The story of our Army for young Americans, from colonial days to the present time

Chapter I Page

The Beginnings of Revolution — Lexington and Concord — The British Beleaguered in Boston — The Battle of Bunker Hill . i

CHAPTER n

Creation of the Army — Siege of Boston — Taking of Ticonderoga — Expedition Against Quebec — The British Evacuate Boston 26

CHAPTER HI

The New York Campaign — Operations in New Jersey — Battles of Trenton and Princeton — Creation of a Regular Army . 53

CHAPTER IV

Character of General Burgoyne — His Expedition into New York — Capture of Ticonderoga — Battle of Bennington — Battle of Oriskany — Surrender of the British at Saratoga . 71

CHAPTER V

Howe Moves to Philadelphia — Washington's Defence of that City — Battles of the Brandywine and Germantown — Battle of Fort Mifflin — The Winter at Valley Forge — Clinton's Retreat 92

CHAPTER VI

The Wyoming Massacre — Services of George Rogers Clark — The War in the South — The French at Savannah — Defeat at Camden — The Victory at King's Mountain 124

CHAPTER VII

The Taking of Stony Point and Paulus Hook — The Treason of Arnold and the Execution of Andre 154

Y vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER Vin

PAGE

The Battle of the Covvpens — Cornwallis Retires to Virginia — Lafayette's Pertinacious Pursuit — Approach of the French Fleet — The Surrender at Yorktown — The Continental Army Disbanded 172

CHAPTER IX

The War of 1812 — Lack of Military Resources — Reverses on the Canadian Border — Battle of Queenstown — Cockburn on the Chesapeake — The Capture of Washington — Battle of New Orleans — The Treaty of Ghent 194

CHAPTER X

The War with Mexico — Strengthening the Regular Army — General Taylor in Mexico — Battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma — General Scott's Invasion — Capture of the City of Mexico 241

CHAPTER XI

The War Between the States — The Right to Secede — Eleven States Leave the Union — Who Owned National Property? — Anderson at Fort Sumter — Virginia Invaded — Death of Ellsworth 283

CHAPTER XII

" On to Richmond " — The Army Advances into Virginia — The Problem Confronting General McDowell — Patterson and Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley — The Battle of Bull Run — Jackson Wins the Title " Stonewall " — Defeat of the Union Army — Panic in Washington 302

CHAPTER XIII

The War in the West — Lyon's Fight for Missouri and His Death — Grant First Appears — His Capture of Forts Henry and Donelson — Encouragement to the Union Cause . . 318

CHAPTER XIV

The War in the East — Operations by Sea and the Capture of New Orleans— Battle of Ball's Bluff— General McClellan in Command of the Army of the Potomac — Opening of the Peninsular Campaign — Battle of Seven Pines .... 336

CONTENTS vli

PAGE

CHAPTER XV

Jackson's Shenandoah Campaign — The Seven Days Before Richmond—Battle of Mechanicsville— Battle of Malvern Hill- Withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac 356

CHAPTER XVI

The Campaign of Shiloh — The Army and Navy Invest New Madrid and Island No. 10 — Grant's Army Advances to Pittsburg Landing — Battle of Shiloh — Far Reaching Consequences of the Confederate Reverse 379

CHAPTER XVII

Halleck Appointed General-in-Chief — Army of the Potomac Recalled from the Peninsula — The Army of Virginia Moves on Richmond — General Pope in Command — Lee Strikes Hard — Pope Beaten at Second Bull Run — Richmond Campaign Abandoned 389

CHAPTER XVIII

Lee Invades Maryland — Harper's Ferry Recaptured — Frederick Entered — Battle of South Mountain — Battle of Antietara ... 404

CHAPTER XIX

The Confederates Invade Kentucky — Louisville and Cincinnati Menaced — Buell's Stand at Perryville — Van Dorn Repulsed at Corinth — Bragg and Rosecrans Clash at Murfreesboro . 418

CHAPTER XX

McClellan Relieved of Command, Burnside Succeeds Him — The Battle of Fredericksburg — Slaughter on Marye's Heights — Burnside Deposed and Hooker Appointed — The Battles of Chancellorsville and the Wilderness 438

CHAPTER XXI

Lee's Invasion of Pennsylvania — Retirement of Hooker — Meade in Command of the Army of the Potomac — The Battle of Gettysburg — Pickett's Famous Charge — Lee Retreats to Virginia 470 viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXII

PAGE

Opening the Mississippi — Vicksburg Bars the Way — Grant's Campaign Against Pemberton — The Siege and Fall of Vicksburg — Its Efifect : North and South 501

CHAPTER XXIII

The Chickamauga Campaign — Bragg Driven from Chattanooga — His Attack on Rosecrans — Battle of Chickamauga — Grant in Command — Battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 516

CHAPTER XXIV

Minor Operations East and West — Gillmore at Charleston — Sherman at Meridian — The Massacre of Fort Pillow — The Red River Campaign — Colonel Bailey's Dam .... 534

CHAPTER XXV

Grant Called to Chief Command — The Wilderness Again — General Longstreet Wounded — Battle of Spottsylvania Court- House — Battle of Cold Harbor — Death of General " Jeb " Stuart 547

CHAPTER XXVI

The War in the West — Sherman's Advance on Atlanta — Fabian Tactics of General Johnston — Hood Commands the Confederates — His Disastrous Gallantry — The Fall of Atlanta . 571

CHAPTER XXVII

In the Shenandoah Valley — Boy Soldiers at New Market — Early's Raid on Washington — Peril of the National Capital — Sheridan in the Valley — Battle of Winchester — Sheridan's Ride 587

CHAPTER XXVIII

Grant Moves to the South Side of the James — The Siege of Petersburg — The Failure of the Mine — Widespread Union Successes — Lee's Attack on Fort Stedman 605

CONTENTS ix

CHAPTER XXIX

PAGE

Sherman in Atlanta — The March to the Sea — Rapacity of the Foragers — Capture of Atlanta — Hood Invades Tennessee — Battle of Franklin— Battle of Nashville 617

CHAPTER XXX

The Confederacy Tottering — Burning of Columbia — Lee Evacuates Petersburg — Richmond Captured — The Surrender at Appomattox — End of the War 633

CHAPTER XXXI

The Dispersal of the Army — War with Spain Causes New Organization — Its Grave Weakness — The Santiago Campaign — The Porto Rico Campaign 648

CHAPTER XXXII

Dewey's Capture of Manila — Aguinaldo and the Insurrectors — Cost of the Philippines — The Army in Peace .... 676

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Battle of Bunker Hill

Paul Revere's Ride .

The Battle of Lexington

The Battle on Concord Green

Minute Men at Lexington

Battle of Trenton .

Surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga

Washington at Monmouth

Molly Pitcher at Monmouth .

The Battle of New Orleans .

Troops Arriving at the Mobilization Camp

Skirmishers in Action

Bombardment of Vera Cruz .

Storming the Heights of Cerro Gordo

Battle of Resaca de la Palma

Attack on the Castle of Chapultepec

Battle of Mexico City

The Tented Field .

A Pontoon Bridge .

Battery No. 4 in Front of Yorktown

Confederate Battery on James above Dutch

Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee

The Dead in " Bloody Lane "

The Work of Federal Shells

Stone Wall at Fredericksburg, Virginia

Letters Home

Mortar Battery in Action Troops Mobilizing in Texas .

Field Gun in Action Ambulance Corps on San Juan Hill At the Siege of Santiago American Hospital Ship Relief at Siboney Arbitration in the Trenches near Manila Disappearing Gun at Sandy Hook Mortar Battery at Sandy Hook .

First Brigade on March ....

M n T

Gap

Frontispiece ^

Facing page 6 ^

22 ■

40:

64'

108'

136 <- iC

264 '

270 "■

290 ■

454 474 •■ 490

530. 536. 544 ,

Xll

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Pack Mule

American Artillery Entering Ponce, P. R. . Colonel Roosevelt and His Rough Riders .

Charging the Filipinos

Grapevine Bridge Across Chickahominy River

In the Trenches on San Juan Hill

Fort Sumter in Ruins, April, 1865

The Bridge at Poranaque

Ruins of Arsenal at Richmond .

Richmond After the Surrender

A Regiment as It Is

A Regiment as It Should Be

American Troops Camping at Siboney

General Lawton's Cavalry Returning After Bat

tie in Which He Was Killed .

Our Soldiers Entering Malolos American Firing Line at Malolos General Nelson A. Miles ....

Morro Castle, Overlooking Santiago Harbor General William R. Shafter ....

The Defile at Las Guasimas, Cuba Morro Castle, Santiago, at Time of Spanish

Evacuation ....

Automobiles Carrying Machine Guns General Leonard Wood .

City and Harbor of Santiago Pasig River at Manila .

Mountain Battery ; Assembling and Dismounting Ninth Cavalry in Camp, San Antonio Army Aviator in Flight .

Facing

6401 644^

644' 650 »

654- 658. 662.

666:

THE STORY OF OUR ARMY FOR YOUNG AMERICANS

CHAPTER I

The Beginnings of Revolution — Lexington and Concord — The British Beleaguered in Boston — The Battle of Bunker Hill.

Two lanterns gleaming in the belfry of the Old North Church, which still stands looking down upon the Copps Hill burying ground in Boston and upon the huddled homes of innumerable Italians who have made that part of the ancient American city their home, signalled the beginning of the American Revolution. Their flickering light faintly illumined the birth of the United States of America.

On the farther shore of the tidal River Charles, on that midnight of April i8, 1775, stood Paul Revere, a young engraver of Boston, who had been often used as a courier by the Committee of Safety, which had been formed among the Colonists to resist British aggressions. It was vague rumor that the British, long cooped up in Boston, would move that night to Lexington and Concord to destroy the munitions of war that the Colonists had gathered there in distrust of what the future might have in store for them. More than that it was the British purpose to seize the bodies of two " pestilent agitators," John Hancock, whose name was afterward writ large at the head of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and stout Sam Adams, who deserves if does any man the title of " Father of the American Revolution."

Foot In stirrup through hours of darkness Revere

" Watched with eager search The belfry tower of the Old North Church As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely and spectral, and sombre and still, And lo ! as he looks on the belfry's height, A glimmer and then a gleam of light; He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes till full of his sight A second light in the belfry burns."

Every American child knows Longfellow's poem and the story of the alarm, the march out from Boston and the headlong retreat, the volley on the village green at Lexington, and how " the British regulars fired and fled." We know now, however, that picturesque as was Revere's wild ride through the silent night with door-knockings and alarm-shouts at sleeping farms, it was only part of the system of spreading the warning which the Colonists had devised in those days before railroads and telegraphs. At Rev. Jonas Clark's house, near Medford, Hancock and Adams were staying with a guard of eight Minute Men. At Revere's clamor the sergeant came out demanding " less noise." " Noise ! " shouted Revere, " you'll have noise enough before long. The regulars are coming out."

The main body of the British, an entire brigade under command of Major Smith, was slow in moving. A small detachment, six companies under Major Pitcairn, was rushed forward to seize and hold Concord Bridge and to hold up all wayfarers or couriers who might rouse the country-side. Dismal was the failure of the latter effort. As Smith moved more leisurely along the highway he heard alarm bells ringing, cannon and muskets being fired, and the shouts of men calling to each other far across the fields. He had expected a holiday march and he confronted a whole people rushing to arms. Straightway he sent back to Boston for reenforcements.

Pitcairn, some miles in advance, reached Lexington at sunrise. Under the fresh clear light of a June morning the little village, with its white-steepled church and simple colonial houses bordering the verdant green, seemed a picture of rural peace. But back of all lurked war. Two hours before a farmer, eluding Pitcairn, had reached the town bringing tidings of the invasion. The Minute Men had assembled, but so slow had been the British advance that they had thought the expedition abandoned, and had retired to the tavern and neighboring houses for their breakfast. Now at the roll of the British drums all flocked out, forming an irregular line on the green, some 132 of them under command of Captain John Parker.

"Disperse, ye rebels! Disperse!" shouted Pitcairn from his horse. None thought of obeying. All stood irresolute, for to both sides the orders not to be the first to fire had been absolute. Who broke the command? Nobody knows exactly, but it appears that an American pulled trigger producing only a flash in the pan. Enough that, however, to justify a soldier in replying. Then there was a regular volley from the troops, and a few straggling shots from " the embattled farmers." All was over in a few minutes — save for the families of the seventeen Americans lying dead or wounded on the bloody sward. Pitcairn, who had no liking for his work, insists that the Americans fired first and he strove in every way to stop the fire of his men, but the shooting was continued as long as a militiaman remained in sight. Parker, the American commander, was wounded at the first volley, but continued to fight and was slain by a bayonet-thrust. One, who in years bygone had carried the British flag in the victorious assault on Louisbourg, was shot down and bayoneted to death. Another dragged himself across the green to die in his wife's arms on his vine-clad porch. War was new, but very close to the homes of those simple, country-faring folk.

Major Pitcairn waited a space for Smith to come up and then proceeded toward Concord. The hue and cry went forth before him. The militia and citizens, hundreds of whom had by this time assembled, began diligently the work of concealing the stores gathered at that town. While thus engaged they received word that the British in numbers of three to one were within two miles and approaching speedily. Thereupon the Americans took up positions from which they could watch the proceedings, it being determined to make no resistance until reenforcements should arrive, for the British were over 800 strong.

For two hours the Redcoats had their will in Concord. Most of the ammunition and supplies they sought had been removed to the surrounding woods, but they broke up three twenty-pound cannon, spilled a quantity of flour and burned several barrels of wooden spoons and trenchers from which the warlike farmers had expected to eat their porridge in the field. All the while militia and Minute Men were flocking in singly and by companies. Dedham sent every able-bodied citizen between sixteen and seventy and before they started their march the minister of the village church invoked divine blessingjs upon their errand. Throughout this war of a peaceful people for their independence we find the ministers ready to bless the arms and then to wield them; as earnest in spurring on the living as in praying by the side of the slain.

When the number of Americans in the field approached 450 it was determined to dislodge the British guard from the North Bridge. About three hundred were despatched for this purpose, and the guard though outnumbered, prepared both for resistance and to take up the planks of the structure. The

FOR YOUNG AMERICANS s

provincials hesitated not an instant. " It is the King's highway and we have a right to march on it if we march to Boston. Forward men, forward!" cried Major Barrett, voicing the New England insistence on lawful rights. The British fired and two American soldiers fell. " Fire, fellow-soldiers ! For God's sake, fire! " shouted Major Buttrick and the American arms spoke in response. The provincials swept on across the bridge and its defenders retreated. One of them was killed by a farmer's boy with a hatchet, from which spread a persistent rumor that the Americans, like the barbarous Indians, scalped and mutilated their fallen foes. The bridge was now in the hands of the defenders of American liberty — the bridge destined to become a national shrine commemorated by Emerson in his ode beginning,

" By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled; Here once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world."

Then began the British retreat that soon became a disorderly flight. The troops were veterans, men who had served in the British wars with France and the peoples of Continental Europe. For arms they were well equipped, for uniforms rather too well, for their heavy scarlet coats, towering hats or shakos, and heavy knapsacks put them at a sore disadvantage in dealing with the countrymen who came flocking from every side in shirt-sleeves, armed with long hunting rifles in the use of which they had been well trained, and schooled in Indian wars not to disdain the shelter of tree-trunks and stone-walls, " They seemed to drop from the clouds," wrote a British ofllicer. For a time the fugitives strove to maintain a certain military formation; sending out flanking parties on either side and maintaining a rear guard. This effort was soon abandoned, and the road was crowded with a dense column of weary, dejected men hobbling, walking, and running back toward Lexington. At that spot, where a few hours before they had shot down the farmers who dared dispute their passage, they now hoped to be saved from annihilation by the reenforcements on the way from Boston under command of Lord Percy.

The Americans had no military formation. They had officers, but every man was a commander unto himself. Men were there who had scaled the Heights of Abraham at Quebec under Wolfe; had fought the French at Louisbourg, and the Indians in defence of their homes and firesides. Long years they had followed the British flag; now their wrath was levelled against it. The road was bordered by stone-walls, woods, and dense thickets of underbrush. Every such shelter was full of American marksmen trained from boyhood to pick off a squirrel with a rifle bullet from the highest tree-top. The enemy marched fast along the sinuous road, leaving his dead and wounded behind, and the Americans after striking him from one thicket would take the short cut across the fields and lay in wait at the next point where the woods grew densest. At times the fighting was hand-to-hand, though as the Americans had no bayonets they avoided this. At Fiske's Hill two fighters confronted each other. " You are a dead man ! " said the British soldier as he levelled his gun at an American. "And so are you," responded the other. The shots rang out. Both fell, one dead, the other mortally wounded.

Panting from heat and exertion, their heavy knapsacks and trappings thrown away, too panic-stricken even to defend themselves, the defeated soldiers ran on until at Lexington they found Lord Percy's timely reenforcements drawn up in a hollow square to receive

C/0 fc.

o and to succor them. It was none too early. " They were so much exhausted with fatigue," writes a British historian, " that they were obliged to lie down for rest on the ground, their tongues hanging out of their mouths like dogs after a chase." There they lay and rested for some two hours. Percy had one thousand fresh men and two field pieces with which for a time he held the Americans in check.

Percy's appearance saved the British force from abject surrender or annihilation. Yet when Colonel Smith set out from Boston that June morning he anticipated nothing but a holiday march with a bonfire of " rebel " goods and storehouses as a diversion. When he saw the countrymen swarming out, rifle in hand, he vaguely scented danger and luckily sent back for aid. Lord Percy, ordered to his assistance, marched out from Boston about nine o'clock in the morning with two cannon, three regiments and two divisions of marines. His bands were playing " Yankee Doodle " in derision of the Americans. A school-boy shouted the apt retort, " You march out to Yankee Doodle, but you'll run back to Chevy Chase." The allusion was to the famous ballad of Chevy Chase which tells of the woful defeat of an early Earl Percy on the field of that name. If the school-boys were ready to jeer the foe, the schoolteachers, like the ministers, were ready to do battle with him. Lovell, the master of that Latin School which has been Boston's pride for a century and a half, heard the tramp of the marching Redcoats. " War's begun. School's done. Dimitite libros," quoth he and slamming his desk went forth to join the populace. When Percy's column reached Roxbury, one Williams, the local school-master, looked out of his window. " School's out, boys," he said, and locking his door went for his musket and so away to join the Minute Men. He served through the seven years of Revolution.

Though he had nearly eighteen hundred effective men and two field pieces, Lord Percy m^de no effort to turn upon the undisciplined Americans who had used his regulars so ill. Instead, after a two hours' rest he took up once more the retreat. Again the Americans swarmed upon his flanks and surged against the rear of his retreating column. Now and then the artillery beat them back, for as yet the Minute Men were not well used to great guns. But they rallied again and again to the attack, and were never fiercer in their fighting than when, just at sundown, Percy's men rushed across the narrow causeway that connected Charlestown with the mainland and sank down safe under the protecting guns of the British men-of-war. It was just the critical moment. George Washington, writing later of the battle said, " If the retreat had not been as precipitate as It was — and God knows it could not have been more so — the ministerial troops must have surrendered, or been totally cut off. For they had not arrived In Charlestown (under cover of their ships) half an hour before a powerful body of men from Marblehead and Salem was at their heels and must, If they had happened to be up one hour sooner, inevitably have Intercepted their retreat to Charlestown."

In this action the British lost 73 killed, 174 wounded, and 26 missing; the Americans, 49 killed and 39 wounded. But the British had lost the day and their prestige as Invincible veterans. The American farmers had shown the world that they not only could but would fight. They had learned that a red coat did not make its wearer invulnerable nor, of necessity, cover a stout heart. The Minute Men had shown that though they did not always march to drum and trumpet, though hickory shirts and caps rather than scarlet and bearskins were their uniform, they could be relied upon to be where they were needed and to maintain themselves against all comers. In England the news of the action caused dismay, a fall of stocks, and savage criticism of Lord Percy and his officers. In America it solidified the Colonists into a cooperating whole.

The British lingered but briefly in Charlestown and then returned to Boston. Around that city gathered some sixteen thousand armed Americans, intent upon keeping the enemy bottled up in the town. All the surrounding country-side was swept clear of provisions, and even the islands in the harbor were reduced for the time to deserts. Efforts to provision the garrison by water were frustrated in several cases. All the time skirmishing was going on by land or water. Now the provincials would put out in boats and burn a schooner, or raid one of the channel islands where food was thought to be available for the beleaguered British. Then the enemy would retaliate by the seizure of Yankee ships and provisions. There was sharp skirmishing throughout, which was of service in accustoming the untrained farmers to the sights and sounds of battle. But throughout this process of starving the British garrison into subjection, the peaceful inhabitants of Boston suffered equally with those who wore the red. Great distress spread among them. They had no means of support, for all the customary industries of the town were destroyed. Their friends and relations were in the trenches outside, exposed to the vicissitudes of life in the field and all the perils of war. A great body of troops were quartered upon them, and more were on the seas bound for Boston. The American people long had hatred of the professional soldier, and the action of George III in quartering troops upon the colonies was one of the grievances set forth in the Declaration of Independence. In Boston, even before the outbreak of hostilities, her thrifty, work-a-day lo STORY OF OUR ARMY

citizens were unable to understand this body of scarletcoated men loafing the days away on the Common or in King Street. That an able-bodied man should be able to earn a living simply by being prepared for a war which might never come, was incomprehensible to the average American. Years later the Count Rochambeau, who had come as a volunteer from France to fight for American liberties, used to tell with amusement how people would ask him what he did for a living at home when there were no wars. This instinctive distrust of the regular-army man has been one of the strongest features of the American character, and it is part of the purpose of this book to show how it has been gradually overcome by the good work of our United States Army in peace as well as in war.

But to return to Gage and the British in Boston. Seeing that he could scarce feed his own troops and hopeless of alleviating the distress of the civilians, the General began granting passes to such of the latter as desired to leave the city. Some thousands, mostly sympathizers with the revolutionary cause, thereupon went out. But the " Tories," as those who supported the cause of the king were called, protested that this was in fact reenforcing the " rebel " army, and the permission was gradually withdrawn. Then Gage, fearing an American assault and that the citizens would make common cause with the assailants, forced a general disarmament. Some thousands of firearms were given up, and a curious light was thrown upon the habits of the time by the fact that there was about one weapon to each able-bodied inhabitant. That was the reason why the Colonists were able to maintain themselves against the British troops, and why years later the statesmen of the infant nation wrote into Its constitution that the right of the people to bear arms shall not be abridged.

FOR YOUNG AMERICANS ii

Historians and students of military tactics have always wondered why General Gage, instead of trying to ameliorate his situation with makeshift expedients, did not cut his way through the American lines, roll them back to this side and that, and open communication with the country and its plenteous store of food. He was outnumbered to be sure, but he could concentrate his whole force in overwhelming power at any fixed point faster than the Patriots could gather troops from their widely extended lines. Moreover, the Americans, though numerically stronger, were ill-equipped and wholly undisciplined. They had no heavy siege guns, few bayonets, and their muskets were not of one standard and required ammunition of varying sizes. The militia was gathered from several colonies, zealous and patriotic no doubt, but each body tenacious of its own independence and recognizing no supreme command. Every feature of the situation should have called upon Gage to rouse his troops and sweep away these " peasants " who beleaguered him. Instead he sat supine in his headquarters and even after a British fleet had brought Generals Burgoyne, Clinton and Howe to his aid with nearly ten thousand fresh troops, he still awaited the American attack.

As his shop was entering Boston, General Burgoyne asked how many regulars there were in Boston.

" About five thousand," was the response.

*' What! " cried the General, "ten thousand peasants keep five thousand King's troops shut up ! Well, let US get in and we'll soon find elbow-room."

The General got in but he never found elbow-room, for he only left Boston in defeat. But the phrase stuck to him, much to his irritation. Later, after reverses in Canada, he was brought back to Boston a prisoner of war. As he was boarding the ferry-boat at Charlestown an aged crone perched on a near-by shed shrilled out," Make way! make way! The General's coming. Give him elbow-room."

In the end, instead of Gage's moving to free his troops from the Boston peninsula, the Americans struck first. Charlestown, the spot at which Lord Percy's column fleeing from Lexington had found refuge, was a hilly peninsula jutting out from the mainland to which it was joined by a neck so narrow that one standing in the centre could toss a stone into the Charles River on the one hand, the Mystic on the other. Two hills. Breed's and Bunker's, rose near the centre of the peninsula; the former being high and much nearer Boston. At the foot of Breed's Hill nestled in 1775 a little wooden town of a thousand houses or so. Now a great city packs its factories, shops, tenements, and homes closely about the verdent eminence, on the crest of which the American people have erected a towering granite monument in commemoration of what, by common consent, is deemed the first pitched battle of the American Revolution.