Posted on 06/18/2018 9:35:52 AM PDT by rktman
Best book on the subject of Bunker Hill is:
“Now We Are Enemies” by Thomas Fleming
Spoiler alert: the Americans should have won the battle but for all the desertions.
Prescott married my ggggg aunt. He had 7 in-laws fighting under his command. They never ran coz their sister would have whacked them with her broom when they got home. They were more scared of her than the redcoats.
NON print for those that prefer this format:
http://www.wnd.com/2018/06/the-forgotten-carnage-of-the-revolutionary-war/?cat_orig=education
I wonder why the British didn’t make a diversionary landing at Breed’s Hill and landed a main force farther up the peninsula and driven south into the rear of the American line?
Not that historically important, but my kin joined up with others from the Hudson River valley/Green Mountain men. Found one that even was on the rolls for disability payments. Something like that. Don’t recall exactly.
The only book I’ve ever read was Nathaniel Philbrick’s “Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution”. I thought it was good.
Is Fleming’s book better than Philbrick’s?
The Author states “ Over 1,000 British were killed in this first major action of the Revolutionary War. Nearly 500 American Continental soldiers were killed,”
Actually it was 226 Brits and 115 Colonists for a total of 341 dead. I think he became confused by total casualties dead and wounded.
Still a bloody fight by the standards of the day, but just for accuracy’s sake.
Given that experience, you REALLY wonder why General Robert E. Lee ordered Pickett's Charge during the Battle of Gettysburg, given how that charge ended in the same debacle as the British charge up Breed's Hill but on a larger scale.
General Longstreet told General Lee before the attack “General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position” Lee made a disastrous mistake, that cost his army 7000 casualties.
How could powder be in short supply? It’s charcoal, sulfur, and saltpeter. The first two are fairly abundant and the last easily manufactured. The colonists should have been drowning in the stuff.
Probably for the same reason Joe Hooker ordered the attacks on Marye’s Heights at Chancellorsville: he thought he could win.
... Fredericksburg?
That's what I thought initially as well (Burnside, Fredericksburg). But then I remembered that Hooker did order General Sedgewick to assault Marye's Heights to try to pin down Confederate forces there (Early?). Sedgewick initially did reasonably well until Hooker's forces were defeated and Lee was able to send reinforcements to Marye's Heights.
So I figured that that's maybe what IronJack was talking about ...
Usually those answers involve logistics... like not enough suitable boats.
At the time most of the powder that was available was what the NH militia men had stolen from the British.
A house divided cannot stand. As Lincoln declared that the nation will not remain divided...that it will end up one way, or the other.
We are about as divided as we were then. This time around, we will end up one way, or the other.
making basic black powder is fairly simple. Making high quality gun powder for muskets, pistols or cannons is not that simple. Basically you have to grind the components together in precise rations, then wet it down, corn the powder (size it) then dry it out. Making military grade gun powder is not a cottage industry. The stuff has to be sized for the application. F for cannon, FF for muskets, FFF for pistols and FFFF for priming powder. In the Colonies at this time there were only a few powder mills that could produce any quantity of the stuff.
I've read that the bulk of the Colonists powder came from Europe via the Carribean and that the manufacturing problem was lack of saltpeter.
It’s addressed in the book. The British attempted a landing on a stretch of beach behind Bunker Hill and fought a skirmish with colonials who were behind a low stone wall. They probably could have come back but maybe didn’t realize how easily they,could have overwhelmed this group and also I think the tides then changed, if I remember correctly.
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