How long did the battle of bunker hill last

Map of the Bunker Hill battlefield. The entire peninsula of Charlestown was affected by the battle. The central hill with a roughly square fort (the "redoubt") is known as "Breed's Hill" today. Today's "Bunker Hill" is to the northwest of Breed's. Boston's North End is to the southeast.

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Courtesy Boston Public Library, Norman B. Levanthal Map Center

Colonel William Prescott and General Israel Putnam were the ranking officers in the expedition to Charlestown, however Prescott, being from Massachusetts, commanded the majority of the men. For generations many have argued over who ultimately chose where to fortify a position on the lower, more centrally located hill known today as "Breed's Hill," rather than the higher prominence known today as "Bunker Hill." But on that night, construction began sometime around midnight as hundreds of men with pickaxes and shovels constructed a fort atop the lower hill overlooking the settlement of Charlestown and the beaches along the Harbor.

At dawn, lookouts on British warship and sentries in Boston quickly noticed the new redoubt constructed within cannon-range of the North End of Boston. Early cannon-fire upon the fortification quickly awoke the town and countryside. By mid-morning, General Gage had decided to assemble troops and mount an attack to clear this threat. While a cannonade from both British ships and Copp's Hill began to bombard the area of the redoubt, Prescott ordered his men to continue to expand the fort and dig in for an eventual assault. As the day progressed, units received conflicting orders whether to stay or reinforce the men under Prescott. Because Charlestown was a peninsula, it was very risky to send too many men to a place that could easily be cut off by a successful British attack. Yet with some 2,400 British solders, officers, and Marines assembling in Boston for transport to Charlestown, Prescott's numbers dwindled from men fleeing the scene under the cannonade.

By midday, the first wave of British boats landed British solders. They assembled out of musket range and awaited the second wave of troops. General William Howe was given command of the field by Gage, and it appears that he anticipated sending his force in two thrusts: One force would advance on the redoubt as a feint, a second would march to the right through an open pasture and flank, surround, and crush the resistance inside the redoubt. The tall grass in the area, however, covered up many of the hazards and obstacles that faced Howe's men in the flanking attack. Furthermore, desperately needed Colonial reinforcements were soon arriving under the command of New Hampshire Colonel John Stark. Rather than send his men into the redoubt with Prescott, Stark led his command of roughly 800 men to a fence in a downhill pasture to Prescott's left. This put Stark's men at the opposite end of the very same pasture Howe hoped to exploit in the flanking attack.

The American patriots were defeated at the Battle of Bunker Hill, but they proved they could hold their own against the superior British Army. The fierce fight confirmed that any reconciliation between England and her American colonies was no longer possible.

How it ended

British victory. The battle was a tactical victory for the British, but it was a sobering experience. The British sustained twice as many casualties as the Americans and lost many officers. After the engagement, the patriots retreated and returned to their lines outside the perimeter of Boston.

In context

By early 1775 tensions between Britain and her colonies had escalated. The colonists began to mobilize for war, while the British Army secured gunpowder and cannon in anticipation of an uprising. On April 19, it all came to a head in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord. After that historic engagement, the British retreated to their camp in Boston, and local militias prepared for future British attacks. Militiamen marched to defend Boston, some from as far away as Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and what is now the state of Vermont.

British Commander-in-Chief General Sir Thomas Gage was under pressure to quash the colonial rebellion. By June, he had reinforcements and was ready to implement a new strategy. The British Army planned to launch an attack against the Americans on the heights north and south of Boston. Details of the attack were leaked, however, and a detachment of 1,000 Massachusetts and Connecticut soldiers—more of an armed mob than a military unit—gathered to defend a hill in Charlestown. Among the defenders were several enslaved and free African Americans as well. The violent clash of these forces on what is mistakenly known as “Bunker Hill” signaled that the colonial revolt would not be easily extinguished.

The sheer number of militiamen gathered on the hills outside of Boston deeply troubles Gen. Thomas Gage and his newly arrived subordinates, Gens. William Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne. On June 15 and June 16, the Patriots move forward to Breed’s Hill on the Charlestown peninsula, where they prepare a fortified position that all but invites a British response. General John Stark from New Hampshire recognizes that the left flank of the fortified position is exposed along the south bank of the Mystic River. He and his men assemble a makeshift split rail barricade to blunt any flanking action employed by the British. When the British officers look out at what has been erected in the short span of one evening they are stunned. Gage knows he has to take action.

Israel Putnam

Thomas Gage

June 17. On this sultry afternoon, Gage and his commanders order British regulars and grenadiers to move across Boston Harbor and disembark in lower Charlestown, where Gage will force the rabble’s hand with an assault. As the British move into position, the fatigued but spirited defenders are on the alert inside their hastily built fortifications.

Led by Gen. William Howe, King George’s troops climb Breed’s Hill in perfect battle formation. Legend has it that as they advance, American officer William Prescott cautions his men not to waste their powder, exclaiming “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” When British troops near the redoubt, the patriots unleash a withering volley, creating an absolute slaughter. One patriot remarks afterward, “They advanced toward us in order to swallow us up, but they found a choaky[sic] mouthful of us.” It is a veritable bloodbath as the British retreat back to their lines.

Once more the British push up the hill, stepping over the bodies of their dead and wounded comrades who lay “as thick as sheep in a fold,” and again they receive another patriot volley. Finally, on the third try –and just when the patriots run out of powder and shot—the British succeed in breaking through the patriot works. Intense hand-to-hand fighting occurs inside the fortification. The British are victorious but at a cost. At some point in the struggle, a “black soldier named Salem” is credited with killing British Maj. John Pitcairn, the officer despised for allegedly ordering his men to fire on patriots during the battle of Lexington and Concord weeks earlier.

“Our three generals,” a British officer wrote of his commanders in Boston, “expected rather to punish a mob than fight with troops that would look them in the face.” The King’s troops count 282 dead and another 800 wounded. Patriot casualties are less than half of the British total. British General Sir Henry Clinton is appalled at the carnage, calling it “a dear bought victory.” Badly depleted, the British abandon plans to seize another high point near the city and ultimately evacuate Boston.

Though defeated, the Patriots are not demoralized. Those who choose to stay and keep the British bottled up in Boston become the nucleus of the Continental Army. The task of transforming the mob into a fighting force falls on the shoulders of Virginian George Washington, who assumes command in Cambridge, Massachusetts, within two weeks of the erroneously named Battle of Bunker Hill.

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