The First American Army Read Free Page A

second charge would succeed. It did not. His second attack only resulted in more dead and wounded British soldiers. A third charge was ordered late in the afternoon.
    The third thrust up the hill was similar to the first two, but this time the British, with the right ammunition, used cannon that helped to soften American defenses. Again, the British were raked with a loud volley of musket fire followed by more throaty cheers from the Americans despite cannonballs exploding around them. Again, the English went down like red-colored dominos. On this occasion, earlier faulty planning caused the Americans to run out of ammunition and they could not continue to defend the hill. The Americans did not run out of powder slowly, but abruptly, moving a British officer to write with surprise that the provincial’s fire “went out like an old candle.” 6
    The British, with no resistance from the Americans, climbed to within the shadows of the redoubt, earthworks, and fences. The English, angry, were now the ones screaming in triumph. Colonel Prescott decided to abandon the fort to save his men from what he knew would be a massacre. He wrote, “The enemy, being numerous, surrounded our little fort, began to mount our lines and enter the fort with their bayonets.” 7
    Out of gunpowder, the Americans fled amidst gritty hand to hand combat. Putnam unsuccessfully tried to direct them up to Bunker Hill, where others had waited. Then they also fled. Private Brown had stayed on Breed’s until the last moment, and then departed. He wrote later, “I jumped over the walls and ran for about half a mile where the balls flew like hailstones and cannons roared like thunder.” 8
    Those who viewed the action said the retreat was orderly and saw it as a great moral victory for the Americans, who had fought courageously all afternoon. The enlisted men firing away at the Redcoats that day believed that in killing 226 enemy soldiers and wounding another 828, nearly half the attacking troops, with far fewer losses of their own—140 dead, including Dr. Warren, whom the British contended was the head rabble-rouser in Massachusetts, and 301 wounded. They had showed both the country and the Crown that they were a resilient foe. “We . . . sustained the enemy’s attacks with great bravery and resolution,” wrote Amos Farnsworth, a corporal at Breed’s, “and after bearing for about two hours as severe and heavy a fire as perhaps ever was known . . . we were overpowered by numbers and obliged to leave the entrenchment.” 9
    And without enough gunpowder there was little more to be accomplished that terrible day. “Had our troops been furnished with a sufficient supply of ammunition, the enemy must have suffered a total defeat,” wrote Thacher, who added that the battle built the confidence of the American troops and showed one and all that “we are favored with the smiles of heaven.” 10
    The British agreed. One British lieutenant said that “the oldest officers say they never saw sharper action” and General John Burgoyne, watching the action from Boston, scoffed at the suggestion of a cowardly pullback. He noted that “the retreat was no flight; it was covered even with bravery and military skill.” General Henry Clinton, who would be in America for six years, was glad to take the hills and get back to Boston without worse losses. He called it “a dear bought victory” and added that “another such would have ruined us.” 11
    One of those at Bunker Hill that day was young John Greenwood, fifteen, a fifer who had returned to town to rejoin his family, whom he had not seen in two years. The Greenwoods were still in Boston, prevented from leaving by the British. Unable to see them, Greenwood had joined the army a few weeks before as a musician for the Twelfth Massachusetts Regiment. Captain T. T. Bliss had given him a pass to visit his aunt fifteen miles outside of Boston two days previously but, halfway there, his fife stuck in his pocket