Note.—The fac-simile on this page is of a handbill, printed in Boston, giving the tory side of the fight at Bunker Hill,—after an original in the library of the Mass. Hist. Society.
Note.—This sketch of Bunker Hill Battle, made for Lord Rawdon, follows a tracing of the original belonging to Dr. Emmet of New York, furnished to me by Mr. Benson J. Lossing. A finished drawing from this sketch is given in the Mem. Hist. of Boston, vol. iii. Cf. Harper's Mag. xlvii., p. 18. The spire in the foreground is that of the West Church, which stood where Dr. Bartol's church, in Cambridge Street, Boston, now stands, showing that the sketcher was on Beacon hill, 138 feet above the water. The smoke from the frigate to the right of the spire rises against the higher hill where Putnam endeavored to rally the retreating provincials. This hill is 110 feet above the water, and about one mile and a half distant from the spectator. One hundred and thirty rods to the right of this summit is the crown of the lower or Breed's Hill, where the redoubt was, which is 62 feet above the sea. Dr. Emmet secured this picture and another of the slope of the hill, taken after the battle, and showing the broken fences (Mem. Hist. of Boston, iii. 88), at the sale of the effects of the Marquis of Hastings, who was a descendant of Lord Rawdon, then on Gage's staff (Harper's Monthly Mag., 1875). The earliest engraved picture of the battle is one cut by Roman, which was published the same year, and appeared also in Sept., 1775, on a reduced scale, in the Pennsylvania Magazine. It has been reproduced in Frothingham's Centennial: Battle of Bunker Hill (1875), in Moore's Ballad History, and in other of the Centennial memorials. In 1781 a poem by George Cockings, The American War (London), had a somewhat extraordinary picture, which has been reproduced in Gay's Pop. Hist. U. S., iii. 401, by S. A. Drake, and others. In 1786 Col. John Trumbull painted his well-known picture of the battle, which has been often engraved. (Cf. Trumbull's Autobiography; N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., xv.; Tuckerman's Book of the Artists; Harper's Magazine, Nov., 1879.) Trumbull claimed that the following figures in his picture were portraits: Warren, Putnam, Howe, Clinton, Small, and the two Pitcairns.
In the Mass. Magazine, Sept., 1789, there is a view of Charlestown, showing Bunker's and Breed's hills, with their original contours. It is reproduced in Mem. Hist. Boston, iii. 554, with a note upon other early views. Frothingham (Siege, p. 121) gives one from an early manuscript which closely resembles the topography of the Rawdon sketch; and again (Centennial, etc.) another which is in fact the perspective sketch of the town at the edge of Price's view of Boston (1743), converted into a panoramic picture (Mem. Hist. of Boston, ii. 329).
The Gentleman's Mag., Feb., 1790, has a view of Charlestown, with the tents of the British army on the hill, taken after the battle, and from Copp's Hill. It shows the wharves and ruins of the town. (Cf. note in Mem. Hist. Boston, iii. 88.)
The account of the loyalist Jones (N. Y. during the Rev., i. 52) has his usual twist of vision, though he is severe on Gage for "taking the bull by the horns" in making an attack in front.
