Bunker Hill

by Howard Fast

  “Thirty-two hundred of the best troops in the world,” Burgoyne said. “Church says there can’t be much more than a thousand of them on Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill. I’ll hold that neck with a corporal’s guard.”

  “What nonsense!” Gage cried. “Sir Henry is absolutely right.”

  “Oh, I wish I possessed your military acumen,” Burgoyne muttered.

  “I will not continue to take your sneers and insults,” Gage cried angrily.

  “Enough.” Sir William roared. “You will not fight across Mrs. Loring’s breakfast table. We will do what honor and England demands of us.”

  “And what is that, sir?”

  “We will attack and clear the peninsula and end this insufferable rebellion.” And turning to Mrs. Loring: “Betsy, bring me my map case.” While she went upstairs for the maps, Sir William ate with energy. Breakfast was his favorite meal, and he saw no reason to forgo it simply because a battle was in the offing. Clinton nibbled at his food and voiced his doubts.

  He said, “If they should put the cannon they have, even two guns, along the shore, they could blow us to pieces before we set foot on land.”

  “But they are not defending the shoreline,” Burgoyne argued. “There is not a man or a gun on the meadows. It’s not their style. They won’t face up to our infantry. I had my glass on the shoreline. It’s empty. They’re up on the hills. The beggars learned one thing: to pot us from behind their cursed stone walls. From what I could see, they’re digging a trench from that redoubt all across the ridge. Face ’em with a line of grenadiers and they’ll run like rabbits.”

  “Admiral Graves,” Howe said, “how long will it take to put our entire force on the peninsula?”

  “What part of the peninsula?”

  Mrs. Loring appeared with the map case, and Howe pushed the dishes aside and unrolled one of the maps. “All of you, gentlemen, gather around. According to what Dr. Church tells us, the main force of the farmers will take a position at the redoubt and alongside it, stretching over to here, I suppose. Prescott commands them. You know Prescott, Sir Henry?”

  “He’s a brave man.”

  “Is he smart?”

  Clinton shrugged. “He’s determined.”

  Burgoyne traced a line on the map. “Church says that John Stark holds this position, down to the river. He’s there with a few hundred rifles.”

  “Only a few hundred?”

  “Church says there are about three hundred of them, riflemen out of New Hampshire. No order, no discipline. They have the range for the first volley. Twice the distance of a musket. But then they have to pound the charge into their guns.”

  “Admiral Graves, I asked you a question,” Howe said impatiently.

  “I have been thinking and calculating. It’s no simple matter. You’ll want guns to back them.”

  “Of course I want guns.”

  “Johnny,” Clinton said to Burgoyne, “Church is a piece of shit, and you take his word as gospel. He told me there are five hundred of the New Hampshire men.”

  Gage shook his head unhappily. “I listen to you,” he said, “and you talk of facing a mob. I have been here longer than any of you. They are no mob. They are hellishly dangerous.”

  “My dear General Gage,” Howe said soothingly. “I respect the knowledge you have of these people. Any man with a gun is dangerous. I accept the fact that they outnumber us five to one, but not on the peninsula. They are spread out from Roxbury to Cambridge to Chelsea. They don’t dare risk their whole army on the peninsula. Or even a substantial part of it. As much as I can make out, they have their best men there, Prescott and Stark and Putnam, but no more than a thousand troops. So in that sense, we outnumber them.”

  “Then why not take them from the rear?” Clinton demanded. “We can land a thousand men on the Charlestown Neck, and then they’re bottled up like rats in a trap.”

  “Because like rats in a trap, they’ll run,” Burgoyne declared. “The Charlestown Neck is four or five hundred paces wide. They’re not going to try to break out. We’ll have to climb the hills. If they decide not to fight, they’ll go into the river, into the town. Meanwhile, the main army attacks us from the mainland. No, sir,” he exclaimed. “I am with Sir William. We attack.”

  “If we break through here,” Sir William said, pointing to a spot between the redoubt and Bunker Hill, “and turn their flank here on the river side—then it’s over!” He was decisive now, filled with the excitement of a mighty coup that would end the rebellion, performing for Mrs. Loring.

  “Follow me now,” he commanded them. “If Stark is here on the right, we go up against him with my grenadiers in the center. The light infantry takes the right flank. The Forty-third and the Fifty-second will cover my left. The marines will go up against the redoubt, and on their right flank, the guards and the Forty-seventh. The Thirty-eighth will assault the redoubt from the right—” He broke off and turned to Graves. “For God’s sake, Admiral, give me a time!”

  Breakfast or not, Admiral Graves was in full-dress uniform—gold epaulets, white wig, sword by his side. Being at the head of the table, he had managed to continue with his breakfast while he, as he put it, cogitated. He swallowed a mouthful of sausage and complimented Mrs. Loring. “One doesn’t eat like this aboard ship, not even an admiral, Mrs. Loring.”

  Turning to Howe: “Well, Sir William, it’s almost eight o’clock. I’ll have the marines on shore to secure the landing by ten, and if you’ll have your men ready within the hour, I’ll put your army on the Charleston shore no later than an hour past noon. Meanwhile, having listened to your discussion, I might be well advised to open a bombardment on the troops the rebels have in Roxbury and Dorchester.

  “That should keep them busy and make them think twice about reinforcing the lot on the Charlestown hills. What do you say to that, sir?”

  “Splendid, Admiral Graves!” Sir William said. “And now I think a toast is in order.”

  Anticipating his wish, Mrs. Loring had two bottles of wine ready for pouring. Sir William raised his massive bulk, offered his glass, and said, “To our victory!”

  The generals and the admiral drank.

  “To His Majesty, the king!” Admiral Graves said, not to be outdone.

  “Hear! Hear!” Sir William cried.

  In the year 1770, Capt. Evan Feversham was court-martialed for his behavior in a small skirmish on shore on the coast of Landes in France. It was a contest of no importance, with only a few hundred men involved. When he appeared before the officers of the court-martial, the charge was read as follows “…that he gave aid and comfort to the enemy, namely, going to the assistance of a French combatant, when the wounded of his own brigade lay within sight, sorely in need of his surgical ministering, and deliberately ignoring the command of his superior officer.” The charge was read by Col. Stephan Woodbury of the Seventeenth Marine Brigade, who then asked Feversham how he pleaded.

  The barrister assigned to his defense had advised him to plead not guilty and argue that in the heat of battle, his confusion was reasonable. Feversham rejected his advice and pleaded guilty.

  “Are you aware of what your plea entails?” Colonel Woodbury asked him.

  “I am, sir.”

  “You will not reconsider it?”

  “No, sir, I will not.”

  “Do you have anything to offer in the way of mitigation?”

  “Only that I considered that I was doing my duty in terms of my pledge and oath as a physician.”

  “Do you, sir, consider that pledge a higher duty than your duty as an officer in His Majesty’s forces.”

  Feversham considered the question for a moment or two before replying. He was thirty-six years old at the time, and he had spent the last nine years in the British army. Even the mildest sentence by the court-martial would amount to a dishonorable discharge and possibly a prison term; in any case, a mark black enough to end his career as a doctor. At the other end of the stick, he could be sentenced to death by hanging or pun
ishment by whipping, a conclusion so ignominious that for a gentleman of honor, death was preferable; although in his case, he had never thought of himself as a gentleman of honor, the very term offensive to him, considering the usual circumstances in which it was earned and prized.

  “I am well aware of my duty as a officer of the Crown,” he finally said, “so I cannot in all honesty weigh the one against the other. I have no desire to alter or contradict the charge that has been read against me. I admit that the details of the charge are accurate. I will only plead that in the heat of battle, a surgeon’s decisions must be made quickly. I saw a Frenchman gushing blood from a severed artery. It is quite true that a British trooper lay nearby, yes, close enough for me to see his wound, a ball in his thigh, at the juncture of the gluteus. He was not bleeding to speak of, which meant that no major artery had been severed. His condition was not worsened or endangered because I chose to put a tourniquet on the Frenchman’s arm.” Even as he spoke, Feversham was thinking with a part of his mind that the encounter could have and should have been avoided.

  “You still have not answered my question,” Colonel Woodbury said.

  “Only as I can answer it.”

  He was found guilty of disobeying the order of a superior officer, but the charge of “giving aid and comfort to the enemy” was dismissed, the court holding that a tourniquet could not be defined in either a political or a military sense and could be held as a medical action, apart from the rules of war, thereby freeing Feversham from either death by hanging or years in prison. His commission was taken away; he was given a dishonorable discharge and was publicly cashiered. A few months later, he sailed for America and the port of Philadelphia. He was alone in the world, a widower whose wife and child had died in a botched childbirth while he was in France.

  In the Pennsylvania Gazette, he read an advertisement asking for a doctor to settle himself in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The advertisement offered “twenty acres of land, suitable for small cultivation and sheep grazing, as a gift of the township, and all help in the raising of house and barn.” After he bought a horse and saddle, Feversham had three hundred pounds remaining to him. Since there appeared to be sufficient doctors, surgeons, barbers, and leeches already practicing in Philadelphia, the advertisement for Ridgefield, he felt, was worth looking into, and the journey there would acquaint him with the nature of America. It was in Ridgefield that he met and married Alice Cunningham.

  And now, five years later, sitting his horse on the road to Charlestown Neck, listening to the thunder of guns from the bay and the shouting and questions from people on the road to Charlestown, he tried at once to comprehend himself as being here and guess where this day would end and what the meaning of the cannon fire might be. Since Cobble Hill separated them from the sight of the bay, they could only guess. “I would say at least two ships,” Prescott ventured.

  An officer on horseback, sighting Prescott, called out, “Colonel, who’s guns are they?”

  The militiamen on the road pressed around to hear Prescott’s answer, and Feversham leaned over to speak in his ear. “Five ships. They signal firing time, so that makes the roll continuous.”

  “Nothing to fear!” Prescott shouted. “Nothing to fear! Now clear the road, and if you’re bound for Charlestown, get along.”

  The officer who had spoken before said to Prescott, “There’s a young fellow over there,” pointing to where a young man of about seventeen with blue eyes and flaxen hair sat on his horse, apparently undecided which way to turn. “He wants to find General Ward.”

  “That’s Johnny Lovell,” Warren said.

  “Bring him here!” Prescott shouted, and when the boy made as to turn his horse away, Prescott spurred through the crowd and grabbed his reins. “Hold on, young man!”

  The boy was frightened. Warren and Feversham pushed their horses through to where Prescott, Lovell, and the officer—he identified himself as Lieutenant Jones—were pressed together against the hedgerow that lined the road.

  “Where are you for?” Prescott asked Jones.

  “Bunker Hill. I’m with General Putnam, sir.”

  “Then get the devil up there.”

  “Yes, sir, Colonel Prescott.”

  “You’re Prescott?” the boy asked as Jones rode off.

  “Well?”

  “I must find General Ward. It’s very important. Please,” he pleaded, almost shaking with excitement.

  “Listen now,” Warren said. “I’m Dr. Warren. This is Dr. Feversham, and this is Colonel Prescott. We don’t know where General Ward is, but if what you have can’t wait, tell us.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Look here, Johnny,” Dr. Warren said. “Ward—” He dropped his voice. “General Ward entrusted us with your secret. I know you, I know your father. I gave you a mustard poultice when you were a lad of six. You screamed like the very devil.”

  The boy’s face broke into a smile. He wiped his brow on his sleeve and nodded. “Yes, sir, I remember.”

  “General Ward confided in us. You must confide in us.”

  “Yes, Doctor. They just made their decision.”

  “Who?”

  “The British, General Howe. I had it from a girl who cleans in the house he took for himself. They’re going to attack today.”

  “You’re sure?” Prescott demanded.

  “I think I’m sure. I was shot at twice. I rode four miles, sir. I rode as if the very devils of hell were after me.”

  “What time will they attack?”

  “Two o’clock, three o’clock.”

  “Johnny,” Warren asked him, “are you sure it’s today, not tomorrow?”

  “Today.”

  JUNE 17, 9:00 A.M.

  It had been arranged for the motley group of doctors or surgeons or leeches to meet with Warren and Feversham at the redoubt, but by nine o’clock, only Bones and Gonzales were there. Bones was born of a poor Welsh peasant family that scratched a living out of a stony hillside, as Feversham learned. He had walked to London, working for food along the way, and had found a job as a cleaning man at the St. Swithen Alms House. He was self-educated, and since St. Swithen was a sort of hospital, he picked up the beginning of his training as an all-around helper. Then he was apprenticed to a surgeon and eventually spent six years at a hospital in Glasgow. Bones—his full name was Gwynn Lewis Bones—had served for two years on a British man-of-war, deserting, finally, in New York City and opting for a life in the colonies. He was a short, hard-muscled man in his forties.

  Both Bones and Gonzales, the Jew from Rhode Island, were at the redoubt when Feversham and Warren got there, engaged in a heated argument on the subject of amputation. Bones’s point of view was that amputation was painful and useless. “I have done at least three dozen amputations and witnessed as many more, and not one of them survived. Not one of them, mind you.”

  “But if the tibia is blown away, if the knee is gone, if the foot is gone, what is the alternative?”

  “To bind it up and let the poor devil die. He will die, anyway.”

  “I have seen men with a leg gone,” Gonzales argued.

  “One in a thousand. Have you ever done one?”

  “Three times, yes.”

  “And did they survive, Dr. Gonzales. Tell me that.”

  Gonzales shook his head. “No, but we have to learn.”

  Feversham listened in amazement. The thunder of the British naval guns was almost unbroken as broadside after broadside was launched at the redoubt and at the entrenchment that was being dug along the ridge. It astonished him that the two men could stand on the firing step, leaning against the wall of the redoubt, absorbed in their discussion.

  “Damn it, get down from there!” Warren shouted.

  Bones and Gonzales stepped down. “No danger, Doctor,” Bones said. “They’ve been at it all morning. They shoot off their stupid cannon, they hit nothing. This is a fine piece of work, this redoubt.”

  There were at least forty men packed into the redoub
t, half of them struggling with the cannon that had been emplaced there. The rest squatted against the walls.

  “Where are the others?” Feversham asked Bones.

  Gridley, with the men around the cannon, saw Warren and came to join them. He had been up all night, his face unshaven, his eyes bloodshot.

  “Ah, they got shit in their blood,” Bones said. “Carter has a call to duty in Roxbury. He showed me orders. The bastard wrote them himself.” Carter was one of the absent doctors.

  “Why aren’t we shooting back?” Warren asked Gridley, pointing to the cannon.

  “Because the balls don’t fit. These are ten-pound guns. The balls they brought up here are sixteen pounds. God knows whether we could hit anything if we had the balls. We can load with grape if we can find the proper angle.”

  “You know they’re attacking today?” Warren asked.

  “We got word. Look down there.” He mounted the firing step, followed by Warren and Feversham, who tried to control his reflexes as the crash of guns sounded and the balls thudded into the redoubt and the hillside. Below them and to the right were the rooftops of Charlestown village, and directly beneath them, marked off with stone or wooden fences, were sheep pens and fields of wheat and ryegrass stretching north along the shore and over the gentle slope to the mouth of the Mystic River. A fleet of small barges and ships’ boats was embarking British troops from the Boston docks and ferrying them across the half-mile-wide Charles River and onto the meadows, where they had just begun to disembark.

  “God give me a gun and a real crew of gunners,” Gridley moaned. “I could blow those bastards out of the water right there in the river. That shithead bookseller Knox claims he knows artillery. He read a book on artillery. And he sends up ammunition that won’t fit the guns. God Almighty, he ought to be skewered and reamed!”