Chapter 4

I had actually been woken up in the dead of night a few nights before the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. It was similar in some respects to the false start at the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse almost three years later but this time I knew it was right where I wanted to be at the right time and in the right place. At least I thought so until I remembered that what we thought was Bunker Hill was really Breed’s Hill which looked an awful lot like its neighbor only a bit lower.

The fact that I had the advantage of a Monday morning quarterback to critique the error in fortifying the wrong hill was nothing to be proud of and I kept my mouth shut because I was afraid I might be mistaken for a spy due to my unfortunate German sounding name and the fact that I spoke English with a decidedly British manner of speech. That came more from my British nanny than from anything else and I never lost that form of diction even when I spoke other languages learned later at the expense of the Department of Defense.

It was an eye opener for me that we were all admonished to bring our own ammo for our long guns and pistols because the logistical supply lines were still non-existent and the militias were still unpaid and unsigned to contracts because the whole thing was just starting and the colonies were not really as “united” as we were claiming in our newspapers and daily reports in open forums. I was ahead of the game because my little closet of a room had no less than two full sacks of lead balls and three horns of gunpowder that was sealed nice and tight and dry as could be in the humid atmosphere. Some of the volunteers were not so well off in terms of ammunition, but they had the enthusiasm of true believers and I was certainly not the one to tell them they would be needing more ammo before that day of battle began.

I estimated that we had a convoy of wagons that transported almost one thousand of us to the scene of the battle along with some supplies of rations and water as well as tools for constructing fortification of earth works with some steps to stand on for firing our weapons using maximum cover from sniper fire from the enemy ranks. Uniforms were nowhere to be seen because we were more a rag-tag motley group of civilian volunteers with not much military expertise to speak of. I was probably the one with the most experience except for some older fellows with lots of French and Indian War combat time under their belts. Most of those veterans had gone further west into the newer territories because that was their way of life and it was unlikely to change anytime soon.

My rifle was a simple hunting long gun with an open sight and limited accuracy at distances over one hundred meters. Still, it was better than most of the weapons in the group that were mostly passed down by older generations primarily for hunting and defending against savages with an itch to push the settlers back across the ocean to their own native land.

The handguns were mostly dueling pistols that were functional but seldom used simply because the expense of ammunition and powder was prohibitive at best. They were good for real close-in work when the redcoats were swarming over the earthen fortifications at the very end when the long guns were silent due to lack of ammunition. The opportunity to “fix bayonets” was a joke because the rifles were not the British army or Hessian military type with that capability and used only for hunting small game in the forest.

It was obvious to me from the very beginning that we had the distinct advantage because the redcoats were slow at reloading and they rarely attempted to aim their military style rifles at any particular target. I noticed that they sometimes raised the weapons up high over their heads and fired whilst staying as low as possible to present a smaller target. It reminded me of some of latter day third world allies that struck a good pose on a firing range and then reverted to similar actions on an actual battlefield when opposing fire was the most important factor of all.

I had lots of practice with a muzzle loader and the flintlock mechanism from my days in the reenactment events that celebrated the American Revolution in places like Virginia and even down in North Carolina where the military bases abounded with hobbyists with a military background.

The saving grace of the battlefield was that it was fought mostly with small arms and there were no machine guns or mortars or artillery to make mincemeat of the opposing forces. I guess that the impromptu aspect of the engagement precluded such refineries because time was of the essence.

In any event, the lack of heavy weapons didn’t hold down the casualties at Bunker Hill (actually, Breed’s Hill to be accurate) and before the day was done, the British forces suffered losses that exceeded a total of almost 1,500 young lives out of a force of some 2,500.

We only mustered about 1,100 brave souls with a minuteman spirit and with more enthusiasm than actual military skill and proper logistics. My estimate was that roughly half of that number did not live to see the sun set at the close of day.

Fortunately, most of the proclaimed officers had been killed or wounded on our side and it was easy to convince the survivors that the best course of action was to quit the battlefield before the redcoats put their bayonets to work on our motley group.

I took charge of a group of about thirty souls and we kept low to the ground as we filtered back away from the redcoat line as quickly as possible. I saw other groups of twenty or thirty doing the same thing and I figured they would all simply return to their normal habitats and resume ordinary life until called again to oppose the redcoat invasion.

Our group was fleet of foot and we managed to get shut of the immediate area without much difficulty. Other slower groups were surrounded and picked off by the pursuing British regulars with orders to kill and not capture because they had no facility to house or jail the rebel traitors. Their attitude was that anyone that took up arms against the king was due nothing less than a swift execution and did not deserve the benefit of becoming a prisoner on the field of battle.