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Illustrated Episode · Volume IV, chapter 7 · 17 June 1775

Hold your fire

Inside an earthen fort, a lean officer in a pale loose coat stands on the wall with one hand out flat, and militiamen rest long guns on the parapet as lines of redcoats climb a hay-covered hill under smoke.
Breed's Hill, Charlestown Peninsula, June 17, 1775. Colonel William Prescott stands on the earth wall of his new redoubt and holds his men's fire while British regulars labor up the slope through the long hay. Rothbard says the famous Bunker Hill battle was fought on the wrong hill, and that fixed positions cost the Americans the mobility that made them dangerous. Chapter 7 of Conceived in Liberty.

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Adapted from Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Mises Institute, 2011), CC BY 3.0.

What happened

By mid-June 1775 the Americans besieging Boston had learned that Britain meant to fortify the heights that commanded the town. The Committee of Safety ordered Bunker Hill on the Charlestown Peninsula occupied, over the objections of Artemas Ward and Joseph Warren, who feared the narrow neck behind it. On the night of June 16 Colonel William Prescott led about a thousand men out, and he and General Putnam dug in on Breed's Hill, closer to Boston and further from the only road home. General Gage ignored Clinton's advice to land behind them and sent Howe straight up the hill, sure the rebels would run at the sight of regulars. The militia held their fire until the red lines were about fifty paces away. Rothbard says that was the Americans at their best, firing from behind earthworks in quasi-guerrilla fashion, but they had given up their mobility, ran short of powder and sat far from an escape. After the third assault Breed's Hill fell. The British lost over a thousand men, more than 40 percent of Howe's force, and the Americans over four hundred, among them Warren. Howe then stopped to dig in rather than chase them to Cambridge. The Americans did not claim a victory; they called the day rash and unfortunate. To Rothbard, Britain's contempt for them had cost it an army.

Sources

  1. Murray N. Rothbard, Conceived in Liberty (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2011 single-volume ed.), vol. IV, ch. 7, 'The Battle of Bunker Hill', pp. 1154-1156. CC BY 3.0. Rothbard
  2. 'Battle of Bunker Hill', Wikipedia (accessed 2026-10-02): the redoubt about 130 feet a side with six-foot earthen walls and a firing platform; the breastwork and rail-fence line; uncut waist-high hay; the regulars loaded with gear in wool coats in the afternoon heat; fire withheld until the regulars were within 50 paces; Charlestown burning. Secondary source
  3. National Park Service, 'Colonel William Prescott: A Glorious Immortality' (accessed 2026-10-02): Prescott, about fifty, 'mounted the parapet and walked leisurely around it, inspecting the works, giving directions to the officers, and encouraging the men'; the NPS notes that the exact words of the famous order are possibly mythical. Secondary source
  4. Revolutionary War Journal, 'Don't Fire Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes: Fact or Fiction?' (accessed 2026-10-02): the order traditionally credited to Putnam; Prescott as the commander at the redoubt; firing at about 50 yards. Prescott's dress (cocked hat, light banyan or calico coat) read through a search summary of this and related pages. Secondary source
  5. National Museum of the United States Army, 'Colonel Prescott and his Massachusetts Troops Hold the Redoubt on Breed's Hill' (accessed 2026-10-02): Prescott in the redoubt with about 200 men, another 200 on the wall toward the Mystic; Prescott's own report of the night's digging. Secondary source
  6. NPS Minute Man National Historical Park, 'The Militia and Minute Men of 1775': most militia in their own clothes. Secondary source