American Spring

by Walter R. Borneman

  Clinton continued up Bunker Hill and soon overtook General Pigot. What Clinton saw of the colonial troops gave him pause and may have made him glad that Howe did not want him directing an all-out continuation of the attack. Stark’s men at the rail fence on the rebel left had given way, but they were retreating “in good order as soon as the men from the redoubt had passed them.” It was definitely a fighting withdrawal and not a panicked rout. This impressed Clinton as well as the British rank and file. The rebels “continued a running fight from one fence, or wall, to another, till we entirely drove them off the peninsula of Charlestown.”23

  Even then, Clinton was anxious about what he would find on the Cambridge side of Bunker Hill. “I proceed,” Clinton’s notes read, “expecting that the redoubt made by us on the 19 was occupied, and for that I assembled all I could, but found hardly to be believed that they had left it in a state serviceable only to us I mean as a breast work against them.”24

  Some of the troops with Clinton at this point were those of the Fifty-Second Regiment. They took up positions on the Mystic side of Bunker Hill and dug crude earthworks facing the neck. The Forty-Seventh Regiment took up a similar station on the Charles side and secured both the shore road leading back to burning Charlestown and the access road across the millpond dam. After giving these regimental commanders advice on how best to defend their positions, Clinton, “having been there as a Volunteer,” as he said, “returned to Boston.”25 The reported times of all actions throughout the day varied greatly, but according to one source that attempted an accurate timetable, the landing and assault were accomplished in about four hours, the regulars “having entire possession of the Neck by six o’clock.”26

  On the American side, there was to be one more significant casualty. Major Andrew McClary, who had served with John Stark in Rogers’ Rangers, was the adjutant of Stark’s First New Hampshire Regiment. McClary had cleared the way for Stark’s regiment to advance through the chaos at the neck only hours before. Having covered a major part of the rebel retreat, Stark’s regiment was now safely back across the neck, but McClary watched with concern as Clinton’s forces clustered at the earthworks on Bunker Hill. McClary worried that the British might attempt to carry the neck and threaten Cambridge—indeed Clinton had considered doing just that. So McClary went back across the neck to reconnoiter the British positions. Satisfying himself that Clinton was holding his position and hunkering down, McClary was returning across the neck when one of the last cannon shots from the British ships in the Charles struck him down. It was a grisly end.27

  Despite the losses on the American side and the stigma of having abandoned the field, there was no panic or pell-mell rush to Cambridge. The line of retreat “proceeded no farther than to the next hill.” This was Winter Hill, from which Colonel Pickering and his Essex County men might have ambushed Percy’s column on April 19 if they had taken action. Colonel Putnam had already constructed some entrenchments there as part of his “keep ’em busy” digging operations, and now he ordered more to be dug.

  The sounds of picks and shovels broke the evening twilight as the midsummer night descended, but it was the continuing cries of the wounded that made the colonists’ blood run cold. Behind the moans came the dull thudding of cannon fire from across the Back Bay. It was Percy’s artillery, still firing on the Roxbury lines. Gunpowder was one thing the British had in ample supply.28

  GENERAL HOWE WAS IN A state of denial and likely remained so for the rest of his military career, if not the rest of his life. He had won the field, of that there was no doubt, but at a staggering cost. The Battle of Bunker Hill was, Henry Clinton opined, “A dear bought victory, another such would have ruined us.”29

  In retrospect, there were many things that General Howe might have done differently or to greater effect. The extreme left of the rebel line at the rail fence was anchored, however tenuously, to the shoreline. Had the British sent one of their sloops or the transport Symmetry up the Mystic River, “one charge on their uncovered flank,” one contemporary British historian noted, “might have dislodged them in a moment.” Maybe or maybe not, given the granite resolve of John Stark and his men. But landing British troops in force to the rear of the rebel line, as General Clinton had proposed, might have been more effective than simply marching across an open field against entrenched troops. Such an encircling attack in the American rear would have rendered the breastworks largely useless and forced the rebels to fight their way past British lines to effect a withdrawal.30

  From the American side, a better command and control system between General Ward and the regimental level might have avoided the forward position on Breed’s Hill in the first place, or resulted in a determined reinforcement of it from fortifications atop Bunker Hill. Whatever the Americans might have done wrong, however, Stark and his compatriots’ stand at the rail fence is the action that cost the British dearly and saved the rebel lines from an early rout.

  What was undeniable were the casualties, bad enough on the American side but horrific to the British, particularly among the officer ranks. General Gage reported his losses as 226 killed and 828 wounded, an appalling casualty rate approaching 50 percent of those engaged. As many as 250 of the wounded may have died in the weeks that followed, and many others were maimed for life. Some companies of forty-odd men, particularly the grenadier and light infantry units that assaulted the rail fence, had less than ten men alive, let alone fit for duty.31

  Loyalists in Boston had cheered when they saw the red lines crest the hills and the rebels flee over Charlestown Neck, but it was not long before the cost of this action was brought home. “We were exulting in seeing the flight of our enemies,” Ann Hulton wrote, “but in an hour or two we had occasion to mourn and lament.… In the evening the streets were filled with the wounded and the dying; the sight of which, with the lamentations of the women and children over their husbands and fathers, pierced one to the soul.”32

  Ensign Jeremy Lister of the light infantry company of the Tenth Regiment, who was wounded in the arm during the retreat from Concord and thus mercifully avoided duty on the Mystic beach, watched as his wounded comrades were returned to Boston. He soon learned that Lieutenant Waldron Kelly of his company, who had also been at the North Bridge, “was wounded and suppos’d Mortally.” Lister carried the news to Kelly’s wife, “who for some time sat motionless with two small Children close by her.” Summoning up her courage, she went to meet her husband, “who was brought home scarcely alive,” but in time he recovered from his wounds.33

  On the American side, the loose nature of the units engaged and the incompleteness of their muster rolls left some doubt as to the exact number of casualties. General Ward’s orderly book recorded 115 killed, 305 wounded, and thirty captured. Many of these casualties occurred during the final British assault on the redoubt. About a month after the battle, George Washington put American losses at 138 killed and 276 wounded, which probably accounted for some who died of their wounds.34

  Much as they had done in the aftermath of Lexington and Concord, rebel leaders put forward a stream of propaganda favorable to their version of the battle. They couldn’t claim victory, but the dead and dying in Boston were proof that neither had the day been an out-and-out loss. “The particulars of the late battle on Bunker’s Hill have been differently represented,” Rhode Island’s Nathaniel Greene wrote his brother, “[but] upon the whole, I think we have little reason to complain.”35

  Being only generally aware of the cost of Great Britain’s self-proclaimed victory, the rebels once again focused on British atrocities. This time it was the burning of Charlestown. “You may easily judge what distress we were in to see and hear Englishmen destroying one another,” wrote Reverend Andrew Eliot of Boston, “and a Town with which we have been so intimately connected, all in flames.”36 What was not mentioned, of course, was that most of Charlestown had been abandoned and that Colonel Prescott’s men had turned it into a military target by using the buildings as cover from whi
ch to harry Pigot’s flank.

  James Warren, distraught over the death of Joseph Warren, minced no words in his report to Mercy. “With a Savage Barbarity never practised among Civilized Nations,” James told his wife, “they fired and have Utterly destroyed the Town of Charlestown.” James had never been impressed with Artemas Ward, and he would become a harsh critic of the general in the days ahead, but in his “inexpressible Grief” over the death of “my Friend Doctor Warren,” he was already holding Joseph Warren up to sainthood. The doctor “was killd it is supposed in the Lines on the Hill at Charlestown,” James told Mercy, “in a Manner more Glorious to himself than the fate of Wolfe on the plains of Abraham.” Professing his enduring love to Mercy, James concluded, “I will see you as soon as possible; can’t say when.”37

  On the British side, the charred chimneys of Charlestown became a symbol of a different kind. “I am just now encamped on the heights of Charles-town, or Bunker’s Hill, the scene of action on the 17th of June,” Captain W. Glanville Evelyn of the Fourth “King’s Own” Regiment reported to his father. “We expect to be pretty late in the field this year,” he continued, “and… I hope before the end of it to be able to tell you that Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and all the capital towns on the Continent, are but stacks of chimneys like Charlestown here.”38

  General Howe was not so optimistic. “My corps is now encamped upon these Heights, in a very strong situation,” he told his brother Richard, the admiral, “but I much doubt whether we shall get much farther this Campaign, the rebels, on this side, having entrenched themselves very judiciously, about two miles in our front.” Until he got more reinforcements, Howe said, “we shall not do more than to possess these Heights.”39

  In writing Lord George Germain, soon to be Lord Dartmouth’s replacement as Secretary of State for the Colonies, General Burgoyne was more complimentary of Howe’s efforts as well as his results. The only satisfactory feature of his own tenure in Boston to date, Burgoyne told Germain, was “the victory obtained at Charlestown by the conduct and spirit of my friend Howe, and the exemplary, I might say, unexampled bravery of the officers under him.” The result, Burgoyne maintained, was to reestablish “the ascendancy of the King’s troops in public opinion.”

  Truth be told, that was a bit of wishful thinking. Burgoyne was also quick to acknowledge that the rebels, though undisciplined, “are expert in the use of firearms, and are led by some very able men.” Among those Burgoyne did not number was Samuel Adams, whom he called “as great a conspirator as ever subverted a state.” And just to show that not all his enmity was directed against Adams and his cohorts, the general managed an interservice swipe at Admiral Graves and the Royal Navy. “It may perhaps be asked in England, what is the Admiral doing?” Burgoyne noted. “I wish I was able to answer that question satisfactorily. But I can only say what he is not doing.”40 Admiral Lord Richard Howe would soon be sent to North America to replace Graves.

  The British official who was slow to claim victory and report its casualties to his superiors in Great Britain was General Gage. No matter what Howe felt on the field of battle, or what Clinton and Burgoyne opined from their vantage points, Thomas Gage was still the commander in chief of British troops in North America and the royal governor of Massachusetts, although for weeks his domain had been reduced to a besieged Boston. Ultimately, success or failure was his responsibility.

  Gage delayed eight days, until June 25, to write his report to Lord Dartmouth. He waited for General Howe’s report, which he seems to have incorporated almost verbatim, but there is no hint that he hurried Howe along. Margaret Gage was readying herself and her children to leave Boston, and after the carnage on Bunker Hill there was no doubt in Gage’s mind that he would soon follow her to England. Only the slowness of transatlantic communications would delay his departure.

  After reciting Howe’s account of the battle, including his assertion that part of the rail fence was “Cannon proof,” Gage concluded, “This Action has shewn the Superiority of the King’s Troops, who under every disadvantage Attacked and defeated above three times their own Number, strongly posted, and covered by Breast works.”41 Those were hardly the odds, but this version was for public consumption.

  In an accompanying private letter to Dartmouth, Gage was more frank and unguarded. In assuring Dartmouth that the battle was “very Necessary in our Situation,” Gage nonetheless wished “most sincerely that it had not cost us so dear.” His casualties were greater than “our Force can afford to lose,” but even more ominous was his assessment of his opponents. “The Tryals we have had,” Gage confessed, “shew that the Rebels are not the despicable Rabble too many have supposed them to be, and I find it owing to a Military Spirit encouraged amongst them for a few years past, joined with an uncommon Degree of Zeal and Enthousiasm that they are otherwise.”42

  “I think it my Duty to let your Lordship know,” Gage concluded, “the true Situation of Affairs, that Administration may take Measures accordingly.” Lord North and George III’s government would indeed take measures, but after the reports of Bunker Hill, their actions would be to order Dartmouth to recall Gage to England and within months to replace Dartmouth with Lord George Germain.

  Having sent Lord Barrington, the secretary of war, the perfunctory return of the killed and wounded, Gage also wrote a private letter to him. “These People,” Gage warned, referring to the rebels, “Show a Spirit and Conduct against us, they never showed against the French.” And then, with a frustration that went far deeper than military analysis, Gage said of Boston, “I wish this Cursed place was burned, the only use is its harbor, which may be said to be Material; but in all other respects its the worst place either to act Offensively from, or defencively.”43

  When Gage finally received the summons recalling him to England via HMS Scarborough on September 26, it was reportedly to confer about plans for major operations in North America during 1776. But Gage knew full well that he would not return to North America. He had spent the better part of his military career there. There would be other British defeats in North America, but for shock and loss of life, it is hard to name two more significant than those that bookended Thomas Gage’s career on that continent: Braddock’s Defeat and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Without pomp or ceremony, Gage sailed from Boston on October 11, 1775.44 For better or worse, William Howe assumed command of the British troops in Boston.

  IF THE CONFRONTATIONS AT LEXINGTON Green and Concord’s North Bridge were the sparks that lit the fuse to the powder keg of war, Bunker Hill was the great explosion. After Bunker Hill, there was no doubt on either side that this was all-out war. Whatever bonds had tied the two sides together were severed.

  Some historians suggest that the military importance of Bunker Hill is overstated. Yet American history celebrates it—and the public at large recognizes it—with the same reverence and special awe accorded to Yorktown, Gettysburg, and Pearl Harbor. If one only counted control of the battlefield, Bunker Hill was a British victory, but in the rebel psyche in 1775, the battle was a huge morale booster. As the first major clash between rebel forces and British regulars, it proved that the rebel resistance at Lexington and Concord had legs and that troops who would increasingly be called American could hold their own. The American Revolution was not begun at Bunker Hill; it certainly was not decided at Bunker Hill; but Bunker Hill proved that the drive for independence, and the formal makings of the nation itself, were truly begun in the American spring of 1775.

  Epilogue

  Monday, July 3, 1775

  The Battle of Bunker Hill—whether one chooses to characterize it as an American or British victory—had one immediate and undeniable impact on the fledgling Continental Army. After hearing the results of the battle and judging it an American opportunity, if not a victory, the Continental Congress authorized the invasion of Canada. Rebel overtures of alliance and mutual support north of the border earlier that spring had fallen on deaf ears, but on June 23 Ethan Allen and Seth Warner finally
arrived in Philadelphia. They made their case for keeping Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point and urged an invasion north from there. On June 27, the Continental Congress authorized Major General Philip Schuyler to “take possession of St. Johns, Montreal, and any other parts of the country, and pursue any other measures in Canada.”1

  A heroic campaign against Montreal and Quebec late in 1775 was nearly successful. The failed effort ultimately sapped the strength of American efforts around Boston, but Canada would remain the object of American desires for another century. During the War of 1812, acquiring Canada would be the focal point of three years of unsuccessful invasion attempts by the United States. The lust for Canada continued through the American Civil War, after which some Unionists demanded Canada as compensation for Great Britain’s pro-Southern activities.

  In July of 1775, as one last sop to moderates, the Continental Congress would pass what came to be called the Olive Branch Petition. Drafted in part by Benjamin Franklin and sent to George III, it may have helped assure even the most vocal of those crying for independence that they had done all they could to avoid an all-out war. As the delegates did so, however, they also set forth a lengthy litany of every perceived British wrong to America since 1763. This Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms foreshadowed in every respect the more famous declaration that would be signed the following year. After the spring of 1775, the dreams of most patriots were unequivocally clear. No matter how difficult the road ahead, the only acceptable destination was independence and a new nation.