experienced soldier. He had been a friend of Wolfe and had led
the party of twenty-four men who had first climbed the cliff at
Quebec on the great day when Wolfe fell victorious. He was the
younger brother of that beloved Lord Howe who had fallen at
Ticonderoga and to whose memory Massachusetts had reared a
monument in Westminster Abbey. Gage gave him in all some
twenty-five hundred men, and, at about two in the afternoon, this
force was landed at Charlestown.

The little town was soon aflame and the smoke helped to conceal
Howe's movements. The day was boiling hot and the soldiers
carried heavy packs with food for three days, for they intended
to camp on Bunker Hill. Straight up Breed's Hill they marched
wading through long grass sometimes to their knees and throwing
down the fences on the hillside. The British knew that raw troops
were likely to scatter their fire on a foe still out of range and
they counted on a rapid bayonet charge against men helpless with
empty rifles. This expectation was disappointed. The Americans
had in front of them a barricade and Israel Putnam was there,
threatening dire things to any one who should fire before he
could see the whites of the eyes of the advancing soldiery. As
the British came on there was a terrific discharge of musketry at
twenty yards, repeated again and again as they either halted or
drew back.

The slaughter was terrible. British officers hardened in war
declared long afterward that they had never seen carnage like
that of this fight. The American riflemen had been told to aim
especially at the British officers, easily known by their
uniforms, and one rifleman is said to have shot twenty officers