BUNKER HILL.
If the British regarded Charlestown Heights of such importance, why should not the provincials seize them? It must be done. Twilight was still lingering on the western horizon when the troops selected for the expedition paraded on Cambridge Common. Colonel William Prescott was to command them. He had fought at Louisburg, and was cool and brave. With uncovered heads the regiments stood in front of the meetinghouse while Reverend Mr. Langdon, president of the college, offered prayer. Lieutenant Walden, having been upon Bunker Hill, led the way, followed by soldiers from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and two carts loaded with picks and shovels. They marched in silence. Lieutenant Walden conducted them across the Neck and up the slope of the Hill. It was nearly midnight before it was decided just where Colonel Gridley should mark out the contemplated fortifications.[69] Lieutenant Walden conducted Captain Nutting and ten sentinels to the ferry landing. They were but a little distance from the frigate Somerset at anchor in the stream. Farther up, towards Lechmere’s Point, were the Glasgow, Cerberus, and Symetry. Down the river, off Moulton’s Point, lay the Lively and Falcon.
Leaving the sentinels to guard the shore, he rode to the summit of the hill, where the men were hard at work, delving in silence with pick and spade. There were not sufficient implements for all, but when one was out of breath, another took his place, and before the first glimmer of dawn appeared, the trench had been made breast deep.
“Four o’clock and all’s well!” came from the sentinel on the Somerset, but a moment later a sheet of flame and a white cloud burst from the side of the Lively, and the roar of a gun broke the stillness of the morning.
The thunder rolled far away, arousing the British army, the people of Boston, General Gage, and Lord Howe from their slumbers. Berinthia Brandon, from her chamber window, beheld the warship Lively shrouded in smoke. Upon the green hill, where, the day before, the farmers had been swinging their scythes, and where the partially cured hay was lying in windrows, she could see a bank of yellow earth. Again the thunder of the guns jarred her window, but at a signal from the Somerset the firing ceased.
Before sunrise all Boston was astir, moving towards Copp’s Hill, gazing from windows and roofs upon the growing fortifications. Generals Gage and Howe ascended the steeple of Christ Church and looked at the embankment with their telescopes.[70] A little later officers were hurrying along the streets with orders to the several regiments to be ready to march at a moment’s notice. Drums were beating; battalions moving towards Long Wharf, the selected rendezvous, from whence the troops were to be transported in boats to Moulton’s Point, ascend the hill, and send the provincials flying from their chosen position.
Such was the information brought to the Brandon home by Abraham Duncan.
“You will have a splendid chance to see the battle from the housetop,” he said to Captain Brandon.
Cannon carriages were rumbling through the street, passing the Brandon home, wheeling into the burial ground, and coming into position. The gunners loaded the pieces and lighted their port fires, waved their lint-stocks, and touched them to the priming. Flames and smoke belched from the muzzle of the guns with deafening roar, sending the missiles upon the fortification.
While the cannoneers were reloading the guns, Berinthia, upon the housetop with a telescope, saw a man leap up from the intrenchment and stand in full view upon the bank of earth, swinging his hat and shaking his fist.