Bunker Hill

remain and dress their wounds,” and with only a cane in his hand, Warren continued walking toward Bunker Hill.
    —
    William Howe was a handsome man, about six feet tall, with dark hair, black eyes, and a majestic reticence that did not prevent him from having a very good time when not on the battlefield. Politically he was a Whig, and as a member of Parliament he had spoken against the advisability of a war with Britain’s American colonies. But that was before King George had requested his presence in Boston, with the understanding that he would be next in line should General Gage’s services no longer be required.
    When it came to maneuvering infantry regiments across a battlefield, Howe was considered a master tactician. Over the course of the last five years, he had introduced a new system by which light infantry companies increased the mobility of the British army, and just a few months before he had been stationed on the Salisbury Plain near Stonehenge, conducting drills. In an age before the machine gun, lines of infantry could march boldly up to the enemy and once within musket range—about a hundred yards or so—charge ahead with their seventeen-inch-long bayonet blades thrust forward. The trick was to get the enemy to fire early enough that the first volley did minimal damage while the terrifying sights and sounds of a line of bellowing soldiers emerging from the powder smoke made the opposing force turn and run. One favorite tactic was to make it look as if you were launching an attack on one segment of the line when you were really concentrating your forces in an entirely different direction. That was what Howe hoped to do today.
    Over on the left, General Pigot was to lead his men in a great show against the redoubt and breastwork while on the right Howe focused on the rail fence. But the real work was to be done by the light infantry on the beach beside the Mystic River. With the famous Welch Fusiliers leading the way, a long column of light infantry was to overwhelm whatever resistance they encountered on the beach and, in Howe’s words, “attack them in flank.” Unfortunately, Howe had not been able to perform any significant reconnaissance of this crucial portion of the battlefield. Ever since the loss of the
Diana
, Admiral Graves had been reluctant to expose his fleet to unnecessary risk, and he had been unwilling to move any of his ships up the Mystic River. Not only could a vessel on the Mystic have provided Howe with some useful eyes and ears, her cannons could have directed a devastating stream of fire on the rear of the rebel line. Graves’s concerns about losing one of his ships in the shallows of the river did not apply to the gunboats, and Howe requested that they be rowed around the peninsula from the Charlestown milldam to the Mystic River. The tide, however, was against them, and by the time they took up their positions on the Mystic, the battle was essentially over.
    Since the right-most column of light infantry was hidden behind the bank of the Mystic River, this critical movement was to remain largely unappreciated by those watching in Boston, while all attention was directed to the forces in the middle and on the left, where Howe and Pigot each had a line of ten companies, or about three hundred soldiers, with a second line following close behind. According to John Burgoyne, then standing on Copp’s Hill, the deployment of these troops was “exceedingly soldierlike; in my opinion it was perfect.”
    But just as the attack was about to begin, trouble arose on the left. Colonel Prescott had sent a detachment of provincials down into Charlestown, where they were now occupying empty buildings and firing on Pigot’s regulars.
    As it so happened, Admiral Graves had just arrived at Morton’s Point. Ever since the night of April 19, he’d been eager to burn this troublesome town, and he now saw his chance. He asked if Howe wanted Charlestown destroyed. The general gave his consent.
    —
    Two types of projectiles were used to fire on and burn a town from without: superheated cannonballs known as hotshot and circular metal baskets full of gunpowder, saltpeter, and tallow that looked so much like the ribcages of the dead that they were called carcasses. The first carcass fell short near the ferry dock, but the second fell in the street and was soon spewing molten fire among the surrounding houses. Just to make sure, Graves dispatched a group of sailors from the
Somerset
to help