Bunker Hill

to Pigot’s force being “staggered” is in a July 5, 1775, letter from an unnamed British officer quoted by French in
FYAR
, p. 239. Frothingham in
HSOB
quotes an article in a British journal that recounts that Howe’s servant (a “Mr. Evans”) “attended the whole time with wine and other necessaries . . . during which, Evans had one of the bottles in his hand dashed to pieces, and got a contusion on one of his arms at the same time, by a ball from some of the provincials,” p. 199. In a June 23, 1775, letter an unnamed officer writes that “for near a minute [Howe] was quite alone,” in
LAR
, p. 144. Howe tells of experiencing “a moment I have never felt before” in his June 22–24, 1775, letter in
CKG
, p. 222.
    Lord Rawdon recounts how the men “at last grew impatient and all crying out, ‘Push on! Push on!’ advanced” in a June 20, 1775, letter in
SSS
, pp. 130. Prescott’s son writes of Howe marching at the head of his troops, “distinguished . . . by his figure and gallant bearing,” in Frothingham,
The Battle-Field of Bunker Hill
, p. 22. A provincial soldier whose letter appeared in the August 3, 1775,
Rivington Gazette
writes of the “extraordinary deep files” of the British column during the third and final advance and how the regulars “pushed over the walls with their guns in their left hand and their swords in their right,” in the appendix to
HSOB
, p. 398; this same soldier writes of how the dust and smoke in the redoubt made it “so dark in the square that he was obliged to feel about for the outlet.” In a July 11, 1775, letter Samuel Webb writes that “Fight, conquer, or die was what [the British] officers was plainly heard to say very often,” in Frothingham,
The Battle-Field of Bunker Hill
, p. 32. Samuel Swett recounts how the British used artillery to “turn the left of the breastwork [and] to enfilade the line,” in
History of Bunker Hill Battle
, p. 41. Thacher’s account of how those behind the breastwork were forced to “retire within their little fort” is in the Committee of Safety’s Account in the appendix to
HSOB
, p. 383. Wilkinson tells of Stark’s decision to “retreat reluctantly” in Charles Coffin’s
History of the Battle of Breed’s Hill
, p. 14. Prescott’s son recounts how his father told his men to make “every shot . . .
tell
” and how they broke open an abandoned cartridge in Frothingham’s
Battle-Field of Bunker Hill
, pp. 21–22. John Clarke recounts the inspiring words a grenadier sergeant delivered to the surviving privates in his company, as well as the testimony of a marine captain as to how this was on three accounts the “hottest” action he’d ever experienced, in Samuel Drake’s
Bunker Hill
, pp. 46, 49–50.
    Adjutant John Waller’s account of the fighting comes from two different accounts: the first written on June 21, 1775, at MHS, and the second written on June 22, 1775, and in Samuel Drake’s
Bunker Hill
, pp. 28–30. Captain George Harris writes of his vegetable garden in a June 12, 1775, letter printed in Stephen Lushington,
The Life and Services of General Lord Harris
, p. 40, which also includes his account of being wounded on the parapet of the redoubt (pp. 41–42). Henry Dearborn tells of how every regular who first mounted the parapet was shot down in “Account of Bunker Hill,” p. 8. Allen French quotes from an August 3, 1775, letter written by Lord Rawdon in which he describes the tenacity of the provincials in the redoubt, in
FYAR
, pp. 247–48. Needham Maynard’s account of how the provincial fire “went out like an old candle” is in J. H. Temple’s
History of Framingham
, p. 291.
Ebenezer Bancroft writes of firing his last shot at a British officer and his struggle to escape the redoubt in “Bunker Hill Battle” in John Hill’s
Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable
, pp. 61–62. On the possibility that Major Pitcairn was killed not by Bancroft but by the African American Salem Poor, see the evidence presented by J. L. Bell in
Washington’s Headquarters
, pp. 279–81. Samuel Paine’s June 22, 1775, account of what he saw from Beacon Hill is in AAS
Proceedings
19 (1908–9):435–38. Thomas Sullivan compares the provincial soldiers to “bees in a beehive” in “The Common British Soldier—from the Journal of Thomas Sullivan 49th Regiment of Foot,” p. 233. Prescott’s son describes his father’s sword-wielding exit from the redoubt in Frothingham’s
Battle-Field of