Stories about General Warren, in relation to the fifth of March massacre, and the battle of Bunker Hill

by Rebecca Warren Brown

William. Oh how sorry I am! Why could not Major Small have spoken a little quicker, and kept his men from firing, as Putnam did when our men were about to fire on him?

Mrs. M. He no doubt did all he could to preserve him, but a higher power than his directed the ball which thus deprived our country of one of her most enthusiastic defenders, and in one of her darkest moments. He was taken, too, before his eyes were allowed a glimpse of that brilliant light of liberty which afterwards shone so brightly upon his country, and for whose first rays he had so anxiously watched. He fell in the prime of life, a glorious sacrifice for his beloved country.

Mary. How old was he, dear mother?

Mrs. M. He was only thirty-four years of age.

William. What became of his body, mamma? I hope the British did not have it.

Mrs. M. His body lay, with a great many others, all night on the field of battle. In the morning a young man, by the name of Winslow, saw it, and, disfigured as it was, knew it; he went immediately and told Gen. Howe that Gen. Warren was among the slain on Bunker Hill. Howe would not at first believe it. He said it was impossible that the President of Congress should have been suffered to expose himself in such a perilous encounter. Dr. Jeffries, who was afterwards for many years a physician in Boston, and whose son now practises here, was then a surgeon in the British service. He was at this time on the field, dressing the wounded among the English, and those among the American prisoners. Howe inquired if he knew Warren; he said he did, and, so soon as he saw the body, declared it to be his. He told Gen. Howe that Gen. Warren had, only five days previous, with his accustomed fearlessness of danger, ventured in a small canoe to Boston, that he might himself gather information of the designs of the enemy; and that he had at the same time urged him (Dr. Jeffries) to return with him, and act as surgeon to the Americans. Howe no longer doubted that his formidable adversary was extended powerless at his feet. Though too noble himself not to lament the early fate of such a mind, yet he declared that this one victim was worth five hundred of their own men, in which he was joined by all who heard him. In the pocket of Gen. Warren was found a prayer book with his name in it, which would from the first have decided, beyond doubt, that it was indeed Gen. Warren who lay there among friends and foes; but it was not seen at that time. The probability is, that it was plundered from his pocket by some of those wretches who generally remain on the field where a battle has been fought, in order to get what they can from the dying and the dead.

Mary. How was it known that it had been taken from him, dear mother?

Mrs. M. Some time after, when the war was over, and the British officers and soldiers had gone back to England, one of these soldiers showed this book to an English minister, whose name was Samuel Wilton. This gentleman knew that a book of this kind, found on the body of so eminent a man as Warren, would be highly valued by every American, and that it would be more especially gratifying to his immediate relatives to have such a relic of him; one which showed that when he went forth to fight for his country, his trust was not in his own arm alone, but that he looked up to a higher power for support. Mr. Wilton, therefore, offered the man a great price for it, who very gladly sold it to him. He then sent it to America, and had it put into the hands of a minister of Roxbury, the Rev. Dr. Gordon—with a request that it might be given to his nearest relative. It was accordingly given to his youngest brother, Dr. John Warren, March 15th, 1778. This was about three years after Gen. Warren's death.

Mary. I think it was very kind in that English minister to take so much trouble. Was not the book almost worn out by the man who had it all that time?

Mrs. M. No, it was in very good preservation. I suppose the man took good care of it, thinking he might sometime get a great price for it. It is even now a handsome book, the binding is as nice as ever. The type is so clear, that is, it was so well printed, that it can be read with great ease, although printed so long ago as the year 1559; which was but a little more than an hundred years after the art of printing was discovered: so that it is valuable for its antiquity, as well as from having belonged to a departed hero.