Battle of Bunker Hill (1775): Costly British Victory at Boston

The Battle of Bunker Hill, fought on 17 June 1775 on the Charlestown peninsula across the river from Boston, was one of the first major battles of the American Revolutionary War. British troops drove colonial militia from their fortifications on Breed’s Hill after three assaults, but at a cost of more than 1,000 killed and wounded. The battle showed that inexperienced American forces could stand against British regulars, and its heavy toll shaped how both sides fought the war.

Background

After the Battles of Lexington and Concord on 19 April 1775, thousands of New England militiamen surrounded Boston, trapping General Thomas Gage and his army in the town. In late May, three more generals arrived from Britain with reinforcements: William Howe, Henry Clinton and John Burgoyne.

Boston was then almost an island, linked to the mainland by a narrow neck. Two areas of high ground overlooked it: Dorchester Heights to the south and the hills of the Charlestown peninsula to the north. Gage planned to occupy both. The colonists learned of the plan and decided to act first.

The besieging army was not yet a single national force. It was a loose collection of provincial troops from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, each under its own officers, with General Artemas Ward of Massachusetts as the senior commander at Cambridge. Many of the men had enlisted only weeks earlier, and supplies of gunpowder were dangerously short, a weakness that would decide the outcome of the coming battle.

The fortification of Breed’s Hill

On the night of 16–17 June, Colonel William Prescott led about 1,000 to 1,200 men onto the Charlestown peninsula with orders to fortify Bunker Hill. Instead, after discussion among the officers, they began work on Breed’s Hill, which was lower but nearer to Boston and within range of the town and harbour. The reasons for the change are still debated.

Working through the night, the men built a square earthen redoubt about 130 feet (40 m) on each side, with walls about six feet high. At dawn on 17 June the crew of the British warship HMS Lively spotted the works and opened fire, soon joined by other ships and by a battery on Copp’s Hill in Boston. One of the first men killed, a private named Asa Pollard, was struck by a cannonball.

Prescott’s men extended their line with a breastwork running down the hill. To the north, colonists including New Hampshire troops under Colonel John Stark and Connecticut men under Captain Thomas Knowlton held a rail fence stuffed with hay and a stone wall reaching down to the beach on the Mystic River. General Israel Putnam moved between the lines, trying to organise reinforcements.

The British assaults

Gage and his generals decided on a direct attack rather than landing troops behind the colonists at Charlestown Neck. In the early afternoon, about 1,500 British troops crossed the Charles River in boats and landed at Moulton’s Point under Major General William Howe; reinforcements brought the force to around 2,200–2,400. Brigadier Robert Pigot commanded the left wing facing the redoubt, while Howe led the right against the rail fence and beach.

The first assault came in mid-afternoon. On the beach, light infantry advancing in a narrow column were cut down by Stark’s men firing at close range. Along the line, the British advanced in tight formation, uphill, through long grass and fences, carrying heavy equipment. The colonists held their fire until the enemy was close, then delivered heavy volleys. The attackers fell back with severe losses.

During the fighting, sniper fire from the village of Charlestown led the British to set it ablaze with heated shot and incendiary shells. Most of its several hundred buildings burned.

A second assault was also driven back. Howe then reorganised his men, had them drop their packs, and brought up reinforcements, including Royal Marines under Major John Pitcairn. The third attack concentrated on the redoubt with bayonets. By then the defenders had almost run out of gunpowder. As the regulars poured over the walls, the colonists fought briefly with musket butts and stones, then retreated across Bunker Hill and Charlestown Neck to the mainland, covered by the men at the rail fence.

Key people

William Prescott, a farmer and veteran of earlier colonial wars, commanded the redoubt and was among the last to leave it. Israel Putnam of Connecticut was the senior colonial officer on the field, though command on the American side was loosely shared.

Joseph Warren, a Boston doctor and president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, had just been appointed a major general but chose to fight as a volunteer in the redoubt. He was killed in the final assault, becoming the best-known American casualty of the battle.

William Howe led the British assaults personally and saw almost every officer of his staff killed or wounded. Thomas Gage was recalled to Britain later in the year, and Howe replaced him as commander-in-chief in October 1775. Among the British dead was John Pitcairn, who had led the advance guard at Lexington.

Several Black soldiers fought on the colonial side, including Peter Salem and Salem Poor. Fourteen officers later petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to recognise Poor’s bravery.

A costly victory

The British took the peninsula, but the price was very high. Of the roughly 2,200–2,400 troops engaged, about 1,054 were killed or wounded, including a large share of their officers. It was among the heaviest British losses of the whole war. General Henry Clinton privately described it as a victory that had been dearly bought, adding that another like it would have ruined the army.

American losses were smaller, though still serious, and most occurred during the retreat. Colonists drew a powerful lesson: amateur soldiers behind earthworks could hold off and badly hurt the best troops in Europe. The British drew the opposite lesson, and Howe in particular avoided frontal attacks on fortified positions for the rest of the war.

Consequences and legacy

The battle did not break the siege of Boston. Two days earlier, on 15 June, the Second Continental Congress had appointed George Washington commander of the new Continental Army, and he took command at Cambridge in early July. In August, King George III proclaimed the colonies to be in open rebellion, ending hopes of quick reconciliation.

In March 1776 Washington’s army placed cannon, hauled from Fort Ticonderoga, on Dorchester Heights overlooking the town. Rather than repeat Bunker Hill, Howe evacuated Boston on 17 March 1776. A few months later Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

In Britain, the casualty lists shocked the public and the government. Ministers concluded that the rebellion could not be crushed by the troops already in America, and over the following months they began hiring German auxiliaries, mostly from Hesse-Kassel and other small states, to strengthen the army. The battle thus helped turn a regional conflict into a war fought with tens of thousands of soldiers on each side.

Americans quickly made Bunker Hill a symbol of national courage. John Trumbull’s painting of Joseph Warren’s death, completed in 1786, became one of the best-known images of the Revolution. On the fiftieth anniversary in 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument, and Daniel Webster gave the oration. The granite obelisk, finished in 1842 and dedicated the following year, still stands on Breed’s Hill, and Suffolk County in Massachusetts marks 17 June as Bunker Hill Day.

By the numbers

Myths and facts

Myth: the battle was fought on Bunker Hill. Most of the fighting took place on Breed’s Hill. The Bunker Hill Monument itself stands on Breed’s Hill.

Myth: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” was a famous order given by one known commander. The words are attributed to Putnam or Prescott, but no reliable record confirms who said them, and such orders were a standard way to save ammunition.

Myth: the Americans won. The British won the field. What the colonists gained was confidence and a demonstration of how costly British victories could be.

Timeline

• 1775, 19 April: Fighting at Lexington and Concord leads to the siege of Boston.
• 1775, 25 May: Generals Howe, Clinton and Burgoyne arrive in Boston.
• 1775, 15 June: Congress appoints George Washington commander of the Continental Army.
• 1775, 16–17 June, night: Colonial troops fortify Breed’s Hill.
• 1775, 17 June, afternoon: Three British assaults capture the hill; Charlestown burns and Joseph Warren is killed.
• 1775, 3 July: Washington takes command of the army at Cambridge.
• 1776, 17 March: The British evacuate Boston.
• 1843, 17 June: The completed Bunker Hill Monument is dedicated.

Why it matters

Bunker Hill was a British tactical victory that felt like an American triumph. It proved that colonial forces could fight, made Britain wary of costly frontal attacks, and hardened opinion on both sides, pushing the conflict from a local rebellion towards a full-scale war for independence.