Who was the Commander at Bunker Hill? / With Remarks on Frothingham's History of the Battle

by Samuel Swett

But the author has labored, throughout a large portion of his book, to prove the most insignificant abstraction that ever entered visionary’s imagination,—that Gen. Putnam possessed no right to command Col. Prescott. Grant it; and it would not add one leaf to the laurels of Prescott, nor a single ray to the splendor of his fame. Nor, on the other hand, would Putnam lose by the concession. Grant to Putnam the command of all the rest of the battle, and all that is thus demanded for Prescott would constitute so insignificant an exception, as merely to illustrate the proverb, that the general rule is proved by the exception.

Mr. Frothingham says nothing of any command at the breastwork, though, by describing it as reaching down to the slough, he has represented it as longer than it was, and has marred and obscured by this mistake one of the principal features of the battle. The breastwork did not reach down to the slough by six or seven rods; which space was nearly or quite unprotected, as was the farther space of 190 yards between the breastwork and rail-fence, except by the slough, that did not reach back to the rail-fence by 80 yards. Now, this was the weak point and key to the American position, which the enemy were grossly culpable for not discovering, through their previous reconnoissances and knowledge of the ground. We did not discover, till we had written thus far, that the author had our own authority for his mistake, or rather our printer’s. In our map of the battle, we have represented the fact correctly; but in our text it stands, that the breastwork ran “to” instead of “toward” the slough.

Taking for granted all the author says of Prescott, we should pass over the authorities he has accumulated concerning him, were it not that, left unexplained as they are by him, they may mislead his readers into the belief, that Prescott had command, not only of his detachment, but of the battle. We will go through the list. The report of the Committee of Safety says, “The commander of the party gave orders to retreat from the redoubt;” and one of the writers of the the report is supposed to have called Prescott “the commander of the provincials.” That is, Prescott commanded the party, the provincials, who raised the redoubt, and those of them who fought there under him, till he gave them orders to retreat. The author denies that he commanded any others: “Gen. Ward, in his letter to President Adams, 30th Oct. ’75, says that Bunker Hill Battle was conducted by a Massachusetts officer.” Ward was endeavoring to make out a strong case for the Massachusetts against the Southern officers. As he knew it was physically impossible for Prescott to have conducted the battle, because he was on foot, and militarily so, because there were generals and other officers older than Prescott on the field, he must have intended to designate himself or Warren as the conductor of the battle. Possibly he intended to claim the honor himself. The first syllable of the word “conducted” has been altered by the pen: he began perhaps to write the word “commanded;” but, recollecting that he could not claim the command, altered it into “conducted.” And he was authorized to claim to have been the conductor of the battle, and to have conducted it with great skill and discretion.

Mr. Frothingham thinks, that, “in a military point of view, it would be difficult to assign a just motive to either party for this conflict.” We place in our Appendix the declaration of the proscribed patriot Adams on the subject, which will justify Gen. Ward, and satisfy every one on this point.

But, notwithstanding Gen. Ward’s use of the word “conducted,” he probably intended to say that Warren was the conductor or commander of Bunker Hill Battle, knowing that he was on the field, vested with all the rights and authority of a major-general;—which was literally true, notwithstanding Frothingham’s mistake in supposing that Warren told Prescott, as a reason for not assuming the command, that he had not received his commission. This is a mistake of fact and law: Warren, according to Gen. Heath, said not one word about his commission, and his want of one did not diminish his rights of office; a point that has been settled by the Supreme Court of the United States. It was not so extraordinary for Ward to call Warren the commander, as for Gen. Humphreys to do so in his life of Putnam, whose Aid he had been. Both, doubtless, were ignorant of the fact, that Warren refused to exercise any command on the occasion. It was not generally known till published by Gen. Heath, twenty years after the battle. Martin the chaplain, who was present the night before and during the battle, says, “The Americans took possession of the hill under Prescott.” This is taken by Frothingham from Stiles’s Diary; and the reason why Stiles does not quote Martin as saying they were under Putnam likewise is, doubtless, because he had just before entered the same fact in his diary from the all-sufficient authority of Gen. Green. Martin says, that he urged Prescott in vain to send for Putnam and a reinforcement; that Prescott and he differed, even to quarrel, about the reinforcements; and that he ordered one of the men off himself to Gen. Ward, which brought Gen. Putnam and a large reinforcement about noon. “Gordon says one thousand men under Prescott intrenched; Gen. Putnam is busily engaged in aiding and encouraging here and there as the case requires.” “Dr. Thatcher says, Prescott headed the detachment, and retained the command,” that is, the command of it. Frothingham says this is unequivocal in favor of Prescott. Instead of that, Thatcher is unequivocal in favor of Putnam’s command, by placing him at the head of all the officers, in the following words:—“Generals Putnam, Warren, Pomeroy, and Col. Prescott were emphatically the heroes of the day.” “Pitts says, it appears to me there never was more confusion and less command; no one seemed to have any but Col. Prescott.” “Gen. Heath says, Prescott was the proper commanding officer in the redoubt.” And Heath says, and Frothingham in another place quotes it as an instance of a collision between Putnam and Prescott, that Putnam rode up to the redoubt, and told Col. Prescott that the intrenching tools must be sent off; and that Col. Prescott, though he remonstrated against it, obeyed the order. Gen. Lee, in his memoirs of the war in the Southern States, has what is called an obiter dictum, a few words foreign to his subject, in which he remarks that Gen. Howe found his enemy posted on Breed’s Hill, “commanded by Col. Prescott.” The author gives no explanation of Lee’s words, nor does he claim that they mean any thing more than Prescott’s command of his detachment and the redoubt on Breed’s Hill. Lee quotes no authority, and was no authority himself. He knew nothing about the battle. His ignorance was so gross, that he says the Americans had no artillery. Lee states, however, that Prescott received no promotion in the army of the United Colonies. It is impossible, then, that he could have been the commander of the battle. Judge Tudor throws no light on the subject: he says, “There was no authorized commander; Col. Prescott appeared to have been the chief;” “the whole business appeared to have been conducted without order, or regular command.” Our author adds the words of Col. Prescott’s son: “Neither Gen. Putnam nor any other officer ever exercised or claimed any authority or command over Col. Prescott, or the detachment, before or in the battle.” It follows not that they had no right to do so. The author attributes to Col. Scammans an anonymous note in a newspaper, written perhaps by the editor, saying, “As there was no general officer who commanded on Bunker Hill, was it not Whitcomb’s duty to have been there?” This probably meant early in the day when Scammans met Whitcomb, and Putnam was not on the hill. But the author omits to mention here, that in the same paper it appears from witnesses under oath, and not denied, that Scammans, during the battle, sent to Gen. Putnam, at Bunker Hill, to see if he was wanted, and that his regiment went to the top of Bunker Hill; “after which Gen. Putnam came up, and ordered the regiment to advance within hearing of Col. Scammans.”[2] We have gone through Mr. Frothingham’s list of authorities; and in the whole of them there is not the shadow of an excuse for his conclusion, “that no general officer was authorized to command over Prescott during the battle.” But, if these authorities were trumpet-tongued in support of his conclusion, it would remain one of those things which no evidence can prove. The author is dealing with hard characters: Ward, Warren, Putnam, and Prescott, are not rag babies, that an historian may bend and distort according to his fancy. The whole kingdom of Great Britain could not bend one of them. Yet, if this story be true, Ward, a stickler for the authority and dignity of officers according to their rank, imposed on Warren and Putnam the insulting restriction of fighting the battle, shorn of half their authority and command; and these high-spirited and gallant heroes submitted to so ignominious a condition. Still worse; they no sooner arrive on the field than they deny their own agreement. Warren, in a shuffling answer to Prescott, implies his right to the command, and makes a merit of foregoing it in favor of so distinguished a veteran; while Putnam not only disavows his agreement, but has the atrocious folly to attempt to bully such an officer as Prescott out of his command, who obeys him, however, without daring to assert his rights. This is certainly very strange history; but, unless every word of it is true, the author’s conclusion must be false. The author has taken no notice of Gen. Dearborn’s declaration of Col. Prescott’s conversation with him on this subject. Dearborn states expressly, that he was informed by Prescott that he sent to Putnam to come forward and exercise the command, as he could not do so for want of rank; confessing thus that Putnam, while on the field, was fully entitled to be the commander. All the world knows that he did come forward and exercise the command most effectually, from the beginning to the end of the engagement.

There may be some unwilling to believe that the opinion of Mr. Frothingham is entitled to no weight; but he, as well as myself, are writing on a subject technical and professional, belonging to the art of war, concerning which both of us confess we know little or nothing. He seems unable to distinguish between a separate and an independent command. Were he writing on chemistry, he might perhaps exclaim, of a well-known fact, as he does about Putnam and Prescott, “It is impossible that two white things put together should make a black one;” or in astronomy, that it is quite impossible the earth should have any movement of its own, while it was under control of Jupiter and the Sun.

We have made the supposition of the author’s fundamental error being solitary; but errors, like misfortunes, never come alone. The lost traveller, who wanders from the right road, enters on a boundless field of aberration, and at every step plunges deeper into a chaos of mistakes.

To prove that Putnam was not the commander, the author alleges that, in some cases, he was not obeyed as such. Now, we say with the utmost confidence, that, any few cases of cowardice out of the question, no military despot ever was obeyed with more implicit subjection than Putnam was, throughout the battle, by every one, officers or men, from their enthusiastic love and admiration of him, and boundless confidence in him, as a great, experienced, and fortunate hero and patriot.

The first case he imagines to have been an instance of disobedience is that of Col. Sargent, whom he charges with disobeying Gen. Putnam’s order for him to go on to Bunker Hill.[3] This injustice to the reputations of Putnam and Sargent arises from the most inconceivable misconstruction of Col. Sargent’s letter to us, the only document on the subject. Col. Paul Dudley Sargent refuse to go on to Bunker Hill, or any other battle-ground! He was one of the greatest fire-eaters of the revolutionary army. Gen. Washington observed, that, in all his councils of war, whenever he proposed any measure which his other officers thought too desperate to be undertaken, Sargent always voted for its execution.[4] Had the author ever heard of the man, or made the slightest inquiry among his relatives in Boston, he would never have imagined the possibility of such an imputation. Had Putnam ordered him on to Sinai’s hill, with all its fires, he would not have hesitated, had there been fighting there.

Whilst Col. Sargent was at Cambridge, his regiment, and that of Connecticut, were stationed under the immediate command of Putnam at Inman’s farm, the most exposed and important post of the army, near which place the enemy had landed at the time of Lexington Battle. During the Battle of Bunker Hill, both these regiments were like “greyhounds on the slip,” earnestly entreating of Gen. Ward for permission to join in the conflict. But, apprehending the enemy would land at the same place again to assail him, he would not grant them permission, until it was too late for Col. Sargent to participate in the battle. When he arrived at Charlestown, the battle was over; our troops had retreated; and Sargent found Putnam, with all he could rally, on top of Prospect Hill, where, in hot haste, he was throwing up intrenchments, often laying some of the sods himself to encourage his men. The day after the battle, he observed that for three days he had neither washed nor changed his clothes. But, though the battle was over, Sargent could not deny himself the satisfaction of scenting the British Lion. He lingered under the enemy’s cannonade till every one of his men had run away, and he himself was wounded, when he returned to Cambridge. Putnam, in defiance of Ward’s orders, who, notwithstanding his urgency, had always refused him permission, was fortifying Prospect Hill, and sent repeatedly for Sargent to join him, which he declined; but why he does not intimate. He might have exposed himself to a court-martial by a compliance. These are all the facts the author has for the assertion, that Sargent disobeyed Putnam’s order to go on to Bunker Hill. It is simply and palpably impossible that any such order should have been given or disobeyed. (For more of Sargent, see Appendix.)