Daniel at the Siege of Boston, 1776 Page 5

  The men watched with interested faces. Father looked at me long and hard. He sized me up, measuring my ability to carry out my duties. I said nothing, my fear mixed with pride that he might consider me almost a man.

  “Mind that you take cover at the first sign of fire,” he told me.

  The men around us cheered again. One or two slapped me on the back. I pretended to cheer with them.

  “Mayhap we’ll enter Boston together tomorrow,” Father said.

  “On the heels of the Redcoats as they flee to their ships,” the captain added.

  The men cheered at the thought. “Huzzah! Huzzah!”

  There was no time for my fear to grow. Quickly we bedded Star down in a farmer’s barn. I patted her nose and hoped she would be far away from the sounds of war. Then I raced back to the Common to take my place with the soldiers.

  After a long and fervent prayer led by the Reverend Mr. Langdon, the president of Harvard College, we commenced to march. Our destination was still a mystery. We had been warned to keep silent, but the earth rumbled with the sounds of hundreds of marching feet. I heard a horse whinny and soon was passed by a cart carrying tools for digging.

  I caught Father’s eye and he nodded at me. It was a glorious thing to be a part of such a group. I knew that tomorrow I would have to make my way back to Boston, but for now I was a soldier.

  Our leaders were General Israel Putnam—Old Put—from Connecticut and Colonel William Prescott from Groton. Father told me he was no relation, Prescott being a fairly common name in New England, but still I took pride in the fact that a Prescott was a colonel. I was sure he was a better one than Stockdale.

  We crossed the narrow Charlestown Neck with the Mystic River on our left and the Charles on our right. Then I knew our aim—we would take the hills of the Charlestown peninsula before the British could do the same! I chuckled at the fact that the Redcoats expected no such thing. We had outsmarted them, and my information had helped.

  When we reached the lower slope of Bunker’s Hill, we rested, still silent. I drank from my canteen and wished I had slipped some food into my pockets. My stomach growled.

  I heard a muffled dispute. Father was called to the front, and I marched with him. The officers debated as to which of Charlestown’s hills should be fortified. The orders read Bunker’s Hill, by far the tallest of the hills, but Breed’s Hill was closer to Boston and to the shipping.

  “It’s better suited to a battle,” Old Put declared.

  “The orders are for Bunker’s Hill,” Colonel Prescott insisted. “Surely we need to follow orders.”

  Father assured them that because a ridge ran between the two hills, Breed’s was often lumped in with Bunker’s Hill. That decided the matter. Colonel Prescott relented, and we were on the march again, over the ridge and to the top of Breed’s Hill.

  The moon was a mere sliver, but the night was bright with stars. I set to digging with the rest of the men. The earth was soft and scarcely stony. British warships sat in the waters between Charlestown and Boston. Their bells rang out every half hour, and we heard the cry of “all’s well” from the sentries on board. The only other sound was the occasional click of pick against rock as we silently built a fortification that would surprise the Redcoats at daybreak.

  At some point I curled up and fell asleep. I woke to discover a fort with dirt walls taller than Father and as thick as the length of a bayonet. A deep ditch surrounded the fortification, save where my carcass lay. The men had worked around me. Now I shook the sleep from my eyes and grabbed my shovel to finish the task. Platforms of wood and earth were built inside the walls to stand upon when it was time to fire on the enemy.

  At dawn, the HMS Lively was the first to notice we had seized the hill. Her ten big guns opened up, firing cannonballs in our direction. I hit the ground in an instant, sure that I would lose my life at any moment. Men crouched around me, then stood with nervous laughs when they realized that the balls only hit the side of the hill.

  Father helped me to my feet. “There’s no shame in your going back to Cambridge. I think you’d better leave now.”

  I shook my head and forced a shaky smile before picking up my shovel again. “I want to stay.”

  Old Put looked through his spyglass and laughed at the shocked expression on the captain’s face. “We’ve fooled them, men!” he shouted. “Keep your heads down and dig! By the time they get their soldiers out of bed, we’ll have six forts built!”

  “Huzzah!” The soldiers were tired and hungry, but they kept working.

  Soon the HMS Somerset and other ships in the squadron joined the warship Lively, along with a battery of six British guns atop Copp’s Hill. Cannonball after cannonball pounded into the side of Breed’s Hill and our fort. I’d never seen such a storm of round shot as was poured onto us, but our fort stood undamaged.

  I joined in the cheers of the soldiers around me each time we heard the thud of a ball hitting the strong dirt walls and then rolling back down the hill. Then one soldier became too bold. A private stood tall and raised his arms in the air. The next I saw, his head was gone. I jumped to avoid the smoking six-pound ball that rolled past my feet.

  I was ready to bolt like Star on Boston Neck. My stomach heaved, but there was nothing to bring up. I swallowed hard and forced myself to keep breathing. The thud of balls continued. Pounding. One after the next. The crush of bodies around me made it impossible to run.

  Men panicked. Some ran back toward the Charlestown Neck. Others talked of leaving. They had worked all night, one argued; it was time for reinforcements to take over. They had no food, no drink. How could they be expected to fight?

  I could not find Father in the crowd.

  Colonel Prescott suddenly jumped on top of the parapet surrounding the fort and strolled back and forth. He pretended to inspect the work, but really he was calming the men. Another joined him, seeing his aim. It was Father. He strolled along the parapet as if he was looking for a pleasant resting place along the Charles on a summer’s day. My heart stopped beating with each ball that thudded into the hill, but none came close to Father or to the colonel.

  Their coolness quieted everyone’s nerves. The men buried the body. We took off our hats while another soldier said a few words over the grave. Soon the soldiers were once again cheering with each shot.

  I gritted my teeth. I had never seen violent death up close before, and I wondered at their ability to forget so quickly. But soon my voice joined theirs again.

  “Huzzah!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Charlestown Burns

  By eleven o’clock we had done all we could. The fortification was as strong as it would ever be. Then we waited. It was only when the dust finally settled that I became aware of my powerful thirst, but there was no water to be had, nor any food.

  The sun was a furious, fiery ball above us. None could remember a day as hot as this. Sweat and dirt made my eyes sting, and my head ached. I closed my eyes for a moment and in seconds I was swimming in the cool water of the Charles. Then a ball pounded into the wall and startled me awake. Father was beside me.

  “Daniel, I want you to move back to Bunker’s Hill,” he said quietly, indicating the taller hill behind us. “Some men are building another fortification. If we’re forced to retreat, we’ll have need of it.”

  “Will you come?” I asked. I was relieved to be moving away from the cannonballs, but I did not want to be away from Father.

  He shook his head and pointed toward the Mystic River. Old Put and a small company of men were frantically throwing up a fort along an old rail fence. “That’s where I’ll be,” he said. He put his hands on my shoulders and leaned in so that we were nose-to-nose. “Listen very carefully.”

  I nodded.

  “If the Redcoats come close, I want you to run.” His eyes flicked to the shallow grave of the headless man and then back to me.

  I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry.

  “If a British soldier—even one—br
eaches this fort, run as fast as you can. Don’t stop until you’re on the far side of the Charlestown Neck and on your way to Cambridge. Do not look for me. Do not wait for me,” he said. “Run.”

  Fear mixed with gravity in his eyes. I saw my own eyes, wide with alarm, reflected in his. I didn’t care that we stood surrounded by soldiers and that I had pretended to be a man among them. I hugged him. I hugged Father like a boy. He held me for a moment and patted my shoulder while he whispered of his pride in me. I didn’t deserve his praise, but I allowed him to soothe me the way I had soothed Star on Boston Neck.

  Then we parted. Father strode to the rail fence. I ran to the top of Bunker’s Hill. When I reached the summit, I saw a fever of activity in Boston’s streets. The town’s rooftops were dense with onlookers waiting to view the battle. Redcoats marched toward North Battery. Sailors were ready to row them across the water. Other barges came round the tip of the peninsula, probably from Long Wharf. Below me, Charlestown smoldered. The citizens had all fled, and the cannonballs sent wisps of smoke into the sky.

  It was near noon when one by one the boats pushed out, a scarlet mass of soldiers in each of them. They landed near Morton’s Hill. A captain allowed me to look through his spyglass, and I watched the Redcoats settle down in neat rows with their packs and seem to eat a meal.

  Dread filled my stomach in place of food.

  “Back to work, men,” a captain shouted.

  My arms quivered with fatigue, but I picked up my shovel again and commenced to dig. Reinforcements from New Hampshire arrived and joined Old Put and Father on the army’s flank.

  It was another two hours before the British made their move.

  A solid line of scarlet climbed Breed’s Hill, a bloody river running in the wrong direction. Wave after wave of Redcoats walked through grass to their knees, crossing fences and stepping over holes in a slow, steady advance.

  My hands gripped my shovel. Our men were quiet, waiting. Old Put roared in the tense silence, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” There was no gunpowder to spare.

  The Redcoats seemed to be upon the very walls of the fort. The soldier next to me muttered a prayer. Would our men not stand and fight? I remembered my promise to Father and steeled myself to run.

  Suddenly the Patriots let loose with a burst of fire. Smoke boiled in all directions. The first wave of Redcoats fell. And then the next, and the next. Suddenly the British were running helter-skelter down the hill. The river had turned and flowed in the other direction.

  I cheered until I was hoarse. A man beside me patted me on the back as if I was one of them, and suddenly I realized that I was. I threw my shoulders back and stood tall. The Patriot soldiers, the men that Stockdale mocked as a “preposterous parade,” had made the mighty Redcoats scurry away like rats. And I was a Patriot, too.

  When the smoke cleared, I saw just how many bodies they had left behind. Redcoats dotted the hill. Some crawled. Most were still. Few in the Patriot fort appeared to be wounded. I saw one man tie a bandage around his arm and then raise his musket in triumph amid great cheers.

  Our triumph was not to last.

  The captain raised his spyglass. “They’re regrouping.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Battle of Bunker’s Hill

  The Redcoats were indeed getting ready for another attack. Drums rattled to call them to formation.

  A Patriot captain tried to urge some of the men forward. Few followed him as he raced to reinforce those at the front on Breed’s Hill.

  A crimson line formed at the bottom of the hill. They stepped over the bodies of their own as if they were just one more fence to be surmounted.

  A man stood by my side, a fisherman from the looks of him. “Those men will surely die today,” he said, pointing to the left flank where Father stood with Old Put.

  Fear surged through me. Father was going to be attacked from two fronts. Redcoats marched toward him and a warship sailed up the Mystic River. Its cannons crashed like thunder. The Patriots’ cannons were no match for the ship’s big guns. I narrowed my eyes and used my hands to block out the fierce sun, but I could not make out Father in the crush of men.

  A breeze, the first I had felt all day, carried with it the moans of the wounded Redcoats on Breed’s Hill. They begged for help, but their fellow soldiers were fixed on the fort at the top of the slope.

  Charlestown was ablaze behind them. The church steeple formed a great pyramid of fire above the town before it fell. One by one chimneys crumbled, sending up towers of sparks.

  The Redcoats advanced, their steps in perfect unison.

  This time our men waited even longer before they commenced to fight. The Redcoats seemed impossibly close to the walls of the fort before there was a burst of fire and smoke and noise. The first wave of Redcoats fell, and then the second. An officer waved a sword in the air to urge the soldiers forward. A third wave began to fall and once again the king’s men turned and ran. A good many of them were left behind, broken or dead.

  I begged for the loan of a spyglass. Old Put’s men were grouped around something—or someone. I searched for Father but could not make him out. Was he at the center of that group, broken like the British on the hill? Finally, I saw him. There was blood on his breeches. His own or someone else’s? My heart pounded and I held my breath as I moved the glass up and down, checking every limb. With great relief I saw that he appeared to be unhurt.

  Such a long time passed after the second attack that we began to believe the Redcoats might give up on the notion of a third. Then we saw more soldiers sailing from Boston—fresh reinforcements. Our own men were far from fresh. They had no food, no water, no sleep. They were almost out of powder.

  The Redcoats changed tactics for their third advance up the hill. Instead of long, wide lines, they formed three columns. I saw that columns would be harder to scatter. They were almost upon the fort again before our men commenced to shoot. But this time there was no big volley of fire and smoke—the Patriots were completely out of gunpowder. The Redcoats wavered for an instant, and then sprang forward.

  The fortunes of the day were suddenly reversed. The first Redcoat mounted the parapet and leaped into the fort. Soon they stormed in from three sides.

  The Patriots used their muskets as clubs, but they were no match for British bayonets. Dust rose in clouds. Our men were now the ones to retreat. They fled in all directions.

  Father had told me to run, but I tarried, looking for him among the men streaming toward us from the rail fence. Something drew my attention back to Breed’s Hill, and my eyes settled on a man about the same height as Father. It was Dr. Warren. The men had cheered that morning when he arrived and took his place among them. Now he defended an exit, making it possible for many of the Patriots to escape. He was one of the last to retreat. Then he stopped and turned, perhaps for one last stand. I saw a bullet strike his head. Dr. Warren fell.

  Men streamed around me, racing down the hill. I knew I should join them, but my eyes were fixed on Dr. Warren. I willed him to stand and run. But even from my distance, I could see that he was dead.

  Someone grabbed my arm and pulled me along. We bolted down Bunker’s Hill. To my left a man tripped and fell, rolling like a giant shooter in a game of marbles. He knocked others out of his path as if they were mere toys.

  Now the same ship that threatened Father earlier shot at me as I retreated across Charlestown Neck. I did not stop running until I reached Ploughed Hill, near Cambridge.

  Old Put was once again throwing up a fortification in case the Redcoats tried to chase us all the way to Cambridge. I flopped on the ground to catch my breath, holding my side. Father found me there.

  I did not know how frightened I was until I saw him. I buried my head in his shoulder and wept. My emotions were in an uproar. Father was alive, but many were dead, and the British might still be on our heels.

  “Daniel,” he said, running his hands over my body. “Are you hurt?”

 
; It was only then that I noticed my shirt was splattered with blood. Whose? I wondered. “No,” I answered, struggling to sit up. “I’m not hurt.”

  Two wounded men hobbled past us, one with a gaping wound in his neck, the other with a gash in his leg. I closed my eyes so that I would not have to see them.

  “Do you think you can make it to Star?” Father asked. “Ask the farmer if you can hitch her to a cart. The wounded need help getting to Cambridge.”

  “What if the Redcoats . . .” my voice trailed off. I didn’t want to help the wounded; I didn’t even want to look at them, but I was ashamed to say as much.

  “Daniel, these men need us,” he said. “Some can’t walk.”

  Someone moaned and I shuddered.

  “The Redcoats won’t come this far, not tonight,” Father said. He waved at the half-built fort. “This is simply a safeguard.”

  I nodded and stood. A great weariness had come over me, but I trod forward, putting one foot in front of the other. My eyes were fixed on the ground, avoiding the men around me. Everywhere was terror and confusion. The day’s fortunes had turned so suddenly, and the soldiers were disheartened by their loss. I heard some say that the battle would have been ours, if not for the want of powder.

  Finally, I reached Cambridge and the barn. Star nuzzled me and I buried my face in her neck, drinking in her rich horse smell and trying to clear my nose of the reek of blood and fear and fire.

  I had not eaten a mouthful of victuals in twenty-four hours. The farmer’s wife gave me a meat pie and a firkin of cider to wash it down with, along with the use of a cart.

  I hitched Star to the cart and set off for Ploughed Hill. I did not want to go back and help the wounded, but I had promised Father. I passed the Common at Cambridge. It was already filled with wounded soldiers, and Dr. Church had set up a kind of hospital. Men limped toward me. Those who could walk were not my charges. I pressed on.

  I found a man kneeling by the side of the road, moaning. I jumped off the cart to help him. Star’s nostrils flared and her ears were pinned back. I kept one hand on her while I stepped nearer. Someone had bandaged his wounds, but he was still bleeding fiercely. He opened his eyes, but did not see me.