On the 15th of June, on the motion of Mr. John Adams, the Congress chose Colonel Washington commander-in-chief of the American forces, and directed him to repair to Boston and assume command in the field. Two days later the British and the provincials met in a bloody and stubborn fight at Bunker Hill. On the 25th of May heavy reinforcements for General Gage had arrived from over sea which swelled the force of regulars in Boston to more than eight thousand men, and added three experienced general officers to Gage’s council: William Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne. The British commanders saw very well, what was indeed apparent enough to any soldier, that their position in Boston could be very effectively commanded to the north and south on either hand by cannon placed upon the heights of Charlestown or Dorchester, and determined to occupy Charlestown heights at once, the nearer and more threatening position. But so leisurely did they go about it that the provincials were beforehand in the project. The early morning light of the 17th of June disclosed them still at work there on trenches and redoubts which they had begun at midnight. The British did not stop to use either the guns of the fleet or any caution of indirect approach to dislodge them, but at once put three thousand men straight across the water to take the hill, whose crest the Americans were fortifying, by direct assault. It cost them a thousand men; and the colonials retired, outnumbered though they were, only because their powder gave out, not their pluck or steadfastness. When the thing was done, the British did not care to take another intrenched position from men who held their fire till they were within a few score yards of them and then volleyed with the definite and deadly aim of marksmen. [Illustration: FROM BEACON HILL, 1775, NO. 1. (LOOKING TOWARDS DORCHESTER HEIGHTS)] [Illustration: FROM BEACON HILL, 1775, NO. 2. (LOOKING TOWARDS ROXBURY)] [Illustration: ORDER OF COMMITTEE OF SAFETY]