Battle of Bunker Hill

in Charlestown

“Plan of the Battle on Bunker Hill,” by British General John Burgoyne, published in London, fall 1775. The Redcoats, under the command of General William Howe, approached from the shoreline. Provincial soldiers at the redoubt were under the command of Colonel William Prescott.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress

June 17, 1775, HMS Lively lay at anchor between Boston and Charlestown. At dawn, her lookout detected the redoubt—a fortlike structure—provincials had hastily built overnight atop Breed’s Hill. Lively’s crew began firing their cannon at the “rebels,” but failed to intimidate them.

Early afternoon, British long boats, bearing armaments and hundreds of regulars, rowed past what is now Pier 8 up to the shoreline a few yards inland. Soon the cannon roar intensified–from British warships offshore and the battery across the harbor on Copp’s Hill. Charlestown was aflame.

The Redcoats advanced in orderly formation. “An incessant stream of fire poured from the rebel line,” a British soldier reported. They fell back. Finally on their third attempt, as provincials ran out of gunpowder, British troops breached the provincials’ defenses, forcing them to retreat.

 The provincials suffered 405 casualties and lost control of Charlestown’s strategic hills. But more than a thousand Redcoats had been killed or wounded. “The success is too dearly bought,” wrote General Howe. Nine months later British troops evacuated Boston.

“the Enemy [the Redcoats] Landed and … Soon planted their Cannon and began the fire & advancing up to our fort after they Came within gunshot we fird & then Ensud a very hot Engagement after a number of shots passed the Enemy Retreated…. They advanced again & we Began A hot fire for A short time the Enemy Scaling our walls and the number of our men being few we was ordered to Retreat…”

From the journal of Thomas Boynton, who served in the Massachusetts militia

General Howe gave the order for the town of Charlestown to be burned to the ground shortly before the battle began. Almost all residents had left as the threat of danger became clear.

Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

Boston citizens watched the battle unfold from rooftops and hills.

Illustration based on Winslow Homer drawing, Harper’s Weekly, June 26, 1875

The focus of John Trumball’s painting is the death of Dr. Joseph Warren, a key player in events leading up to the battle. Trumball also includes two of more than 100 men of color who served at Bunker Hill. On the far right, Asaba, enslaved by Lt. Thomas Grosvenor, stands behind him. Just below the flags on the left it’s believed is Peter Salem, a Black freeman.

“We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the physician and the warrior.” Abigail Adams writing of Dr. Joseph Warren’s death to her husband, John Adams, July 5, 1775.

Painting courtesy of Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Sign Location

More …

In 1775, the Americans marched past Bunker Hill and fortified Breed’s Hill instead. No one knows why they chose a position on the lower hill, but that is where the militias constructed their fort in Charlestown before the battle on June 17.  Confusion about the name of the hill where the battle occurred goes back to the battle itself. Colonel William Prescott’s orders were to fortify Bunker’s Hill, but he chose Breed’s Hill instead. A detailed map of the battle prepared by British Army Lt. Page further compounded the problem by reversing the names of the two hills. Over time, everyone forgot about Breed’s Hill, and the famous battle became known by the name of its steeper neighbor.

Source: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/bunker-hill

 

Tensions that had been building for years between British troops stationed in Boston and citizens of Massachusetts province escalated further after deadly skirmishes in Lexington and Concord. The Redcoats were penned in on Boston’s peninsula. Both British and provincial leaders recognized the strategic advantage of controlling the hills overlooking Boston: in Charlestown and at Dorchester Heights. Provincials got to Charlestown first, and the British were determined to dislodge them.  Nine months later, Americans would take control of Dorchester Heights, significantly accelerating the departure of British troops and Loyalists.

lnw June 2022

Community activists. Colonial law. Political will. New state regulations. The combination created the 43-mile Boston Harborwalk–a public path, stretching from Logan Airport through seven neighborhoods to the Neponset River. In 1978, the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management (CZM) sought to improve public access to the waterfront. They succeeded by integrating early Colonial laws into new state regulations.

In the decades that followed, community activists, city and state government, and developers of shoreline projects have worked together to ensure the Harborwalk is always constructed along the waterfront. Some sites also provide public amenities–bathrooms, meeting places, kayak launches,
etc. The result is a fabulous path welcoming residents and visitors to our vibrant clean harbor.

Early Colonial laws established public right of access along tidelands to protect citizens’ rights to fish, hunt, and navigate at sea and along the shorefront. These laws go back even further: They stem from Roman law, which was incorporated into English law and brought over to Massachusetts by English
settlers. Then, in the 1640s, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed laws permitting private docks in the intertidal area (between low and high tide) as long as public access was retained. Almost all of Boston’s waterfront is filled land that was once the intertidal area. This, together with the centuries-old legal right of access, served as the underpinnings for the 1978 CZM regulations.

Resources

  • Harris, John. “The Battle of Bunker Hill,” The Boston Globe, June 8, 1975.
  • Philbrick, Nathaniel. Bunker Hill, A City, A Siege, A Revolution. Viking, 2013.
  • Quintal, George. Patriots of Color, ‘A Peculiar Beauty and Merit,’ African Americans and Native Americans at Battle Road & Bunker Hill. National Park Service, 2002.
  • Wheildon, William Willder. New History of the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775, Its Purpose, Conduct, and Result. Lee & Shepard, 1875.

Acknowledgments

  • Warm thanks to Professor Robert Allison and National Park Service ranger Dan Gagnon for their review of the sign.
  • Our deep gratitude to Ann and Chuck Legasse for their enthusiasm and commitment to celebrating the former Navy Yard’s history.