The greatest single victory of the American Revolution in terms of British soldiers killed or wounded was the battle of Bunker Hill. It was won without global strategy, or any real sense of victory. The British captured the hill but their loss of soldiers and reputation was such that one can echo British General, George Clinton’s comment: “A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.” How the British came to blunder this way is a lesson in group-think management; it lead to the destruction of an army of the finest soldiers on earth by a band of untrained, leader-less rabble.
A map of metropolitan Boston in May 1775 shows that it was already a major port with far less dry land than it has today. It consisted of a knob-hill peninsula, British-controlled Boston city, cut off from the rest of the colonies except for one narrow road, called “The Neck,” or The Roxbury Neck. The later name was used to distinguish it from a similar neck road that connected the colonies to nearby Charlestown peninsula; Bunker Hill is on Charlestown peninsula. Following the rumpus battles of Lexington and Concord, Boston’s suburbs were over-filled by 15,000, ill-clad, undisciplined colonials who ate, drank, and shot at random stuff in plain view of Boston’s 6000 trained soldiers and four Generals. The Colonials set up barriers and cannon at their end of the Neck road. These were not particularly good barriers, and the British army could leave at any time by the neck to control of the colonies, but only at a cost in men. This potential cost kept rising as more colonials came to camp around Boston. What would you do?
The British had sea-power that they felt they could use: excellent ships and excellent admirals; the colonies had neither. The British navy could attack anywhere on the American coast, but only at a risk of further alienating the colonials. They thus used their power judicially. E.g., for the attack on Lexington, April ’75, navy ships took the 2000 soldiers from Boston, landing them at Charlestown, at the foot of Breed’s hill. The army then marched out over the Charlestown neck to Lexington and Concord, but not to a smashing success. Many soldiers lost their lives, and not much was captured.
Back in Boston, the four British generals: Gage, Burgoyne, Howe, and Clinton, decided that, to quash the revolt/revolution, they had to break out of Boston and quarter in Massachusetts proper, on some easily defended ground on the mainland, preferably high ground. They needed to establish a base with good connections to the rest of colonies, plus good access to the sea. Looking about, the obvious spot for this base was the heights of Dorchester, a set of hills that overlooked Boston Harbor from the south. Eventually the British would flee Boston because George Washington would capture and hold these heights. The reason the British didn’t capture the heights or at least defend them was the result of group-think ignorance, on the morning of June 17. The British changed their goals, and decided to attack at Charlestown (Breed’s Hill) instead of Dorchester. Capturing Charlestown left Britain with many dead and no good connection to the colonies; it was just another isolated peninsula barely attached to the mainland by an easily defended road.
Why did four, trained Generals attack this worthless spot instead of Dorchester? It was the luck of American disarray and mob-rule. Looking at the Colonials disarray, each of the four generals saw an opportunity for personal glory; the colonials were inept and would never improve. The same British group-think that reawakeneded in the Crimean war with Russia. The American defense of Charleston and Breeds Hill was done so incredibly poorly that the Americans were left as sitting ducks, waiting to be taken. A poor location was chosen for the fort and only 1200 Colonials came to defend it. We’d meant to build a fort on a better location, Bunker Hill, the tall hill overlooking Boston, and we’d meant to build a minor respite foxhole on Breeds hill, but we screwed up.
Our soldiers were digging at night, fueled with much rum and little or no leadership. When the sun rose on June 17, we found that we’d built next to nothing on Bunker hill, and a vastly too-large, uselessly deep, square hole at Breed’s Hill: a doubtful redoubt. The square was open at back, and too large for the number of soldiers. It was also too deep for people to shoot out of easily. Looking with spyglasses from Boston, the British generals saw that we had no idea what we were doing. Gage and co., thought to show us the consequences of our incompetence. A few thousand British soldiers could easily take this redoubt and its 1200 defenders, and that thought clouded his mind and the minds of his fellows. They forgot that this was not a hill worth taking, and never imagined that we might fix our defenses. Even if Gage could win without a single lost man, he should have realized that a victory would leave him in a worse position than before. His forces would then be divided between two peninsulas both separated from the mainland, and separated from each other by neck-roads. Coordinating an attack from this position would be a logistic nightmare, and any one of the co-Generals should have alerted him to this.
The attack was supposed to work this way: a sea landing at Moulton’s hill. two side actions, SA, at the fronts of the Colonial defenses, and a sweeping main attack, MA, at the edge.
But four generals working together were stupider than Gage alone. Their glee at our incompetence made them forget why Dorchester Heights was the right military target. The prospect of personal glory made attacking Charlestown and its hills too tempting to ignore. Their superior force of trained men would land and march forward to an easy victory. They might even do it with bayonets alone, as the Continentals had too few men, no training, and no bayonets. If the Continentals were able to muster together at all (unlikely), they were unlikely to reload fast enough to shoot more than once — that took special guns and training. Under pressure, the colonials would likely miss with most of the only shot they got, and would find themselves over-run before they could reload. The British force could shoot therebels at close range, or they could hold their fire and spear them with bayonets as the rebels tried to reload, or run out of the hole they were in.
It was a perfect plan with only a minor problem, easily addressed: the Americans had a cannon brought to the hill, and a trained cannoneer could kill many with a few follies of grape-shot. Gage and co. thus decided on a complex attack that would avoid the cannon. It included a feint to the front and a side run. This “wheeling motion” was completely unnecessary: the Americans had little powder and no idea what to do with a cannon, the generals didn’t know that. The plan was to form a single line across from the fort (hole), fake a frontal attack to draw American shots while staying out of range, and then wheel right. That is, on command, every British soldier was to turn right and march, as a column, north to the trench’s right side (the left side if you look as a Colonial). They’d avoid the cannon rifle shots, and take the redoubt from the north side, perhaps without taking a single loss. It should have been a piece of cake, but was not.
Landing the British troops and forming them up took longer than expected, as often happens, and during this time, more Colonials showed up, and some of them took pot-shots at the British officers. What’s more, the rebels began to fix the more-glaring flaws in their defenses. Potshots from Charlestown windows slowed British efforts at mustering into an appropriate line while the Continentals built up the left (north) side of their redoubt — the side the British wished to attack. The colonials added triangular sub forts (Friches) at both sides of their square trench, somewhat in front, and added a wooden fence rail from the hill to the sea somewhat behind. The British naval commander wasted yet more time with a cannon barrage from his ships. He imagined he was softening the defense, but the barrage managed to kill only one colonial, decapitated by a cannon-ball, while providing time for the colonials to build their friches and fence, and allowing for more sniper work. Col. Stark put colonials at the sense with shot markers at 100 feet in front. He then passed the now-famous instruction: don’t shoot till they passed these markers and you see the whites of their eyes. He needed to preserve ammunition, and assumed that, at 50 to 100 feet, his colonials would not miss, and could fall back. Any British who passed the fence would be taken out by defenders shooting down from Bunker Hill, or up from the hole.
The second attack at Breeds Hill
At first the British tried the frontal feint attack with a wheel to the north. When this attack failed to heavy losses, they tried again before realizing this attack was ill-suited to the terrain and troops. The British front line was composed of crack Hessians who marched perfectly in step, wearing bright red coats and heavy bear-skin, “Busby hats” to make them look more formidable. It might have worked on even ground, this ground was uneven and mucky, and the hats kept the Hessians from looking down at the brambles and rocks. Their stumbling motion, always aligned, was so slow that the colonials had time to fire and reload. The Hessians who survived the first shots never managed to wheel. Meanwhile, the main British attack, the one at the rail fence, failed because a colonial fired early by mistake. The British force should have ignored it, but instead, stopped and fired back. Hearing the shooting, more Colonials showed up and shot at British soldiers (more or less in range) using the fence to steady their aim. Only a few British got past the fence and these were shot by the retreating Americans and by the garrison on Bunker Hill. The attack was called back, allowing the British to re-muster while the Americans reloaded and repositioned.
Before the second British attack, more colonials wandered onto the peninsula, and built a quick platform in the redoubt so they could shoot better over the top. Some defenders of Bunker Hill — folks who’d seen little action so far — moved forward to get better shots, defending at the fence, and some Colonials wandered off, too. There was still no one in charge. Just everyone doing what seemed right to him.
meanwhile, the generals burnt Charlestown as a way of stopping the snipers, and mustered their men for a simpler attack with a simpler troop arrangement, see map above and picture below. Three ranks of soldiers were set to march straight at the fort without trying to wheel. Those with Busby hats were largely dead or wounded, so the attackers could see where they were stepping. Still, without the wheel, the result was many British dead or wounded, and this second attack was called off.
The second attack: Three ranks and no Busby hats this time, with the dead strewn around and Charlestown burning in the background. Their’s not to question why; their’s but to do and die. Painting by Pyle.
About at this time, the British should have decided to go home and attack elsewhere (Dorchester), but they persisted, not willing to accept defeat. For the third attack, the soldiers were told to attack as two single, long columns. The generals added some 400 marines (ship-board soldiers) plus some 200 wounded who were now ordered to re-muster. The columns waled straight up to the fort. The folks in front pushed by those behind; the soldiers at the front were killed, but the attack worked, sort of. The British took the fort, but most of the defenders avoided capture. They retreated across the neck and rejoined the main mob. The British captured or killed some 400 at the expense of 1,054 men lost; 226 were killed in the immediate battle, including most of the junior officers, with the rest lost as a result of wounds. The soldiers also lost the sense of invincibility; unorganized colonials could fight, inflicting serious damage at minimal cost.
There arose a myth of the backwoods shooter, but it was largely a myth. The Colonials were able to pick off British officers because the officers dressed to be noticed. It was a mistake the British would keep making. At Bunker Hill, the British lost 1 lieutenant colonel (killed), 5 majors (3 killed), 34 captains (7 killed) 41 lieutenants (9 killed), 57 sergeants (15 killed), and 13 drummers (1 killed). A lesson we learned: don’t dress so fancy. Tactically, the British victory at Bunker hill left their forces divided between two peninsulas. The men defending these peninsulas were unavailable for any attack at Dorchester heights. Thus the British forces lost the opportunity to escape Boston and take positions that could hold the colonies. By January, 1776 Washington Controlled Dorchester heights, and the British left Boston and Charlestown by ship. They would try taking Dorchester again in 1776 and 1777, but by then the continental army was more of an army, less of a rabble with rifles. A life lesson: only fight for something that you really want, a pointless win can be a lost opportunity.
After the battle, the back-stabbing and group think continued among the British generals, while the colonials got a single commander, General Washington. Meanwhile, a new British general arrived, Burgoyne, who blamed Generals Clinton, Howe, and Gage for the loss of men and opportunity. Burgoyne got to lead an attack from Canada, but stung by Burgoyne’s blame-game, Clinton and Howe did not come his aid at Albany in June 1777. Instead, Clinton left Burgoyne to fend for himself (and be captured) while Howe was sent to attack the continental congress at Philadelphia. Burgoyne lost his army and reputation, and Howe captured Philadelphia, restoring his reputation, sort-of. The Continental Congress fled Philadelphia ahead of the Brits, and Burgoyne’s defeat led to the French joining in on our side. Burgoyne blamed Clinton and Howe for his defeat, but was really done in by over confidence. He could not see that the chaotic leadership of a rabble was better than a fixed command without real communication, even with the best generals and soldiers.
The colonial chaos was horrible, but workable. The fixed-command mistakes on the British side were not as bad, but disastrous, since they required a coordinated effort that could not be produced. Had there been fewer British generals and a simpler plan, the better-trained British army would have won at Charlestown, or they would have left and attacked at Dorchester and won the war. One on one, General Howe’s forces repeatedly beat Washington, meeting in New York and New Jersey in the summer and fall of 1776. These were the same soldiers who lost at Bunker Hill, but with a simple command structure: one general not four. It was only George Washington’s genius that saved some semblance of an army to keep fighting into 1777.
This is not to say that chaos is good, but that it can work, especially with Americans. We tolerate chaos and fractured leadership better than most, I think, because we are, by nature, chaotic. As Bismarck put it: “God protects children, fools, and the United States of America.”
Robert Buxbaum, August 16, 2015 (edited June, 2024). There were several other howler mistakes of the American Revolution discussed here. British generals took useless victories while losing opportunities that mattered. Don’t fight readily; only to win something of value that can be won.