Bunker Hill

Major-General Joseph Warren,” which he reprints in
DJW
, pp. 376–78. Peter Oliver makes the claim that “Had [Warren] conquered, Washington had remained in obscurity” in
OPAR
, p. 128.
    On the history of siege warfare, I have consulted several books by Christopher Duffy—
Siege Warfare
, vols. 1 and 2, and
Fire and Stone: The Science of Fortress Warfare, 1660–1860
—as well as Paul Davis’s
Besieged
. Allen French in
FYAR
compares the taking of Plowed Hill to that of Breed’s Hill, “but better ordered,” p. 481. Peter Oliver describes the “idle business” of the siege in
OPAR
, p. 131. The description of the armies squinting at each other “like wild cats across a gutter” is in a December 4, 1775, letter in
LAR
, p. 231. Nathanael Greene mentions the spears that had been provided in lieu of bayonet-equipped muskets in a November 15, 1775, order: each regiment was to appoint thirty men “to stand ready to push the enemy off the breastwork if they should attempt to get over the parapet into the lines,” in
PNG
, 1:151. Washington mentions the many factors contributing to his proposal to attack in his September 8, 1775, “Circular to the General Officers,” in
PGW
, 1:432–34. The September 11, 1775, council of war decision that “it was not expedient to make the attempt at present at least” is in
PGW
, 1:450–51. The proceedings of October 18, 1775, are in
PGW
, 2:183–84. The minutes of the conference with the committee from the Continental Congress, in which Washington asks for advice about whether it is “advisable . . . to destroy the troops who propose to winter in Boston,” are in
PGW
, 2:190–203. Artemas Ward’s August 25, 1775, letter to Washington about Dorchester Heights is in
PGW
, 1:362–63. See Charles Martyn’s
Artemas Ward
for a discussion of Ward’s largely unacknowledged advocacy of the strategy that ultimately won the Siege and prevented “the hotheaded Virginian . . . [from] wrecking the careful work of Massachusetts patriots” through what would have surely been a disastrous attack on Boston (pp. 171–72).
    Benjamin Church’s October 3, 1775, letter to Washington, in which he claims he wrote the coded letter “to impress the enemy with a strong idea of our strength and situation,” is in
PGW
, 2:85–87. David Kiracofe discusses the philosophical dilemma of both the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Continental Congress when it came to dealing with Church in “Dr. Benjamin Church and the Dilemma of Treason in Revolutionary Massachusetts,” pp. 443–50. Church describes his appearance before the House in “Account of the Examination of Doctor Benjamin Church,” pp. 84–94. Clifford Shipton, in his biography of Church in
SHG
, recounts that when Church was confined in the Vassall House (a different house from Washington’s headquarters), he carved “B. Church, Jr.” in a closet door (12:390). Allen French in
General Gage’s Informers
provides a detailed account of the proceedings surrounding Church’s arrest and quotes John Adams’s comment, “Good God! What shall we say of human nature?” (p. 195). Kiracofe in his “Dilemma of Treason” writes of how Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams felt that a man’s personal sins “undermine the very bonds of society,” as well as the recognition among many patriots, including Samuel Adams, that Church’s infidelities were “notorious” (pp. 455–56). Church’s claim that his liberties had been violated by the House of Representatives is in his “Examination,” p. 87.
    Allen French in
FYAR
quotes the account of the “shocking spectacle” of the Bunker Hill survivors on the
Charming Nancy
, pp. 323–24. Gage writes of “taking the bull by the horns, attacking the enemy in their strong parts,” in his June 26, 1775, letter to Barrington in
Correspondence
, p. 687. In a November 26, 1775, letter to Dartmouth, Howe explains that he’ll have to delay the evacuation until at least the spring with the assurance that “we are not under the least apprehension of an attack” (
DAR
, 9:191). Boston is described as “the grave of England” in an August 18, 1775, letter in
LAR
, pp. 190–91, which describes as many as thirty bodies being “thrown into a trench at a time, like those of so many dogs.” An August 27, 1775, letter, also in
LAR
, asks the question, “Have you forgot us?” (p. 205). Peter Thomas in
Tea Party to Independence
includes Edmund Burke’s reference