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Battle of Bunker Hill
Don Troiani
Source |
Seamus looked down the slope once more, the regulars looked to be ready to come up the hill again. He was ready, his musket was loaded and though he was very thirsty, he felt that one more repulse like the first one and the redcoats might just call it a day.
From the top of Breed's Hill, he could just see the northern tip of Boston to his south. He could see Copp's Hill from where the British cannon had been firing earlier. They had ceased fire some time ago, no doubt to prevent hitting their own men.
Billowing smoke from the fires in Charlestown occasionally obscured his view, but Seamus knew that the redcoats would be coming up again. He heard the drums begin anew, signaling yet another advance.
Though his mouth was parched, he suddenly had an overwhelming urge to urinate.
"Steady lads! Steady! Keep your dress, eyes to the front!"
Sergeant Andrews was theoretically in charge of the grenadier company, what was left of it at any rate. Rebuilt to a strength of 43 men after the battles of Lexington and Concord, the first assault had left 17 men of the regiment dead or dying in front of the rebel redoubt.
His company and another equally depleted company from the 5th Foot had been amalgamated for the second assault. They were now under the command of an officer Andrews had never seen before, a man named Marston. Andrews assumed he was the company commander of the men from the 5th they'd been grouped with for this second assault up the hill.
As he looked to the ranks, he sorely missed Corporal Holloway. He had no idea of his friend's fate. In the confused retreat down the hill, he had lost track of Thomas. He was sick to his stomach over that. God forbid his friend was still up on that bloody hill.
Corporal Tom Holloway groaned as he regained his senses, the smell of blood, burnt powder, and other things best not mentioned filled his nostrils. His head ached badly, he wasn't sure why.
He was lying some twenty yards down from the rebel earthwork, he could hear the colonials shouting encouragement to one another as he also heard the beat of the army's drums coming from down the hill towards the water.
He tried to think of how he'd gotten here, it had all happened so fast. Then it came to him in a blur. He remembered the billowing powder smoke of the first rebel volley and he vaguely remembered that the head of the man in front of him had seemed to explode, then his memory went blank.
Slowly, trying not to garner attention from the earthwork, Tom brought his hand up to his head. His thick hair felt gritty and slippery, when he brought his hand back down to examine it, he saw that it was bloody. Some jelly-like substance was on his fingers as well, then he saw the bits of bone amidst the blood. He'd been hit, and knocked silly, by a part of the man's skull, the man who had been hit to his front. He knew one could get killed just by flying bone and bits of shattered equipment on the battlefield. He knew how close he'd come to death.
As he lay there amidst the bodies of his slaughtered comrades, Corporal Tom Holloway emptied his stomach of that morning's breakfast. He began to shake uncontrollably.
The drums thumped and Andrews' company stepped off as they had before, the ranks were steady, unwavering, these men were trained to act as automatons, not as humans with free will. When the drums beat and the officers bellowed their commands, the line advanced. It was what they did, it was what they trained for, they knew no other way.
"Hawkins, dress your bloody line!" Andrews bellowed at one of his grenadiers.
"I'm doing my best ..."
"SILENCE IN THE RANKS!" Captain Marston barked from where he marched behind the men.
Andrews watched, Private Hawkins had probably stumbled in the long grass, or stepped on uneven ground, they weren't high enough on the hill yet to be stumbling over bodies and equipment, but they were getting close. Not ten yards to his front, Andrews saw a grenadier lying on his back, vacant gaze, glassy eyes, the man's chest torn open by musket fire.
Andrews shuddered.
On top of a building, Elizabeth Arnold couldn't see very much of what was going on across the Charles. Smoke from gunfire and the burning town of Charlestown were obscuring things enough so that even at a distance of less than a mile, details were nearly impossible to make out.
She and her employers had fled to Boston not long after the regulars had been to Concord. Ephraim and Rebecca Hamilton were loyal to the King and they were terrified of their fellow Americans now. There had been threats made after the battle which drove Mr. Hamilton to move his family and possessions to Boston.
"Bloody rebels can't get to us here, Mother. We're under the protection of the Royal Navy and the King's troops now."
Turning he had yelled at Lizzie to be gentle with a box of dishware she had been transferring from a wagon to the house they were renting not far from Boston Common.
"Damn it, lass! Those cost a fine penny, came all the way from London, they did!"
Rebecca Hamilton had chimed in immediately, "Mind your language, Father. What if the children were about?"
She had managed to slip away from the house under the pretense of discovering what was happening across the Charles. Many had seen the soldiers head down to the riverfront and board the boats to cross over to what the regulars called "Morton's Point." She was from the area and knew that the place was actually "Moulton's Point." She was a distant relation of the Moulton family.
She heard the rattle of drums from across the way and saw the red line of the soldiers begin to go back up the hill. She remembered the sergeant who had been kind to her, and his friend the corporal, whose name she couldn't remember. She hoped fervently that the two men, and their companions of course, were all right.
"Be careful over there, Allen, you and ..." then his name came to her, "... Tom. Be careful."
Will Hensley could hear the drums from across the way, from their position near the shingle they could see the left flank of the redoubt on the hill, but not the slope leading up to it. The light infantry had yet to make another attempt on their position, but the detritus of their first attack was still there to their front.
One of the soldiers had gotten very close to the improvised defenses before being cut down. Will dearly wished that he was still home in Derry as he studied the corpse sprawled not fifteen feet from him.
The man had been hit and had lived for a brief time. He had cried out for help, which his comrades couldn't provide and which his enemies cared not to provide. Will had been sickened by the death which lay before him, he had watched this English soldier die, so far from home.
Will was wondering if he would ever see New Hampshire again when his company commander cried out, "Here they come again, boys!"
Andrews was not forty paces from the rebel earthwork when he spotted Tom. He wondered if his friend yet lived when Tom had popped up and dashed down into the ranks.
"Was wondering if you fellows was gonna leave me up here!"
Captain Marston hadn't noticed Holloway rejoin the company but at that moment the rebels were up and leveling their muskets once more.
The shock of the volley staggered the company. More men went down, Marston was bent over, advancing as if walking into a gale-force wind. "Come on, lads! At them!"
Then another volley rippled down the line, more redcoated bodies littered the hill and the British Army once again reeled and fled back down the hill.
Seamus reached into his pouch, his hand came out with a single cartridge.
"Sergeant! I have no more ammunition!"
A number of men echoed that call up and down the line.
"Steady lads, I doubt they'll come back up this way. Load up what you have. If they come on again, one more volley should see the end of it."
Hensley and his company were falling back. He wasn't sure who had given the order nor did he care. Anything to get away from the stench of the dead lying on the field.
"Dinnae get yer hopes up, boys. We're just falling back to the neck, then we'll head back up to the earthwork to reinforce those lads. The light boys are done wi' us for the day, I'm thinking. Our fire was too hot for them!"
They hadn't reached Charlestown Neck when an officer, claiming to be from General Putnam² stopped them and redirected them up onto Bunker Hill proper.
"Old Put needs you boys up there," the officer had shouted, pointing up the slope, "in case the boys forwards on Breed's Hill need your help!"
So they had gone up the hill, and had no further participation in the struggle around the earthwork being assaulted by the soldiers of the Crown. Will Hensley didn't mind, he'd seen enough of war for one day.
Sergeant Andrews was angry, enraged that they were being fired upon by the colonials and enraged that his officers had no better plan than march straight into the colonials' massed musket fire.
"Jaysus, Allen, the bastards want to 'ave another go." Corporal Holloway had hissed at him.
"We can't just leave them there, Tommy, sittin' atop that hill, taunting the King like this. We take this hill, we take or kill as many of them as we can, then this war will die aborning. Leave them there and the bloody thing will drag on." Andrews hadn't meant to sound so angry, Tommy looked almost hurt at the tone.
"Sorry, Tommy, I didn't mean to bark at ye, but we can't let this defiance stand. Can we?"
"I suppose yer right, Sarge," Holloway paused in mid-sentence, something was afoot.
"Fall in, lads, one more thrust and we'll have them off yon damned hill!"
Captain Marston was bloodied, his hat was gone, his face was filthy, and the man was forcing the company to line up by sheer force of will.
It helped that the men were angry, they were embarrassed that they'd been forced down from the hill twice already, "by a damned mob of civilians," as one junior officer had said. All of Boston was watching it seemed to the men who looked back across the Charles, there was a very visible crowd along the river's edge and atop the roofs of Boston.
Andrews looked at Holloway and shrugged, "In for a penny ..."
"Battalion will ADVANCE!"
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Battle of Bunker Hill
E. Percy Moran (PD) |
Seamus fired his last round, the redcoats were within spitting distance now, more of them had fallen which seemed to only enrage the survivors. When the fire from the redoubt had sputtered out, the redcoats seemed to snarl and with guttural yells, came on at bayonet point.
"Better run, laddie, we've got nothing left."
Seamus' sergeant had tugged at Seamus' sleeve before taking off at a run himself. As the redcoats came over the parapet, American discipline had faltered, then collapsed. Everyone was trying to get out through the entrance to the rear of the redoubt when it was an easy enough climb over the walls of the earthwork itself. But the men remembered where they had entered the work, so they flowed to what they perceived as the only exit.
Many died because of that error.
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The Redoubt, Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775
Don Troiani
Source |
"What do ye think the butcher's bill will be, Sarge?" Holloway's left sleeve was bloody, a musket ball, probably fired by one of his comrades, had nicked his upper arm. It was bloody and rather painful but was, to be honest, a minor wound.
They were still in the redoubt, the colonials had been driven from the peninsula, even more falling as they crowded over the neck back to the mainland. Cannon fire from Royal Navy warships controlled access to the peninsula, they had been firing continuously as the Americans had scrambled to safety.
"I dunno, Tommy, I'd say over a thousand of our lads fell today. The hill is covered with the bodies of our regiments. What do we have left, maybe a dozen of the lads?"
"About that, of the lads who marched to Concord, not a handful are still with the colors."
Holloway looked into the sky, the stars were starting to appear, "Think this will be the end of it?"
Andrews looked into the gathering gloom, campfires could be seen in the distance, all around Boston. "There are a lot of those militiamen out there, Tommy. I think I was wrong when I said 'we take the hill and that'll be the end of it.' I don't think that lot out there are ready to quit. Not just yet anyway. Certain as the sun will come up tomorrow, we're in the middle of a war now, Tommy."
Holloway shook his head, "Damned nuisance, that, I'd rather fight the Frenchies than folks who were, up until a few months ago, fellow subjects of our good old King George."
Andrews looked at the ground beneath his feet, "Aye, but for now this is still English soil."
"But for how long, Sarge? For how long?"
¹ "The General’s returns will give you the particulars of what I call this unhappy day—I freely confess to you, when I look to the consequences of it, in the loss of so many brave Officers, I do it with horror—The success is too dearly bought." General Sir William Howe, commanding the regulars, after the Battle of Bunker Hill.
² General Israel Putnam, nominally in command of the American troops during the battle.
