250 Years Ago Today: The Battle of Bunker Hill

June 17, 1775 was the date of the Battle of Bunker Hill. It is fascinating to me (in my old age) to mark these anniversaries off so that you can experience the progress of Revolutionary War events in real time. The Battles of Lexington and Concord had been just about two months earlier. The artillery used at Bunker Hill had been swiped from Fort Ticonderoga five weeks earlier. And the Continental Army had only been officially formed three days earlier. The recently appointed commander General George Washington was in New York still en route to the fighting when the Battle of Bunker Hill occurred in Boston. (Technically, the bulk of the fighting was on nearby Breed’s Hill). At the time, the British were in control of Boston. The objective of the militia was to take the city from the hills surrounding the city. The British ultimately won the fight, but it is notable because their large number of casualties (over 1,000) opened their eyes as to what they were up against. By now, they saw that subduing the colonists was not going to be easy.

I have some proud connections to participants in the battle. Some of my mother’s ancestors and their neighbors fought with General Israel Putnam (1718-1790), who was from their area. My mother’s hometown was named after him. I am related to another of the leaders General Joseph Warren (1741-1775) — we are both descended from Mayflower PilgrimRichard Warren (1580-1628). Dr. Warren was one of Boston’s Patriot leaders and had been the man who dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes to alert the countryside on the eve of Lexington and Concord. He was killed at Bunker Hill. (The event is depicted in the painting above, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker’s Hill, June 17, 1775 by John Trumbull).

While there was no single official commander of all the troops, most name French and Indian War veteran Colonel William Prescott for filling the role. (The militia’s commander-in-chief Artemas Ward, second in rank to Washington was at his home sick in Shrewsbury, Mass. at the time). Some credit Prescott, some Putnam, with uttering the probably fictive line “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes”. Other notables who fought in the battle were William Dearborn (whose name all Chicagoans ought to know, and who later accused Putnam of cowardice and ineptitude), Israel Potter (whom Herman Melville based a novel on); and Daniel Shays (who later led Shays’ Rebellion).

On the British side, leaders included General William Howe,General Henry Clinton, and Major John Pitcairn (who was killed in the battle, and whose son Robert Pitcairn first sighted the South Seas islands which still bear the family name). How appalled these professional soldiers would be if they knew their opposite numbers on the American side were the likes of Putnam, a tavernkeeper in civilian life.

In 1911, the Edison Company made a movie about The Battle of Bunker Hill. Written by Clyde Fitch, it was co-directed by J. Searle Dawley and Oscar Apfel, and featured Guy Coombs, Frank McGlynn, Charles Ogle, et al.

Much more than this, though, the battle was rather ignomiously memorialized by the name of a certain Queens bigot on the 1970s’s sitcom All in the Family. Bunker is an actual surname after all. The hill was named after the early Massachusetts settler George Bunker (d. 1658). Now THERE’s a guy whose name gets thrown around all the time without getting any of the credit!

One last thing: I’d figure I’d throw in a phrase my ancestors were no doubt yelling at the Battle of Bunker Hill: “NO KINGS!”. You cannot be an American Patriot and love a King.