June 17, 1775: The Battle of Bunker Hill

Bunker Hill Monument

June 17, 1775. 250 years ago: The Battle of Bunker Hill is fought, the 1st battle of the War of the American Revolution after the opening battles of Lexington and Concord. It is remembered as a great heroic triumph for the American Patriots.

In fact, it was a case of "They lost the battle, but won the war." Or, as the ancient Greek King Pyrrhus of Epirus would have said, "If we are successful in one more battle with them, we shall be utterly ruined."

The battle isn't even correctly named. Although there is a Bunker Hill in Charlestown, across the Charles River from Boston and since incorporated as a neighborhood of the city proper, most of the action took place at adjacent Breed's Hill, a mile and a half from what's now known as Downtown Crossing.

On June 13, Colonel William Prescott took 1,200 colonial troops, and occupied both hills. On June 17, the British troops, under the command of General William Howe, became aware of the presence of colonial forces on the Peninsula, and mounted an attack against them. Two assaults on the colonial positions were repulsed with significant British casualties, but the redoubt was captured on their third assault, after the defenders ran out of ammunition. The colonists retreated over Bunker Hill, leaving the British in control of the Peninsula.

William Prescott

The battle was a tactical victory for the British, but it proved to be a sobering experience for them: They lost 226 men, while the colonials lost 115. The battle had demonstrated that inexperienced militia were able to stand up to regular army troops in battle.

The battle led the British to adopt a more cautious planning and maneuver execution in future engagements, which was evident in the subsequent New York and New Jersey campaign. The costly engagement also convinced the British of the need to hire substantial numbers of auxiliaries from the German province of Hesse -- the infamous Hessian mercenaries -- to bolster their strength in the face of the new and formidable Continental Army.

William Prescott served as part of the U.S. victory at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777. He lived on until 1795, at the age of 69. He has a statue on the grounds of the 221-foot-high Bunker Hill Monument, erected in 1843.

The colonials lost the battle because they ran out of ammunition. This supposedly led to the ammo-conserving order: "Don't shoot 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" But the available evidence shows that no one -- not Prescott, nor anyone else -- said this during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The saying goes back to Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden in the early 17th Century, at that country's peak of power.