Patriots Dug-in at Breed’s Hill

During the evening of June 16 (1775), General Clinton (one of the British commanders) was hearing strange sounds coming from the Charlestown peninsula.  It was the rebels, with their spades and picks, fortifying the top of Breed’s Hill. 

Clinton expressed his suspicions to Major-General Howe (who basically ignored them).  He next talked with General Gage (who also dismissed Clinton’s worries).  Exasperated, Clinton wrote: “I have given in a proposal in writing.  If we were of active disposition, we should be landed tomorrow at daybreak.  As it is, I fear it must be postponed until two.”  (Two o’clock, the following day, was the next high tide.)  No orders for a dawn attack were given before the commanding generals went to bed.

By morning’s light, the Royal Navy’s commanders could see what the Patriots (Colonel Prescott and his men) were building overnight: a partially constructed redoubt (a very strong defensive position made of stones and dirt) six feet wide and fifty yards long.  It would allow the rebels to shoot down at anyone trying to climb up the steep slopes of the 75-foot-high hill.

Credits

U.S. National Archives