Bunker Hill

Dorchester Heights on June 18 in
FYAR
, p. 209. Daniel Putnam recounts the conversation that Joseph Warren had with Putnam and others about Putnam’s early proposal to entrench Bunker Hill in his “Letter Relative to the Battle of Bunker Hill,” pp. 248–49. Allen French relates the process by which provincial leaders came to the decision to reinforce Bunker Hill on June 17 in
FYAR
, pp. 211–14; French repeats the claim that portions of Charlestown Neck were only thirty feet wide (p. 220). According to Francis Parker in
Colonel William Prescott: The Commander in the Battle of Bunker’s Hill
, “a serious engagement was neither intended nor expected as a result of the entrenching expedition,” adding that the decision to build on Breed’s Hill “was to change the whole character of the expedition” (p. 11). Samuel Gray, writing from Roxbury on July 12, 1775, makes the claim that “one general and the engineer were of opinion we ought not to entrench on Charlestown [i.e., Breed’s] Hill till we had thrown up some works on the north and south ends of Bunker Hill, to cover our men on their retreat . . . but on the pressing importunity of the other general officer, it was consented to begin as was done,” in the appendix to
HSOB
,
p. 394. Ebenezer Bancroft, in John Hill’s
Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable
, believed it was Putnam who voted to go with Breed’s instead of Bunker Hill: “The dispute which delayed the commencing of the work was probably on the part of Prescott insisting that his orders were to fortify Bunker’s Hill, and Putnam and Gridley insisting that Breed’s Hill was the proper place” (p. 66). Prescott’s son, however, saw it differently: “Colonel Prescott conferred with his officers and Colonel Gridley as to the place intended for the fortification; but Colonel Prescott took on himself the responsibility of deciding, as well he might, for on him it would rest”; Frothingham,
The Battle Field of Bunker Hill
,
p. 29. In an August 25, 1775, letter to John Adams, William Prescott makes the technically inaccurate statement “I received orders to march to Breed’s Hill. . . . The lines were drawn by the engineer and we began the entrenchment about 12 o’clock,” in the appendix to
HSOB
, p. 395. The Committee of Safety’s account of the battle, in which they refer to the placement of the redoubt on Breed’s Hill being “some mistake,” is also in the appendix to
HSOB
, p. 382. In a July 20, 1775, letter to Samuel Adams, John Pitts wrote in French,
FYAR
, “Never was more confusion and less command,” adding, “No one appeared to have any but Col. Prescott whose bravery can never be enough acknowledged and applauded” (p. 228). French also describes the dimensions of the redoubt in
FYAR
, p. 216.
    Amos Farnsworth recounts how he and the others had “orders not to shut our eyes” as they waited in the Charlestown town house as sentries patrolled the waterfront and those on Breed’s Hill dug the redoubt in the early morning of June 17 in his
Diary
, p. 83. In Frothingham,
The Battle-Field of Bunker Hill
, William Prescott’s son tells of his father’s being “delighted to hear ‘All is well,’ drowsily repeated by the watch on board the king’s ships” (p. 19). Henry Clinton’s claim that “in the evening of the 16th I saw them at work, reported it to Genls Gage and Howe and advised a landing in two divisions at day break” is quoted in French,
FYAR
, pp. 209–10. According to Howe, Clinton wasn’t the only one who heard the provincials digging that night: “The sentries on the Boston side had heard the rebels at work all night without making any other report of it, except mention it in conversation” (
CKG
,
p. 221). Peter Brown’s June 28, 1775, letter to his mother is quoted in
Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles
, 1:595–96. On the death of Asa Pollard, see Samuel Swett’s
History of Bunker Hill Battle,
p. 22; Swett also cites a claim that Pollard’s heart “continued beating for some time after it was cut out of him by the cannonball” (p. 52). Prescott’s son tells in Frothingham’s
Battle-Field of Bunker Hill
how his father “mounted the parapet, walked leisurely backwards and forwards . . . It had the effect intended. The men soon became indifferent to the fire of the artillery”
(pp. 19–20); Prescott’s son also wrote of his father’s determination to
“never be taken alive
” (p. 26). Prescott tells of how Gridley “forsook me”