Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 6 (of 8): The United States of North America, Part I
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 6 (of 8): The United States of North America, Part I
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
The chief enumerations which have been heretofore made of the plans
of the battle of Bunker Hill are by Frothingham, in _Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc._, xiv. 53; by Hunnewell in his _Bibliog. of Charlestown_, p. 17;
and by Winsor in the _Mem. Hist. of Boston_, iii. (introduction). The
earliest rude sketches are by Stiles in his diary (Dawson, p. 393),
and one formed by printer's rules in _Rivington's Gazetteer_, Aug. 3,
1775 (Frothingham's _Siege_, p. 397, and Dawson, p. 390). Montresor, of
the British engineers, very soon made a survey of the field, and this
was used by Lieutenant Page in drawing a plan of the action, which he
carried to England with him when, on account of wounds received while
acting as an aid to Howe, he was given leave of absence (_Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc._, June, 1875, p. 56). In the Faden collection (nos. 25-30)
of maps in the library of Congress there are Page's rough and finished
plans, drawn before the British works on the hill were begun, and also
plans by Montresor and R. W., of the Welsh Fusiliers. Page's plan,
as engraved, was issued in London in 1776, and called _A Plan of the
Action at Bunker's Hill_.[575]
Page's, however, was not the first engraved. One "by an officer on
the spot" was published in London, Nov. 27, 1775, called _Plan of
the battle on Bunker's Hill. Fought on the 17th of June_, which was
issued as a broadside, with Burgoyne's letter to Lord Stanley on the
same sheet. The central position of the Americans is called "Warren's
redoubt." This is reproduced in F. Moore's _Ballad History of the
Revolution_.
Another contemporary British plan—discovered probably "in the baggage
of a British officer", after the royal troops left Boston in March,
1776, but not brought to light till forty years later, when it was
mentioned in a newspaper in Wilkesbarre, Penn., as having been found in
an old drawer—was one made by Henry de Bernière, of the Tenth Royal
Infantry, on nearly the same scale as Page's, but less accurately.
[Illustration: BOSTON AND BUNKER HILL.
(_Impartial History_, _etc._, 1781.) ]
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