Bunker Hill

by Howard Fast

  A wild din of shouting interrupted Feversham’s letter writing, and he ran with others in the redoubt to the gate on the backside, to see Prescott riding his horse at the head of a column of men marching four abreast, while the men in the redoubt and along the barricade waved their hats and shouted in excitement.

  Feversham went back to his letter: “My dear Alice, suddenly, I am filled with hope. Colonel Prescott has just delivered to us a column of reinforcements. I leave you now, and I will finish this letter later, perhaps after this day is over. I must note, if the worst comes, that my wife, to whom I write, is Alice Feversham, in the village of Ridgefield in Connecticut, and I charge you who reads this to deliver it to her.”

  There was no shelter from the burning sun for the grenadiers, who were being landed in the meadow at Morton’s Point. There were two well-leafed maple trees, but Howe felt it would be deleterious to the spirit of the men for them to huddle together in the shade; although he did order water to be given to them, as well as a ration of bread and cheese. Aside from their high shakos, the grenadiers carried full pack, consisting of cloak and canteen and powder and fifty extra balls of lead, made into cartridges. They were also in heavy uniform and leather boots, armed with musket and bayonet. They stood in the June sun, sweat running down their faces and soaking their underclothes. Whatever complaints they made were voiced in whispers.

  It was Howe’s plan to assemble his forces across the entire front of the half mile between Charlestown village and the mouth of the Mystic River, and then, with the grenadiers in the forefront, to march calmly up Breed’s Hill, take the redoubt by assault, and breach the entire line of defenses in one massive thrust. Laying out his plan to Burgoyne, he said, “My feeling is that they will cut and run, facing the grenadiers. Do you agree?”

  “No question about it,” Burgoyne assented. “We make a mistake if we consider them as soldiers. They are not soldiers, and they have no discipline whatsoever. Each does as he pleases. We saw that in April.”

  General Gage, aware that he was in the minority, his head aching from the heat, was less certain. “It’s just that we don’t know how many of them there are up there,” he said, pointing to the top of the hill.

  “I have a message from Church,” Burgoyne said. “He writes that half of them assigned to the defenses deserted last night. They simply slip away. No punishment, no measures against them.”

  “Yes, I suppose some of them are afraid.”

  They were joined by Admiral Graves. His marines were landing on the extreme left, within rifle shot of the houses of abandoned Charleston.

  “I’ve lost five men, and two more wounded,” Graves told them angrily. “I can’t ask them to stand there and be shot at.”

  “Why not?” Burgoyne quipped. “It’s in the nature of their profession. It’s what they’re paid for.”

  “I don’t appreciate that, General.”

  “If it came down to that,” Burgoyne said as an aside to Gage, “I’d rather be shot at in what the marines are wearing than stand in this bleeding sun under a grenadier’s shako.”

  “I don’t appreciate that, either.” Graves had caught a few words. “It’s no joking matter.”

  “Can’t we stand in the shade,” Burgoyne asked, “and have this discussion out of the sun?”

  “If you require your comfort, sir,” Howe said, annoyed by Burgoyne’s attempt at wit. As they moved into the shade of a tree, Sir William asked Graves what he proposed. “I must detail the men for the advance. Do you want the whole army huddled over here in the meadow?”

  “Why must we endure those cursed riflemen?”

  “What do you propose?”

  “I’m willing to move into the village with the marines. We’ll soon clean out that nest of vipers.”

  “And lose half a hundred of your men?”

  “There’s a clean and simple solution,” Burgoyne observed.

  “Is there? Enlighten us.”

  “Burn the filthy place.”

  “What!”

  “Exactly.”

  “Clinton’s up on Copp’s Hill with the battery. He’s out of it as far as the hill is concerned, out of range. Every shot he’s fired falls short. Wasting ammunition. I like your notion, Johnny,” Howe said to Burgoyne.

  Gen. Robert Pigot of the grenadiers, second in command to Sir William, joined the group and informed Howe that in another hour or so the bulk of the army would be onshore.

  Howe nodded with pleasure and turned to Admiral Graves. “Admiral, tell me, is the tide right to bring Symmetry and Glasgow up the Charles River and within cannon shot of the Charlestown Neck?”

  “The tide will be with us, but there’s no wind to speak of, Sir William.” “You heard Pigot. In another hour, the army will be onshore. You could work the ships in with boats? Could you?”

  “I guess we could. It might take a while.”

  “By two, three o’clock?”

  “Certainly by three o’clock.”

  “Oh, splendid!” Burgoyne cried. “They’re rats in a trap. Cut them off at the Charlestown Neck and we have them.” “And my marines?” Graves demanded. “We’ll solve that,” Howe said. “We’ll drop a few salvos of fire

  bombs out of the siege mortars on Copp’s Hill. That wretched

  village will go up like a bonfire.”

  “You can’t be serious?” Gage said.

  “I am very serious, General Gage, completely serious.”

  “Burn an entire village?”

  “It’s a stinking little village,” Burgoyne said.

  “We don’t burn villages,” Gage said. “My God, Sir William, we are not barbarians. There are rules of war.”

  “Tell me, who are the barbarians, General Gage? They snipe at us from behind their damned stone walls. They hide in that abandoned village and murder our marines. There are no families left in Charlestown. No, let the world decide who are the barbarians. We’ll burn that damned village to the ground!”

  “Sir William,” Gage said, “I beg your forbearance. Please, understand me. I know as well as you do the need to bring this wretched rebellion to an end. But we are fighting our own people. If we burn Charlestown, we will give them a source of rage and bitterness they will never forget. I know these people, and if you will forgive me, you do not. They are stiff-necked and determined beyond any of our folk at home. They are Puritans, and they believe they are God’s chosen. They hacked a civilization out of the wilderness. They are not European peasants, and they are not Scottish gillies. We have them trapped on the peninsula, and we can destroy them in a fair fight. They will accept that because it will be a defeat with honor. But if we burn Charlestown, they will have a symbol that they will not forget.”

  “Oh, come on, sir,” Burgoyne put in. “The houses are empty. The town is a spoil of war, a legitimate target.”

  “Am I to stand by and watch my marines murdered?” Graves demanded.

  “You can assemble your marines out of rifle shot.”

  “Bloody nonsense!”

  “I hear you, General Gage,” Howe said, “but the command here is mine, and it is my responsibility to bring this wretched rebellion to an end.” He signaled an end to the argument by turning to Burgoyne: “Off with you, Johnny. Copp’s Hill. Tell Clinton that he is to prepare firebombs and shell the village. Meanwhile,” he said to Graves, “you may begin working Symmetry and Glasgow into the river to the range of the Charlestown Neck. Once and for all, I intend to put a finish to what is up there on Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill. When the sun sets tonight, this rebellion will be done with.”

  On Breed’s Hill, the officers’ horses were tethered behind the redoubt. In the redoubt, Prescott sat on the firing step, facing the officers who would defend Breed’s Hill. Feversham stood to one side, studying the faces and manner of the four men who would to one degree or another decide his own fate on Breed’s Hill: Tom Knowlton, short, stocky, and amazingly relaxed; John Stark of New Hampshire, tall, brown as a berry, wearing a sleeveles
s waistcoat and fringed leggings, his pale blue eyes bloodshot from want of sleep; young Captain Nutting, nervous now, excited, rubbing his chin anxiously; and Gridley, three days’ growth of red beard on his face, sunburned red on his bald head, chewing thoughtfully on a straw. Warren sprawled on the ground to one side, his bright, fanciful clothes stained and sweat-soaked. And on the opposite wall of the redoubt, crouched wearily on the firing step and taking advantage of the little shade the wall offered, were the thirty-two men who remained of the larger group that had built the redoubt. Feversham noticed, among them, two Negroes, both of them stripped to the waist and dressed in ragged pantaloons. They were barefoot, but so were others of the men in the redoubt. Probably, they were slaves, but whom they belonged to and what brought them to the redoubt, Feversham did not know.

  “We are in good stead and good strength,” Prescott said. “I come with five hundred and fifty-two men, and they’re fine men and better rested than we are. I intend to station some of them here in the redoubt and to station the large part of the rest in a line from the redoubt to the first stone wall. That’s about three hundred yards, which is easy firing position for four hundred men. Tom,” he said, addressing Knowlton, “how many men have you?”

  “Two hundred and twelve by last count.”

  “We’ll anchor my left flank on the stone wall. You have a fieldstone wall along the whole slope of the hill. Put your men shoulder to shoulder, and that should take you to Stark’s right flank.”

  He said to Stark, “Johnny, can you make your position tight enough to anchor your line to Tom’s and yet prevent the British from flanking your left along the river?”

  “I have three hundred riflemen,” Stark replied. “There’s a wooden fence, goes a ways, and a sort of stone wall. We been at it all morning, digging a little, stuffing the holes with hay, which won’t stop a musket ball but might spoil their aim. If Knowlton here can hold my right and keep them from turning me, we can stop any damn thing on God’s earth that comes at our front. We can not only stop it. We can send it to hell and gone.”

  Prescott turned to young Nutting, reminding him of a stone-andlog root cellar which made a sort of projecting knob between the entrenchments and Knowlton’s position. “Could you find room for five men in there?” Prescott wanted to know.

  “Maybe.”

  “The logs are rotten. See if you can knock one out and make a position.”

  “If they break our line,” Knowlton said, “what’s behind us?”

  “Putnam’s on Bunker Hill. He has three hundred men behind stone walls. I don’t want any of you taken prisoner, but I don’t want any of your men to run unless you give the order. I depend on you to measure things. We fire in volleys and under control. Don’t leave it to the men. Put out stakes. I would say fifty feet for the first volley, and no one fires his gun before they cross the stakes.”

  The four officers sat in silence. A few moments went by, punctured only by the thunder of cannons from the bay.

  “No questions?”

  “We’ll do our best,” Stark said.

  Gridley smiled and shrugged.

  “I’d like to hear from the surgeons,” Knowlton said, nodding at Warren and Feversham.

  “I’ll be in the redoubt,” Warren said. “Dr. Feversham has walked through our line.”

  “Feversham?” Prescott said.

  “Outside the redoubt, there are only three of us,” Feversham told them. “We drew straws for position. I’ll be with Colonel Prescott. Dr. Bones will be with Colonel Stark, and Dr. Gonzales, with Major Knowlton.” Both men were standing at the entrance to the redoubt. Feversham nodded at them, and they acknowledged his introduction. “We’ll do our best. Dr. Bones is an old hand at this. Dr. Gonzales is a physician in Providence, so he is new to this. I have confidence in him. I spoke to Colonel Stark about litters, but he holds that the lines are too thin to weaken by assigning men to litters. So be it. We have dressings and tourniquets. We can bind a wound and stop the bleeding, but where there is no rear and the battle is of itself, there is not much more that we can do. As Colonel Stark put it, we’ll do our best.”

  “Thank you,” Prescott said. “And now, gentlemen, God be with us. I thank you with all my heart. Go to your positions. I am going to send my horse off the peninsula. What is your will?”

  “I think the horses will simply be an impediment,” Knowlton said. The others nodded agreement. Feversham left the redoubt and unhooked his bag of instruments from his saddle. Stark and Knowlton strode along the ridge toward their lines of defense, and Nutting loped down the hill to the root cellar. He made a little dance of dodging two cannonballs that sent up their fountain of dirt on either side of him. Prescott climbed onto the embankment.

  “Feversham!”

  The doctor joined him, and Prescott handed him his spyglass. “Have a good look.” In the meadow grass behind them, the Massachusetts militiamen that Prescott had brought to the hill were sprawled on the ground, their wide-rimmed hats tilted over their faces to shield them from the sun.

  Feversham had a clear view of the landing troops. Two more barges were inching to the shore, both of them loaded with uniforms he recognized as light infantry, and toward Morton’s Point he could make out the even ranks of the grenadiers. He tried to do a quick count, more of a guess than anything else. A mass of men in

  the uniforms of the light infantry were forming ranks.

  He handed the glass to Prescott, who put it to his eye.

  “About two thousand,” Feversham said.

  “They’re warping two of the warships.” The cannonading had suddenly stopped.

  “Into the river,” Feversham agreed, squinting.

  “Oh, they’re a canny lot, Doctor. They got it all worked out, every bit of it. Put the Charlestown Neck under their guns. Trap us here, stick it to us with their cursed bayonets, and then back to England the conquering heroes go. How long do you suppose we have before they attack?”

  Feversham shrugged. “An hour, perhaps. They’re cooling their cannon. They’ll blast away with everything before it starts.”

  “I must position my men,” Prescott said, handing his spyglass to Feversham. “Keep a look on them, Doctor, if you would. Let me know when they decide to have a go at us.”

  “War can be boring,” Prudence Hallsbury observed. “They just stand on the beach, and they don’t do anything. They keep shooting those frightful cannon, and I do believe we’ll lose our hearing. And it’s so hot, even here on the water.”

  “When do you expect the battle to begin?” Mrs. Loring asked Lieutenant Threadberry, well aware of him standing behind her and enjoying her cleft.

  “Well, ma’am, that’s up to General Howe, isn’t it? You can see some troopers being ferried over to Charlestown from the Boston docks. That’s the Irish brigade, if I’m not mistaken. You can be sure Sir William will wait until he has all his troops on land. Then he’ll move. Oh, you can be sure that he will. We have some wine in a net overside, excellent French Chardonnay that Sir William provided

  for us. Not to Captain Woodly’s liking, but nothing French is.”

  “A net overside?” Mrs. Loring wondered.

  “The day is hot, but the water’s cold, Mrs. Loring. We put the bottles in a cord net and float them in the cold water.”

  Midshipman Andrews appeared with two bottles of Chardonnay, and Mrs. Loring asked Lieutenant Threadberry to join them in a toast.

  “To victory?” Threadberry suggested.

  Modestly, Mrs. Loring assented. It would only titillate the gossip if she suggested that they drink to Sir William. “Of course, he will lead the troops in the attack.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Sir William.”

  “No doubt about that.”

  In the years ahead, indeed for the rest of his life, Evan Feversham would recall and ponder the unreality of this day, this seventeenth of June in 1775. He was in place by courtesy of Prescott, who, seemingly unafraid, walked along the top of the earthen
barricade, telling off the places of his men. “Just fall in—leave a foot of space between each man and keep your heads down—here, now, you want a bit of space to reload—and damn it, if the good Lord made a bullet for you, it will find you, so there’s no worry about that— and you fire when I say fire, no sooner, no later. Knowlton!” he shouted suddenly.

  At the far end of the embankment, Knowlton was spacing his Connecticut riflemen. “Colonel?”

  “Tell off fifty of these men. I’m filling my line.”

  It was theater, Feversham thought. Here he stood, the whole American line visible to him, the redoubt, the line of earthen breastworks stretching away from the redoubt over a hundred yards to the stone wall that Knowlton had chosen for his position and for his Connecticut riflemen. Then, on the other side of a rutted cart trace, he saw Stark and his New Hampshire riflemen behind two fences and a stone wall, right down the slope to the Mystic River, a line of defense eight or nine hundred paces long and manned over its whole length by hardly many more than a thousand men. Certainly, they were betrayed, whether by design or not, facing more than double their number of the best-trained soldiers in the world, while an army of thirteen thousand of their compatriots were in Roxbury and Dorchester and Cambridge. Yet the incredible heart of it was, as Feversham considered, that those who were here had accepted so matter-of-factly the situation as it was, himself included. Were they as nervous and afraid as he was, committed as he was out of shame and circumstances?

  He tried to find an indication in their faces and manner, but with their lying behind the earthworks, there was no way to tell. Some of them appeared totally relaxed. Others fiddled with their muskets, wiping the flints so that there might be no spot of moisture from their perspiration. Still others lay back, hats tilted over their faces; some chatted softly. At the far end, a farmer-turned-rebel had a tin whistle and blew a plaintive melody.