Remembering Bunker Hill: 250 Years Later

Today—the 17^th of June 2025—marks the 250^th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The battle started when Colonel William Prescott led 1,200 men onto the Charlestown peninsula in Massachusetts to erect defenses on Bunker Hill in defense against British plans to capture undefended high ground at Dorchester Heights and Charlestown.

The British hoped that by capturing Bunker Hill, they would be able to gain a better location to fire at Americans who were sieging Charlestown. Prescott beat the British to their plans, though. He ended up building the defenses on Breed’s Hill instead, as it was lower and closer to the harbor.

The fortifications were built on the 16^th of June, 1775. After a day of laboring, the Americans were tired and had limited ammunition. The British—learning of the American fortifications—began bombarding Prescott’s untrained militia as they worked the next morning. At three o’clock in the afternoon, over 2,000 British soldiers commanded by General William Howe landed on the Charlestown shore and began their march toward Bunker Hill.

During two unsuccessful marches under “heavy and severe fire”, the British troops suffered severe casualties. They were able to recover, though, and by the end of the day, the British received 400 new troops from Boston. With these reinforcements, Howe ordered his soldiers to march for a third time. The Americans—who had started the siege with limited ammunition—were simply outgunned as the day passed.

The British forced the Americans to abandon their fort on Breed’s Hill, and thus they regained control of the Charleston peninsula.

June 17, 1776—while technically a loss for the Americans—marked a major turning point in the Revolutionary War. Although 140 colonists died and 271 were wounded, the British suffered far more casualties: 226 British died and 828 were wounded.

Prescott believed that he could have maintained the hill—even with the disadvantage in men—had he only been supplied with sufficient ammunition. This lack of ammunition led to the indelible line traditionally attributed to Prescott at the beginning of the battle: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!”

While there’s no way of verifying this quote, it nevertheless lives on in the American ethos. Prescott would end up being memorialized as an immortal figure, and he is one of the many figures portrayed in John Trumbull’s famous painting “Surrender of General Burgoyne,” which hangs in the Capitol rotunda.

Joseph Warren—who was a physician before being commissioned as a Major General—is also portrayed in a Trumbull painting: the famous “The Death of General Warren at Bunker Hill.” Warren chose to participate in the battle as a private despite his rank, and he was one of the last to abandon the fort on Breed’s Hill, dying courageously in retreat.

Spectating the battle from their house in Charlestown were Abigail Adams and a young John Quincy Adams. The future first lady wrote of Warren’s death: “tis a lamentable Truth, and the tears of multitudes pay tribute to his memory.”

Warren, while not one of the first patriot names that comes to one’s mind, lives on in the American ethos through his immortalization in Trumbull’s dramatic painting—which is clearly inspired by the Pieta subject in Christian art; and one can imagine the impact Warren’s courageous death might have played on young John Quincy.

In many ways, this American loss marked the first crucial turning point in the Revolutionary War. It was just two days before the battle, on the 15^th of June 1775, that George Washington was appointed as commander in chief of the Continental Army.

At this point, American victory would have required a miracle, as the colonial troops were severely underexperienced in comparison to the British—evident by the appointment of Warren, a physician with no military experience, as a general. The heavy casualties inflicted on the British boosted American morale and helped galvanize support across the colonies for a more organized war effort.

While it would remain an uphill battle to declaring independence in 1776 and eventually defeating the British in 1783, the Battle of Bunker Hill marked a key symbolic turning point toward American independence; and why figures like Prescott and Warren are heroes in the American mind.

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