This week marks the 250th Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. On the grassy heights above the blazing inferno that had been Charlestown, Massachusetts, patriot militia clashed with British regulars in what would become the bloodiest battle in the War for Independence. Held up as a shining example of patriotic heroism, military courage, and tremendous personal sacrifice, there is an even deeper truth to be discovered.

Namely, that this conflict was viewed by most patriot participants through a biblical lens, shaped by spiritual conviction, and sustained by prayers and sermons from their ministers. They believed their struggle was not merely a political disagreement, but a sacred cause ordained by God. The untold story of the Battle of Bunker Hill is that it represents yet another powerful testament to the inseparable connection between faith and patriotism.

Prelude to Battle

In June of 1775, patriot militia companies continued their vigil surrounding British-occupied Boston. Having just completed a successful operation on Noddle and Hog Islands near the end of May, General Israel Putnam was still bruising for a bigger battle with the British. Putnam urged the council to consider retaking the remains of a redoubt on Bunker Hill and fortifying it against any British advance. Commander of the New England Provincial Militia, General Artemas Ward, and Dr. Joseph Warren, president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, were opposed to “Old Put’s” bold proposal: “as they had no powder to spare, and no battering cannon, it would be idle to make approaches on to the town.”

After Putnam continued to offer argument in favor of a more assertive action to continue their momentum, Dr. Warren got up, paced across the room several times, stopped to lean over the back of his chair for a few moments in thought, then responded with an allusion to King Agrippa’s reply to the Apostle Paul’s presentation of the gospel (Acts 26:28). He remarked, “Almost thou persuadest me, General Putnam; but I must still think the project a rash one. Nevertheless, if the project be adopted, and the strife becomes hard, you must not be surprised to find me near you in the midst of it.”^[i] His words proved prophetic.

A couple of weeks later on June 12, British Military Governor General Thomas Gage and his committee of three battlefield commanders — Generals William Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne — met in a council of war and devised a bold threefold strategy to break out of Boston: 1) fortify Dorchester Heights with an artillery battery and move on the rebel militia in Roxbury to the southwest, 2) attack patriot militia positions northwest of Boston in Charlestown and take the Peninsula, which included Bunker Hill, and then 3) take both elements of the army from the north and south, push westward and converge on the mass of patriot forces in Cambridge, many of whom were currently camped out on Harvard yard. The military operation was to begin on Sunday, June 18.

Providentially, patriot intelligence got wind of Gage’s designs, and the reticent General Artemas Ward agreed with his war council that patriot forces must check a British move against the Charlestown peninsula and establish their own redoubt on Bunker Hill, fortified with soldiers and artillery pieces acquired from the Diana.^[ii] On June 14, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress appointed Dr. Warren as a Major General under Ward’s command.[iii] While Putnam finally got the forward action he was hoping for, Ward issued orders to Massachusetts Colonel William Prescott to lead about 1,200 men in the operation.

Prescott was a six-foot tall, muscular 49-year-old veteran of the French and Indian War (or Seven Years War). After the harbor was blockaded by Gage the year prior, Prescott, who was of Puritan descent and deeply respected, had led the men of Pepperell to write in support of the Boston patriots suffering privations under martial law:

“Be not dismayed [Isa. 41:10] nor disheartened in this day of great trials. We heartily sympathize with you, and are always ready to do all in our power for your support, comfort, and relief; knowing that Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock. We consider we are all embarked in one bottom [i.e., boat], and must sink or swim together. We think if we submit to these regulations, all is gone. Our forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure, that they might enjoy their liberties, both civil and religious, and transmit them to their posterity. Their children have waded through seas of difficulty, to leave us free and happy in the enjoyment of English privileges. Now if we should give them up, can our children rise up and call us blessed [Prov. 31:28]? Is a glorious death in defence of our liberties better than a short infamous life, and our memories to be had in detestation to the latest posterity? Let us all be of one heart [Acts 4:32], and stand fast in the liberties wherewith Christ has made us free [Gal. 5:1]; and may he of his infinite mercy grant us deliverance out of all our troubles [Ps. 54:7].”^[iv]

William Prescott had encouraged the patriots in Boston with words inspired by the Scriptures, urging them to “stand fast” in the defense of their Christian liberty. Now he was about to lead by example.

On the evening of Friday, June 16, Prescott’s regiments were to be equipped with trenching tools and quietly march across the narrows onto the Charlestown Peninsula and up Bunker Hill. There they were to begin creating an earthenware redoubt overnight. Colonel Richard Gridley, who was in charge of the artillery company for the provincial forces, was assigned to oversee construction as chief engineer. Corporal Amos Farnsworth was also assigned to be part of the operation, writing in his journal: “[T]he afternoon we had orders to be redy to march At Six. Agreable to Orders our Regiment Preadid and about Sun-set we was Drawn up and herd Prayers.” In fact, it was the president of Harvard, Rev. Dr. Samuel Langdon, who gathered the regiment under the elms and prayed fervently over the men for their safety and for their success.[v] Farnsworth continues: “And about Dusk Marched for Bunkers hill; under Command of our own Col Prescott.”

Prescott, in his blue coat and tri-cornered hat, marched at the head, with two sergeants a few paces ahead of him with dark lanterns, and the carts of trenching tools trailing the men, who were charged with maintaining strict silence. Yet when they reached the road to Bunker Hill, Farnsworth and 60 men were pulled off in a detachment down to Charlestown to serve as sentries at the water’s edge while the rest continued on to the heights.^[vi]

When Prescott and his men arrived at the top of Bunker Hill, Putnam and Gridley met with him, conferred for about 30 minutes, and a decision was ultimately made to descend Bunker Hill and proceed down to what is now known as Breed’s Hill about 40 feet lower but closer to and in full view of British occupied Boston. While Gridley staked out the plan for the fortification, the men took off their packs, stacked their muskets, and the trenching tools were distributed, and they began to work as quietly as possible.

At midnight, church bells chimed the hour and bells aboard the warships replied, and Prescott’s men could hear the sailors on watch call out: “All’s well.” So, the workers continued through the night under starry skies. Under Gridley’s supervision, they constructed an earthenware redoubt that was about six feet high and roughly 132 feet square. Suspecting the British would try to flank them to the north, Prescott sent out patrols and ultimately decided to extend breastworks from the redoubt toward the shores of the Mystic River.

Battle of Bunker Hill

Unfortunately, the muffled noise of the patriot militiamen using their trenching tools became more noticeable as morning approached on June 17. In the first rosy light of dawn around 4 a.m., a sentry on the HMS Lively discovered their activity, and the frigate was the first to fire their cannon on the patriot position. Soon, every British ship of the line joined in as well as the artillery battery on Copps Hill over Boston. Thus began the Battle of Bunker Hill.

With the thunderous cannon fire, Gage quickly convened his war council and devised their battle plans. Meanwhile, the British continued cannonading the patriots on Breed’s Hill, pounding their hilltop position. Yet the militiamen kept working since they were protected by their earthen redoubt. So, despite the thunderous sound of artillery and with cannon balls sailing overhead or pounding the hilltop near them, Prescott’s men continued to strengthen the intrenchments, adding platforms to stand on when they needed to open fire on the approaching enemy. Work continued on the extension of a breastwork northward in anticipation of a British flanking attack.

However, during the British barrage, Private Asa Pollard exposed himself and was instantly decapitated by a cannonball fired from the HMS Somerset. Prescott graphically recounts: “He was so near me that my clothes were be-smeared with his blood and brains, which I wiped off in some degree with a handful of fresh earth.”[vii] Not surprisingly, this shocking event rattled the men, who left their posts to view his headless corpse. Prescott ordered him to be buried instantly to remove the distraction. Prescott recounts that a subordinate officer expressed surprise that he would allow Pollard to be buried without having prayers said. So he replied: “This is the first man that has been killed, and the only one that will be buried to-day… God only knows who or how many of us will fall before it is over. To your post, my good fellow, and let each man do his duty!”[viii]

Yet one of the chaplains attached to Prescott’s regiments, Rev. Joseph Thaxter, who was present at the Battle of Concord, immediately stepped forward and began conducting a brief funeral service in the midst of enemy cannon fire. After Prescott ordered the men to disperse under threat of further shelling, Thaxter subsequently reassembled the men to finish the battlefield burial. Such devotion in the face of danger revealed the chaplain’s sense of divine duty and his care for these men. Colonel Samuel Swett reports of Thaxter: “When the patriotic priest found that his professional services were out of place, he bravely buckled on the armor of flesh, volunteered as a soldier in the ranks, and fought with distinguished bravery.” [ix] In fact, Thaxter was later wounded in this battle. Consequently, this chaplain’s courage under fire became legendary.

By 9 a.m., it became apparent that the British were preparing to send ground troops from Boston. Prescott had put in a request to Ward for supplies since they were exhausting their water and food, as well as reinforcements to relieve the men who were exhausted from working all night on the redoubt. While his men did not get relieved, Ward reluctantly sent reinforcements, first Captain Thomas Knowlton and his Connecticut company, then Colonels John Stark and James Reed from New Hampshire. Knowlton put his men to work on extending the makeshift breastwork, half of stone, two confiscated fence rails on top, and stuffed with hay. Together with the New Hampshire companies, they extended this defensive wall all the way northward to the Mystic River in the event of a British flanking maneuver. This preparation proved providential.

During all the chaos of artillery fire pounding all around them, Prescott noticed he was losing a few of his men who were retreating toward Bunker Hill. To bolster the bravery of the remaining men, Prescott demonstrated a bit of his own. He climbed up the earthen walls and walked the parapet calmly under fire, inspecting the works, giving directions to the officers, encouraging the men or amusing them with humor. Courage begets courage, and Prescott’s bold actions achieved the desired effect. The men soon became either indifferent or even cheered at the cannon balls that were fired all around them.

Meanwhile, as the Copps Hill battery was bombarding the patriot position, British General Gage noticed a commanding figure boldly walking on the parapet while the cannon balls flew, so he asked Colonel Abijah Willard to identify the officer. Willard admitted that the man was Colonel William Prescott, his brother-in-law, and that he was sorry to see him there. Gage queried: “Will he fight?” “Yes,” replied Willard, “he is an old soldier; he will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins; it will be a bloody day, you may depend on it.” Gage concluded: “The works must be carried.”[x]

By noon, the temperature was soaring, and the heat and humidity soon made for sweltering battlefield conditions. Some 2,200 Redcoats — General Howe’s light infantry and grenadiers and General Robert Pigot’s line battalions — had waited for high tide and crossed the Charles River aboard barges and landed at Moulton Point about 1 p.m. unmolested. During this critical time, Howe decided to allow his men to eat lunch and hydrate before their advance on the patriot positions. That delay allowed the Connecticut and New Hampshire companies to continue their defenses on the left flank down to the shore of the Mystic River.

During this time, Putnam was seen fearlessly riding up and down the patriot defensive positions, despite artillery fire landing around him, encouraging the men. Putnam was also collecting a trickle of incoming reinforcements from Cambridge who had dodged cannon fire trained on the Charlestown neck, and made it up to Bunker Hill, where they were beginning work on another redoubt as a fallback position.[xi]

One of the reinforcements who arrived was none other than the newly minted Major General Joseph Warren, who volunteered to join the battle like any militiaman. Putnam tried to dissuade Warren: “I wish you had taken my advice and left this day to us, for, from appearances, we shall have a sharp time of it.” Warren insisted, so Putnam directed him to the redoubt: “That is the enemy’s object; Prescott is there and will do his duty, and if it can be defended the day will be ours.” Dr. Warren entered the redoubt to cheers from the men and he submitted to Prescott’s command.[xii]

About 2 p.m., the British began their firebombing of Charlestown to clear the town of patriot snipers who were firing on the British. Reportedly caught in the crossfire was Rev. John Martin, who was trying to persuade the remaining reluctant residents to evacuate Charlestown.[xiii] He recounted to the Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles of Yale that when he entered a house for a drink of water, a cannonball crashed into the building, leveling it around him. Yet by the grace of God, Rev. Martin survived and went on to fight in the battle.[xiv]

Tragically, that once vibrant town of about 400 mostly wooden buildings was shelled with hotshot and immediately burst into flames. As the colonial defenders watched from their hilltop position and spectators watched from their rooftops in Boston, flames rose from Charlestown’s homes and shops. Most dramatic was the burning of the town’s church building. Its steeple, once a landmark of faith and hope, fell in a pillar of fire and smoke, a spectacle witnessed by both sides. While the steeple came crashing down, the flames rose higher and smoke billowed up and filled the sky with an angry orange and black hue, which gave the battle an almost apocalyptic backdrop.

As the British light infantry and grenadier divisions collected and prepared for their first assault, Putnam continued his ride up and down the patriot defenses, shouting staccato-style orders, such as “Powder is scarce and must not be wasted.” “Fire low.” “Take aim at the waistbands.” “You are all marksmen and could kill a squirrel at a hundred yards.” “Reserve your fire and the enemy will all be destroyed.” “Aim at the handsome coats.” “Pick off the commanders.”[xv]

At 3 p.m., the British ground attack began. General Howe himself commanded the fifth regiment, one of grenadiers and another of light infantry, approaching the patriots’ left flank along the narrow beach toward the patriots behind the defensive fence line. General Pigot commanded the 53rd regiment, which advanced slowly uphill toward the hilltop redoubt and breastworks. The British troops, marching in their resplendent red regalia, began their first advance in tight formation. As the enemy approached, Prescott reportedly gave the now-famous command: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”[xvi] The Massachusetts patriots in the redoubt held fire until the enemy was within 30 yards, then unleashed a coordinated musket volley that decimated Pigot’s front lines.

At the same time, Colonel John Stark, who had put stakes in the ground some 30 yards from their defensive positions, ordered his men to hold fire until Howe’s forces reached the mark. When they did, the Connecticut and New Hampshire companies at the shoreline fence unleashed a withering musket volley, felling Howe’s front line of redcoats. Both British advances were stopped. As the cloud of smoke began to clear, the ground was littered with the dead, the wounded, and the dying. Consequently, the British were forced to retreat and regroup.

Meanwhile, another chaplain, Rev. David Avery, a convert under the preaching of Great Awakening preacher George Whitefield, witnessed the battle and the raging inferno down in Charlestown from the heights of Bunker Hill. Avery records in his diary:

“I stood … with hands uplifted, supplicating the blessing of Heaven to crown our unworthy arms with success. To us infantile Americans, unused to the thunder and carnage of battle, the flames of Charlestown before our eyes — the incessant play of cannon from their shipping — from Boston, and their wings in various cross directions, together with the terrors of the field, exhibiting a scene most awful and tremendous, but amid the perils of the dread encounter the Lord was our rock and fortress…”[xvii]

Similarly, Rev. Samuel McClintock, pastor in Greenland, New Hampshire, was attached to Stark’s regiment. He positioned himself within sight of the action but out of the line of fire, standing with arms stretched toward Heaven in the ancient posture of prayer throughout the battle. Indeed, Rev. McClintock is portrayed by Jonathan Trumbull in the famous painting of the battle. Like Moses of old, who stood on the hill and held up his hands that Joshua might smite the Amalekites, even so Chaplains Avery and McClintock lifted their hands in prayer to the Lord of Hosts. Yet Samuel McClintock made an even greater sacrifice, “sending four sons to the army, one only returned to experience the hard-won blessings of Liberty.”[xviii]

By 3:45 p.m., the British had reformed their ranks, then sent a second wave along the same twofold lines of attack under Howe and Pigot. Yet again, patriot forces fired with deadly accuracy and devastating effect. Colonel Swett recounts how: “The British were mowed down in ranks.”[xix] Once again, the British advance was staggered and stopped, and their broken formations retreated. For a moment, it appeared the patriot positions might be held indefinitely, except for one critical factor: They were running frighteningly low on gunpowder.

At 4:30 p.m., Howe called up the 47th Regiment of Marines, directed the men to shed their heavy packs, and fix their bayonets. Howe also consolidated and tightened their formations into a focused assault on the redoubt and breastwork, feinting a move against the fence line but converging at the hilltop. By this time, Prescott’s forces, which began with 1,200, were now just over a hundred men. Once again, the patriots held their fire, but they were overwhelmed. The patriots, out of gunpowder, resorted to musket butts, hand-to-hand combat, and even stones.

Some, like Prescott, were able to evade the British bayonets by parrying them away with his ceremonial sword, and escape under Stark and Reed’s covering fire. Others did not make it out alive. Tragically, Dr. Joseph Warren fought heroically to the end and was killed. Forensic evidence shows that Warren was shot in the face with a pistol, below his left eye, execution style. His body was stripped, effects were stolen, his remains mutilated, and summarily buried in a mass grave. Later, his body was exhumed and identified by Paul Revere, who had constructed Dr. Warren’s dental work. Ultimately recovered were some of his letters and the Psalm Book he brought with him to the battle in the inner pocket of his greatcoat.

The redoubt was ultimately taken, and with it Bunker Hill, but at a tremendous cost for the British, who endured staggering casualties of nearly half their force — double that of the patriots. Again, it was the bloodiest battle of the War for Independence. Amos Farnsworth, wounded during the retreat, recorded in his diary: “I received a wound in my right arm... another ball struck my back... But I got to Cambridge that night.” And then, in prayerful reflection: “Oh the goodness of God in Preserving my life Althoe thay fell on my Right hand and on my left [Ps. 91:7]: O may this act of Deliverance of thine oh God lead me never to Distrust the, but may I Ever trust in the and put Confodence in no Arm of flesh [Jer. 17:5; Phil. 3:3].”[xx] His words, like the chaplains’ prayers and the commanders’ convictions, remind us that the battle was fought on two fronts: one physical but the other deeply spiritual.

Indeed, one surviving soldier dedicated his life to the Lord. Francis Merrifield of Ipswich, Massachusetts, inscribed the following note inside this Bible: “Cambridge June 17, 1775. I desire to bless God for his Kind aperince [appearance] in delivering me and sparing my life in the late battle fought on Bunker’s Hill. I desire to devote this spared life to His glory and honour. In witness my hand, Francis Merrifield.” Merrifield and other Ipswich men were among the last to leave the battlefield that day.

Aftermath and Legacy

The Sunday morning after the battle, Bunker Hill was held by the British. It was a ruin of cannonball-cratered earth, blood-soaked grass, and an ugly mass grave. While American fortitude in defeat was admired by the British, the patriots were not satisfied with the admiration of the enemy. For in the pulpits across New England, a new kind of battle cry was rising — not one of despair, but of rededication. Rev. Ebenezer Baldwin preached in Connecticut, “Let us not betray their blood by shrinking from this present hour. Their ashes cry out from the hill that this land must be free.” Rev. John Martin preached from Nehemiah 4:14: “Be not afraid of them: remember the Lord... and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses.” After the smoke cleared, he resumed preaching with renewed fire, asserting that “the liberties of men must be defended with the same conviction as the gospel — both are entrusted to us by Providence.”[xxi]

When the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument was laid 50 years later, the esteemed individual chosen to offer the prayer was none other than the Rev. Joseph Thaxter, wounded at Bunker Hill, and now aged and limping from his wounds received during the war. His prayer echoed the spirit of that fateful June day:

“O, thou who rulest in the armies of Heaven…We thank thee that, by thy blessing on their endeavours…thou didst animate them with an invincible attachment to religion and liberty… We thank thee that every attempt to infringe our rights and privileges was defeated… that when country was invaded by the armies of the mother country, thou didst raise up…unshaken patriots, who, at the risk of life and fortune, not only defended our country, but raised it to the rank of a nation among the nations of the earth.”[xxii]

The Battle of Bunker Hill emerged not merely as yet another military engagement but as a powerful testament to the inseparable connection between faith and patriotism. While history often recalls the battle for its heroism and bloodshed, beneath the surface burned a deep spiritual resolve for the Americans. Rev. David Avery described it this way: “The cause of liberty is the cause of God... and must prevail.”[xxiii] Consequently, the War for Independence was not merely a struggle for political freedom, but also a sacred duty based on the belief that God Himself had sanctioned their sacrificial efforts.

The memory of Bunker Hill endures not only in a granite monument, but in the grit and determination to “Live Free or Die” as Colonel John Stark later put it. The words and actions of those who fought that day also prove that America’s liberty was not born out of rebellion — but in reverence for Almighty God. In the lives and prayers of the commanders, the chaplains and the soldiers, an enduring spiritual foundation was evident, one that would shape the identity of our new republic for generations to come.

Notes:

[i] Richard Frothingham, Jr., “Life and Times of Joseph Warren” (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1865), 505.

[ii] Richard M. Ketchum, “Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill” (New York: Macmillan, 1999), 91.

[iii] Frothingham, “Warren,” 504.

[iv] As found in George Bancroft, “History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent,” 10 vols., (New York, D. Appleton and Co.,1858), 4:46. Bracketed items added.

[v] Richard Frothingham, Jr. “The Battle of Bunker Hill” (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1890), 18.

[vi] Samuel A. Green, “Amos Farnsworth’s Journal,” “Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1897-1899,” Second Series, vol. 12, (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1897-1899), 83.

[vii] Frothingham, “Battle of Bunker Hill,” 22.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Samuel Swett, “History of Bunker Hill Battle with a Plan” (Boston: Monroe and Francis, 1827), 22-23.

[x] Richard Frothingham, Jr., “The Battle-Field of Bunker Hill with a Relation of the Action by William Prescott, with Illustrations, a Paper Communicated to the Massachusetts Historical Society, June 10, 1875, with Additions” (Cambridge: John Wilson and Son, 1876), 27.

[xi] William Livingstone, “Israel Putnam: Hunter, Ranger, and Major General” (1718-1790), (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901), 222.

[xii] Ibid., 226.

[xiii] See Franklin B. Dexter, ed., “The Diary of Ezra Stiles President of Yale College” (New York: Charles Scribners, 1901), 578.

[xiv] See Parker C. Thompson, “From its European Antecedents to 1791, The United States Army Chaplaincy” (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Chaplains, Department of the Army, 1978), 113.

[xv] Livingstone, “Putnam,” 228.

[xvi] Substantial debate exists about the origin of this famous line. See https://allthingsliberty.com/2020/06/who-said-dont-fire-till-you-see-the-whites-of-their-eyes/

[xvii] John M. Mulder, ed. “The Papers of David Avery, 1746-1818” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, 1979), entry for June 17. See also J.T. Headley, “The Chaplains and Clergy of the Revolution” (New York: Charles Scribner, 1864), 295.

[xviii] Thompson, 113.

[xix] Swett, 34.

[xx] Farnsworth, 84. Bracketed items added.

[xxi] Thompson, 113.

[xxii] Dedicatory Prayer found in William B Sprague, “Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit” (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1865), 83-84.

[xxiii] David Avery, “The Lord Is to Be Praised for the Triumphs of His Power: A Sermon, Preached at Greenwich, in Connecticut, on the 18th of December 1777, Being a General Thanksgiving Through the United American States” (Norwich, CT: Green & Spooner, 1778), 3-4.