t Charlestown.

The little town was soon aflame and the smoke helped to conceal Howe's
movements. The day was boiling hot and the soldiers carried heavy packs
with food for three days, for they intended to camp on Bunker Hill.
Straight up Breed's Hill they marched wading through long grass
sometimes to their knees and throwing down the fences on the hillside.
The British knew that raw troops were likely to scatter their fire on
a foe still out of range and they counted on a rapid bayonet
charge against men helpless with empty rifles. This expectation was
disappointed. The Americans had in front of them a barricade and Israel
Putnam was there, threatening dire things to any one who should fire
before he could see the whites of the eyes of the advancing soldiery. As
the British came on there was a terrific discharge of musketry at twenty
yards, repeated again and again as they either halted or drew back.

The slaughter was terrible. British officers hardened in war declared
long afterward that they had never seen carnage like that of this fight.
The American riflemen had been told to aim especially at the British
officers, easily known by their uniforms, and one rifleman is said to
have shot twenty officers before he was himself killed. Lord Rawdon,
who played a considerable part in the war and was later, as Marquis of
Hastings, Viceroy of India, used to tell of his terror as he fought in
the British line. Suddenly a soldier was shot dead by his side, and,
when he saw the man quiet at his feet, he said, "Is Death nothing but
this?" and henceforth had no fear. When the first attack by the British
was checked they retired; but, with dogged resolve, they re-formed and
again charged up the hill, only a second time to be repulsed. The third
time they were more cautious. They began to work round to the weaker
defenses of the American left, where were no redoubts and entrenchments
like those on the right. By this time British ships were throwing shells
among the Americans. Charlestown was burning. The great column of black
smoke, the incessant roar of cannon, and the dreadful scenes of carnage
had affected the defenders. They wavered; and on the third British
charge, having exhausted their ammunition, they fled from the hill in
confusion back to the narrow neck of land half a mile away, swept now
by a British floating battery. General Burgoyne wrote that, in the third
attack, the discipline and courage of the British private sol