=169. Bunker Hill and the Lesson it taught.=--In less than three hours, and with only one hour of actual fighting, all these fearful scenes were enacted. The Americans, with about fifteen hundred men, lost four hundred and fifty killed and wounded. But the British, with over three thousand, had lost one thousand and fifty-four, of whom one hundred and fifty-seven were officers! Although in form the result of the battle was a defeat, as our army lost their ground, yet its effect upon the Americans was that of a victory. It taught them that they were a match for the British troops in a fair fight. This knowledge nerved them to further resistance against royal oppression. Thus this battle, the first clear bugle-call of the Revolution, proving beyond all doubt that the British troops were not invincible, was worth just at this time many decided victories to the Americans. To the patriots of every colony it gave strength and heart, and the belief that their cause would succeed. In the march of events and of ideas Bunker Hill was of momentous importance. It gave the shock that made the patriots conscious of their might; it cleared their vision and roused them to action. When Washington first heard of the battle he was riding on horseback to take command of the army at Cambridge. "Did our men stand fire?" he asked of the messenger. Being told that they did, and that they waited till the enemy was only eight rods off, he said, "The liberties of the country are safe!" But if the Americans learned that they could fight, the British learned it too! General Gage wrote home: "The trials we have had prove the rebels are not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be." "If they call that a victory," said a French general, "two or three more such would extinguish the British army." "I wish," said General Greene, "that we could sell the British another hill at the same price." After Gage had made his formal report of the battle to his superior officers in England, he was called back in disgrace, and was never entrusted with another military service. Generals Howe and Clinton learned a costly lesson, and never again through the war that followed did they lead their men in an open field against entrenched American soldiers. Such, briefly told, is the story of Bunker Hill. The truth is, the whole movement was on the part of the Americans an audacious act. There was more heroism in it than military prudence. General Ward had at Cambridge only a few barrels of powder for his entire army; and to send a thousand men to entrench before a well prepared enemy, in front of batteries and warships, though it needed to be done, was yet, from a military point of view, a very rash act. On the other hand, General Gage made a very unwise military movement. No wonder he was censured for the reckless sacrifice of his soldiers at Bunker Hill.