Who Was the Commander at Bunker Hill?

15 daylight. But who would imagine, that, instead of any rumors, as the author calls them, on which Stiles makes his first entry, Stiles says not one syllable of any rumor ? So far from it, he states expressly and distinctly that William Ellery, the leading man of Rhode Island, and well-known signer of the Declaration of Independence, had just shown him a copy of a letter from Gen. Greene at Roxbury, second to no one in the army except Washington, and a copy of another letter from the Committee of Supplies [of R. Island at Roxbury] ; and that Gen. Greene said, Gen. Putnam took possession and intrenched on Bunker Hill, Friday night, 16th inst.; “ and that Gen. Ward said, the enemy’s loss was three times as great as ours.” “ Greene,” Styles says, “ seemed to doubt this at first; but, from after-inquiry, and considering that Putnam fired from the trenches, and that it was said the dead of the enemy covered an acre of ground, Gen. Greene seemed rather to credit the estimate.” The Chamber of Supplies says, “ The king’s troops attacked Gen. Putnam, who defended himself with bravery, till overpowered and obliged to retreat.” Now, these accounts alone settle the whole question of Putnam’s command for ever. Instead of being base metal to be stigmatized as rumors, they are sterling gold, and stamped at the highest mint in America. We have gone through the objections of the author to Putnam’s claims, as we did through his positions in favor of Prescott’s, and demonstrated them all to be groundless. We repeat that we have done this with the greatest repugnance, not only from our personal respect for the author, but because we may be suspected of doing so from rivalry. But the author will bear us witness, that we did all in our power beforehand to render his history as perfect and correct as possible, for the very purpose of avoiding the necessity of writing again on the subject. Whence his invincible prepossession against Putnam’s claims it is useless to inquire ; but he acknowledges the assistance of a number of gentlemen, who, as well as he and myself, belong to Massachusetts; and we must all acknowledge our natural and instinctive preference

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM4ODY=