Bunker Hill

is agreed on all hands that their artillery officers are at least equal to our own” (p. 277).
    William Gordon describes the weather conditions (“hazy below the height . . . bright moonlight night above the hills”) in his
History
, 2:27; he records the fact that the wind carried the noise of the American advance onto Dorchester Heights “into the harbor between the town and the castle” in his “Apr. 6, 1776 Letter to Samuel Wilson,” p. 362. John Thomas describes how he led “3,000 picked men beside 360 ox teams” onto Dorchester Heights in a March 9 letter to his wife Hannah in Charles Coffin’s
Life and Services of . . . Thomas
, pp. 20–21; Coffin includes a brief note to Hannah, also written on March 9, in which Thomas reports that their ten-year-old son John “is well and in high spirits. He ran away from Oakeley privately, on Tuesday morning, and got by the sentries came to me on Dorchester Hills, where he has been most of the time since” (p. 21). William Gordon reports that General Thomas “told me that he pulled out his watch and found that by ten o’clock at night, they had got two forts . . . sufficient to defend them from small arms and grapeshot” in his “Apr. 6, 1776 Letter to Samuel Wilson,” pp. 362–63. Archibald Robertson records in the March 4 entry of his
Diary
that “about 10 o’clock Lt. Col. Campbell reported to Brig. Smith that the rebels were at work on Dorchester Heights” (p. 73). The reference to the works atop Dorchester Heights being raised “with an expedition equal to that of the genii belonging to Aladdin’s wonderful lamp” is in a letter from a British officer in
LAR
, p. 278. James Thacher in his
Journal
claims that due to the fog the American fort atop Dorchester Heights “loomed to great advantage” (p. 40). William Gordon’s account of Howe claiming the Americans had done more in a single night than “his whole army would have done in six months” can be found in his “Apr. 6, 1776 Letter to Samuel Wilson,” p. 363. Archibald Robertson’s estimate that it must have taken fifteen to twenty thousand men to erect the two forts is in his
Diary
, p. 74. Samuel Webb records the rumor that Howe had vowed to attack any fort built on Dorchester Heights even “if he was sure of losing two thirds of the army” in a March 1 entry in his
Diary
, p. 131.
    Thacher writes of the cannon balls “rolling and rebounding over the hill” in his
Journal
, p. 39. John Sullivan writes of how the British attempted to “elevate their cannons . . . by sinking the hinder wheels” in a March 15, 1776, letter to John Adams, in
C. James Taylor,
Founding Families
. James Thacher writes of the spectators covering the hills of Dorchester in his
Journal
, p. 39. William Gordon describes the ease with which the Americans atop Dorchester Heights could see what was happening on the wharves of Boston “by the help of glasses” and how the spectators and soldiers “clapped their hands and wished for the expected attack” in his “Apr. 6, 1776 Letter to Samuel Wilson,” p. 363; Gordon also writes of how the regulars were “not hearty in the matter,” and how ladders were collected in anticipation of an attack on the American fort (pp. 364–65). Gordon writes of how Washington’s exhortation, “Remember it is the fifth of March,” was repeated along the lines in his
History
, 2:28. Gordon writes of the preparations in place for the amphibious assault on Boston in the event that the British attack Dorchester Heights in “Apr. 6, 1776 letter to Samuel Wilson,” p. 363. Thacher writes of leaving Dorchester Heights without having “to dress a single wound” in his
Journal
, p. 39. Archibald Robertson recounts the tense meetings that preceded Howe’s decision to abort the attack on Dorchester Heights as well as Howe’s March 6 meeting at 11:00 a.m. with his officers, announcing his decision to evacuate, in his
Journal
, pp. 74–75. Heath’s judgment that the combination of “almost a hurricane” and Howe’s decision to evacuate “saved the Americans when they would have destroyed themselves” is in his
Memoirs
, p. 33.
    Frothingham in
HSOB
, describes how the letter from the town selectman was carried across the lines under a flag of truce (p. 301). Town selectman Timothy Newall provides an excellent on-the-scene account of the mixture of bedlam and fear in Boston as the Americans continued to move their fortifications ever closer along the ridge