(Painting Yale Art Museum)

Major Small saving Putnam at the Battle of Bunker (Breed's) Hill, June 17, 1775, by Trumbull

Colonel William Prescott, under command of General Ward (of the Allied forces) was to have occupied Bunker Hill on Charlestown Heights, which overlooks Boston Harbor. However, he took Breed's Hill, which was lower and harder to defend, instead. General Gage (of the Crown Forces) began a naval bombardment in the morning and ordered General Howe to take the hill. Howe's force of 2200 men was repelled twice. He assaulted a third time, when the Rebels ran out of ammunition, and defeated them.

The British lost most of their force and the local situation remained the same. The Americans, however, used this battle to improve morale, as they had withstood the British Regulars until running out of ammunition.*

*Dupuy, R. Ernest and Trevor N. Dupuy, Encyclopedia of Military History: from 3500 B. C. the the present, 2nd Revised Edition (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1986), 709.