The council of war at Cambridge was meanwhile directing new works to be constructed, strengthening and stretching their lines of circumvallation. Its opinions were divided on the question of occupying so exposed a position as the most prominent eminence on the peninsula of Charlestown, the defence of which might bring on a general engagement, which their stock of powder could not support. On the 13th of June the American commanders had secretly learned that Gage intended on the 18th to take possession of Dorchester Heights, the present South Boston. There was but one counter-move to make, and that was to seize in anticipation the summit of the ridgy height which began at Charlestown Neck and extended, in varying outline, to the seaward end of the peninsula,—an eminence known as Bunker Hill. On the 16th of June, a council of war, held in the house near Cambridge common, known then as the Hastings and later as the Holmes House,[405] decided, upon the recommendation of the Committee of Safety, to occupy Bunker Hill at once. [Illustration: ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE OF SAFETY. This has before appeared in G. A. Coolidge's _Brochure of Bunker Hill_, 1875.] That evening about 1,200 men, of whom 200 were from Connecticut under Thomas Knowlton, the whole being under the command of Colonel William Prescott, first listened to a prayer of the president of the college, and then marched, with their intrenching tools, in the darkness, to Charlestown Neck. [Illustration] Here the purpose was for the first time disclosed to the men. They resumed their march, going up the slope of the hill before them, while Nutting's company and a few Connecticut men were sent along the shore opposite Boston, to patrol it. The highest summit of the hill was the one first reached; but, after a consultation, it was decided to proceed to a lower one, more nearly before Boston. Here Richard Gridley marked out a redoubt, and at midnight the men took their spades and began to throw up the breastworks. Putnam, who seems to have accompanied Prescott, now returned to Cambridge, and while the men worked busily, Prescott sent an additional patrol to the river, and twice went down himself, to be satisfied, as he heard the "All's well" of the watch on the men-of-war moored opposite, that no noise of the intrenching tools had reached the enemy. Soon after the first glimmer of dawn on the 17th, the sailors on the ships discovered the embankments, now about six feet high, when one of the vessels, the "Lively", at once opened fire upon them. This lasted only till Admiral Graves could send orders to cease, but was shortly renewed from the ships and from the batteries on Copp's Hill, in Boston, as soon as the British generals comprehended the situation. Prescott's men meanwhile kept at their work. One man was soon killed by a cannon-ball. The commander and others walked the parapet, encouraging their men, and Willard, one of the councillors