, only two miles away, to have dispersed the now demoralized patriot army and made any further organized armed resistance practically impossible. Even numerically the forces were very nearly equal. Beside the ships of war, General Gage could muster 8000 effectives operating on interior lines; while, with a force nominally 16,000 strong, General Ward could probably never have put 10,000 men in action. A general engagement was the one result the British commander ought on every consideration to have sought to bring about; while the American officers knew perfectly well that for a general engagement they were prepared in no single respect. Yet the occupation of Bunker Hill by the patriot forces meant, if met by the British with any degree of military skill, an immediate general engagement. It is quite out of the question to suppose that those who assumed to guide the patriot operations could have measured this risk, and then knowingly taken it. There are limits to any amount of rashness, except that of ignorance.

While the course which should have been pursued by the British commander was apparent, the theory on which the patriots acted is, thus, more difficult to explain. The movement on the night of June 16 had been decided upon at a council of civilians and military officers held that day at Cambridge. More than a month before, a joint committee of the council of war and the committee of safety had, after careful consideration of the ground, recommended the construction of a strong redoubt on Bunker Hill. At the same time, however, provision was to be made for apparently a simultaneous occupation of Winter, Prospect, and Plowed Hills on the other, or land, side of Charlestown Neck. This plan of operations is intelligible. If, at the same time that Bunker Hill was occupied, Prospect, Winter, and Plowed Hills also had been occupied, the patriot army would have commanded Charlestown Neck, and, by preventing a landing there and driving away the floating batteries, could have kept communication open between their army and the advanced and isolated force in occupation of the heights on the Charlestown peninsula. To do this successfully implied, it is true, the control of a body of artillery and munitions far in excess of what the provincial force had; but still, from a military point of view, the plan was well conceived, and, if successfully carried out, would have compelled an immediate evacuation of Boston by the British.

But, had this line of operation been pursued, it would have been quite needless to occupy Breed's Hill at the outset; seeing