Prescott.” The author gives no explanation of Lee’s words, nor does he claim that they mean any thing more than Prescott’s command of his detachment and the redoubt on Breed’s Hill. Lee quotes no authority, and was no authority himself. He knew nothing about the battle. His ignorance was so gross, that he says the Americans had no artillery. Lee states, however, that Prescott received no promotion in the army of the United Colonies. It is impossible, then, that he could have been the commander of the battle. Judge Tudor throws no light on the subject: he says, “There was no authorized commander; Col. Prescott appeared to have been the chief;” “the whole business appeared to have been conducted without order, or regular command.” Our author adds the words of Col. Prescott’s son: “Neither Gen. Putnam nor any other officer ever exercised or claimed any authority or command over Col. Prescott, or the detachment, before or in the battle.” It follows not that they had no right to do so. The author attributes to Col. Scammans an anonymous note in a newspaper, written perhaps by the editor, saying, “As there was no general officer who commanded on Bunker Hill, was it not Whitcomb’s duty to have been there?” This probably meant early in the day when Scammans met Whitcomb, and Putnam was not on the hill. But the author omits to mention here, that in the same paper it appears from witnesses under oath, and not denied, that Scammans, during the battle, sent to Gen. Putnam, at Bunker Hill, to see if he was wanted, and that his regiment went to the top of Bunker Hill; “after which Gen. Putnam came up, and ordered the regiment to advance within hearing of Col. Scammans.”[2] We have gone through Mr. Frothingham’s list of authorities; and in the whole of them there is not the shadow of an excuse for his conclusion, “that no general officer was authorized to command over Prescott during the battle.” But, if these authorities were trumpet–tongued in support of his conclusion, it would remain one of those things which no evidence can prove. The author is dealing with hard characters: Ward, Warren, Putnam, and Prescott, are not rag babies, that an historian may bend and distort according to his fancy. The whole kingdom of Great Britain could not bend one of them. Yet, if this story be true, Ward, a stickler for the authority and dignity of officers according to their rank, imposed on Warren and Putnam the insulting restriction of fighting the battle, shorn of half their authority and command; and these high–spirited and gallant heroes submitted to so ignominious a condition. Still worse; they no sooner arrive on the field than they deny their own agreement. Warren, in a shuffling answer to Prescott, implies his right to the command, and makes a merit of foregoing it in favor of so distinguished a veteran; while Putnam not only disavows his agreement, but has the atrocious folly to attempt to bully such an