An Analysis of the Battle of Bunker Hill
Leading up to the official declaration of war between the United States of America and Great Britain; Boston, Massachusetts was regarded as a geostrategic epicenter of pre-revolutionary activity, and represented a key political and military stronghold in New England and the entire Northern Theater of the war that eventually erupted. Following the punitive passage of the Massachusetts Government Act in 1774, royal British officials took residence in Boston, conducting most of their gubernatorial business from within the confines of the city. British troops, who have been stationed in Boston since 1768 in response to ever-growing civic unrest and public protests (previously culminating in such focal junctures as the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773), served as the city’s garrison, martial police force, and bodyguard to the royal officials. The newly appointed governor of Boston, General Thomas Gage, was at the time also the incumbent commander-in-chief of British forces in all of North America and oversaw a force of 4,000 regulars garrisoned within the city . The commencing actions of this rudimentary corps under his command defined the early onset of the Revolutionary War, highlighted in particular by the Battle of Bunker Hill - the significance and impact of which on the greater war itself is the answer I aim to provide in response to the research question. The backdrop to the battle was comprised by several important moves, developments, and confrontations, marking the official beginning of the conflict which would ultimately continue over the next eight years. On September 1st, 1774, General Gage ordered the seizure and removal of a provincial gunpowder magazine and the confiscation of two 12-iber field artillery pieces located near Winter Hill, a small elevation just West of Charlestown. The incident, which would later become known as the Powder Alarm, prompted the Continental troops to spend the
Cited: 1. Frothingham, Richard. History of the Siege of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. 6th. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1903. 2. Dobbs, John F. From Bunker Hill to Manilla Bay: A Record of Battles. New York: 1906. 3. Drake, Samuel. Bunker Hill. Boston: Nichols and Hall, 1875. 4. Chidsey, Donald B. The Siege of Boston. Boston: Crown, 1966 5. Ketchum, Richard. Decisive Day: The Battle of Bunker Hill. New York, 1999