Bunker Hill (27 page)

But
instead of placing a significant part of their militia army on the hills of
Charlestown, they sent a few hundred men to build a redoubt and hold the main
hill, Breed’s Hill as it is called, while the main American army, perhaps
thirteen thousand men or more, remained camped around Boston. There are at
least eighteen surgeons and leeches with the militia, but only four, including
myself, were willing to join the defenders of Breed’s Hill. Two of them, Dr.
Warren and a brave Welshman named Bones, died in the fight on the hill. The
other surgeon, Gonzales, who comes from Providence, survived. How I survived
without even a scratch, I do not know. Perhaps God took mercy on a disbeliever
and answered your prayers. Gonzales, who is a Jew, did his duty with quiet
courage. I must say that he is highly regarded here, so different from the
hatred directed against those people in Europe.

The
British, who, I am told, have some three thousand men in Boston, used almost
their entire army in the attack upon the few hundred men who held the
peninsula, and in spite of all the pleading of Colonel Prescott, who led the
defense, and Gen. Israel Putnam from Connecticut, Artemus Ward, the commander
of the militia, refused to reinforce them, an act of either filthy treachery or
monumental stupidity. The battle for the hills, which lasted only a few hours,
was the bloodiest and most awful conflict I have ever witnessed. The British
lost fully half of their army in dead and wounded, and the militia losses were
equally awful, an agony which makes me shudder even as I write. It was a battle
with no victor, only death and suffering, as terrible and senseless as war ever
is. The position and expectations of the militia army are no better or worse
than before the battle took place. The leaders of the few hundred men who
defended the hills, a Col. William Prescott, a man named John Stark from New
Hampshire, Maj. Thomas Knowlton, an engineer by the name of Richard Gridley,
and old Putnam fought with the kind of cool courage that defies description,
putting me to shame with my own fears and doubts.

I
have always hated war, feeling that the settlement of a dispute by killing
those who disagree makes us little better than animals. Our presumed
Christianity is washed away in the insanity of our decisions, and precious
reason and compassion, which are all that makes us human, are cast aside. This
morning, I was persuaded by a member of the Committee of Safety, one Abraham
Watson, to go with him to the British lines in Boston and plead with the
British to allow me to attend the wounds of the thirty-one prisoners they have
taken. It was a piece of gross stupidity for me to allow myself to be
persuaded, for the British would have surely hanged me had I been recognized as
a onetime surgeon under British orders and oath, but shame and pride made me go
with him. The British officers we met sneered at our request and damned us as a
band of outlaws.
So much for Christian compassion.

Forgive
me, my dear, my bitterness. In time I will wake up from this nightmare and be
my old self. I trust I will return to Ridgefield and be with you within the
fortnight. I must, for the time being, stay with our wounded. There are a great
many of them, and they desperately need what crude care I can offer. After
that, we shall see what the future brings out of this strange rebellion.
Meanwhile, I reassure you that my health is good and my love for you is
undiminished.

I
remain, your loving husband,

Evan Feversham

W
hile this account of what has come to be remembered as
the Battle of Bunker Hill is cast in dramatic form and while I have taken
certain dramatic license, I have attempted to hew as closely to the known facts
as possible. As with any event of this kind, there are many contradictory
accounts, and one must simply choose that which appears most likely. I have
come to this view with a lifetime of colonial study and writing behind me, and
in all cases I have tried to strike a balance between what would be archaic and
what would be modern. I have used modern spelling for the convenience of the
reader, as for instance, spelling gaol as jail. To avoid confusion, I omitted
the names of many minor characters in this drama.

For those
readers who are curious as to the subsequent role of the major characters, I
submit the following:

Col.
William Prescott continued as a leading officer of General Washington’s army
through the Revolution. A solid, loyal, unshakable man, he was valued and
honored.

Col. John
Stark and his New Hampshire riflemen became the stuff of legend. Again and
again, they held a lost field, and Stark emerged from the war with honor.

Maj.
Thomas Knowlton gained an enviable reputation for cool thinking under fire.
Washington increasingly depended upon him, and when Knowlton was killed in the
battle for New York, Washington wept. His death was a great loss to the
American struggle.

Richard
Gridley was promoted to major general, called upon again and again for problems
of engineering. He was with the army through the war.

Artemus
Ward is little remembered. After the battle at Breed’s Hill, he was removed
from his command. He had a curious background, the son of a man who became
wealthy in the slave trade (not at all uncommon among New Englanders) and a man
old and sick in his middle years. Along with Samuel Adams, he was a radical
leader in Boston. He bore much of the blame for the tragedy at Breed’s Hill.

Joshua
Loring had the distinction of becoming the most hated and vilified man in the
British forces. His corruption defies description. When the British decided to
evacuate Boston and make their base in New York, he asked for and received the
privilege of auctioning the valuables taken from American homes. He was put in
command of the notorious Brison prison ships in New York harbor, and it is said
that he was responsible for more American deaths in his prison ships than were
killed in battle. At the end of the war, he went to England, where he
disappeared from history.

Loring’s
wife, Elizabeth Loring, stayed with Gen. William Howe until he was recalled to
England, and then went with him as his mistress. We are told that Howe never
flagged in his adoration of her. Howe was so utterly absorbed by his affair
with Elizabeth Loring that he became indifferent to the pursuit of the war. By
the spring of 1778, his affair had become an international disgrace and he was
recalled to England, to be replaced by Sir Henry Clinton. It was said that he
never fully recovered from the slaughter of his grenadiers on Breed’s Hill.

Gen.
Thomas Gage was recalled to London after the battle. It was said that without
his insensitivity and intransigence, the war might have been avoided. He was
held responsible for the raid on Concord and the battle on Breed’s Hill.

General
Burgoyne—Gentleman Johnny—was trapped by General Gates at Saratoga in 1777 and
surrendered his army of fifty-seven hundred men to the Americans. He decidedly
revised his opinion of the military qualities of the Yankees.

Dr.
Benjamin Church was tried for treason before the Massachusetts general court.
He was found guilty of treason and sent to jail. Attempts were made to break
into the jail and lynch him. Eventually, he was exiled to the West Indies. The
schooner which carried him in that direction went down in a storm.
So ended his life and his career.

Dr. Joseph
Warren’s body was found by a British burial party the day after the battle. He
was buried in an unmarked grave.

Papers
found in the redoubt by the British incriminated John Lovell, who had brought
the information about the battle to Prescott. He was jailed by the British.
Eventually, he was exchanged for a British prisoner. The influence of his
father, one of the most important Tories, saved him from hanging.

All of
these events occurred even as the Continental Congress formally and legally
created an American army, appointing George Washington as its commander in
chief. But this battle at Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill took place before the
news came to Boston.

As for the
British occupation of Boston, after a halfhearted attempt to break the American
encirclement with the badly battered remaining British troops, both General
Gage and General Howe concluded that the Americans were serious in their
uprising, that a vastly larger force was required, and that the central
embarkation point should be New York rather than Boston. In March 1776, the
British fleet sailed out of the Boston Harbor. Four months later, the British
had assembled in New York harbor an army of more than thirty thousand men and
the largest congregation of British warships ever brought together.

1.
     
Despite
receiving a warm welcome and respect from the rebel forces, Dr. Feversham feels
like an outsider among the colonists due to his religious and medical beliefs.
Have you ever felt detached at a certain level from other members of a group to
which you belong? How do members of a group negotiate their differences with
the things they have in common?

2.
     
Multiple
British officers yield to sexual temptation and pursue adulterous relationships
in Boston. In the surrounding colonists’ camps, however, there is almost no
mention of sexuality whatsoever. What are some of the characteristics of both
the British officers and the colonists that might lead to such contrasting
behavior?

3.
     
As the
British officers plan how to attack the colonists, Clinton observes that the
British could simply surround the colonists on Breed’s Hill and force them to
starve to death. Burgoyne and Howe respond that such a tactic is
unacceptable—the British must attack the colonists face-to-face to preserve
their reputation as the greatest army in the world. Do you believe that certain
tactics are unacceptable even in war? Is preserving one’s reputation a
legitimate reason for not engaging these practices?

4.
     
In the story
of his dishonorable discharge, do you think that Dr. Feversham’s duty as a
physician was more important than his duty to follow orders during war? Can you
think of a time when you had to prioritize conflicting duties? How did you
decide what to do?

1.
     
Mrs. Loring
and Prudence Hallsbury treat war as a form of entertainment as they watch the
battle unfold from afar. Should the British officers offer a more realistic
perspective on the atrocities of war, or do you support their censorship of the
ugly realities for the women’s sake?

2.
     
Much is made
of the difference in discipline between the colonists and the British soldiers.
The colonists flee from their camps or from combat on a whim, while the British
grenadiers follow orders despite certain death. Is it fair to compare the
volunteer colonist fighters to the professionally trained British soldiers?
Which group faces greater challenges? Do you condone either of these
disciplinary extremes, or is there some middle ground that would be preferable?

3.
     
Prescott,
Dr. Feversham, and Gridley call Artemus Ward stubborn, foolish, and cowardly
for
refusing
to send any of his men to help at Breed’s
Hill. Do you have any sympathy for Artemus Ward, or do you side with the
combatants?

4.
     
The British
destruction of Charlestown was an unnecessary act that roused greater passion
and anger in the colonists, which ultimately helped them hold off the British.
What other seemingly unnecessary acts of violence have occurred throughout
history that caused people to rally around a cause? Could these events ever be
viewed in a positive light?

5.
     
Clinton and
Burgoyne declare the battle at Bunker Hill a British victory, but Dr. Feversham
writes that there was no victor. With whom do you agree?