The Siege of Boston

by Allen French

Cooped up in this little fort, inadequately protected against flanking, with shot continually striking on the sides of the redoubt, Prescott's men waited. They had worked all night and most of the morning, had little food and water, saw as yet nothing of the relief that had been promised them, and could tell by the fever of activity visible in Boston's streets that the red coats soon would come against them. There is no wonder that when Putnam rode up and asked for the entrenching tools (proposing, with the best of military good sense, to make a supporting redoubt on Bunker Hill), many of Prescott's men were glad of the excuse to remove themselves from so dangerous a neighborhood. Of those who carried back the tools, few returned.

But Prescott's remainder was stanch. The men were already veterans, having endured the work and the cannonade. Waiting in the fort, some of them could appreciate the marvel of the scene: a great stretch of intermingled land and water, the shipping spread below, close at hand the town of Charlestown, and across the narrow river the larger town of Boston, with its heights and house-tops already crowded by non-combatants, viewing the field that was prepared for the slaughter. It was all in bright and warm weather, under a cloudless sky. Since the world began, there had been few battle-fields so spectacularly laid out.

At last the bustle in Boston's streets produced results. From the wharves pushed out into the placid water the boats of the fleet, loaded to the gunwales with soldiers in full equipment. As they neared the Charlestown shore, the fire upon the redoubt was doubled, and under its cover the troops landed upon Moulton's Point. There Howe at first deployed them, but after inspecting the ground sent back for reinforcements. For the men in the redoubt there were two more hours of waiting.

Those two hours very nearly decided the fate of the struggle, for had Howe moved immediately to the assault there could have been no such resistance offered him as later he met. Prescott decided to send to Cambridge for reinforcements; but such was the confusion that the messenger could get no horse, and had to walk the six miles to headquarters. There he was ill received, for Ward, who during the whole day did not leave his house, feared an attack on Cambridge, dreaded to deplete his supply of powder, and only upon repeated representations ordered a couple of regiments in support of Prescott. These regiments had to draw their powder and make up their cartridges, and arrived when the battle was just about to begin.

The student of this day finds it difficult to disentangle the varied accounts. Who was on the field and who was not, what part was taken by each, who was in command at this point and who there, and the total of men engaged, all either were or still are disputed points. It seems to be beyond doubt, however, that Prescott from the first was in command at the redoubt, and that Putnam assumed, and tried to execute, general oversight of the field of contest outside the redoubt and beyond the breastwork.

While Howe's troops lunched quietly at Moulton's Point, the aspect of affairs for the Americans became brighter. Prescott, seeing that he must have better protection toward the Mystic River, ordered a detachment of Connecticut troops, under Captain Knowlton, and with them six field-pieces—which seem to have figured not at all in the result—to "go and oppose" the enemy. Avoiding a marshy spot of ground, Knowlton chose a position some two hundred yards to the rear of the redoubt and its breastwork. Here was a fence, the lower part of stone, the upper of rails. The men brought forward from the rear another rail fence, leaned it against the first, and wove in between the rails hay which they found recently cut upon the ground. This, the "rail fence" mentioned in all accounts of the battle, was their sole protection.

Now began slowly to come across the isthmus the first of the reinforcements that strengthened the hands of the provincials. They came partly as individuals, of whom the most noted was Warren, who but the day before had been appointed general by the provincial congress. He came as a volunteer, knew his risk, and was prepared to die.

Curiously James Otis, it is said, was also among the defenders of the redoubt, coming, like Warren, as a volunteer. It was a strange fate which sent him safely home, to live, still wrecked in intellect and useless to his country, while Warren was to fall.

By this time a lively hail of shot and shell was falling on Charlestown Neck, and to cross it was a test of courage. Seth Pomeroy, brigadier-general, veteran of Louisburg, came on a borrowed horse, and, sending back the animal, crossed on foot. Others, alone, in groups, or in semi-military formation, followed him, to be directed by Putnam to the rail fence, which needed defenders. At last came one who needed no directions—Stark, at the head of his New Hampshire regiment. Although requested to hurry his men across the Neck, Stark replied, "One fresh man in action is worth ten fatigued ones,"[95] and would not change his step. Marching down the slope of Bunker Hill, he quickly noted that between the rail fence and the water the beach was unguarded. "I saw there," he said afterward, "the way so plain that the enemy could not miss it."[96] Before the attack could begin, Stark's men threw up a rude breastwork of cobbles behind which they could find a little shelter.—And now at last the American defences were completed, just as the troops were in motion to attack them.

At this point Howe neglected a method of attack which would have made his victory immediate. The rail fence, and Stark's defence upon the beach, were open to attack from the river. We have seen that two floating batteries ("large flat boats," says Lieutenant Barker, "sides raised and musquet proof") were used to bombard the redoubt. These, like the shipping and the Boston batteries, did no good whatever. But placed in the Mystic in the proper position, they could have raked the rail fence. "Had these boats been with us," says our lieutenant, " ... they would have taken a part of the Rebels entrenchment in flank, and in their retreat wou'd have cut off numbers." But Howe was only a soldier, such an aid apparently never occurred to him, and the floating batteries—gondolas, as they were called—remained on the southern side of the peninsula. He ordered the attack.