Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 1.djvu/217

 NEW HAMPSHIRE MEN AT BUNKFR HILL AND BENNINGTON. 209

��NEW HAMPSHIBE MEN AT BUNKEB HILL AND BENNINGTON

��BY PROF. E. D. SANBORN.

��Dr. Belknap, who wrote his history of New Hampshire near the time of the Revolutionary war and published it in 1791, says : " On the first alarm about twelve hundred men marched from the nearest parts of New Hampshire to join their brethren, who had assembled in arms about Boston. Of these some re- turned; others formed themselves into two regiments, under the authority of the Massachusetts Convention." These regiments, under the command of John Stark and James Reed, were among the bravest fighters on Bunker Hill.

The population of New Hampshire in 1775 is supposed by Dr. Belknap to have been about eighty-two thousand two hundred. From this number of inhabi- tants the Provincial Congress of New Hampshire raised three regiments, con- taining, in all, two thousand men. Each of these regiments, when full, contained at least six hundred and sixty-six men. In the Provincial Papers, edited by Dr. Bouton, we find a Return of Col. Reed's regiment on the fourteenth of June, 1775, amounting to six hundred thirty-seven men. Of these one hundred and forty- nine were unfit for duty. We may rea- sonably suppose that additions were made to this number by new enlistments before the day of battle. I do not find a Return of Stark's regiment. He was unanimously elected Colonel, by hand ▼ote, of a regiment formed at Medford, Mass., where the New Hampshire volun- teers had assembled. The regiment had ten or twelve companies. The exact number is not stated. But doubtless Stark's regiment was much larger than Reed's, for the people followed him with great enthusiasm and delighted to serve under him. In a letter written by Gen. Stark, on the nineteenth of June, he says: a In the morning [of the day of battle] I was required to send two hun-

��dred men, with officers," to the aid of Col. Prescott. iS About two o'clock in the afternoon, express orders came for the whole of my regiment to proceed to Charlestown to oppose the enemy who were landing on Charlestown point."

The number of killed, wounded and missing of his regiment was sixty; in Reed's regiment, thirty-three; total, ninety-three. We infer that Stark's reg- iment was much the largest of the two. Says Bancroft, " Col. John Stark, next to Prescott, brought the largest number of men into the field." At the com- mencement of the action, Prescott's men had diminished to seven or eight hun- dred. Bancroft concludes that not more than fifteen hundred men participated in the tight; if so, a majority must have been from New Hampshire, for Stark's regiment alone so crippled a regiment of Welsh fusileers, consisting of seven hun- dred men, that on the next day only eighty-three were fit for duty. If Stark's regiment alone disabled six hundred and seventeen out of one thousand and fifty- four of the British troops killed and wounded, the larger part of the fighting must have been done by New Hampshire men; and they, too, must have constitut- ed the larger part of the troops fit for service. According to contemporary records, "no one appeared to have any command but Col. Prescott;" and he gave no orders to New Hampshire men. Gen. Pomeroy fought as a private with the Connecticut men, and when the men left their position " he walked back- wards, facing the enemy and brandish- ing his musket, till it was struck and marked by a ball." The main body of American troops had left the hill before Knowlton, with the men from Connecti- cut, and Stark, with his heroic band from New Hampshire, who had twice repulsed the Veterans of Minden, led off their sol-

�� �