The British troops, reinforced by four hundred marines from Boston, under Major Small, accompanied by Doctor Jeffries, the army surgeon, advanced toward the redoubt in the same order as at first, General Howe boldly leading the van, as he had promised. It was a mournful march over the dead bodies of scores of their fellow soldiers; but with true English courage they pressed onward, their artillery doing more damage to the Americans than at the first assault. It had moved along the narrow road between the tongue of land and Breed’s Hill, and when within a hundred yards of the rail fence, and on a line with the breastworks, opened a galling fire, to cover the advance of the other assailants. In the meanwhile, a carcass and some hot shot were thrown from Copp’s Hill into Charlestown, which set the village on fire. The houses were chiefly of wood, and in a short time nearly two hundred buildings were in flames, shrouding in dense smoke the heights in the rear whereon the provincials were posted. Beneath this veil the British hoped to rush unobserved up to the breastworks, scale them, and drive the Americans out at the point of the bayonet. At that moment a gentle breeze, which appeared to the provincials like the breath of a guardian angel--the first zephyr that had been felt on that sultry day--came from the west and swept the smoke away seaward, exposing to the full view of the Americans the advancing columns of the enemy, who fired as they approached, but with little execution. Colonels Brener, Nixon, and Buckminster were wounded, and Major Moore was killed. As before, the Americans reserved their fire until the British were within the prescribed distance, when they poured forth their leaden hail with such sure aim and terrible effect that whole ranks of officers and men were slain. General Howe was at the head, and once he was left entirely alone, his aids and all about him having perished. The British line recoiled, and gave way in several parts, and it required the utmost exertion in all the remaining officers, from the generals down to the subalterns, to repair the disorder which this hot and unexpected fire had produced. All their efforts were at first fruitless, and the troops retreated in great disorder to the shore.