Bunker Hill

also cut down. Over and over again, the scenario was repeated. According to Stark, “The dead lay as thick as sheep in a fold.” Finally, with close to a hundred bodies lying lifeless on the beach, the remnants of Howe’s light infantry turned and fled. A minister watching from the opposite shore of the Mystic River reported that they “retreated in disorder and with great precipitation to the place of landing, and some of them sought refuge even within their boats. Here the officers were observed . . . to run down to them, using the most passionate gestures and pushing men forward with their swords.”
    It was almost as bad on the high ground to the west when the provincials opened up on the line of grenadiers. Already frustrated by the fences and the terrain, many of the grenadiers disobeyed orders and paused to fire at the entrenched enemy instead of charging ahead. Not only did this stop the advance in its tracks, Howe’s picture-perfect formation was ruined as the second line found itself stumbling into the grenadiers ahead of them. “They began firing,” Howe wrote, “and by crowding fell into disorder and in this state the second line mixed with them.” This confused jumble of soldiers provided the enemy with an excellent target. “There was no need of waiting for a chance to fire,” one provincial soldier wrote, “for as soon as you had loaded, there was always a mark at hand, and as near as you pleased.”
    But if all seemed confusion, there was, among the provincials at least, a definite agenda. “Our men were intent on cutting down every officer . . . ,” Henry Dearborn wrote, “[shouting,] ‘there,’ ‘see that officer,’ ‘let us have a shot at him.’ When two or three would fire at the same moment . . . , [resting] their muskets over the fence, they were sure of their object.” The grenadiers, on the other hand, who were without the benefit of a barricade and were firing desperately from a standing position, were less effective with their muskets and inevitably shot too high. After the fighting, Dearborn noticed that an apple tree behind the rail fence “had scarcely a ball in it from the ground as high as a man’s head while the trunk and branches above were literally cut to pieces.”
    According to Marine Lieutenant John Clarke, one provincial soldier did particular damage to the ranks of the British officers. Standing on a platform that put him close to three feet higher than those around him, the rebel sharpshooter would see a British officer, fire, hand over his spent musket, get handed a loaded weapon, and fire again. Over the course of ten to twelve minutes, the sharpshooter killed or wounded, Clarke estimated, “no less than 20 officers” until a grenadier from the Welch Fusiliers finally shot him down.
    —
    About this time Captain John Chester and his company, their blue uniforms hidden beneath their shabbiest of clothes, had made it across the Neck to Bunker Hill. Chester was horrified by what he found. All around them, provincial soldiers were doing their best to avoid the fighting, “some behind rocks and haycocks and 30 men perhaps behind an apple tree and frequently 20 men round a wounded man, retreating, when not more than three or four could touch him to advantage. Others were retreating, seemingly without any excuse.” Putnam was providing anything but inspirational leadership. “The plea was,” Chester wrote, “the artillery was gone, and they stood no chance for their lives in such circumstances, declaring ‘they had no officers to lead them.’ ”
    Chester and his company pushed on toward Breed’s Hill, “the small as well as cannon shot . . . incessantly whistling by us.” Samuel Webb was marching beside Chester. “Descending into the valley from off Bunker Hill . . . ,” Webb wrote, “I had no more thought of ever rising the hill again than I had of ascending to heaven as Elijah did, soul and body together. But after we got engaged, to see the dead and wounded around us, I had no feelings but that of revenge; four men were shot dead within five feet of me.”
    After the first disastrous attack on the rail fence, Howe reformed his ranks and tried once again. With reinforcements, however slight, from Bunker Hill, the provincial line once again held firm, making Howe’s hoped-for bayonet charge impossible. According to a British officer, “an incessant stream of fire poured from the rebel lines . . . for near 30 minutes. Our