Hub Town Tours Circular Letter Vo. 10, No. 4 Issue: “A Trial By Fire.”

General Sir Henry Clinton, c. 1762-65

In June of 1776, Bostonians marked one year since the carnage at Breed’s Hill. But the horrors of that battle were just as fresh in the memory of the British soldiers who fought there. In particular, General Henry Clinton remembered the day keenly—how he had objected to General Howe’s plan for a frontal assault and had been overruled, and how he had intervened during the final attack to drive the rebels off the hill, at great risk to himself. If British forces had followed Clinton’s plan to instead land troops behind rebel lines, a more decisive victory may have been achieved. Either way, Clinton would see his day in the sun: exasperated with Howe’s inability to destroy the Continental Army, in 1778 Parliament finally promoted Clinton to Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in America. - Discipulus

“View of the Attack on Bunker’s Hill with the Burning of Charles Town,” 1787

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As citizens marked the sober occasion, Charlestown remained a haunting scene. Once a prosperous town, the Battle of Bunker Hill had seen it largely reduced to ashes the previous June, when British forces set fire to the town amid the fighting. The blackened chimneys and ruined foundations stood as a stark reminder of both the immense cost of war felt by the local population as well as the uncertainty of what would come next. Yet Charlestown’s destruction also became a powerful symbol of sacrifice for the patriot cause. As Bostonians commemorated the first anniversary of the battle in 1776, the ruined town across the Charles River served as a visible testament to a conflict that had transformed ordinary communities into battlegrounds that forever altered the course of American history. - Scholaris