These facts serve to show not only the confusion of the day, but also the bad judgment, to use no stronger phrase, of unseasoned soldiers. It is fair to say that the hesitancy of some was offset by the heroism of others. When Colonel Gerrish, who was later cashiered, could bring his men no further forward than Bunker Hill, his adjutant, Christian Febiger, a Dane, led a part of the command to the rail fence, and fought bravely there. One of the captains of artillery, disregarding Gridley's commands, took his two guns to Charlestown, and served one of them at the rail fence. Other individuals named and unnamed, with or without orders, went to the field, took post where they could, and fought for their own hand. Yet these are scattered instances in the midst of too many failures to obey. Those who did march down to the field of carnage, with "no more thought," as one of them confessed, "of ever rising the hill again than I had of ascending to Heaven, as Elijah did, soul and body together,"—those who thus devoted themselves left many behind on the safe side of Bunker Hill, or posted ineffectively behind distant fences or trees. Of the thousand Americans who during this last pause in the battle might have reached the post of danger, not enough arrived to affect the result.
At last, while aides were still beating up for more support, and Putnam himself was returning from a similar errand, Howe put his troops in motion. This time the movement against the rail fence was but a feint; and now for the first time the artillery of either side did effective service in the battle. Against the protest of the artillery officers that the ground was too soft to take better position, Howe ordered them forward, and they loyally obeyed. They found a post from which they could enfilade the breastwork, and at their first discharge of grape sent its defenders into the redoubt for safety. It was the beginning of the end. Prescott, as he saw the breastwork abandoned, and marked the three advancing columns, saw that the redoubt was doomed.
And yet the day ought not to have been lost. Had Ward but sent a hundred pounds of powder, the fight might have been won. But Prescott looked for it in vain. Or had those men, whom he saw shooting at long range from positions of safety, come forward to reinforce the defenders of the redoubt, the scales might have been turned. But the fight was to end as it had begun, with Prescott's small detachment still unsupported, left all day without food or water, and now at the end without powder. As the troops climbed the hill a few artillery cartridges were opened and their powder distributed among the provincials. Some of the men thus had three or four charges to their guns, some had only one; besides this, there were few bayonets among them. The wonder is that the men awaited the assault.
This time the regulars came within twenty yards of the redoubt before the word was given to fire. The heads of the columns were swept away, but the rest came on, and mounted the parapet. The first who topped it were shot down, among them Pitcairn. But then the American powder was spent, and from three sides the British swarmed into the redoubt. Reluctantly Prescott gave his men the word to retreat.
For a few moments the fighting was fierce. Some of the provincials were unwilling to run, and fought till they were killed. Some used stones, and some their clubbed muskets, retiring unwillingly. It might be supposed that the slaughter was great. But the British, for the very reason that they had entered from three sides, were afraid to fire on the farmers for the sake of their own men; the dust rose up in clouds, and so in the confusion most of the defenders escaped, like Peter Brown, who wrote his mother: "I was not suffered to be touched, although I was in the front when the enemy came in, and jumped over the walls, and ran half a mile, where balls flew like hailstones, and cannon roared like thunder."[100]
Prescott came off unhurt. Those who saw him said that he "stepped long, with his sword up." He saved his life by parrying the bayonets which were thrust at him, although some of them pierced his clothes.
That more were not killed in the pursuit was due to two factors. The first was the exhaustion of the soldiers, who, tired with carrying heavy loads in the unwonted heat (and an American summer is like the tropics to an Englishman), were winded with their last charge up the hill. They were therefore in no good condition to follow up their victory, and the fugitives were soon away beyond Bunker Hill. Yet that the pursuit was so poor was due partly to the defenders of the rail fence. These men, more like veteran regiments than fragments of many commands, withdrew in a body, continually threatening those who offered to close in from behind. The end of the fight was as honorable to them as its beginning.
But there was much loss. A number were killed in the redoubt, and the slopes of Bunker Hill were dotted with slain, killed by bullets and cannon shot. At the Neck some few more were killed. The total of dead, according to Ward's record, was 115, of the wounded 305, of the captured 30. Slightly varying totals are reported.[101]
The great personal loss on the part of the Americans was in the death of Warren. There had been no need of his coming, and his value for higher services—he was president of the provincial congress and had just been appointed a major-general—was greater than at the post of actual conflict. But his fiery spirit, of which we have seen so much, would not be denied. That day he waked with a headache, but on learning of the expected battle he declared himself well. Friends tried to detain him, but he replied with the Latin phrase, "It is sweet and becoming to die for one's country." On reaching the field he met Putnam, who offered to take his orders. But Warren had come as a volunteer, and asked where he should go. Putnam showed him the redoubt, saying, "There you will be covered."
"Don't think," said Warren, "that I come to seek a place of safety; but tell me where the onset will be most furious."