Bunker Hill

On June 17, 1775, colonial forces and British troops clashed near Boston in what became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill, an early episode within the Siege of Boston during the opening phase of the American Revolutionary War. The name comes from Bunker Hill itself, located in Charlestown, Massachusetts, though this rise saw only a marginal role in the fighting. Both sides had originally set their sights on this high ground, yet most of the actual clash unfolded on a neighboring rise that would come to be called Breed's Hill.

Four days earlier, on June 13, colonial commanders surrounding Boston discovered that British forces intended to march out and fortify the vacant hills ringing the city, a move that would hand them command of Boston Harbor. To forestall this, William Prescott led 1,200 colonial soldiers in a quiet nighttime occupation of both Bunker Hill and Breed's Hill. Working through the darkness, they raised a formidable redoubt atop Breed's Hill and extended lesser defensive lines across the Charlestown Peninsula.

Dawn on June 17 revealed the colonial presence to the British, who promptly launched an assault. Their first two charges against the fortified positions were driven back with heavy losses, but a third push finally overran the redoubt. Facing this collapse, the colonists withdrew across Bunker Hill, ceding the peninsula to British control.

Though the British ultimately prevailed, the victory came at a steep price and left them shaken. Their dead and wounded, including a substantial number of officers, far outnumbered what the Americans suffered. The engagement proved that untrained militia forces could hold their ground against professional soldiers, and it made British commanders wary of ordering further direct assaults on strong defensive lines. On the American side, losses were considerably lighter, though they included the deaths of General Joseph Warren and Major Andrew McClary, the latter falling as the last man killed in the fighting.

In the wake of this costly clash, British strategy shifted toward greater caution in both planning and battlefield movement, a change that would become apparent during the later campaign fought across New York and New Jersey. The heavy toll also pushed the British toward recruiting large numbers of Hessian troops to reinforce their ranks against the newly formidable Continental Army.

Geography

At the time, Boston occupied a peninsula, and wide stretches of water largely kept it safe from any close assault, water that British warships firmly controlled. After the fighting at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, roughly 15,000 colonial militiamen ringed the town and laid siege to it, with Artemas Ward directing their efforts. Roxbury Neck, the sole route onto Boston by land, lay in their hands, yet they had no way to challenge British command of the harbor's waters. Inside the city sat British forces numbering about 6,000, led by General Thomas Gage, and the sea allowed them to keep receiving supplies and fresh troops.

Across the water from Boston, though, rose a series of hills that offered a tactical edge. Guns placed atop them could pound the city until its occupiers either pulled out or gave up the fight. This very purpose drove Henry Knox to guide the noble train of artillery on its journey hauling cannon from Fort Ticonderoga.

North of Boston, the Charlestown Peninsula began at a narrow, short isthmus called Charlestown Neck and stretched roughly one mile (1.6 km) to the southeast into Boston Harbor. At the peninsula's northern tip stood Bunker Hill, rising 110 feet (34 m), while Breed's Hill, lower at 62 feet (19 m), sat further south and closer to Boston itself. The elevated positions of both hills gave the American troops a tactical edge, though this same terrain effectively left them cornered at the summit. Charlestown's built up area sat on low flatland at the peninsula's southern edge. Where the two peninsulas came nearest to each other, under 1,000 feet (300 m) of water separated them, and on the Boston side stood Copp's Hill, rising to nearly the same elevation as Breed's Hill. Charlestown marked the endpoint of the British withdrawal from Concord, yet rather than fortifying the peninsula's hills, Gage pulled his men back into Boston, leaving the whole Charlestown Peninsula as unclaimed ground between the two sides.

British planning

Throughout May, reinforcements swelled the British ranks to roughly 6,000 troops. On May 25, Generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton reached the city aboard HMS Cerberus. With their arrival, Gage set to work devising a strategy for breaking the siege, and by June 12 the details were settled. The scheme called first for seizing Dorchester Neck, then fortifying the Dorchester Heights, followed by an advance against the colonial troops holding Roxbury. With the southern approach thus secured, attention would turn to capturing the heights above Charlestown and pushing the opposing forces out of Cambridge. June 18 was chosen as the date to launch this operation.

Word of these intentions reached the other side before that date arrived, however. On June 13, the Committee of Safety operating out of Exeter, New Hampshire, alerted the Massachusetts Provincial Congress that a local gentleman of "undoubted veracity" had listened in on British officers discussing their designs on Dorchester and Charlestown. Two days later, on June 15, Massachusetts's own Committee of Safety concluded that further fortifications were necessary. Acting on this, General Ward instructed General Israel Putnam to establish defensive works on the Charlestown Peninsula, with Bunker Hill singled out as the key position.

British assault

By mid-afternoon, fresh British units had come ashore, among them the 47th Regiment of Foot and the 1st Marines, giving the army what it needed to begin its advance. South of Charlestown village, Brigadier General Pigot's men were massing and already falling to sniper fire coming from the settlement. In response, Howe requested that Admiral Graves deal with the hidden marksmen. Graves, who had anticipated this very problem, ordered a carcass round fired into the village and dispatched a landing party to put the town to the torch. As Charlestown burned, the smoke created a strange backdrop to the coming battle, though shifting winds kept it clear of the battlefield itself.

Howe himself led the grenadiers and light infantry companies against the American left, positioned at the rail fence, believing this would be a straightforward task against Stark's newly arrived men. His light infantry formed into columns along the narrow strip of beach, aiming to flank the far edge of the colonial line. The grenadiers held the center, arranged four ranks deep across a front stretching several hundred yards. Pigot, meanwhile, commanded the 5th, 38th, 43rd, 47th, and 52nd regiments along with Major Pitcairn's Marines, tasked only with making a false push toward the redoubt. Just before the British moved forward, two artillery pieces from Bunker Hill arrived to strengthen the American line at the rail fence.

Howe had wanted his infantry to advance behind a covering bombardment from his field guns, but discovered too late that the cannon had been issued ammunition of the wrong caliber, forcing a delay. The ground itself worked against the attackers. Unharvested hay stood waist-high across Breed's Hill, hiding the broken terrain beneath, while a maze of stone and rail fences crossed the pastureland and broke apart the marching formations. Weighed down with gear they did not need for the assault, the soldiers baked in their heavy wool coats under the afternoon sun, made worse by the heat rolling off the burning town nearby.

The Americans held their fire until the British had closed to within some fifty paces. Once in range, the advancing troops absorbed devastating losses from colonial muskets, aimed and steadied against the rail fence that gave the defenders both support and partial cover. Under this punishing fire, the light infantry companies broke apart entirely, some men fleeing all the way back to the boats. James Abercrombie, who led the grenadiers, was mortally wounded in the assault. Pigot's push against the redoubt and breastworks went no better; pausing to trade fire with the defenders left his men exposed and badly mauled, and continued sniping from Charlestown added to their misery until Pigot, seeing Howe's collapse, called for a withdrawal. Ninety-six British soldiers lay dead by the time this first attempt collapsed.

Reorganizing on ground now littered with fallen comrades, the British formed up for a second attempt. This time Pigot's assignment changed. Rather than a feint, he was to strike the redoubt head-on, likely without support from Howe's men. Howe, for his part, turned his attack toward Knowlton's position at the rail fence instead of Stark's line along the beach. The results mirrored the first assault almost exactly. As one British witness put it, most of the grenadier and light infantry companies lost three quarters of their men the instant they showed themselves, some companies losing nine tenths, leaving only eight or nine men standing in places. Pigot fared no better than Howe had, and after roughly half an hour of firing volleys that accomplished little, he too ordered his men back. The second attempt had failed as completely as the first.

Behind the American lines, disorder persisted. General Putnam struggled, with only partial success, to push reinforcements from Bunker Hill forward to the hard-pressed units on Breed's Hill. One colonial witness later told Samuel Adams that he had never seen such confusion paired with so little command. Some units and stray clusters of soldiers pressed toward the fighting while others fell back. Ammunition was running short, and desertion was thinning the colonial ranks. By the time British troops mounted their third assault, only seven to eight hundred men remained on Breed's Hill, a mere 150 of them inside the redoubt itself. When Connecticut's Captain John Chester spotted an entire company fleeing, he had his own men level their muskets at the retreating soldiers, turning them back toward the fight.

Disorder was not conf

Aftermath

Victory came at a staggering price for the British forces, who secured the field while absorbing 1,054 casualties, with 226 killed and 828 wounded, amounting to a devastating 40% loss rate. Those from the light infantry and grenadier units bore an especially heavy share of this toll. Nineteen officers lost their lives in the fighting. Never before in the war would the British sustain more losses from a single clash. Reflecting on the cost, Clinton echoed the words of Pyrrhus of Epirus in his diary, observing that only a handful more triumphs like this one would have swiftly ended British rule over America. Among the wounded and dead were 100 commissioned officers, representing a substantial share of the entire British officer corps stationed in America, and Howe's field staff suffered heavily as well. Gage later documented the officer losses by name, covering all ranks from lieutenant upward: one lieutenant colonel perished, two majors died and three sustained wounds, seven captains fell while twenty-seven were injured, nine lieutenants died alongside thirty-two wounded, fifteen sergeants lost their lives with forty-two more hurt, and one drummer died while twelve others were wounded.

On the colonial side, casualties totaled roughly 450, including 138 fatalities, with the bulk of these losses occurring during the retreat rather than the main engagement. Andrew McClary, a major, held the distinction of being the highest ranking colonial officer killed, struck down by artillery fire at Charlestown Neck as the final casualty of the day. Kittery, Maine later honored his memory through the naming of Fort McClary. Perhaps more damaging to the cause was the loss of Joseph Warren, who served as President of Massachusetts' Provincial Congress and had received a commission as Major General just three days earlier, on June 14. That appointment had not formally taken effect when he chose to fight as a volunteer private at Bunker Hill. British forces captured only thirty colonial men, the majority suffering severe wounds, and twenty of these prisoners would later die in captivity. Beyond the human toll, the colonials forfeited a great many shovels and entrenching implements, along with five of the six cannons they had originally transported to the peninsula.