The Battle of Bunker Hill

The battle is named for the wrong hill. On the night of June 16, 1775, Colonel William Prescott led about 1,200 men onto the Charlestown peninsula, past Bunker Hill to the lower Breed's Hill. By dawn they had thrown up a square earth redoubt on its crest.

On June 17, General William Howe sent his regulars up the slope. The Royal Navy fired an incendiary shell into the village of Charlestown, and landing parties set the rest alight. The first two assaults broke against the redoubt. The third carried it, because the defenders were nearly out of powder and had few bayonets.

The British took the hill at a cost of 1,054 casualties, 226 of them killed. American losses were about 450. Among the dead was Dr. Joseph Warren, who had sent Paul Revere riding in April. Named a major general three days earlier, he chose to fight in the redoubt as a volunteer.

The painting is set at the moment the redcoats reach the top. A defender in a blue coat and buff waistcoat stands on the earthwork with his sword raised, while below him men in homespun hold up a wounded officer. Grenadiers in tall bearskin caps climb in from the right, and Charlestown burns along the water at the left.