The dress parade movement of the first advance was not repeated. A
contest between equals was at hand. Victory or ruin was the alternative
for those who so proudly issued from the Boston barracks at sunrise for
the suppression of pretentious rebellion. Knapsacks were thrown aside.
British veterans stripped for fight. Not a single regiment of those
engaged had passed such a fearful ordeal in its whole history as a
single hour had witnessed. The power of discipline, the energy of
experienced commanders, and the pressure of honored antecedents,
combined to make the movement as trying as it was momentous.
The Americans were no less under a solemn responsibility. At the
previous attack, some loaded while others fired, so that the expenditure
of powder was great, almost exhaustive. The few remaining cannon
cartridges were economically distributed. There was no longer a
possibility of reinforcements. The fire from the shipping swept the
isthmus. There were less than fifty bayonets to the entire command.
During the afternoon Ward sent his own regiment, as well as Patterson's
and Gardner's, but few men reached the actual front in time to share in
the last resistance. Gardner did, indeed, reach Bunker Hill to aid
Putnam in establishing a second line on that summit, but fell in the
discharge of the duty. Febiger, previously conspicuous at Quebec, and
afterward at Stony Point, gathered a portion of Gerrishe's regiment, and
reached the redoubt in time to share in the final struggle; but the
other regiments, without their fault, were too late.
At this time, Putnam seemed to appreciate the full gravity of the
crisis, and made the most of every available resource to concentrate a
reserve for a second defence, but in vain.
Prescott, within the redoubt, at once recognized the method of the
British advance. The wheel of the British artillery to the left after it
passed the line of the redoubt, secured to it an enfilading fire, which
insured the reduction of the redoubt and cut off retreat. There was no
panic at that hour of supreme peril. The order to reserve fire until the
enemy was within twenty yards was obediently regarded, and it was not
until a pressure upon three faces of the redoubt forced the last issue,
that the defenders poured forth one more destructive volley. A single
cannon cartridge was distributed for the final effort, and then, with
clubbed guns and the nerve of desperation, the slow retreat began,
contesting, man to man and inch by inch. Warren fell, shot through the
head, in the mouth of the fort.
The battle was not quite over, even then. Jackson rallied Gardner's men
on Bunker Hill, and with three companies of Ward's regiment and
Febiger's party, so covered the retreat as to save half of the garrison.
The New Hampshire troops of Stark and Reed, with Colt's and Chester's
companies, still held the fence line clear to the river, and covered the
escape of Prescott's command until the last cartridge had been expended,
and then their deliberate, well-ordered retreat bore testimony alike to
their virtue and valor.