The crowning glory of Charlestown is the Bunker Hill Monument, marking the greatest historical event of Boston, the famous battle fought June 17, 1775, when the British stormed the Yankee redoubt on the hilltop north of Charles River, which was then open country, but long ago became surrounded by the buildings of the expanding city, excepting the small space of the battlefield, now reserved for a park around the monument. The granite shaft rises two hundred and twenty-one feet, upon the highest part of the eminence. The Provincial troops had assembled in large numbers north and west of Boston, mainly in Cambridge to the westward, and hearing that the British intended to occupy Bunker and Breed's Hills, in Charlestown, a force was sent under Colonel William Prescott, a veteran of the old French war, in the night, to fortify Bunker Hill. Upon crossing over, they hastily decided that it was better to occupy Breed's Hill, which, while part of the same ridge, was nearer Boston, and they constructed upon it a square redoubt. The British ships in Charles River discovered this at daylight, and began a cannonade; American reinforcements were sent from Cambridge; and in the afternoon General Gage attacked, his onslaught being three times repulsed with heavy slaughter, when, the Americans' ammunition being spent, they could only resist with clubbed muskets and stones, and had to retreat. Facing Boston, in front of the monument, the direction from which the attack came, is the bronze statue of Prescott, the broad-brimmed hat shading his earnest face, as, with deprecatory yet determined gesture, he uttered the memorable words of warning that resulted in such terrible punishment of the British storming column: "Don't fire until I tell you; don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes." The traces of the hastily constructed breastworks of the redoubt can be seen on the brow of the hill, and a stone shows where Dr. Joseph Warren fell, he being killed in the battle. He came to the fight as a volunteer, and had been made a General in the Provincial army. The top of the tall monument gives a splendid view in all directions over the harbor and suburbs of Boston, with traces of Mount Wachusett far to the westward, and on clear days a dim outline of the distant White Mountains. The corner-stone of the monument was laid by Lafayette on his American visit in 1825, and it was completed and dedicated in 1842, the oration on both occasions being delivered by Daniel Webster. One of his glowing passages thus tells the purpose of the monument: