The Battle of Bunker Hill at 250, with Mike Troy of the American Revolution Podcast (episode 329)

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Jake:
[0:03] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the Hub of the Universe.

Introduction to Bunker Hill

Jake:
[0:13] This is Episode 329, The Battle of Bunker Hill, with Mike Troy of the American Revolution Podcast. Hi, I’m Jake. June 17th, 2025 is going to mark the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which was the largest Revolutionary War battle and just largest battle overall to ever take place in the Boston area, and it was the bloodiest battle of the war, at least on the British side. Following the outbreak of war in April, the siege of Boston soon became a stalemate. But until Bunker Hill, British officers expected the American Provincial Army to evaporate the first time they came face-to-face with the fearsome power of the king’s army. Fought over a year before America declared independence, Bunker Hill proved this assumption wrong, with the Redcoats suffering devastating casualties, even though they technically carried the day and defeated the Americans. In just a few minutes, I’m going to be joined by Mike Troy, the host of the American Revolution podcast, which I’ve been listening to more or less religiously for just about as long as I’ve been podcasting myself.

Jake:
[1:28] Together, we’re going to uncover where the battle was fought and how you can find traces of the battlefield in today’s Charlestown. We’ll look at the officers and men on both sides of the battle, and what the experience of battle was like for the untested and untrained American militia soldiers, as well as the lessons that both sides learned from the carnage of June 17th, 1775.

Gratitude for Supporters

Jake:
[1:53] But before we talk about the Battle of Bunker Hill, I just want to pause and say a big thank you to the sponsors who make it possible for me to make Hub History. Sometimes I get jealous of podcasters like Mike, because his topic and his podcast name helped me to bring in a vast audience who were interested in the American Revolution. Some of us, like me for example, have podcasts with a much more niche audience, like a show about forgotten and lesser-known aspects of the history of a mid-sized American city like Boston.

Jake:
[2:30] Luckily, this narrow little niche has some very passionate listeners. And that’s why I’m so grateful for the loyal listeners who support Hub History with one-time payments on PayPal or monthly sponsorships on Patreon. Your support pays for our podcast media hosting to deliver the show to your phone, the website where I share pics and maps and primary sources, and the conferencing and audio mastering tools I use to make sure that the show sounds good. Especially over the past year or so when I didn’t have a full-time job I literally couldn’t make the show without your help so to everybody who’s already supporting the show thank you, and if you’re not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start it’s easy just go to patreon.com slash hubhistory or visit hubhistory.com and click on the support us link and thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors.

Meet Mike Troy

Jake:
[3:31] I’m joined now by Mike Troy. Mike’s the host of the American Revolution podcast, which has been taking an incredibly broad view of the revolutionary era for about eight years now. The show is a chronological look at the struggle for independence that spans the entire era from the start of the Seven Years’ War, or the French and Indian War as we usually refer to it in the U.S., and he’s now gotten as far as the debates over ratifying the U.S. Constitution. He’s still going strong. Along with weekly episodes, now that we’re firmly in the season of 250th anniversary celebrations, there are multiple mini-episodes every week that remind us of events in the American Revolution that took place 250 years ago today. Mike’s a rarity in my world. A full-time professional history podcaster. But before he was able to focus on the podcast full-time, He was a tech guy like me, a legislative aide on Capitol Hill, and a constitutional law attorney. He joins us today from the Philadelphia area.

Context of the Battle

Jake:
[4:41] Mike Troy, welcome to the show.

Mike Troy:
[4:43] Well, thanks for having me.

Jake:
[4:45] We’re in the midst of this sort of 250th season here in Boston. I’ve had four or five episodes so far sort of dealing with our revolutionary anniversaries between Grape Island and Chelsea Creek and the beginning of the siege, the anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride. Narratively, I’ve really leaned on the idea that quickly after Lexington and Concord, the siege grinds to this standstill. But then in June, the Battle of Bunker Hill happens. So what changed as we get later into the spring and into June 1775 to encourage

The Siege of Boston

Jake:
[5:26] the two sides into this large-scale battle? It’s a huge set-piece battle compared to any of the other conflicts around Boston in 1775. What happened?

Mike Troy:
[5:38] Literally, the siege began overnight. The British returned from Concord on the evening of April 19th. They went across Charlestown Neck, and the Americans did not pursue any farther, but But they just immediately set up their siege camps around the Charlestown and Boston peninsulas. And the number of militia just kept growing and growing over the next few weeks as more and more men showed up from all around New England as the word got around. The British in Boston, well, they actually evacuated. They held Charlestown Peninsula, including Bunker Hill at that time.

Jake:
[6:19] But only for a day or two, I think. It was pretty quickly they abandoned it.

Mike Troy:
[6:23] Right. Within a few days, they pulled all of their troops across the Charles River into Boston proper. For those of you who live in Boston today, Boston was a very different world in that time. It was a peninsula that was connected to the mainland only by a very thin neck, so that that prevented anyone from charging into the city overland. And of course, the British very heavily fortified that neck so that no one was getting in and out without their permission. So even though the British were horribly outnumbered, the Americans really couldn’t get at them in any easy way. So there was this standoff. General Gage was waiting for reinforcements. As soon as Lexington and Concord ended, he sent his report back to London. He basically said, we’re getting killed here, guys. We need reinforcements. He had about 4,000 men at the time in Boston, and he was able to collect a few more by calling in troops from Quebec and New York and stuff like that. So he may have gotten up to about 5,000. but he was telling London if you think 10,000 will do, send 20,000 because that’s, I’m facing 25,000, 30,000 militiamen on the other river, and they don’t seem very happy.

Mike Troy:
[7:34] So he was basically playing a waiting game, waiting for reinforcements, waiting for something to happen. Fortunately for the British, the folks in London had not waited to hear about this report, which probably would have taken six to eight weeks to get across the ocean and another six to eight weeks to send stuff back, plus probably another few weeks or months to collect whatever he needed. So it would have taken a really long time after the April 19th battle for him to get more troops. Fortunately, London had had a change of heart over the winter based on preliminary reports of other problems they were having. And they decided to send a few thousand more soldiers to Boston. And they arrived in late May. And with those reinforcements came three new generals

British Reinforcements Arrive

Mike Troy:
[8:20] who fans of the revolution will be very familiar with. The most senior general was General William Howe. The second most senior general was Sir Henry Clinton. Well, it wasn’t a sir at the time. Henry Clinton, General Henry Clinton. And the third general was Johnny Burgoyne, who will all play very prominent roles in the future of the war. But they all arrived as fairly senior generals along with these reinforcements.

Jake:
[8:46] And they all arrived together on the same ship, which has a name. I’ll let you say the name. But it has a name that’s so – the symbolism is so heavy-handed that if you’re writing a novel, your editor wouldn’t let you get away with it.

Mike Troy:
[8:59] Yeah, the ship – the naval ship that came on was the Cerberus, which is the name of the three-headed dog that guarded the gates of hell in mythology. So the fact that three British generals were coming over on a ship named for the three-headed dog of hell was not lost on anyone at the time.

Jake:
[9:16] That makes me want to go look up what Isaiah Thomas or one of the Patriot newspaper publishers was saying about that at the time. I mean, the propaganda value is just perfect, it seems like.

Gage’s Dilemma

Mike Troy:
[9:27] Yeah. But when the generals came, they brought with them instructions from London to say, hey, Gage, why are you sitting on your butt not doing anything? First of all, you have regulars and these guys are militia and one regular can take 10 militia easily. This should not be a problem for you. And of course, Gage was saying, well, you didn’t see what they did to us at Lexington and Concord. Basically, everyone in London kind of had the idea that militia are pushovers. They really don’t know how to fight. They can’t stand toe to toe with regulars, do something about it. And so the generals came with instructions to tell Gage, get off your butt and do something. And so Gage really had no choice but to give them a chance to try something. And that’s where we’re getting to here.

Jake:
[10:14] I have to imagine that Gage felt pressure – these other three generals had to be gunning for his job.

Power Struggles Among Generals

Jake:
[10:20] And we know that eventually Hal gets that job as the commander-in-chief of forces in North America. So early on, do you have any sense of what the interpersonal dynamics between the now four senior officers in Boston would have been like?

Mike Troy:
[10:39] Yeah, there’s a tradition in the British Army at this time that you’re pretty much always gunning for your superior’s job. And this is especially true among generals because they didn’t get where they were by just sitting around being patient and following orders. The trick was you had to do it very politely. You would send reports back to London saying, you know, my commander is doing everything he can, but I would have limited mental abilities.

Jake:
[11:05] He’s doing his best.

Mike Troy:
[11:06] I would have had more success. I would have done this better. So all three generals were basically put a target on Gage’s back from the moment they got there. It’s kind of funny because all three of them were not backbiting each other because that doesn’t get you anywhere. You just want to take one guy so you can all move up a step. So Clinton and Howe were actually pretty good buddies at this time, and they were having a good time bad-mouthed engaged. Now, of course, once Howe becomes commander, Clinton steps up to the role of chief bad-mouther of Howe. But at this time, they were all kind of gunning for pushing the old man out and moving up a step.

Jake:
[11:46] That has to put pressure on Gage to be more aggressive, even maybe against his better instincts. And something I learned from your podcast, there was a British offensive plan, a breakout plan for the night of June 18th. I’ve always thought of it as the

British Offensive Plans

Jake:
[12:03] Patriots, the New England militia sort of tightening the noose on Boston. But they’re actually reacting to a British plan. What was the objective of a British breakout of Boston?

Mike Troy:
[12:13] When these new generals got there, they immediately developed an offensive plan. And the first thing they did was look around from the city of Boston, and they saw two areas of high ground. One was Bunker Hill to the north of Boston. The other was Dorchester Heights to the south of Boston. So they basically said, well, we need to maintain these heights because if the rebels take those heights, they can just lob cannonballs into Boston. And actually, Dorchester would allow them to not only lob cannonballs into Boston, but also into Boston Harbor and take out the entire British Navy that was there. So we can’t allow this to happen. the provincials had an agreement with them that we will stay where we are if you stay where you are neither of us is going to try to take this high ground because if you try to take the high ground i will send out all my regulars against you before you have the ability to embed and there’s just going to be a lot of blood so he had that understanding for the other generals that was not good enough the british need to hold this high ground take and hold it and the, They’re going up against militia. Come on, we can do this. That was kind of the view. So they had a plan to capture both Dorchester Heights and Bunker Hill, and by doing so the entire Charlestown Peninsula, and hold that as a first start.

Jake:
[13:35] Of course, at this time, there are no secrets in Boston. I guess as soon as the British start planning this offensive, the Americans know.

Mike Troy:
[13:45] There was a civilian, I believe a merchant from New Hampshire who was in Boston at the time. We don’t actually know his name. He was an anonymous source in all the records. But he apparently was just chit-chatting with British officers who were saying, yeah, we’re going to go after the Heights in a few days and that’s going to help secure things. Now, this guy did not run and report this to the provincials. He headed back home to New Hampshire. And there, he kind of casually mentioned, oh, yeah, you know, there’s going to be a big fight in Boston over the next few days. The British are going to go out and take these heights. The people in New Hampshire said, why didn’t you tell someone? So they immediately speed a messenger back to Cambridge, where the provincial

American Counteroffensive Strategy

Mike Troy:
[14:30] headquarters is, and say, hey, guess what’s going to happen in a few days? We better deal with this. At that point, the provincials decided to respond by taking the heights before the British could try to take them.

Jake:
[14:42] This is still a couple of weeks before George Washington arrives in Cambridge. So who’s in charge of planning for the counteroffensive or the attempt to prevent this breakout?

Mike Troy:
[14:53] Like there’s organization in this army. It’s such a mess. Guys are such amateurs. The titular head of the provincial army was Artemis Ward of Massachusetts. But you have to remember, this is not a united army. These are various state militia groups from Connecticut and New Hampshire and Rhode Island. And… Connecticut officers didn’t necessarily feel the need to take orders for Massachusetts officers, even if they were of a higher rank and vice versa. It was just, it was a complete mess. As I said, Artemis Ward was the titular head of this military board. There were also some generals who were politicians that got named general for some reason. Joseph Warren was actually president of the Provincial Congress, I believe, and he was named a major general, even though he had virtually no military experience. Israel Putnam had led that attack on Hagen-Not-A-Liwan without telling anyone else what he was even doing. Gathered up a bunch of troops ran down there and started fighting stuff like that was happening all the time but in this case they were trying to organize something what they decided to do was at least at first occupy bunker hill they eventually wanted to occupy dorchester heights as well but the number of troops they had down in the roxbury area near dorchester height was considered not enough to do it so they figured

Command Structure of the Militias

Mike Troy:
[16:17] they’d secure bunker hill first and then worry about Dorchester Heights later.

Jake:
[16:22] So if Artemis Ward is nominally in charge of sort of the entire force, or as much as anybody is in charge of the entire force at the time, who is chosen to be in charge on the ground when they decide to take the Heights in Charlestown?

Mike Troy:
[16:39] Well, they have a whole bunch of generals from a whole bunch of different militia organizations. So, of course, they go with a colonel. They go with Colonel Prescott, who is issued orders to take and hold Bunker Hill.

Jake:
[16:53] And I think unlike some of the political generals like Joseph Warren, who, you know, I love to death, I love the memory of Joseph Warren, but not exactly a veteran of a lot of campaigns. I think Prescott was, if I’m remembering correctly. Didn’t he serve in the Seven Years’ War?

Mike Troy:
[17:09] He did and i think he even fought in um king george’s war before that yeah he had an impressive record which is probably why he was chosen for this despite being just a colonel he had uh fought in the siege of lewisburg in 1745 which was a huge action against the french at the time up in what is today Canada. He had fought so well during the French and Indian War that he was offered a commission in the regular army, something that George Washington very much wanted and was not offered. So Prescott declined to take that offer and went back to his farm, but he was considered a very good and capable officer and had risen to the rank of colonel militia by the time of the American Revolution and was therefore given this command.

Jake:
[18:05] So then who makes up, you know, we have these sort of this hodgepodge of different militia units. Militias are organized very much around towns in New England at the time. So it’s not even really cohesive provincial level militias. It’s these sort of town units that are thrown together into more or less state commanded militias. And then all, again, sort of commanded by Artemis Ward. Who is going to follow William Prescott to Bunker Hill?

Mike Troy:
[18:34] They signed a bunch of different regiments from different states. Everybody was kind of getting a share of the credit and the glory for what they were going to take. These men had been sitting around for a month with nothing to do. They were all restless to get this thing over with so they could get back to

The Night Before Battle

Mike Troy:
[18:50] their farm. So they wanted to do something. They were very eager to do so. So he received a bunch of different regiments from different colonies and took about 1,200 men in total across the river the night before the battle. They actually gathered around 6 p.m., and then as soon as dusk hit, they went in there so they could dig all night and hopefully have time to put up something before the British knew what was going on.

Jake:
[19:13] That brings us to, I guess, the events as they unfold. And so, on the night of the 16th of June, right, the night before the battle, which is June 17th. Yes, on the night of June 16th, 1775, Prescott and this sort of impromptu group of different units that are going to come with him head out into the Charlestown Peninsula. How were they intending to prevent the British from taking possession of Charlestown? Yeah.

Preparations on Breed’s Hill

Mike Troy:
[19:46] Well, the idea was to create entrenchments on the top of the hill. They would hold the high ground. They would be heavily entrenched behind dirt walls so that if the British did try to take that high ground from them, they would pay a very high price, and they, of course, hoped they would hold them off entirely.

Mike Troy:
[20:04] The goal was to actually put defenses on top of Bunker Hill. You may be aware, many people note that Bunker Hill was not fought on Bunker Hill. It was fought on Breeds Hill. Once these soldiers crossed Charleston Neck, they surveyed the ground and decided to build their entrenchments on Breed’s Hill rather than Bunker Hill. If you’re familiar with the terrain, basically you start at the water, you’re walking uphill, there’s kind of a slight embankment there, that’s Breed’s Hill, and then if you continue on, you just keep going uphill until you get to what’s considered Bunker Hill. So this was kind of halfway down Bunker Hill as Breed’s Hill. We don’t know exactly who decided to make this change. We do know that General Israel Putnam had crossed over, and even though he outranked Colonel Prescott, he left command with Colonel Prescott, but the suspicion is that he was the one who suggested that they take Breed’s Hill instead. And the idea was this was a more aggressive position. It was closer to the water. If they brought in cannons, it would be easier to shoot at ships from there. They would have better accuracy, that sort of thing. So that’s why they decided to build their defenses on Breed’s Hill.

Constructing the Redoubt

Jake:
[21:22] And what did those defenses actually look like? So we’ll start talking about the redoubt, the earthworks that are built on top of Breed’s Hill, and we’ll refer to it over and over. But what was it like? How big was it? What kind of defenses did it have? How many soldiers would it take to defend this redoubt? What were they able to build in this frenzy of activity in the night before the battle?

Mike Troy:
[21:47] Well, Main Redoubt is an enclosed area. You have a ceiling and a wall and holes through the walls to shoot through, all that good stuff. So it’s a very good defensive area. On either side of the redoubt, there were breastworks, which is basically just piling up some dirt that you can hide behind while you’re shooting. And hopefully the dirt will stop bullets that are coming at you. We don’t know the exact measurements, but based on testimony from some witnesses at the time, They said the redoubt was about eight rods across, which translate to about 136 feet. And about eight rods deep, so it was square. Some say it was 10 rods deep, so who knows. But it was essentially a big square, maybe a slight rectangle. That could be filled with men, and then you’d have more men on either side of the redoubt behind these brushworks who could all fire at the enemy.

Jake:
[22:40] Was there artillery in the redoubt? I know there were some field guns brought into play over the course of the day, but was there artillery in the main redoubt on Breed’s When.

Mike Troy:
[22:50] They built it overnight, there were not, and they didn’t bring any over. In the morning, they decided, you know what, we really should have some cannons over here. And they did bring some over in the morning. The problem was that they had not built any portals to stick a cannon through. And they had sent all their entrenching tools back to Cambridge by this time so they had no tools to dig one with. They tried digging the hole through with their hands. That was proved hopeless. A lot of people wanted to go back and get the entrenching tools but Prescott didn’t want to do that because when he sent the troops back to return their entrenching tools they didn’t come back and this was a problem all night and all day long is that anybody who get off that hill they were deserting all the time. So he knew if he sends somebody to get the entrenching tools. The likelihood was they’re not going to come back either.

Jake:
[23:40] I get the feeling that the Americans had the same basic understanding of the relative strengths of regular and militia that the regulars did, that they weren’t relishing the idea of going toe-to-toe with the might of the British Army.

Mike Troy:
[23:55] As I said, the regulars believed that militia could not stand up to regulars. A great many militia believed that militia could not stand So, yeah, they were not happy to be there. These guys are civilians. These guys are farmers. They come out once every three months to train on a Saturday to learn how to

American Morale and Training

Mike Troy:
[24:12] march in rows and columns. And that was about the extent of their training. So they were not, you know, ready to go toe-to-toe with a professional army. It would be like you and me trying to take on SEAL Team 6 and say, yeah, sure, why not? Yeah, it’s not, right? There was a great amount of desertions over the night and and during the day eventually what they ended up doing to create a portal in the redoubt was they took a cannon put a big solid shot cannonball in it put it right up against the wall and just fired it and then just shot a hole right through the mud wall and that gave them their portal.

Jake:
[24:47] Well that is creative problem solving i’d probably get a bonus for that at work the redoubt is very large if we’re talking over a hundred feet on a side that’s a lot of digging and then the associated breastworks and all the other preparations that were happening overnight how long did it take the british just a few hundred yards away in boston to realize that something was happening in charlestown.

Mike Troy:
[25:17] Oh, they knew almost immediately. Henry Clinton was actually out walking that evening, and he heard the activity going on across the river and immediately reported it to Generals Howe and Gage, and they had a discussion about how to react to this. They decided to wait until morning to do anything because trying to organize a water crossing at night without any planning to engage an enemy that you didn’t know anything about in the dark was just considered to be a fool’s errand and they weren’t worried that the americans were going to be able to do much overnight anyway so it was best to wait until morning they could see what was going on

British Realization of American Fortifications

Mike Troy:
[25:56] and then decide what they wanted to do about it do.

Jake:
[25:58] You think that if it had been a gauge alone or a how alone do you think that they would have committed their forces quicker.

Mike Troy:
[26:07] I don’t know it’s hard to say as i said they waited until daylight to even start coming up with a good strategy there was as you said some disagreement with the generals about what to do i’m not sure that really slowed things up much because there was a chain of command general gauge was not going to lead this attack he was basically saying you guys think this is a good idea you guys go fight you handle it uh so general how is the senior officer involved got to make the strategy and there was a difference of agreement how wanted to make pretty much a straight direct attack on the defenses clinton who was a big fan of prussian military tactics wanted to take the ships back around behind bunker hill do a water landing up near charlestown neck and then he would cut off the provincials from any sort of retreat, and then he would just, in a pincer movement, come in and crush them from both sides. They went with Howe’s plan because, as I said, Howe was the senior general, and that’s what he wanted to do.

Jake:
[27:09] How many troops of, I think you said around 4,000 or 5,000 regulars in Boston at this point, how many of those get committed to the attack on Bunker Hill, or on Breeds Hill, if we must say so?

Mike Troy:
[27:23] Well, initially, 2,000 or 2,300 troops that came over, it’s hard to know exactly because more and more troops were ferried over over the course of the day. In total, we know that about 3,000 to 3,500 British troops were engaged that day. But probably around 2,500 grew there most of the day and early in the morning. Obviously, you can only bring over a few shiploads at a time. How brought over the troops he wanted for the initial assault, but when he looked at the extent of the defenses, he decided to wait until his reserves were also over so that if his first line of attack gone into trouble, he’d immediately have reserves to throw into the fight. So that really delayed things. They had to wait hours and hours and hours to get all these troops ferried over.

Jake:
[28:13] Among other things, it means waiting until just the absolute heat of the day. We’re recording this on a day when it’s, you know, it’s not yet June 1st in Boston, and it’s 83 degrees and humid out there. And I don’t want to walk up a hill even without all the gear and weapons and wool clothing that the regulars would have been wearing.

Mike Troy:
[28:32] Well, they didn’t even wait till the heat of the midday. The first assault didn’t begin until about 3.30, 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

British Assault Preparations

Jake:
[28:38] While the attack’s getting organized, what were the British doing to soften up the Americans to sort of lay the groundwork?

Mike Troy:
[28:45] Well, the infantry came over and had a picnic. They basically sat around and ate. It would be their last meal, I guess. But at the time, they thought, oh, well, you know, it’s lunch. The British Navy did bring up several large ships that would fire on the defenses. And there was also a battery in Boston at Copse Hill that could fire on the defenses at Breeze Hill and Bunker Hill. The Americans discovered that these ships were able to fire solid shot as far up as Breed’s Hill, but they couldn’t shoot things that would really hit a lot of people, like grape shot or things like that, because those just didn’t have as much range. So firing solid shot at people is… You’re very unlikely to ever hit anyone. So when this started early in the morning, the Americans at first kind of hid when they heard the cannons going off. They soon realized that no one was going to get hit, so they just continued on working. Now, several people pointed out that if they had been at Bunker Hill, they would have been out of the range of the Navy ships entirely. So that was the reason they should have gone there. As it turned out, there was only one person who ended up being killed by this artillery assault. One very lucky British shot managed to decapitate one of the diggers in the embankment. So he was the only actual casualty during this hours-long artillery bombardment.

Jake:
[30:13] One casualty doesn’t turn the tide of battle, but I doubt a decapitation would be very good for morale, at least for the folks standing on either side of them when it happened.

Mike Troy:
[30:22] No, in fact, the first thing the provincials did was bury this guy in the mud right beneath their embankment because they didn’t want this decapitated body sitting out all day unnerving all the rest of the men.

Jake:
[30:31] With the amount of time that it took to ferry troops across the river, across the harbor, to then go back and get more troops after seeing the redoubt to sit down and have lunch, the Americans had a lot of time to sort of see the British plans unfolding in real time down at the foot of the hill. What did they do to sort of adjust and to try to defend against the assault that they could see coming in the time they had, the hours they had to observe and adjust?

Mike Troy:
[31:06] What they really wanted was more soldiers. The 1,200 men he had brought over the night before had shrunk to about 500. You also have to remember that these men had been out since the previous morning.

Jake:
[31:18] And then hard labor. Digging is hard.

Mike Troy:
[31:21] Yeah. So they were exhausted, which is why quite a few thought, all right, I’ve done my bed. I dug all this and let somebody else come and fight it. Because they had like 25,000, 30,000 militia a few miles away. You know, why did 1,200 guys have to do everything?

Reinforcements and Adjustments

Mike Troy:
[31:36] Ward was concerned that the British attack was a feint and that what they were really going to do is take the attention of the provincials and then send a large military force to take Dorchester Heights. So he basically kept the bulk of his armies halfway between Dorchester Heights and Bunker Hill so that he could deploy them wherever they were finally needed in the end. And so almost no reinforcements came over. Now, there were a few hundred men that did make it over. It wasn’t even enough to replace all the folks that had been deserting. But one of the groups that did come over was the New Hampshire militia under the command of Colonel Stark. Colonel Stark came over, and what he immediately recognized was that.

Mike Troy:
[32:30] The American left flank was wide open, and all the British had to do was walk along the shoreline and then come up behind the redoubt and essentially surround and capture the Americans. So Stark took his men down right to the shoreline and built a defensive line behind a picket fence there, and he actually brought down a couple of field cannon with him as well to supplement his soldiers. So he basically protected the american left flank general putnam as i said he went back to cambridge to try to get reinforcements could not get any he eventually collected about 50 volunteers and came back to bunker hill what he did was focus on putting what artillery they did have by that time on Bunker Hill or near Bunker Hill to protect the American right flank. So if the British tried to come up and flank the Americans on their right, they would run into this huge crossfire of artillery and be cut down. So essentially, these three commanders, without actually even talking to each

American Defensive Strategy

Mike Troy:
[33:42] other, were just recognizing the weaknesses in each other’s defense and trying to fill those holes. So they actually did come up with a pretty good defense in the end, where the two flanks recovered pretty well, forcing the British to make a frontal assault on the redoubt.

Jake:
[33:58] As I picture this, I guess the left flank, and I’m looking up above my monitor where I have a map of Boston Harbor hanging, I guess the left flank that Stark reinforced was the area sort of along the Mystic River banks, and the right flank is more the Charles River bank. And then And Afernal Assault is sort of coming right up through City Square. Speaking of all the different officers who were not in great communication with one another, but somehow came up with an effective defense, one of those officers, although in this case a political officer, was General, Major General Joseph Warren. When did he actually arrive on the field of battle? Was he there before the battle started, or was he a reinforcement who came on later?

Mike Troy:
[34:43] He did come on during the day. He did get there before the British launched their 4 o’clock in the afternoon attack. But he suffered from terrible migraine headaches and he had actually for several days which meant he also hadn’t slept well for the last few days he was feeling absolutely miserable but he was not going to miss out on the battle and he is believed to have been there by two o’clock we don’t know exactly when he arrived but there are some accounts of him being there around two o’clock, So he did get there. He brought a handful of reinforcements with him. One reason why during the afternoon before the attack, it was so difficult to convince reinforcements to go across was that the British had brought up a ship near Charlestown Neck and you had to cross this rather narrow stretch of land, I think about 40 feet across. They would fire grape shot and chain shot across the neck when anybody tried to cross. And these shots literally would cut a man in half. So you saw a couple of bodies that were ripped in half sitting on the neck. And that really discouraged a lot of men from making that attempt. But as I said, the general did cross over Charlestown neck with a few men and was able to join the main group at the redoubt. Now, as I said, he’s a major general. The man in command at this time is Prescott, who’s a colonel.

Mike Troy:
[36:11] Could have taken command, but like General Putnam, he chose not to, and Warren simply served as a volunteer infantryman during the battle. And he effectively acted as, I guess, a company captain because he did command the 50 men or so that he brought over with him.

Jake:
[36:30] It was very difficult to motivate anybody to cross the neck or the causeway into Charlestown under the guns of the British Navy, which I would be very intimidated by chainshot. Having seen it in a few museums, it looks horrifying. So at the time when the assault begins, how badly outnumbered are the American defenders on top of the two hills? Conventional wisdom at the time would have said that attackers wanted to have two, four, or more times as many troops as defenders, entrenched defenders. How did those numbers look at the time the assault actually started?

Mike Troy:
[37:11] Again, the records from this are terrible, and a lot of men didn’t want to admit what they were doing during the battle because they weren’t. A lot of them were kind of staying back. We think that we’re probably close to 1,000 defenders on Charlestown. The vast majority of them were sitting at the top of Bunker Hill. They were not engaged in battle, and they sat there through almost the entire battle without doing anything. Uh, so you’re probably only talking about, my guess would be three to 500 on Breeds Hill. Maybe not even quite that many

The First Assault Begins

Mike Troy:
[37:46] because you also have the 200 New Hampshire and down, down on the flank. Yeah, it’s, it’s not a huge number and you’re facing probably 2,000, 2,500 British regulars coming at you.

Jake:
[38:01] As the afternoon rolls on, General Howe does finally give the order for the first assault on the Redoubt at Breed’s Hill. And he orders, at least in this first wave, a two-pronged attack, one of which, as you said, is a frontal attack. Regulars are going to march straight up the hill and bring fire on the Redoubt. What’s the other half of that two-pronged attack intended to do?

Mike Troy:
[38:30] Yeah, the first frontal assault on the Redoubt was really more of a feint. He left that attack to a brigadier general named Robert Piggott. Piggott’s job was what the British called to amuse the enemy. In other words, take their attention, look at me, look at me over here, while the main British attack force tried to take the right flank where Stark’s men were defending, and they were going to try to get up around behind the Redoubt.

British Tactics

Mike Troy:
[39:00] So, Piggott was basically trying to distract the main force while this other force went around. Now, they did take some casualties because they did get partway up the hill, but they didn’t really make an all-out effort to take the hill.

Jake:
[39:13] Starks, New Hampshire men were a very small group. If I recall, it’s, what, 50, 100 New Hampshire militia on that American left flank?

Mike Troy:
[39:24] I’ve seen numbers between 50 and 200. They were facing an overwhelming attack, and they did not have dirt embankments set up to defend them. They were behind a picket fence. I mean, wood, it ain’t going to stop wearing many bullets. So they were in a pretty precarious place, and the British thought they could overrun them pretty quickly and easily.

Jake:
[39:44] It seems like such a lopsided fight. How did they turn the British back?

Mike Troy:
[39:50] Well, the British had a couple of problems, one of which was that the terrain they were trying to cross was fairly narrow and very rocky, which means they couldn’t really move at a quick step. They had to march pretty carefully, a lot of tripping hazards, that sort of thing. And they couldn’t put a very large number of men in the line. In other words, they could march a lot of men, but there were men behind them and only the front line or two could fire.

Mike Troy:
[40:17] So it was very limited. But what they were counting on was the thing militia always do, which they see a large line coming at them. They start firing early before their other side is really within range, almost no matter hit. Once all the militia have fired their guns and they’re empty, and it takes them probably a good 30 seconds to reload at least, some take a minute. But during that time, the British could rush the line with their bayonets and just militia would typically turn and run at that point. Everybody was aware this was a problem with militia, including Colonel Stark. So what he did was he set a post about 30 feet in front of their lines, and he admonished all of his men, do not fire until the British cross this line. And he set up his men in three rows so that the front line would fire. And while they were reloading, the second line would fire. The third line would then fire. So he could fire off a volley every 10 seconds if it took 30 seconds to reload.

American Countermeasures

Mike Troy:
[41:23] The British got into this kill zone without any fire ahead of time.

Mike Troy:
[41:28] And they just took volley after volley after volley, and they were just slaughtered. Some of their units that were involved in this fighting took 90% casualties.

Jake:
[41:38] Oh, yeah.

Mike Troy:
[41:40] Because regulars don’t retreat either. They’re taught, you just keep on marching. You don’t pay attention to the bullets flying around you. You keep marching, and you take what you’re told to take. So they were just basically fed into this wood chipper and slaughtered as, you know, volley after volley after volley came at them. And remember, these guys were supplemented, the defenders were supplemented with two field cannon firing grape shot also. So, yeah, there was a lot of firepower in a very narrow area, and they could not push through.

Jake:
[42:13] Yeah, we’re used to hearing the possibly apocryphal, don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes, as being credited to Prescott up at the redoubt.

Mike Troy:
[42:23] The same idea, yes, but Prescott gave the similar orders to his men as well.

Jake:
[42:28] So what was happening on the redoubt with the other half of this pincer maneuver while Stark and his bullisher are just decimating the right pincer, the right prong of the attack down along the beach?

The Second Assault

Mike Troy:
[42:42] Well, bigotsmen are charging up the hill, and they’re getting hit very hard. One thing the Americans did, which the British found ungentlemanly, I guess is the right word, was they had several riflemen who were picking off officers so that officers were taking a particularly heavy casualty rate during this attack. When the attack on the flank pulled back, the main attackers also withdrew and regrouped for a second assault.

Jake:
[43:16] Is this about the time when the town itself, Charlestown, is set on fire with hotshot from the Navy, or is that later in the attack?

Mike Troy:
[43:25] Oh, that actually happened earlier in the morning. When the British troops were landing, the Americans put sharpshooters in some of the buildings in Charlestown, which was down closer to the water and closer to where the troops were landing, so they could pick off soldiers and officers from the rooftops of the buildings. So the Navy was directed to fire hotshot and carcasses at the buildings in Charlestown to burn them all down and get rid of all these sharpshooters who were picking off the army. So they fired these hotshots, which are basically a hotshot is a cannonball that’s superheated to be red hot. And a carcass is essentially any kind of flammable material which could be fired out of a cannon. And these were basically designed to set fire to wooden buildings. So they burned down all of the buildings in Charlestown before the first assault began.

Jake:
[44:22] Well, speaking of cannons, Israel Putnam is back in artillery service at about the same time that Stark’s turning back one side of the assault and Prescott’s holding off the folks who are trying to march straight up the hill. It sounds like he had to create a brand new artillery service on the field of battle. What was he having to do to make the cannons effective? Yeah.

Mike Troy:
[44:48] Well, they were running into all sorts of problems, the first of which is that the artillery crews had run away. So he got a bunch of infantrymen and taught them how to be artillerymen in real time. It’s not easy. They had some other problems in that they did have some cannonballs and powder shells that were not made to fit the size cannons that they had. So they couldn’t load the cannons very easily. So the general was trying to teach the men to break open the bags of powder and then take a soup ladle or something and kind of scoop the powder into the cannons, since that was the only way to get it in. It obviously took a lot longer, but I guess getting off one shot every five minutes is still better than not getting any shots off at all. So he was getting people to do this on Bunker Hill in the area in front of Bunker Hill that was trying to supposedly cover the right flank of the American line. It was not the most effective, but it did serve its cause, which was to deter the British from trying to make an attack up the American right flank. They saw the cannons there. They did see them firing occasionally, and they decided that’s not something we want to march into.

Jake:
[45:56] The first wave is turned back on both fronts, on the flank and on the direct assault. Does Howe change things up before ordering another assault, or is it just a repeat of the first wave?

Mike Troy:
[46:10] The only slight difference he made in the second attack, and the second attack happened very quickly after the first assault, when they’d run up the hill, they’d become a huge mess because soldiers would stop to shoot. They’d fall out of line. There were also all these little fences all over Breed’s Hill because farmers would mark where their borders were in various fields, and the regulars were tripping all over these. So they were falling out of line very quickly. So when they started getting shot down, they all retreated back and they had to regroup, reform their lines, which took a few minutes, and then they were ready to head back up again. As I said, in the first assault, the main assault on the redoubt was more of a fate while they were hoping to take the flank. In the second assault, they actually did full-throated assaults on both the center line and the flank a second time, trying to take both. So yeah, they marched in pretty much doing the same thing they did before. The main British army marching straight up toward the Redoubt and another very large army trying to take out Colonel Stark’s defenses along the coast.

Jake:
[47:19] Had the Americans suffered a lot of casualties during the first wave? Were they still more or less at full strength at that point? I got the impression that the British didn’t get close enough to the Redoubt to cause a lot of damage within.

Mike Troy:
[47:33] The Americans were behind walls, so they were pretty well protected from British fire, and they took remarkably few casualties in the first assault and the second assault. What Colonel Prescott did do was the same thing that Stark had done, which was to say, do not fire until these guys are really close. And you get the famous quote, don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Many people think that’s apocryphal because that line did not become known until years or maybe even decades after the battle. You’d think it would have been something people talked about a lot at the time if it had actually been said. But what he did say is don’t fire until they’re within, say, 15 to 30 feet of the redoubt.

Preparing for the Third Assault

Mike Troy:
[48:18] He fired the same way Stark did in three lines of volley so they could keep up a pretty rapid rate of fire. So, when the British did get up and get reasonably close, the fire was devastating. And again, the lines were just knocked down pretty viciously and could not get into the American lines to use their defense.

Jake:
[48:37] In your episode about Bunker Hill, it sounded like General Howe, who personally led the second wave, had to be one of the only attackers who wasn’t at least wounded during that second attack. It sounds like the British casualties in the first two waves combined were pretty devastating. How were they able to reform for more attacks after that point?

Mike Troy:
[49:01] Yeah, it was pretty brutal. And yeah, General Howe was one of the very few officers that was not killed or wounded in the first couple of assaults. God was watching over him or something because he absolutely should have been shot. And, you know, sometimes you’ll think, oh, well, maybe he was like in the rear directing these attacks. No, he was he was out on the lines well within fire. He had aides, lieutenants and captains all around him. All of those men got shot. Howe did not. So lucky him. But he was definitely in the middle of it. And as I said, the Americans were using riflemen to pick off officers, which was creating a particular level of disarray and disorganization among the British lines since British soldiers were taught to listen to your officers. And when you’re without an officer, it gets real confusing real fast.

Jake:
[49:52] I’m assuming based on the warships covering Charlestown Neck and the general reluctance of the Americans to join their brethren in Charlestown, I’m guessing there wasn’t a lot of reinforcement on the American side at this point in the battle. But did more troops come over from Boston to reinforce the British side at this time?

Mike Troy:
[50:12] Yes, the Americans did not send over much of any reinforcements. They were very reluctant to cross. And the few that did cross stayed on Bunker Hill and stayed out of the battle. So the number of men defending Breed’s Hill was ever dwindling. The British, however, did send over reinforcements throughout the day. And so I think while they were losing men faster than they were adding them back in, They did get many hundreds of soldiers who were ferried across the river to join the battle during the day. As I said, I think they ended up with 2,000 to 2,500 maybe when they began the assaults. Most estimates I’ve read showed that there were probably close to 3,500 who ended up crossing into Charlestown Peninsula before the end of the day.

Jake:
[51:01] And these are fresh, rested troops, unlike the Americans who did heavy labor all night and then fought in the morning or in the afternoon and have been sitting in the June sun all day.

Exhaustion and Resource Depletion

Jake:
[51:15] So I have to imagine there’s just a difference in effectiveness at that point.

Mike Troy:
[51:19] There probably is, but I got to think the defenders were running on some serious adrenaline. But you’re right, they were rested, but more important than being rested, they were coming over with ammunition. And the Americans had used up almost all of their ammunition in the first two assaults. And there was nobody who thought that maybe it would be a good idea to resupply these soldiers from time to time during the battle. So they were just completely running out of things to throw at the British.

Conditions of the American Defenders

Jake:
[51:50] I think I got from your episode that one of the first cannonades destroyed their fresh water supply. So that not only are they sitting there working and then fighting in the summer heat all day, they’re doing it without really anything to drink.

Mike Troy:
[52:05] No water, no food, no ammunition. You worked all night digging these huge entouragements. You’re completely exhausted. And now you’re running on adrenaline just fighting without any support at all. One thing professional armies know how to do is provide logistics to their frontline troops. And this was not a professional army, and there were no logistics.

Jake:
[52:28] Well, I get a sense of why Boston celebrates Bunker Hill Day as a city holiday from just the resolve it must have taken to stay. What did Howe change? I mean, he was personally on the front line during the second assault on the Hill, and he saw how that turned out with people falling on all sides and his aides being killed or wounded all around. What did he change for round three?

Mike Troy:
[52:54] Well, round three, yeah, he had had enough, and he was ready to get this over with. We think there were about 120 Americans in the redoubt for the third assault. So, yes, they had dwindled considerably, and as I said, most of them were out of ammunition. They had broken open a few artillery shells and were using the gunpowder in those for their muskets. And in place of musket balls, they were looking for pebbles and rocks on the ground to shoot at them. That was pretty much all they had at this point. What Hal did differently was he had been sending up his men in line of battle, which is the normal thing to do. And as I said, the lines kept falling apart because of the broken ground and soldiers shooting prematurely and all the sorts of things that happened.

Mike Troy:
[53:39] So he actually sent his soldiers up in three columns. A column is almost never used in battle for a very good reason. If you have a cannonball and you shoot it at the front line of the column, it can go through 30, 40, 50 lines taking out all those men. Not a very safe thing to do. But General Howe realized there was no artillery to speak of, in the redoubt itself at least, and so that he could send his men up in columns. And what this allowed them to do was, first of all, there would be gaps between each column, so they weren’t presenting as rich a target line as they had in the past. And secondly, they didn’t have to worry about men falling out of line because it was much easier to keep the men in formation and columns than it was in lines. The other thing he did was he told the soldiers to take their packs off. They had been running up this hill with, you know, 100-pound backpacks on their back, which was just not a good idea for fighting. So they were relieved of their packs. The third thing he did was tell them not to load their guns.

Mike Troy:
[54:44] Again, this might sound counterintuitive. If you’re going into battle, you might prefer to have a loaded gun versus an unloaded one. The problem he was trying to solve there was that soldiers would stop and fire prematurely and therefore fall out of line. So he told all the men, we’re going to end this with bayonets. You’re going to put your bayonets on. You’re not going to do a different thing until you get into that readout. So get into the readout, and then you can start killing the enemy. So that’s the way he set his men up the line the third time.

Jake:
[55:17] I know the Americans were low on gunpowder, which is how must have been relying on that fact to order a smith to a pure bayonet charge that there wouldn’t be that much gunfire to absorb. Did the Americans have their own bayonets to defend themselves with?

Mike Troy:
[55:34] No, almost none of them had bayonets. This was something that professional armies had. Militia almost never had bayonets.

Jake:
[55:42] Bayonets were new at the beginning of the 1700s. Even, you know, well into the 18th century, you’d send pikemen into battle to surround your musketeers to prevent a charge. You know, the enemy would try to charge with cavalry or their own pikemen.

The Final Assault

Jake:
[55:58] So you’d have your guys with spears keeping the charge at bay. So now you had a bayonet instead. I can’t imagine being on the receiving end of a bayonet charge as a part-time soldier in 1775.

Mike Troy:
[56:10] You did not want to see very large men coming at you. And the center of his line was all grenadiers who were chosen because they’re just larger than average milk. So you’re seeing, you know, the line of a football team, you know, coming straight at you, holding very pointy sticks. It’s pretty scary.

Jake:
[56:29] What was it like inside the redoubt at this point? You said that they were down to 120-ish remaining Americans holding the line at very little ammunition. Do we have a sense of what morale was like, what conditions were like, what the expectation was on the American side while they’re watching these columns move up the hill toward them again?

Mike Troy:
[56:53] Well, the men were exhausted out of ammunition, but you also have to remember that the men who were still in the redoubt were the toughest, meanest, most stubborn men of the 1,200 that came over. This is the 10% who stayed and fought and fought and fought. So these were men who were really ready for a fight and were willing to give everything. They actually followed Colonel Prescott’s orders to wait until the British were within 15 feet of the redoubt before they opened fire on them.

Jake:
[57:27] That’s amazing discipline. Again, when you think about the reputation of militia, you wouldn’t expect a militia force to allow the regulars, the grenadiers, to close to 15 feet.

Mike Troy:
[57:38] So the British actually thought that the Americans had evacuated the redoubt because they weren’t taking any fire as they marched up the hill. And then they were… Opened up along with this huge blast of fire, and it was pretty relentless. The Americans were unloading at them at very short range, and the British assault actually stalled, and the men kind of fell behind a wall at the front of the defenses to take shelter, and it was actually the Marines under Pitcairn.

Jake:
[58:08] I know this because there’s a talk coming up in the next few weeks about whether his body is still in the crypts at Old North Church.

Mike Troy:
[58:18] Ah, okay. So, yeah, Major John Pitcairn forced his 400 Marines forward to take out the lines, and he was shot point blank in the chest and died, but his Marines continued on into the redoubt, and they were the head of the spear for the rest of the army to follow into the redoubt and finally take out these Americans.

Jake:
[58:42] And amazingly, most of the Americans are able to retreat out of the redoubt. I mean, not all by any means, but many or most got out. Without any powder left, how did they put up enough of a fight to let most of them escape?

Mike Troy:
[58:58] Some of the men did stay and fight and formed kind of a rear guard action while the rest escaped. Most of the men were using their muskets as clubs. It’s basically a big wooden heavy thing with a brass shoulder piece on the end. So it’s pretty nasty if somebody slugs you with one. It’s more vicious than getting hit with a baseball bat. So they were using that to kind of hold the invaders at bay while the rest of the men escaped. The two officers, Joseph Warren and Colonel Prescott, were kind of with this rear guard using their swords against the soldiers. Warren vowed that he would be the last man out of the redoubt. So basically these few guys were holding off the entire British army while the rest of the men escaped.

Jake:
[59:42] Earlier in 1775, Warren had said something to the effect of that he wished to die knee-deep in British blood. And it sounds like he basically did.

Mike Troy:
[59:52] Careful what you wish for.

Jake:
[59:54] And I’ll plug way back in time, but way back in episode 33, which we’re recording episode 329 right now. So if you go back and listen to that one, have some grace for the way things sounded on our podcast back then. But episode 33 talks about the recovery and reburial of Joseph Warren’s remains and what his injuries look like.

Mike Troy:
[1:00:14] He actually made it out of the redoubt, but not very far out of it. While he was kind of holding that rearguard action, an officer’s aide pulled a pistol and shot him in the head. And then a whole bunch of soldiers just rushed and bayoneted him multiple times, just completely obliterated his body.

Jake:
[1:00:32] Everybody knew what he looked like. He was famous. He had been very public for years up to that point. So I’m sure certainly any officer, and I’m sure a lot of the privates in the British side knew who he was and were taking out some aggression.

Mike Troy:
[1:00:45] Probably so. But beyond that, the British were in a quite cranky mood by this point, having taken so many casualties. They took no prisoners on Breeds Hill. Anybody they got a hold of was a dead man.

Aftermath of the Battle

Jake:
[1:00:58] Walk us through the closing moments, if you don’t mind. The Americans are pushed out of the redoubt. Joseph Warren dies in the sort of rear guard action. What is happening as the British sort of overwhelm the last defenses and start this mopping up action?

Mike Troy:
[1:01:17] Well, I should point out also that John Stark’s men who were down by the coast decided to get out.

Jake:
[1:01:20] Oh, right.

Mike Troy:
[1:01:20] They’re still here. They were around the same time. So, there was some distance between them and the enemy when they pulled back because they saw the main line falling at the redoubt. And so, they were able to get back up to Bunker Hill as well. Remember I told you there was a very large force at Bunker Hill on the high ground that had never been deployed. So the British were a little, they had to basically regroup and form a larger line again before they went up against the line at Bunker Hill. Fortunately, I guess for the British, the people on Bunker Hill were in no mood to fight. And once the Breeds Hill folks got up to Bunker Hill, there was basically a mad rush for Charlestown Neck to get back across to the mainland. And even though the British Navy was still firing shots across the neck, most people thought it was worth taking the risk to get out of there as fast as you could. So there was basically a rush on Charleston Neck. The British, most of the people who were on Breed’s Hill, they took their heaviest casualties during this retreat because the British just fired on them as they were running away. Large numbers of British just firing as fast as they possibly could at them. So this is where you really took a lot of American casualties, and that’s when all the Americans decided to get off Charlestown Peninsula as fast as they could.

Mike Troy:
[1:02:38] The British were not going to follow them across the Charlestown neck because I said there were tens of thousands of militia on the other side, and they were not prepared for that fight. Plus, it was pretty close to dusk by this time. They had achieved their objective. They had taken Bunker Hill, so they were done for the day.

Jake:
[1:02:56] It sounds like we’re right back to the status quo of Charlestown and Dorchester

Significance of the Battle

Jake:
[1:03:02] Heights are basically a no-man’s land, and the British are bottled up in Boston. The Americans hold Cambridge, Roxbury, all the surrounding countryside. What did Bunker Hill change, if anything?

Mike Troy:
[1:03:17] Well, the British gained a hill. The British successfully took Charlestown Peninsula. They set up defensive lines on Bunker Hill to prevent the Americans from trying to retake it again. The Americans never did try to retake it again. This allowed the British to have a little more territory outside the city of Boston, which is something they had not had before. Technically, this was a British victory. But of course, you’ve heard all sorts of comments about, you know, one more victory like this, and it’s all over for us British.

Jake:
[1:03:49] Yeah, I think Clinton said something along those lines, right? That a few more victories like this and there’ll be no more British America or something like that.

Mike Troy:
[1:03:58] Nathaniel Green, who was an American officer at the time, said, I would love to sell the British another hill at a similar price.

Jake:
[1:04:06] Well, I mean, the price on the British side is these staggering numbers of casualties. The thing you read is that although it was so early in the war and compared to some of the later battles fought with kind of small numbers on either side, that it was one of the bloodiest battles of the entire revolution.

Mike Troy:
[1:04:27] It was the bloodiest battle for the British. They lost more casualties at Bunker Hill than they lost in any other battle. And given the number of men that they had in other battles, like they had 30,000 men at the Battle of New York versus maybe 3,000 at this battle, this to have a higher number of absolute number of casualties just tells you something about the slaughter. They took over 1,000 dead or wounded.

Jake:
[1:04:50] Well, what does that do to the overall effectiveness of the British garrison in Boston? It seems like they couldn’t have mounted another such defense the next day.

Mike Troy:
[1:05:02] No, as I said, they had maybe 5,000 or 6,000 regulars in total in Boston, so this could have been like 20% of their entire force killed or wounded. And when I say wounded, you have to remember that medical care in the 17th century was not as good as it is today. A great many of the men who were wounded would die over the next few weeks in slow, painful agglomerate. If you got a musket ball in your torso, your odds of living were probably below 10%. Many of the hundreds of wounded would just suffer and die over the next few weeks and months. So this was a brutal loss for the British. And in fact, the British had expected that after they took Bunker Hill,

Long-term Effects on Strategy

Mike Troy:
[1:05:44] they were still going to go take Dorchester Heights. And after taking this massive loss, they gave up on their plan to take Dorchester.

Jake:
[1:05:53] What did Bunker Hill mean for the strategy of each side? I know it was such a high cost and casualties, it had to make the British more cautious, at least in the short term. What kind of effect did it have in the nine months of siege to come?

Mike Troy:
[1:06:10] I think it did improve morale on the American side. As I said, both sides probably thought that militia would not stand and fight. And this proved that they would. And what General Gage had been telling generals, Hal Clinton and Burgoyne, when they first came over, is these guys are not pushovers. They will shoot at you and they will kill you. Hal Clinton and Burgoyne accepted that fact after this battle. And they were much less screaming that we should just go out and get rid of all these rebels really quickly. And it meant that the British in Boston really did remain on the defensive and really didn’t do anything, didn’t really take any aggressive actions for the rest of their time in Boston until the final evacuation.

Transitioning to the American Revolution Podcast

Jake:
[1:06:58] Let’s change direction for a moment. I wanted to be able to talk about Bunker Hill, but I just don’t have the depth of knowledge to be able to pull something intelligent together about the battle. So I was glad to bring on an expert. I want to talk a little bit about the ground where you’ve gained your expertise, which is the American Revolution podcast. I think I’ve been listening to your show basically as long as I’ve had a podcast. When did the American Revolution podcast kick off?

Mike Troy:
[1:07:28] Well, I started publishing recordings in July of 2017. I actually started working on it about a year before that, doing a lot of preparation work and learning how to talk into a microphone and all those sorts of things. But yeah, I started actually producing episodes in 2017 in July.

Jake:
[1:07:47] This is one of the things I think will blow the hair back on listeners who haven’t picked up your show yet. What were some of the first topics you started talking about on the American Revolution podcast when you launched?

The Podcast’s Origins

Jake:
[1:08:00] Because you don’t exactly start with the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

Mike Troy:
[1:08:03] Yeah, I sometimes joke about this because I am so long-winded about things. We actually start with the beginnings of what became the French and Indian War, and we spend, I don’t know, maybe a dozen and a half episodes taking you through that war, and then through all the pre-war protests and tax things and all the trouble Sam Adams is getting into in Boston with protests and riots and things like that. But this happened by complete coincidence. But my 52nd weekly episode, which is one year from the date I started, the end of that episode was the first shot at Lexington. So it took me an entire year to get to Shots Fired.

Jake:
[1:08:46] Right now, or at least the last episode I listened to, and I’ll admit that I’m a couple episodes behind, the topic was the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. So that’s reading the revolution pretty broadly. How far do you think you’re going to take this story?

Mike Troy:
[1:09:03] Yeah, I am still doing the ratification of the Constitution. I think this is probably going to end up being four or five episodes because we get into some details on different state ratifications and the fights they face. I always like to say the real revolutionary part of the revolution was not the war. It was what happened afterwards. We had a war for independence. Lots of places have wars for independence. After that, we created a government conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, if I can crib a line from Abraham Lincoln.

Future Directions of the Podcast

Mike Troy:
[1:09:34] That was unheard of in a world that was run by monarchs and aristocrats, that men could rule themselves through democratically elected leaders and have a limited government that was respectful of basic rights of all people. I suppose the British did have certain basic rights, but those were considered the rights of Englishmen. They were a privilege of being an Englishman that you would have these rights. They were not considered universal rights. The United States was founded on the idea that there are certain inalienable rights that can never be taken away from anyone, any person at all. You don’t have to have a privilege of citizenship to enjoy these rights. So that was a very revolutionary idea in the 18th century. So I really like getting into a lot of that and why we developed our government the way we did.

Mike Troy:
[1:10:27] That’s a long-winded way of answering your question, which is to say, I don’t know when it’s going to end.

Jake:
[1:10:33] Yeah, I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I’m amazed by how broadly you’ve been able to read the Revolution.

Mike Troy:
[1:10:40] I really like getting into the federal era, and I’m certainly going to go through the administration of George Washington, because I think that’s something people know very little about. I mean, if you go to school, you’ll learn a couple of Revolutionary War battles, if you’re lucky. Then we’ll do the Constitution. Then usually they jump off to the Civil War. I mean, there’s a whole century in there that gets pretty much ignored.

Jake:
[1:11:04] Yeah, I mean, my education was basically like the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, and then there was a battle at Lexington, and then there was a battle at Gettysburg.

Mike Troy:
[1:11:15] That’s about it.

Jake:
[1:11:17] Well, it’s pretty cool for Bostonians right now. If people want to jump in and listen to the show, the episodes that are being released right now are about the ratification debate. But at the same time, you’re releasing these sort of mini episodes in the feed. And a lot of them right now are about things that happened in and around Boston. Tell us a little bit about what these sort of companion episodes are doing right now.

Mike Troy:
[1:11:42] Yeah, so I had started this podcast with a weekly show that was in chronological order. But since we’re out of the war now, which is part of the thing people find really interesting, I’ve started releasing these bonus episodes midweek. I started doing one midweek. Now I’m doing two midweek. And when there’s a lot of activity, I may do even more. But basically, it’s just a quick five to 10 minute piece on what happened 250 years ago this week. Right now we’re in the beginning of the siege of boston may 1775 there’s a whole lot of stuff going on obviously uh so i’m releasing these short episodes you know so people can just kind of follow what happened 250 years ago uh during the war and.

Jake:
[1:12:26] For my audience that trends very heavily to the boston residents and and sort of surrounding areas are there episodes or arcs that you think are of particular interest?

Mike Troy:
[1:12:39] Well, very recently, I just did the Massachusetts ratification. But aside from that, I think about episode 20, I start getting into the protests, which are very much centered around Boston. Samuel Adams and John Hancock and all the troublemakers starting riots in the colonial era. And we really stay in, the Boston area through, I think, episode 86, which is where the British are 86 from Boston in their evacuation. So yeah, that maybe from episode 20 to about episode 86 is mostly about what’s happening in the Boston area. So that might be an interesting arc for people to look at.

Listener Engagement and Recommendations

Jake:
[1:13:21] I think that’s about when I jumped in and became a regular listener. Listen to the Boston-focused episodes, get a taste for it, and then listen to the whole run of the show. It really is an excellent, detailed, thoughtful podcast that follows the whole arc.

Mike Troy:
[1:13:37] Well, thank you. And yes, we do cover everything and sometimes get into more detail than people can handle, because I think I’m on over 300 episodes. I’m closing on 400 episodes at this point. And as I said, most of the Boston stuff is early in the war because after the British leave, evacuate Boston in early 1776, Boston is pretty much out of the war. I used to say, because I’m from near Philadelphia, that Boston started the war and Philadelphia had to end it. J.L. Belt came back for me with that and said, Boston fought the war, Philadelphia did the paperwork.

Jake:
[1:14:13] Yeah, that declaration you signed in Philly is nice, but we had our own Independence Day on March 17th, 1776. So, if our listeners want to become your listeners, where should people look to become listeners of the American Revolution podcast?

Mike Troy:
[1:14:30] It can really be wherever you get podcasts. Wherever they’re listening to your podcasts, I’m sure mine is available on the same platform or available on just about everything from Spotify to Apple to all the independent hosting platforms that are out there. If you go to my blog, which is blog.amrevpodcast.com, I not only put up a recording of each episode that you can listen to online because some people just like to listen on a computer and not bring up a special app for their podcast. You can listen to it there. But there’s also a complete written transcript, as well as links to other interesting things we talked about that day, as well as a complete list of sources at the bottom, online resources or books or other things that you may want to take a look at to do further reading about a particular topic. So that’s always a good place to go. If you want ad-free content, I have an RSS feed on Patreon. on. You have to pay at least two bucks a month to get the ad free feed. But if you’re sick of advertisements, that’s a good way to go. I’m also on YouTube. It’s audio only, but if you’re a YouTube person, you can listen to it there as well.

Jake:
[1:15:36] I’m very glad that you were able to choose such a very difficult to remember name for your show. So again, people, it is the American Revolution podcast. And I think you’re going to remember that long enough to type it into your favorite podcast app. Mike, I just want to say thank you for joining us today, for lending your expertise to talk about the American Revolution, and for filling in the details that I would definitely have overlooked.

Mike Troy:
[1:16:01] Well, thank you. As you know, it’s my pleasure to talk about this, and I appreciate you having me on.

Closing Remarks and Contact Information

Jake:
[1:16:06] To learn more about the Battle of Bunker Hill and the American Revolution podcast, check out this week’s show notes at hubhistory.com slash 329. We’ll have links to find the American Revolution podcast in Spotify and Apple Podcasts, as well as a link to the companion blog that Mike mentioned, where we post resources related to each episode.

Jake:
[1:16:30] I’ll also link directly to the original two-part episode that he did about Bunker Hill, if you want to dig into the battle in more detail. Plus, I’ll have some period maps and sketches of Charlestown that show the disposition of the troops on both sides, and how the three assaults on the American Redoubt unfolded in the heat of a June afternoon. There are a lot of commemorations planned for the week of the anniversary. By the time this comes out, the Bunker Hill Day Parade will have already happened. Same with a tour of Penn’s Hill, where Abigail Adams brought her young son John Quincy to watch the battle unfold across the harbor. Tomorrow, Monday, June 16th, the Masons, the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, and the American Friends of Lafayette will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Bunker Hill Monument. On Tuesday, the actual anniversary of the battle, there will be a wreath laying and a solemn commemoration at the monument, which features an address by historian Nathaniel Philbrick, as well as a special tour of the battlefield by Hubtown Tours.

Jake:
[1:17:36] There’s going to be a huge reenactment of the battle that includes both infantry and naval forces on June 21st and 22nd, but it’s going to be held way up the coast in Gloucester at Stagefort Park, which is on the water right between Hammond Castle in downtown Gloucester. And then on June 24th, historian J.L. Bell is giving a virtual talk for Old North Illuminated on the life and death of British Major John Pitcairn, and whether his body still lies in the crypt in the basement of Old North that bears his name. I’ll have links to all those details, as well as listings from the Revolution 250 Committee and the National Park Service, with even more activities related to the anniversary.

Jake:
[1:18:20] If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubhistory.com. I still have profiles for Hub History on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but lately, most of my social media energy goes to Blue Sky. You can find me there by searching for hubhistory.com. I’m still not very active on Mastodon, but I like the idea. If Mastodon’s your jam, you can find me over there as at hubhistoryatbetter.boston. If you’re not doing social media right now, just go to hubhistory.com and click on the Contact Us link. While you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link, and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do, drop me a line, and I’ll send you a Hub History sticker as a token of appreciation. That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.