Authors: Howard Fast
But off to
Howe’s right, the light infantry continued to advance, their progress
unimpeded; General Pigot was evidently convinced that there would be no
resistance, and thus the advancing line bent into a bow shape. It was Pigot’s
intent to circle around and cut off any retreat from the redoubt.
Aside from
the head of a man here and there, the British commanders had no knowledge of
what might await them. They knew that the redoubt was manned, and they knew
that earthen breastworks had been thrown up for a hundred paces, from the front
of the redoubt and off to the British right. But for all the information that
Dr. Church had been able to bring them, they had no clear picture of any real
defense. They simply accepted the fact that the Americans would be foolish to
allow any considerable number of men to be trapped on the peninsula, that the
men in the redoubt were heroic fools, and that there would be no significant
opposition.
On the
British right, where the land sloped down to the shore of the Mystic River, a
place of rocks and boulders, John Stark and his New Hampshire riflemen had
taken a position from the rock-strewn river’s edge to the sharp slope of
Breed’s Hill, connecting them with Knowlton’s Connecticut militia, who in turn
held a position up the ridge to Prescott’s earthen embankment. But except for
the embankment and the redoubt, none of this was visible to the British.
Stark’s riflemen were crouched behind a stone wall and a wooden rail fence,
which they had stuffed with baled hay, with Stark’s cold promise to “kill any
stupid bastard who shows his head.” Knowlton’s Connecticut men were equally
well hidden behind a stone wall. Both Knowlton and Stark had planted stakes of
wood about fifty feet in front of their lines. Stark had with him Jimmy Grass,
a New Hampshire farmer who had learned to beat a tattoo on a drum he had picked
up during the French war. Jimmy, seventy years old, was not much good for
anything else, but he had talked Johnny Stark into taking him along as a
drummer. The stakes of wood were Stark’s measure for the range.
When General
Pigot’s light infantrymen were within a hundred feet of the fence that hid
Stark’s riflemen, already in front of the rest of the British line, the general
felt that he had done the trick, and he shouted for double time, sending his
men into a race that would allow them to swing around the ridge. Stark stood
up, and as they passed the stakes, signaled to Jimmy Grass, who beat out his
tattoo. The New Hampshire riflemen
raised
up on their
knees and fired at forty feet. A solid sheet of flame roared across their
front, ripping into the light infantry like a fiery saw’s edge, tearing the
British soldiers to pieces.
The junior
officers wore crossed white bands on their chests. “Target the officers,” Stark
had told them. Pigot saw every officer crumple and fall, his entire front line
a bloody mass of dead and wounded, men screaming in pain and rage. The
riflemen, each of whom had a second weapon, passed their rifles back to loaders
and fired again. Now the whole slope in front of them was covered with light infantry,
dying and wounded men who were trying to crawl away from the horror of it.
Pigot was not unused to war, but he had never seen a slaughter like this, and
he shouted to his troops to rally. Only one British drummer boy was still
alive, and he played his drum valiantly. The light infantry managed a volley
and then began to fall back. Stark’s riflemen were shouting at the top of their
lungs, and in the heat of the slaughter they had done, they started to climb
over the fence in pursuit of the British. Stark yelled, “Come back, you damn
fools!”
Two of the
riflemen were dead. Three others had been wounded, and Bones worked desperately
to stop their bleeding and dress their wounds.
General
Pigot, standing unhurt with his officers dead all around him, ordered his light
infantry to fall back, leaving the tall grass littered with corpses. The
wounded light infantrymen, moaning with pain, tried to crawl away from the
horror of the unending fire of the New Hampshire riflemen, who continued to
load and fire as long as the light infantrymen were in range of the long
Pennsylvania rifles.
Then,
suddenly aware of the horror they had caused, the New Hampshire men stopped
firing and shouting and knelt behind their barricade.
A tangle
of brush and thicket prevented Howe from seeing the catastrophe that had
overtaken his right wing, and as he heard the roar of gunfire and the screaming
of the men in the engagement, he halted his own advance, still two hundred
yards short of Knowlton’s Connecticut men. His grenadiers, burdened by their
heavy packs, had to pause again and again to climb the wooden fences. He sent
one of his aides, young Lieutenant Freeman, to advise Wilkens, leading the left
wing, to hold back until the grenadiers were in formation and ready to attack.
Panting,
covered with blood, Pigot joined him and told him of the situation. “Major
Watkins is alive,” Pigot said, panting. “All my other officers are dead.”
“How many
men have you lost?”
“God knows.
Over a hundred.”
“Then goddamn it, reform and we’ll attack again.”
“Where are the cannon?”
It was in their overall plan to drag cannon up the
hill and blast through, but the cannon were still mired in mud at the base of
the hill. “Fuck the cannon!” Howe roared. “Bring your men around to support the
marines. I’ll cut the whole thing open with my grenadiers.”
On the
deck of
Vindicator
, lying a few hundred yards off the Charlestown shore,
close enough to feel the heat of the burning village, Mrs. Loring watched the
ranks of brightly uniformed British troops marching slowly, in precise order,
as they mounted Breed’s Hill. She clapped her hands in pleasure.
“What a
sight!” Mrs. Loring cried. “I do wonder whether it was ever given to people to
be so fortunate, to sit here in safety and watch those gallant men go to
battle. Oh, I have heard and read of such things, but to see it before one’s
eyes!”
“But some
of them will die,” Prudence said. “I don’t know whether I can bear to watch.”
“Ah, but
war is war,” Lieutenant Threadberry said. “It is in the nature of it. Some live
and some die. We must accept that. There’s the glory that built the empire.”
“How well
put,” Mrs. Loring exclaimed, reaching out and taking the lieutenant’s hand.
“But I’m only a woman, sir, and it’s hard for me to think as a man thinks.”
“Of
course,” he said, daring to allow his other hand to brush Mrs. Loring’s breast,
as if by accident.
She picked
up the spyglass and peered through it. “They are so close. But where is Sir
William?”
“Leading
his troops, ma’am.
Leading the grenadiers.
You can’t
see him because he’s in front of his men.”
For the
first time the cold thought touched Mrs. Loring that General Howe might die in
the battle. Where would all her dreams of a marriage and a conquest of
fashionable London go? Where indeed?
Threadberry saw the tear on
her cheek. “My dear lady, you must not weep. This will be a great victory, I
assure you.”
On Copp’s
Hill, Burgoyne and Clinton, watching the advance of Breed’s Hill, heard the
crescendo of rifle and musket fire from the encounter with Stark’s riflemen,
although the encounter itself was out of their range of vision.
Burgoyne
cried, “I can’t stay here and watch it happening over there.”
“Absolutely,”
Clinton agreed.
“We’re no damn use here at all.”
“None.”
There were
twenty-two men in their mortar crew and twelve light infantrymen assigned as
guards. “Weapons, all of you,” Burgoyne called out.
Leading the thirty-four men,
Clinton and Burgoyne raced down Copp’s Hill to the wharf, where they piled into
one of the barges that had been used to take the army across the river.
Little
Isaac Hampton, fourteen years old, came racing over to Major Knowlton to tell
him what had happened at Stark’s barricade and then, hardly pausing to catch
his breath, ran on to Prescott’s position. Knowlton turned to Putnam. “Can you
believe it? Stark stopped them, and they ran.”
The men
behind the stone wall heard him and began to cheer.
“This is
crazy,” Knowlton said, pointing to where the grenadiers were forming up, less
than two hundred paces down the hill, and standing calmly, as if on parade.
“What are they up to?”
“There’s
the light infantry, crossing behind them. That’s General Howe, the big man with
the white wig,” Putnam exclaimed excitedly.
The two
drummer boys at the front of the grenadiers began to beat a quick tattoo, while
at least half of the light infantrymen who had survived the attack on Stark ran
past their rear to join the regiments that extended from the grenadier’s left
to face Prescott’s entrenchments and the redoubt.
“My God,”
Knowlton whispered.
“Lord God
of
Hosts,
be with us,” Putnam thundered.
At the
redoubt, little Isaac Hampton gasped out his news to Prescott, Gridley, Warren,
and Feversham.
“You say
Stark beat them back?” Prescott demanded.
“They were
dead all over the place, hundreds of them.”
“It’s our turn,” Gridley
said. And to Prescott: “We’ll hold the redoubt as best we can. God be with you,
Colonel.” All the British drums were beating now, from the grenadiers to the
reinforced light infantry facing Prescott to the marines on the extreme left.
Israel
Putnam scorned the shelter of the stone wall. As he put it once, “The great
Jehovah has my life in his hands for the twopence
it’s
worth.” Short, stocky, his barrel body on two gnarled legs, he stood with a
musket in his hands. It was his intent, as he said later, to put a bullet in
General Howe’s red rosette.
Major
Knowlton walked along the stone wall behind his men, calling out, “Heads down,
children, heads down and trust me. Listen for my whistle. Let them shoot their
loads away.”
The
grenadiers were in four columns of eight men, their front of thirty-two men a
hundred feet wide. General Howe was leading at their right flank, Major Canby,
a distant relative of Howe’s, on their left flank. Since they had been enlisted
for height, with their great bearskin shakos, they were close to seven feet
tall, their packs and blanket rolls making them even more menacing. They were
veritable giants in comparison to the tiny drummer boys who led the advance, in
keeping with the British conviction that age did not put any loyal subject of
the Crown out of harm’s way.
They had
fixed their bayonets, making a glistening ripple of steel along their front.
What was not visible was the perspiration that soaked their heavy uniforms,
never designed for a New England summer. The perspiration ran down from under
their shakos into their eyes, cruel sweat which could in no way be dried or
wiped away. Along with that impediment, the afternoon sun shone in their eyes.
For all of that, they were a terrifying sight, and Major Knowlton was thankful
that he had stormed at his men and threatened to kill anyone who dared to raise
his head and look over the wall before the signal was given.
When he
called a halt to his grenadiers at sixty yards, Sir William was puzzled. He had
instructed General Pigot, who had crossed over, to take command of the main
body of light infantry and marines. These soldiers would storm the redoubt and
the entrenchments to concert his attack with the attack of the grenadiers. Now,
as he stood facing the long stone wall, he still had no idea of what was behind
it. Was the only real force on this right flank the riflemen who had sent the
light infantry reeling back? What faced him? Only two men were visible: General
Putnam, whom he recognized from the wild tangle of gray hair, and Knowlton,
whom he did not recognize. Nevertheless, convinced of the power of his
grenadiers, he ordered a volley, and the thirty-two-man front of the grenadiers
turned into a sheet of fire. The roar was picked up by volleys from the light
infantry and the marines to his left.
Then
General Howe ordered an advance at marching pace to close quarters with
bayonets.
Neither
Putnam nor Knowlton had been hit by the volley. A ball lifted Knowlton’s
tricorner hat, sending it sailing off, and a shot tore through Putnam’s sleeve.
At fifty paces, the grenadiers reached the stakes that Knowlton had placed to
mark the distance, and Knowlton put his two pinkies in his mouth and blew a
piercing whistle. The 220 Connecticut men behind the stone wall stood up and
discharged their muskets and rifles at point-blank range into the grenadiers.
It was a sight, as Knowlton said later, too terrible to take any joy in. The
entire front rank of the grenadiers—thirty-two men, the drummer boys, three
junior officers, and Major Canby—were killed instantly, as well as a dozen
others in the second rank. One moment, there was the proudest regiment in the
British army in full parade, and a moment later the meadow grass in front of
the stone wall was covered with dying men and the screaming wounded.