Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/139

A.D. 1775.]

The English—now augmented to about two thousand men—marched on. There were several ways of ascending the hill, the best of which was to have landed in the rear of the American entrenchment, where the hill was easiest of ascent, and where the enemy had no batteries; the very worst was in front of the intrenchments, and where the hill was steepest, and most exposed to the fire of the camp above, and that of the riflemen in Charlestown. The English officers, as if perfectly demented, took the most arduous and destructive way. They advanced up the hill, formed in two lines, the right headed by general Howe, the left by brigadier Pigott. The left was immediately severely galled by the riflemen posted in the houses and on the roofs of Charlestown, and Howe instantly halted and ordered the left wing to advance and set fire to the town. This was soon executed, and the wooden buildings of Charlestown were speedily in a blaze, and the whole place burnt to the ground. Howe halted the right line till this was done; and Burgoyne, watching the scene from Boston, afterwards thus described it in a letter to lord Stanley, his brother-in-law: "Now ensued one of the greatest scenes of war that can be conceived. If we looked to the height, Howe's corps, ascending the hill in the face of entrenchments, and in very disadvantageous ground, was much engaged; to the left, the enemy pouring in fresh troops by thousands over the land; and, on the arm of the sea, our ships and floating batteries cannonading them. Straight before us, a large and noble town in one great blaze, and the church-steeples, being timber, were great pyramids of fire above the rest; behind us, the church-steeples and heights of our own camp covered with spectators of the rest of our army which was engaged; the hills round the country also covered with spectators; the enemy all in anxious suspense; the roar of cannons, mortars, and musketry; the crash of churches, ships upon the stocks, and whole streets falling together, to fill the ear; the storm of the redoubts, with the other objects, to fill the eye; and the reflection that, perhaps, a defeat was a final loss to the British empire in America, to fill the mind; made the whole a picture, and a complication of horror and importance beyond anything that ever came to my lot to witness."

The Americans reserved their fire till the English were nearly at the entrenchments, when they opened with such a deadly discharge of cannon and musketry as astonished and perplexed the British. The musketry continued one unintermitted blaze, for the men in the rear handed up to the front loaded guns as fast as the others were discharged. The English lines, amid smoke and slaughter, were swept back, numbers of the Americans shouting, in memory of past taunts, "Well, are the Yankees cowards?" Most of the men and the staff standing around general Howe were killed, and he stood for a moment almost alone. Some of the newer troops never stopped till they reached the bottom of the hill. To add to the misery of the soldiers, they were oppressed by their knapsacks, loaded with three days' provisions, with their muskets, one hundred and twenty-five pounds weight! though only about to scale a hill in face of their own camp, and should have been as lightly equipped as possible. This stupid management and the broiling sun doubled the arduous labour of climbing a rugged steep, up to the knees in grass, and amongst inclosures.

The officers, however, speedily rallied the broken lines, and led them a second time against the murderous batteries. But here was discovered one of those disastrous pieces of mismanagement which so often disgrace our service. The balls sent from the ordnance department at Boston were too large for the field-pieces, and they were useless! Against the artillery and musketry of the Americans our men had only muskets to return the fire with. A second time they gave way. But general Clinton, seeing the unequal strife, without waiting for orders, and attended by a number of resolute officers, hastened across the water in boats, and, rallying the fugitives, led them a third time up the hill. By this time the fire of the Americans began to slacken, for their powder was failing, and the English, wearied as they were, rushed up the hill, and carried the entrenchments at the point of the bayonet. There was a loud hurrah, and