Bunker Hill

the provincials who fired first—not those gathered on the green, but someone behind a stone wall to their right or perhaps standing at a doorway or window of Buckman’s Tavern. Major Pitcairn was riding toward the two companies, shouting, “Soldiers, don’t fire, keep your ranks, and surround them.” At some point, his horse was hit by two balls fired from the sidelines. One soldier was hit in the leg; another in the hand. Soon the two companies of light infantry were firing without orders. The first volley was ragged and indistinct but was then followed by a “continual roar.”
    The smoke was so thick that the only evidence of the enemy the militiamen could see were the heads of the officers’ horses. At first, John Munroe was convinced that the regulars were firing only warning blanks, since no one seemed to be getting hit by any balls. But when the man beside him—another Munroe by the name of Ebenezer—got slammed in the arm by a ball, they knew otherwise. Despite his wound, Ebenezer shouted, “I’ll give them the guts of my gun,” and blasted away into the acrid cloud of dark gray smoke. Ebenezer later testified that the air was so thick with whizzing musket balls that “I thought there was no chance for escape and that I might as well fire my gun as stand still and do nothing.” John Munroe was one of the few militiamen to get off two shots. Unfortunately, he overcharged his musket the second time, and “the strength of the charge took off about a foot of my gun barrel.” Captain Parker’s cousin Jonas had placed his hat full of musket balls and flints on the ground between his feet and vowed he would “never run.” He was hit on the second volley, and as he lay on the ground, struggling to reload his gun, the infantrymen ran up and stabbed him to death with their bayonets.
    Most of the militiamen, however, never even fired their guns. Several were killed while sprinting for cover. Jonathan Harrington lived on the west side of the common and was shot down as he ran for the safety of his house. His horrified wife and children watched as he crawled across the dusty road and died on their doorstep. Asahel Porter and Josiah Richardson, the two men from Woburn who had been captured earlier that night by the British advance guard, were released on the Lexington Green. Both were warned to walk and not run as they made their way to safety. Richardson did as ordered and survived, but Porter panicked and was gunned down as he ran from the British troops. Several horses were spooked by the blast and crackle of gunfire and carried their riders—including Lieutenant Sutherland—on wild rides around the green and beyond. In the meantime, Major Pitcairn, whom a patriot minister described as “a good man in a bad cause,” tried desperately to put a stop to the chaos and “struck his . . . sword downwards with all earnestness” as a signal to cease fire.
    Order wasn’t restored until Colonel Smith and the grenadiers finally caught up to the light infantry. With the help of Lieutenant Sutherland, Smith found a drummer, whom he commanded to sound the beat to arms, which was the signal for the men to regroup into ranks. According to Sutherland, this did not prevent a few more shots from being fired by the provincials in Buckman’s Tavern. Now that most of the militiamen had been sent “scampering off,” the infuriated infantrymen were about to turn their attention to the tavern and the meetinghouse. Smith wrote that the soldiers were “much enraged at the treatment they had received, and having been fired on from the houses repeatedly were going to break them open to come at those within.” If something was not done quickly, anyone still in those buildings was sure to be killed. What Smith and the regulars didn’t know was that in the attic of the meetinghouse, the militiaman Joshua Simons waited with the barrel of his musket thrust into a keg of powder. If the soldiers attacked, he was going to make sure that none of them lived to claim the town’s powder.
    Luckily, Colonel Smith succeeded in “putting a stop to all further slaughter of those deluded people.” The infantrymen reluctantly fell into line and after firing a victory salute gave three rousing huzzas. Besides Pitcairn’s twice-wounded horse and two soldiers who had received minor injuries, all the casualties had been suffered by the provincials, with eight dead and ten wounded, including Prince Estabrook, who became the first