"The True Story of the Battle of Bunker Hill" Topic

"Boston in 1775 was much smaller, hillier and more watery than it appears today. The Back Bay was still a bay and the South End was likewise underwater; hills were later leveled to fill in almost 1,000 acres. Boston was virtually an island, reachable by land only via a narrow neck. And though founded by Puritans, the city wasn't puritanical. One rise near Beacon Hill, known for its prostitutes, was marked on maps as "Mount Whoredom."

Nor was Boston a "cradle of liberty"; one in five families, including those of leading patriots, owned slaves. And the city's inhabitants were viciously divided. At Copp's Hill, in Boston's North End, Philbrick visits the grave of Daniel Malcom, an early agitator against the British identified on his headstone as "a true son of Liberty." British troops used the patriot headstone for target practice. Yet Malcom's brother, John, was a noted loyalist, so hated by rebels that they tarred and feathered him and paraded him in a cart until his skin peeled off in "steaks."

Philbrick is a mild-mannered 56-year-old with gentle brown eyes, graying hair and a placid golden retriever in the back of his car. But he's blunt and impassioned about the brutishness of the 1770s and the need to challenge patriotic stereotypes. "There's an ugly civil war side to revolutionary Boston that we don't often talk about," he says, "and a lot of thuggish, vigilante behavior by groups like the Sons of Liberty." He doesn't romanticize the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord, either. The "freedoms" they fought for, he notes, weren't intended to extend to slaves, Indians, women or Catholics. Their cause was also "profoundly conservative." Most sought a return to the Crown's "salutary neglect" of colonists prior to the 1760s, before Britain began imposing taxes and responding to American resistance with coercion and troops. "They wanted the liberties of British subjects, not American independence," Philbrick says…"
From here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Enough already. We get plenty of the "America Sucks" sentiment courtesy of our own media on a daily basis.

DM

Armand,

When you mentioned "Philbrick", were you referring to Nthaniel Philbrick/

Paul

I've really had my fill of so-called "true stories".
Usually they are …. not.

Interesting article

Philbrick is probably my favorite historian author at the moment. His books are no nonsense but highly engaging. He doesn't try to run down anybody in his Bunker Hill boom (or his Mayflower book for that matter) but provides a nice balanced viewpoint that looks at things from various perspectives.

Philbrick is an excellent historian and excellent writer.
I'm about 2/3 through his latest, "Valiant Ambition".

Not so much 'America sucks', but that individuals and the societies they create are complicated and messy, and that history as told according to flags, particularly in narratives established in the C19th, has a tendency to oversimply.

Good find Armand. (I didn't find it to be an "America Sucks" article – although a LOT of revisionist "stuff" DOES resemble "original guilt"/"*we* are to ALL to blame" BS).

Thanks, and…

Tango!!!

Charlie R.

Whatever John Ford may have advocated, the less elegant, less poetic truths that have lain ignored, obscured under the leaf mould of many seasons, can be fascinating when brought to light.

Of course, there weren't any apples in the Garden of Eden, you know – and the Bible doesn't even mention a serpent…

"Nor was Boston a "cradle of liberty"; one in five families, including those of leading patriots, owned slaves."

"The "freedoms" they fought for, he notes, weren't intended to extend to slaves, Indians, women or Catholics."

Yes, their sacrifices should be ignored and their fight for liberty repudiated because they didn't leap in their mindset from the 18th century directly to the 21st century. Forget that their was no such thing as individual liberty or a country where the common man had actual written rights. All that is nullified because there were no transgender founding fathers/mothers!

You're making some leaps there as well, Mr. Jackson. Especially considering the fact that not everybody was on board with the idea of slavery at this time and there was an effort made to include people other than just white men as having rights under the constitution. Women could even vote in a couple of states until those rights were stripped from them in the early 19th century. History is a messy business.

For those who are bashing this article. How many have read it and also how many have read the book? I have read both and do not see where the America sucks is coming from.

"By contrast, the British, who at midday began disembarking from boats near the American position, were among the best-trained troops in Europe."

Mmmm, kinda not. It was a peace time army, so while you could say they were trained, they were not veterans.

"However, the seemingly open pasture proved to be an obstacle course. The high, unmown hay obscured rocks, holes and other hazards. Fences and stone walls also slowed the British."

Which demonstrates why British Grenadier is such a good rule set as it penalizes you for moving over such obstacles or moving at all with disruption points.

"The Americans added to the chaos by aiming at officers, distinguished by their fine uniforms."

The officer casualties suffered here were horrendous. Makes me wonder then if reduced officer casualties in the future weren't because of the officers kitting out in soldiers coats and getting rid of other badges of rank, such as gorgets, sashes and the like, in future encounters. Note though that American officers often wore the same badges of rank (sans the brighter coats of their full dress British counterparts) such as gorgets, swords, metal lace, epualets, swords, spontoons (which the British ditched early on), etc. So why didn't they suffer higher casualties based on their dress?

By the way, Philbrick's book was excellent. Enjoyed reading it.

Dn Jackson,

A legal ruling (Somerset vs Stewart) in 1772 judged that slavery was unsupportable (and therefore illegal) under English Common Law. So it seems that for the country against which the American rebels were fighting, being anti-slavery was an 18th Century mindset, not just a 21st Century one. Why couldn't the colonists come to the same conclusion?

Glad you enjoyed it my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I'm not an expert on 18th century slavery, but I suspect there were few (any?) slaves in the British isles. I believe most of the slave trade was directed to the colonies – including N. America and the Caribbean. Point being, those places were short of labor and then dependendt on slavery for the profitable production of tobacco and sugar – much/most of which went to Europe.

"For those who are bashing this article. How many have read it and also how many have read the book?"

Some are simply reacting to the Publisher's hyperbole.

@English Thegn-The Somerset ruling was held not to apply to the colonies. That position continued even after the U.S. won its independence. Dunmore was willing to take an anti-slavery stance in Virginia because most large slave owners sided with the rebels. Outside of Virginia you had substantial slaveonwers among the loyalists, and they would have objected to emancipation as much as rebel slaveowners did.

Bill N

You are quite right as English Common Law did not apply in the colonies. It has been said however that the precedent set in 1772 eventually led to the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807 and of slavery itself in 1833. The point I'm making (along with Greenfield Games I think) is that Dn Jackson is quite wrong to claim that being anti-slavery is a modern mindset. People quite high up in the British establishment during the late 18th and early 19th centuries were able to see that slavery was wrong and do something about it while American colonists apparently saw no contradiction between fighting for 'liberty' and maintaining slavery.

I hear automatic weapons cocking across the Fair and Free over this assessment. Well guess the guns have the answers and fair honest debate is but a mythological greek thing. OK on to read the article I spose.

The officer casualties suffered here were horrendous. Makes me wonder then if reduced officer casualties in the future weren't because of the officers kitting out in soldiers coats and getting rid of other badges of rank, such as gorgets, sashes and the like, in future encounters.

Personally, I think Bunker Hill was an anomaly in this respect; Hessian officers didn't adopt these "field mods" and suffered no worse officer casualties in later battles. What everyone overlooks with BH is that it was a formerly sedentary garrison force storming a series of fortifications. This required the kind of "up front" leadership that characterises WW1 (in which commissioned/warrant officer deaths were around 1:5 in combat units, compared to 1:20 on TOE) and, to a lesser extent, the "stormings" of Iberian fortifications from the Peninsula War. For example, three captains of the 52nd Foot were shot down trying to encourage their men over the breastwork of the main redoubt on Breed's Hill. Thus, I think it was the nature of the task and the less-than-dashing nature of the assault force (and some good ol' Yankee propaganda), rather than their uniform accoutrements, that led to this loss – especially given the absence of rifles among the defenders.

Note though that American officers often wore the same badges of rank (sans the brighter coats of their full dress British counterparts) such as gorgets, swords, metal lace, epualets, swords, spontoons (which the British ditched early on), etc. So why didn't they suffer higher casualties based on their dress?

Actually, I think they did, but nobody has ever studied it as it doesn't "fit the narrative". From looking at Southern actions, Continental officers seem as likely to fall as their opponents – more so where there are jaeger present. Someone with better access to Continental archives should really look at this, as I think it became a "bit of a thing" as the fighting went on in the South – at Blackstocks, an entire platoon of the 63rd fired "buck and ball" at Sumter and his staff, badly wounded him and hit several others as well.

Another point to bear in mind is that officers would have been clearly indicated by their role(s) on the battlefield, and their positions within (or to the side/rear of) formations, since both sides used more or less the same drill books. That a man would have been wearing "dress down" clothing would not have mattered that much, IMO.

Good points, but I suspect that there was a feeling of not wanting to stand out quite so much which is what drove some to dress down in the field.

I seem to recall a passage in the Bouquet Papers (1758) where the Brigadier admonished the officers to wear their red coats when on duty, especially for courts martials. Makes you wonder what they were wearing.

I have seen some re-enactor officers (British) wear a red kind of undress frock coat. I seem to recall reading that was worn in the F&I period, but am not as familiar with it during the AWI period, though it would make sense. I believe one F&I period red frock coat was found some years ago hanging in a barn in the mid-West. It was a red coat with boot cuffs, obviously from the F&I period.

Yes, that was the impact of the propaganda – one man was supposed to have shot 20 officers, using muskets loaded for him by his colleagues. Not implausible, but somewhat unlikely in my view.

Christian Cameron once told me he'd found memos/letters from St Leger, prior to the Ft Stanwix expedition, admonishing officers of the 34th for wearing blue single-breasted tunic-type coatees.

I seem to recall an article by Gerry Embleton about the Guards officers wearing blue frock coats in Europe during the SYW.

Another reason for the heavy losses at Bunker(Breed's) Hill was the incomplete training of the British troops (see Urban's Fusiliers). Instead of rushing the works, they stood and returned fire. The officers urged them forward in vain until the militia ran out of ammunition.

That's why the losses were so heavy. The rank and file lost nearly 50%, unheard of again in any similar sized (or larger) fight in the war.