six feet high, standing where overnight there had been nothing but smooth pasture land. The ships lost no time in opening fire, and the colonists, unable to reply to our big guns, were growing unsteady when Prescott hoisted himself on to the parapet where, under a heavy but ill-directed cannonade he sauntered up and down, giving directions to his working parties and encouraging those men whose courage was not as steadfast as his own. With such an example before them none of the militia flinched; the redoubt grew apace, and was practically finished before the troops in Boston were ready to attack it. But though Prescott had every reason to be satisfied with the temper and industry of his detachment, his situation was a desperate one, and had Gage availed himself of all the resources at his command, not one of the twelve hundred adventurers would have made his way back to the provincial camps. The British had command of the bay; vessels of light draught could sail close to any part of the peninsula; the isthmus, the only possible line of retreat for the Americans, was low, sandy, and less than two hundred yards in width. Gage could have landed behind the entrenchments, and have attacked the Americans simultaneously in front and rear; he could have cut off their retreat and starved them into surrender by fortifying himself upon the isthmus, or by stationing gunboats on either side of it, he could have made it absolutely impassable by cross fire. These schemes were suggested to him, but neither he nor any of the British army were in the mood for scientific fighting, and he decided to regain the prestige lost at Concord and Lexington by a direct frontal attack upon Breed’s Hill.[78] Four complete battalions and twenty flank companies, including the grenadiers and light infantry of the Royal Irish, were rowed across to the Charlestown peninsula--the right wing under General Pigot was composed of the provisional battalion of light infantry, the 38th and 43rd regiments; in the left wing were the provisional battalion of grenadiers, the 5th and 52nd regiments, commanded by General Howe. While the troops were landing on ground well out of range of the Americans the officers had time to study the position they were to carry. It was a strong one: a gentle slope, covered with long grass and cut up by a series of fences calculated to throw advancing troops into disorder, led up to the redoubt and to a breastwork, which ran for a hundred yards towards the enemy’s left. Between the end of this breastwork and the sea was a gap, held by a detachment posted at the foot of Bunker’s Hill, where the only cover was a low stone wall, on which hay was piled to give it additional height. The total frontage occupied was about six hundred yards, defended when the fight began by fifteen hundred men and six pieces of artillery.[79] The British brought between two thousand and two thousand five hundred troops into the field, for in addition to the