Chapter XXIII: "A viceroy, I, like monarchs, stay (2)

During this preparation on Breed's Hill, all was confusion elsewhere. General Ward was at Cambridge, without sufficient staff officers to convey his orders. Henry (afterward general) Knox was in the reconnoitering service, as a volunteer, during the day, and upon his reports Ward issued his orders. Late in the afternoon, the commanding general dispatched his own, with Paterson's and Gardner's regiments, to the field of action; but to the raw recruits the aspect of the narrow Neck was terrible, swept as it was by the British

* A carcass is a hollow case formed of ribs of iron, covered with cloth, or sometimes iron, with holes in it. Being filled with combustible materials, it is thrown from a mortar into a besieged place, by which means buildings are set on fire. The burning of Charlestown had been resolved upon by Gage some time before, in the event of the Americans taking possession of any of the hills belonging to it. "This resolution was assigned by a near female relative of the general to a gentlewoman with whom she had become acquainted at school, as a reason why the other, upon obtaining a pass to quit Boston, should not tarry at her father's (Mr. Cary's) house in Charlestown."--Dr. Gordon, i., 352.

** Stedman, i., 127.

Death of Colonel Gardner.--Third Attack of the British.--Storming of the Redoubt.--Death of Warren and Pitcairn.

546cannon. Colonel Gardner succeeded in leading three hundred men to Bunker Hill, where Putnam set them intrenching, but soon ordered them to the lines. Gardner was advancing boldly at their head, when a musket ball entered his groin and wounded him mortally. * His men were thrown into confusion, and very few of them engaged in the combat that followed, until the retreat commenced. Other regiments failed to reach the lines. A part of Gerrish's regiment, led by Adjutant Christian Febiger, a Danish officer, who afterward accompanied Arnold to Quebec, and was distinguished at Stony Point, reached the lines just as the action commenced, and effectually galled the British left wing. Putnam, in the mean time, was using his utmost exertions to form the confused troops on Bunker Hill, and get fresh corps with bayonets across the Neck.

All was order and firmness at the redoubt on Breed's Hill, as the enemy advanced. The artillery of the British swept the interior of the breast- work from end to end, destroying many of the provincials, among whom was Lieutenant Prescott, a nephew of the colonel commanding. The remainder were driven within the redoubt, and the breast-work was abandoned. Each shot of the provincials was true to its aim, and Colonel Abercrombie, and Majors Williams and Speedlove fell. Howe was wounded in the foot, but continued fighting at the head of his men. His boats were at Boston, and retreat he could not. His troops pressed forward to the redoubt, now nearly silent, for the provincials' last grains of powder were in their guns. Only a ridge of earth separated the combatants, and the assailants scaled it. The first that reached the parapet were repulsed by a shower of stones. Major Pitcairn, who led the troops at Lexington, ascending the parapet, cried out, "Now for the glory of the marines!" and was immediately shot by a negro soldier. ** Again numbers of the enemy leaped upon the parapet, while others assailed the redoubt on three sides. Hand to hand the belligerents struggled, and the gun-stocks of many of the provincials were shivered to pieces by the heavy blows they were made to give. The enemy poured into the redoubt in such numbers that Prescott, perceiving the folly of longer resistance, ordered a retreat. Through the enemy's ranks the Americans hewed their way, many of them walking backward, and dealing deadly blows with their musket- stocks. Prescott and Warren were the last to leave the redoubt. Colonel Gridley, the engineer, was wounded, and borne off safely. *** Prescott received several thrusts from bayonets and rapiers in his clothing, but escaped unhurt. Warren was the last man that left the works. He was a short distance from the redoubt, on his way toward Bunker Hill, when a musket ball passed through his head, killing him instantly. He was left on the field, for all were flying in the greatest confusion, pursued by the victors, who remorselessly bayoneted those who fell in their way.

Major Jackson had rallied Gardner's men upon Bunker Hill, and pressing forward with

* I have before me a drama, bearing the autograph of General James Abercrombie, entitled "The Battle of Bunker Hill; a dramatic piece in five acts, in heroic measure: by a gentleman of Maryland." Printed at Philadelphia, by Robert Bell, in 1776. Colonel Gardner is one of the dramatis persona, and is made to say, at the moment of receiving the wound,

"A musket ball, death-winged, hath pierced my groin, And widely oped the swift current of my veins. Bear me, then, soldiers, to that hollow space A little hence, just on the hill's decline. A surgeon there may stop the gushing wound, And gain a short respite to life, that yet I may return, and fight one half hour more. Then shall I die in peace, and to my God Surrender up the spirit which he gave."

** Major Pitcairn was carried by his son to a boat, and conveyed to Boston, where he soon died. He left eleven children. The British government settled a pension of one thousand dollars a year upon his widow.

*** Colonel Richard Gridley, the able engineer and brave soldier in this battle, was born in Boston in 1721. He served as an engineer in the reduction of Louisberg in 1745, and entered the British army as colonel and chief engineer in 1755. He was engaged in the expedition to Ticonderoga in 1756, and constructed Fort George, on Lake George. He served under Amherst in 1758, and was with Wolfe, on the Plains of Abraham, the following year. He was appointed ehief engineer of the provincial army near Boston in 1775. He died at Stonghton, on the 20th of June, 1796, aged seventy-five years______Curwen.

Confusion of the Americans.--Efforts of Putnam to Rally them.--Cessation of the Battle.--The Loss.--Spectators of the Battle.

547three companies of Ward's, and Febiger's party of Gerrish's regiment, poured a destructive fire upon the enemy between Breed's and Bunker Hill, and bravely covered the retreat from the redoubt. The Americans at the rail fence, under Stark, Reed, and Knowlton, re-enforced by Clark's, Coit's, and Chester's Connecticut companies, and a few other troops, maintained their ground, in the mean while, with great firmness, and successfully resisted every attempt of the enemy to turn their flank. This service was very valuable, for it saved the main body, retreating from the redoubt, from being cut off. But when these saw their brethren, with the chief commander, flying before the enemy, they too fled. Putnam used every exertion to keep them firm. He commanded, pleaded, cursed and swore like a madman, and was seen at every point in the van, trying to rally the scattered corps, swearing that victory should crown the Americans. * "Make a stand here," he exclaimed; "we can stop them yet! In God's name, fire, and give them one shot more!" The gallant old Pomeroy, also, with his shattered musket in his hand, implored them to rally, but in vain. The whole body retreated across the Neck, where the fire from the Glasgow and gondolas slew many of them. They left five of their six field-pieces, and all their intrenching tools, upon Bunker Hill, and they retreated to Winter Hill, Prospect Hill, and to Cambridge. The British, greatly exhausted, and properly cautious, did not follow, but contented themselves with taking possession of the peninsula. Clinton advised an immediate attack upon Cambridge, but Howe was too cautious or too timid to make the attempt. His troops lay upon their arms all night on Bunker Hill, and the Americans did the same on Prospect Hill, a mile distant. Two British field-pieces played upon them, but without effect, and both sides feeling unwilling to renew the action, hostilities ceased. The loss of the Americans in this engagement was one hundred and fifteen killed and missing, three hundred and five wounded, and thirty who were taken prisoners; in all four hundred and fifty. The British loss is not positively known. Gage reported two hundred and twenty-six killed, and eight hundred and twenty-eight wounded; in all ten hundred and fifty-four. In this number are in eluded eighty-nine officers. The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, from the best information they could obtain, reported the British loss at about fifteen hundred. The battle, from Howe's first attack until the retreat, occupied nearly two hours. The number of buildings consumed in Charlestown, before midnight, was about four hundred; and the estimated loss of property (most of the families, with their effects, having moved out) was nearly six hundred thousand dollars.

The number engaged in this battle was small, yet cotemporary writers and eye-witnesses represent it as one of the most determined and severe on record. There was absolutely no victory in the case. The most indomitable courage was displayed on both sides; and when the provincials had retired but a short distance, so wearied and exhausted were all that neither party desired more fighting, if we except Colonel Prescott, who earnestly petitioned to be allowed to lead a fresh corps that evening and retake Breed's Hill. It was a terrible day for Boston and its vicinity, for almost every family had a representative in one of the two armies. Fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers were in the affray, and deep was the mental anguish of the women of the city, who, from roofs, and steeples, and every elevation, gazed with streaming eyes upon the carnage, for the battle raged in full view of thousands of interested spectators in the town and upon the adjoining hills. ** In contrast with the terrible scene were the cloudless sky and brilliant sun.

* It is said that, for the foul profanity in which the brave old general indulged on that occasion, he made a sincere confession, after the war, before the church of which he was a member. "It was almost enough to make an angel swear," he said, "to sec the cowards refuse to secure a victory so nearly won!"

** "In other battles," said Daniel Webster, in an article published in the North American Review for October, 1818, "the recollection of wives and children has been used as an excitement to animate the warrior's breast and to nerve his arm. Here was not a mere recollection, but an actual presence of them, and other dear connections, hanging on the skirts of the battle, anxious and agitated, feeling almost as if wounded themselves by every blow of the enemy, and putting forth, as it were, their own strength, and all the energy of their own throbbing bosoms, into every gallant effort of their warring friends."

Reflections on the Battle.--Burgoyne's Opinion of the Conflict.--The Character of Warren.

548

"The heavens, the calm pure heavens, were bright on high;

Earth laughed beneath in all its freshening green;

The free, blue streams sang as they wandered by;

And many a sunny glade and flowery scene

Gleamed out, like thoughts of youth, life's troubled years between,"

Willis Gaylord Clark.

while upon the green slopes, where flocks were quietly grazing but a few hours before, War had reared its gory altars, and the earth was saturated with the blood of its victims. Fearfully augmented was the terror of the scene, when the black smoke arose from Charlestown on lire, and enveloped the redoubt on the summit of Breed's Hill, which, like the crater of a volcano, blazed and thundered in the midst of the gloomy curtain that veiled it.

"Amazing scenes! what shuddering prospects rise!

What horrors glare beneath the angry skies!

The rapid flames o'er Charlestown's heights ascend;

To heaven they reach! urged by the boisterous wind.

The mournful crash of falling domes resound,

And tottering spires with sparkles reach the ground.

One general burst of ruin reigns o'er all;

The burning city thunders to its fall!

O'er mingled noises the vast ruin sounds,

Spectators weep! earth from her center groans!

Beneath prodigious unextinguished fires

Ill-fated Charlestown welters and expires."

Eulogium on Warren, 1781.

"It was," said Burgoyne, who, with Gage and other British officers, was looking on from a secure place near Copp's Hill in Boston, "a complication of horror and importance, beyond any thing that ever came to my lot to witness. Sure I am that nothing ever can or has been more dreadfully terrible than what was to be seen or heard at this time." But it is profitless to dwell upon the gloomy scene. Time hath healed the grief and heart-sickness that were born there; and art, in the hands of busy men, has covered up forever all vestiges of the conflict.

Many gallant, many noble men perished on the peninsula upon that sad day; but none was so widely and deeply lamented, because none was so widely and truly loved, as the self-sacrificing and devoted Warren. He was the impersonation of the spirit of generous and disinterested patriotism that inspired the colonies. In every relation in life he was a model of excellence. "Not all the havoc and devastation they have made has wounded me like the death of Warren," wrote the wife of John Adams, Ju]y 5, 1775 three weeks afterward.

"We want him in the Senate; we want him in his profession; we want him in the field. We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the physician, and the warrior."

General Howe estimated his influence, when he declared to Dr. Jeffries, who recognized the body of

* Joseph Warren, son of a Massachusetts farmer, was born in Roxbury in 1740, and graduated at Harvard College in 1759. He studied the science of medicine under Dr. Lloyd, and rapidly rose to the head, or, at least, to the front rank of that profession in Boston. Sentiments of patriotism seemed to form a part of his moral nature, and courage to avow them was always prompting him to action. He became necessarily a politician, at a time when all men were called upon to act in public matters, or be looked upon as drones. He was one of the earliest members of the association in Boston known as the Sons of Liberty, and from 1768 was extremely efficient in fostering the spirit of rational liberty and independence in the wide and influential circle in which he moved. His mind, suggestive and daring, planned many measures, in secret caucus with Adams and others, for resisting the encroachments of British power. In 1771 he delivered the oration on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. He solicited the honor of performing a like duty on the 5th of March, 1775, in consequence of a threat of some of the British officers that they would take the life of any man who should dare to speak on that occasion. The old South meeting-house was crowded on the appointed day, and the aisles, stairs, and pulpit were filled with armed British soldiers. The intrepid young orator entered a window by a ladder, back of the pulpit, and, in the midst of a profound silence, commenced his exordium in a firm tone of voice. His friends, though determined to avenge any attempt at assassination, trembled for his safety. He dwelt eloquently upon the early struggles of the New England people, their faith and loyalty, and recounted, in sorrowful tones, the oppressions that had been heaped upon them. Gradually he approached the scene on the 5th of March, and then portrayed it in such language and pathos of expression, that even the stern soldiery that came to awe him wept at his words. He stood there in the midst of that multitude, a striking symbol of the revolt which he was leading, firm in the faith of that sentiment, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Looking at him, it might be said, as Magoon remarks, in classic quotation,

"Thou hast seen Mount Athos; While storms and tempests thunder at its brows. And oceans beat their billows at its feet, It stands unmoved, and glories in its height. Such is that haughty man; his towering soul, Mid all the shocks and injuries of fortune, Rises superior, and looks down on Caesar."

* When John Hancock went to the Continental Congress, Warren was elected to fill his place as president of the Provincial Congress. Four days previous to the action on Breed's Hill, that body gave him the commission of major general, and he was the only officer of that rank engaged in the conflict; yet he was without command, and fought as a volunteer. "He fell," as Everett has beautifully expressed it, "with a numerous band of kindred spirits--the gray-haired veteran, the stripling in the flower of youth--who had stood side by side on that dreadful day, and fell together, like the beauty of Israel in their high places!" Warren's body was identified, on the morning after the battle, by Dr. Jeffries, who was his intimate acquaintance. He was buried where he fell, and the place was marked. After the evacuation of Boston in 1776, his remains were disinterred, and, on the 8th of April, were carried in procession from the Representatives' chamber to King's Chapel, and buried with military and masonic honors. The Reverend Dr. Cooper offered prayers, and Perez Morton pronounced an oration on the occasion. "Warren's remains now rest beneath St. Paul's Church. He was Grand Master of Freemasons for North America at the time of his death. A lodge in Charlestown erected a monument to his memory in 1794, on the spot where he fell. It was composed of a brick pedestal eight feet square, rising ten feet from the ground, and supporting a Tuscan pillar of wood eighteen feet high. This was surmounted by a gilt urn, bearing the inscription "J.W., aged 35," entwined with masonic emblems. On the south side of the pedestal was the following inscription: "Erected A.D. MDCCXCIV., By King Solomon's Lodge of Free-masons, constituted in Charlestown, 1783, In Memory of Major-general Joseph Warren and his associates, who were slain on this memorable spot June 17,1775. * None but they who set a just value upon the blessings of liberty are worthy to enjoy her. In vain we toiled in vain we fought; we bled in vain, if you, our offspring, want valor to repel the assault of her invaders. Charlestown settled, 1628. Burned, 1775. Rebuilt, 1776." This monument stood forty years, and then was removed to give place to the present granite structure, known as Bunker Hill Monument. A beautiful model of Warren's monument stands within the colossal obelisk, from which I made the accompanying sketch.

** On the 8th of April, 1777, Congress, by resolution, ordered "that a monument be erected to the memory of General Warren, in the town of Boston, with the following inscription:

In honor of Joseph Warren, Major General of Massachusetts Bay. He devoted his life to the liberties Of his country; And in bravely defending them, fell An early victim, In the battle of Bunker Hill, June 17th, 1775. The Congress of the United States, As an acknowledgment of his services, Have erected this monument to his memory.

Congress also ordered "that his eldest son be educated at the expense of the United States."* The patriotic order for the erection of a monument has never been obeyed.

The Energy, Boldness, and Patriotism of Warren.--Masonic Honors to his Memory.--The old Monument on Breed's Hill

549Warren on the field the next day, that his death was worth, to the British, five hundred of the provincial privates. Eulogy and song have aided history in embalming his memory with the

Character of the Troops engaged in the Battle on Breed's Hill.--Monument to Warren ordered by Congress.

550immortality that rests upon the spot where he fell. He was a hero in the highest sense of the term, and so were Prescott and other compatriots in the struggle; but all were not heroes who surrounded them. Unused to war; some entirely ignorant of the sound of a cannon; inferior, by two thirds, in number, and vastly so in discipline, to the enemy, the wonder is that the provincials fought so well, not that so many used their heels more expertly than their hands. Many officers, chosen by the men whom they commanded, were totally unfitted in knowledge and spirit for their stations, and a few exhibited the most arrant cowardice. They were tried by court martial, and one was cashiered for disobedience and for being a poltroon. * But they have all passed away; let us draw the curtain of charity around their resting- places, remembering that

"Hero motives, placed in judgment's scale,

Outweigh all actions where the heart is wrong."

Here let us close the volume of history for a time, and while the gentle breeze is sweeping the dust and smoke of battle from Bunker Hill, ** and the tumult of distress and alarm is subsiding in Boston, let us ride out to Lexington and Concord, to visit those places consecrated by the blood of the first patriot martyrs. We have had a long, but, I trust, profitable consultation of the records of the past. I have endeavored to point out for consideration the most prominent and important links in the chain of events, wherein is remarkably manifested the spirit of true liberty which finally wrought out the independence of these American states. In brief outlines I have delineated the features of those events, and traced the progress of the principles of freedom from the little conventicles of despised and persecuted, but determined men, toward the close of the sixteenth century, who assembled to assert the most undoubted natural right, that of worshiping God as the conscience of the creature shall dictate, to the uprising of nearly two millions of the same people in origin and language, in defiance of the puissance of the mightiest arm upon earth; and the assembling of a council in their midst, of which the great Pitt was constrained to say, "I must declare and avow that in all my reading and study--and it has been my favorite study; I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master states of the world--that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress of Philadelphia."

* This was Captain Callender. The court sentenced him to be cashiered, and, in an order of July 7th, Washington declared him to be "dismissed from all further service in the Continental army." Callender felt much aggrieved, and, confronting the charge of cowardice, remained in the army as a volunteer, and fought so bravely at the battle of Long Island, the next year, that Washington commanded his sentence to be erased from the orderly-book.

** This battle should properly be called the battle of Breed's Hill, for there the great events of the day occurred. There was much fighting and slaughter upon Bunker Hill, where Putnam chiefly commanded, but it was not the main theater of action.

* Journals of Congress, iii., 98

Boston Common.--Trip to Concord.--Major Barrett--His Connection with the Revolution.

551