"Don't Shoot Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes!" -June 1775

"Don't Shoot Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes!" commanded Colonel William Prescott, repeating the order of General Israel Putnam, JUNE 17, 1775.

Colonel William Prescott's men were in the center redoubt located on Breed's Hill, adjacent Bunker Hill, guarding the north entrance to Boston Harbor.

Samuel Swett wrote in his History of Bunker Hill, that as the 2,300 British soldiers advanced:

"The American marksmen are with difficulty restrained from firing. Putnam rode through the line, and ordered that no one should fire till they arrived within eight rods ...

Powder was scarce and must not be wasted. They should 'not fire at the enemy till they saw the whites of their eyes ...' The same orders were reiterated by Prescott at the redoubt."

It is a living part of the American tradition, a tradition that goes back to Israel Putnam, who left his plow in a New England furrow to take up a gun and fight at Bunker Hill."

At the beginning of the battle, a stray musket ball from a British gun killed an American soldier, resulting in other soldiers running away.

To stop the confusion, Colonel William Prescott climbed on top of the the wall of the fortification, stood upright and walked back and forth, rallying his men.

When British General Gage saw Prescott through his telescope, he asked a local loyalist if Prescott had enough courage to fight.

"Prescott is an old soldier, he will fight as long as a drop of blood is in his veins."

By 1775 he had nearly 20 years in the colonies. He had married a wife from New Jersey from a well-to-do family. And his own wealth was considerable. He had accumulated 18,000 acres of land in New York, more property in Canada and a plantation in Montseratt.

In sum, he had every interest in seeing the colonies return to prosperity under British rule and little appetite for war. He had been somewhat tolerant of the debate over government that took place among the colonists, but over the years he had come to dislike an independent streak he saw growing in the Massachusetts.

"America is a mere bully, from one end to the other, and the Bostonians by far the greatest bullies," he wrote in a 1770 letter. And in 1772, he warned that: "Democracy is too prevalent in America, and claims the greatest attention to prevent its increase."

Originally Gage believed the general public was being incited by the elites, and these wealthy leaders were at the root of the rebellious nature of the colonists, though it was the democratic institutions of the colonies that were the vehicle for the growing rebellious spirit.

At his request, he was given permission to ban town meetings and replace locally chosen judges and government leaders with hand-picked loyalists.
General Thomas Gage Lays Down the Law | New England Historical Society

"Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" has been attributed both to Prescott and to Israel Putnam. Apparently the earliest source for it is something written by Parson Weems (of the George Washington cherry tree story) decades later. The accounts written shortly after the battle do not quote the line. Prescott was in command at the redoubt and was insistent on his soldiers not firing before they were ordered to (because their ammunition was woefully insufficient--that's why they were finally driven out during the third British attack), but he may have used some other expression to get across his point.

The most serious loss on the American side was the death of Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the most important Patriot leaders in Massachusetts.

Prescott, Arizona, is named for Col. Prescott's grandson, who was a famous historian.

“When 35 yards separated the two forces, the British line erupted in flame, and a blizzard of musket balls dropped Frenchmen by the dozens. The French first rank fired wildly, then the column began to deploy into its own line under cover of a blue gunsmoke haze, to the chilling sound of ramrods scraping the insides of barrels as the well-drilled British reloaded.

Frenchmen clambered over the dead and dying and spread left and right in a desperate attempt to increase their frontage and firepower. And then another volley, and another, all within a minute, shattered their formation to fragments. The British swarmed forward, yelling and screaming, with bayonets leveled, but few of their surviving opponents waited around to be transfixed.

Time and again this scenario was played out on the military stage afforded by the Iberian Peninsula in the years following 1808, until the steadfast British soldier achieved final victory over the armies of Napoleon....

...In 1814, British Army Col. George Hanger voiced an oft-quoted criticism of Brown Bess accuracy: “A soldier’s musket, if not exceedingly ill bored (as many are) will strike the figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at a hundred; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, provided his antagonist aims at him; and as to firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you may as well fire at the moon and have the same hope of hitting your object.”...

...In combat, smoke, confusion, noise, exhaustion, fear, and the unpleasant sensation of being fired at as well as firing, dropped the hit ratio of musketry fire much lower than controlled tests. One authority of the day opined that one needed to fire a man’s weight in musket balls at him to hit him. Estimates vary somewhat, but most conclude that the chances of a fired musket ball hitting an enemy soldier during the Napoleonic Wars were between two and five percent. At the battle of Vittoria in the Peninsular campaign, it was estimated that 3,675,000 musket balls were fired to inflict eight thousand casualties.”

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2015/08/05/revolutionary-war-weapons-the-brown-bess-musket/

“Today we think of the infantryman using his rifle, and in a worst case scenario, falling back on his bayonet as a last resort. However, in the 18th century the musket was used to pave the way for the use of the bayonet. It was the bayonet that was the real primary weapon. As it has been said, the musket is a good handle for the bayonet. There’s a lot of truth to that statement.”

https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/07/the-inaccuracy-of-muskets/

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