SPECIAL EDITION: THE REVOLUTIONARY SHORE – The Battle of Bunker Hill

June 17, 1775

Yesterday, 250 years ago . . .

Hundreds of colonial militia and British soldiers fought and died in the first major battle of the American Revolution. Though most of the fighting occurred on Breed’s Hill near Charlestown, Massachusetts, the battle was named for the nearby higher elevation they sought to control–Bunker Hill.

Following the April engagements at Lexington and Concord, thousands of militiamen from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire assembled near Boston to keep the British military in the city. Congress placed these troops under Federal control on June 14 –the day now considered to be the birth of the US Army. By then, the King’s officers planned break the colonials’ “siege” with a June 18 attack on the Charlestown peninsula.

Militia leaders learned of the British plan and deployed soldiers to build an earthen fort (redoubt) at Breed’s Hill in the dark morning hours of June 17. Sunrise revealed the fresh defenses to General William Howe and other British officers who agreed the assault should begin. Some three thousand British troops spent the morning waiting for the high tide to carry them across the Charles River.

The 2,200 Americans waiting there used the morning to train and arrange themselves in some form of unified readiness. Everyone could see the thousands of red coats pouring on shore from armed British vessels. They were untested, outgunned, outmanned and they knew it.

For the next two hours, the Americans capably pressed back each of two major assaults by Howe’s armies. By the time the third flush of British might came toward the hill, though, the militiamen were exhausted, their ammunition low, and Charlestown was burning to the ground. The British overwhelmed the redoubt and the colonials fell back. It was a tactical win for Howe and King George.

The emotional victory, however, belonged to the Americans. They could fight. The British were stunned; they suffered more than twice the number of casualties (1054) as did the colonials (450), the highest British cost in any one Revolutionary War encounter. The Patriots were deeply grieved by the battlefield death of Dr. Joseph Warren, a true leader and Son of Liberty, but his martyrdom and the impressive showing of the day would inspire many more to the Patriot cause.

Within weeks, newly minted General George Washington arrived to make a “Continental Army” out of disparate soldiers from multiple colonies. And, soon enough, he would learn just what a challenge that would be.

Join WESR on the 4th of each month to learn more about Virginia and the Shore’s role in the War for Independence. Welcome to the Revolutionary Shore!