When dawn broke the next morning, revealing the fort on the hill, British warships in and about Boston Harbor responded with a massive bombardment the likes of which had never been seen or heard before in British North America. Their action, supervised by Colonel William Prescott of Massachusetts and Major General Israel Putnam of Connecticut, was intended as an overt challenge to Lieutenant General Thomas Gage and his small British army in Boston. The plain truth-though it may sound shocking or unpatriotic, even blasphemous-is that the Battle of Bunker Hill wasn’t all that important. And here, right under the redcoats’ very noses, the rebels-nearly dead from fatigue, tortured by hunger and thirst-scratched out an improvised, ramshackle little fort with pick and spade in the unyielding, rocky soil. Only a narrow stretch of the Charles River separated these hills from British-occupied Boston only the impenetrable darkness of the moonless night hid them from the eyes of British sentries posted along the opposite bank of the Charles. On the night of June 16, 1775, a small band of rebel militia from Massachusetts and Connecticut marched quietly from their camp at Cambridge to the hills overlooking Charlestown, Massachusetts. Bunker Hill: America's Greatest Battle? Close
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |