most veteran soldiery; for, according to their own returns, their killed and wounded, out of a detachment of two thousand men, amounted to one thousand and fifty-four, and a large proportion of them officers. The loss of the Americans did not exceed four hundred and fifty. To the latter, this defeat, if defeat it might be called, had the effect of a triumph. It gave them confidence in themselves, and consequence in the eyes of their enemies. They had proved to themselves and to others, that they could measure weapons with the disciplined soldiers of Europe, and inflict the most harm in the conflict."[1]
Beside several officers of distinction, the greatest loss which the Americans met with, was in the death of General Warren. He had only a few days before been commissioned as major-general, and was at the time president of the Massachusetts Congress, and chairman of the Committee of Safety. Leaving his post as presiding officer in the Congress, so soon as he heard of the meditated attack upon the Americans on Bunker's Hill, he hurried to the scene of action. When he entered the redoubt, the brave and able Colonel Prescott offered him the command, but he declined taking it, saying, "I am come to learn war under an experienced soldier, not to take any command." When his countrymen were compelled to retreat, he was the last to leave the redoubt, and immediately after, a ball struck him in the head, and he fell dead on the spot. His loss was esteemed a public calamity, and produced a profound impression throughout America, for no man of his age was more highly respected and beloved than Joseph Warren, "the brave, blooming, generous, self-devoted martyr of Bunker's Hill."[2]Perpetual honor to his memory![3]
Immediately on taking command of the army, Washington made it a primary duty to ascertain its actual strength and position. He found that there were excellent materials for an army, but that they sadly lacked arms, ammunition, and military stores of every kind. He found them animated with great zeal, and prepared to follow him in the most desperate undertakings : but he soon perceived that they were unacquainted with subordination, and strangers to military discipline. The spirit of liberty which had brought them together, showed itself in all their actions. In the province of Massachusetts, the officers had
- ↑ Irving's "Life of Washington," vol., i., p. 482.
- ↑ See Everett's "Life of Joseph Warren," p. 53.
- ↑ Warren was. as has been truly said, "the martyr of that day's glory. His death was felt as a calamity to the came and to the nation. He was in the prime of life, being only thirty-five years of age, with a spirit as hold and dauntless as ever was blazoned in legends, or recorded in history. He was a prudent, cautious, but fearless statesman; made to govern men, and to breathe into them a portion of his own heroic soul. His eloquence was of a high order; his voice was fine, and of great compass, and he modulated it at will. His appearance had the air of a soldier, graceful and commanding, united to the manners of a finished gentleman. The British thought that his life was of the utmost importance to the American army; of so much importance, that they would no longer hold together after his fall. They sadly mistook the men they had to deal with. His blood was not shed in vain ; it cried from the ground for vengeance; and his name became a watch-word in the hour of peril and glory." Brave old Putnam was also m the thickest of the fight, but was spared for further service to his country.
