Nathaniel Philbrick. Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution. New York: Viking, 2013. xvii +
398 pp. $32.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-670-02544-2; $18.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-14-312532-7.
Reviewed by Greg Brooking (Georgia State University)
Published on H-War (November, 2014)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey
Award-winning author Nathaniel Philbrick, best
known for In the Heart of the Sea (2000), Mayflower (2006),
and The Last Stand (2010), returns to colonial America
in his latest offering. Bunker Hill is the first volume
in a proposed Revolutionary War trilogy (with Saratoga
and Yorktown to follow). Bunker Hill provides a unique
perspective on military history and is in many ways
a multilayered popular biography, examining colonial
Massachusetts and the era of the battle of Bunker Hill.
Philbrick’s strength rests with a thorough comprehension of the printed primary and secondary literature as
well as his nuanced understanding of the personalities
involved in this critical period of history.
battle (in spite of the title) and, more important, provides
a more egalitarian bottoms-up approach than his predecessors.
As mentioned, Bunker Hill is a dual biography of both
Massachusetts and some of the primary participants of
the early revolutionary movement in that province. Accordingly, Philbrick aims to “provide an intimate account
of how over the course of just eighteen months a revolution transformed a city and the towns that surrounded
it, and how that transformation influenced what eventually became the United States of America” (p. xvi). Even
though “Boston is the true hero of this story,” this tale
would be woefully inadequate were it not also a “story of
The drama of Bunker Hill and the early days of the two charismatic and forceful leaders,” Dr. Joseph Warren
American Revolution has seduced many writers, from and General George Washington (pp. xvi-xvii).
novelists (Howard Fast) to popular authors (John Ferling
The author’s well-crafted and largely chronological
and James L. Nelson) to historians (Richard M. Ketchum
narrative
opens with an emotional vignette recounting
and Paul D. Lockhart). Thomas Fleming’s 1963 classic
the
concussive
memories of an adolescent John Quincy
rendering, Now We Are Enemies: The Story of Bunker Hill,
Adams,
who
watched
the battle of Bunker Hill rage from
does great justice to the story by paying special attenafar
and
feared
that
British
soldiers would soon march
tion to the similarities between the commanders of both
to Braintree and “butcher them in cold blood” (p. xiii).
armies and, like Philbrick, awards Dr. Joseph Warren
This work is divided into three tidy sections: “Liberty,”
pride of place throughout the work. In With Fire and
Sword: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Beginning of the “Rebellion,” and “The Siege.”
American Revolution (2011), Nelson portrays the events
The motif of Boston as “the city on a hill” coupled
in Boston with a sarcastic, if not sardonic, literary flour- with Bostonians’ deeply held self-identification as an exish and proffers some controversial, though occasionally ceptional and autonomous people permeate the first seclightly substantiated, conclusions. Ketchum’s 1962 mas- tion, if not the entire book. Philbrick briefly but adterpiece, Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill, is likely equately provides the local historical context of Masthe most readable account of the famed battle, though sachusetts’s imperial crisis through the infamous Tea
based on secondary sources thus minimizing its overall Party in chapter 1. He neatly juxtaposes Bostonians’
importance. In The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the love of liberty with the presence of chattel slavery, which
First American Army and the Emergence of George Wash- “was more than a rhetorical construct for the city’s white
ington (2011), Lockhart does much to demythologize the residents; it was an impossible-to-ignore reality in a com1
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munity where African men, women, and children were
regularly bought and sold” (p. 24). He then examines
the impact of the Coercive Acts and how Bostonians responded to these intolerable measures. He wisely discusses the hypocritical nature of rebellion, lamenting
“the patriots’ reckless disregard for the principles they
were supposedly working to uphold” (p. 42). Chapter 3,
perfectly titled “The Long Hot Summer,” illuminates the
tenuous nature of revolution, especially during its birth
pangs. The summer of 1774 witnessed tense ideological
confrontations within the burgeoning rebellious movement as well as increasingly anxious times for those Loyalists still struggling to both make sense of recent ministerial machinations and find common ground with the
likes of Sam Adams and Warren. Although Philbrick’s
understanding of Loyalist demography and motivations
is a bit outdated and simplistic—referring to them as stimulated primarily by mere “financial considerations”—his
portrait of their plight is quite balanced (p. 60).
Boston countryside evolved into, according to Warren,
“no business but that of war” (p. 174). For the colonists
in Massachusetts, “spiritual, ornery, and clannish,” this
business was a local affair and they “refused to serve under an officer they did not know or like” (p. 179). The
British military redux is detailed in chapter 9 with the
ceremonial arrival of Generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton. Philbrick utilizes their appearance to perpetuate the hyperbolic assessment that
British officers “came from the English upper class”
whereas “in the new American army … ‘the lowest can
aspire as freely as the highest’ ” (p. 192). In any event, according to Philbrick, the impending battle atop Breed’s
Hill “could very well determine the fate of the Englishspeaking world” as a “city of loyalists, patriots, soldiers,
and refugees” restlessly waited and pondered (p. 207).
Chapter 10 examines the ghastly battle, highlighting the
trepidation of leaders on both sides, the “discipline and
bravery of the British soldiers,” and the “conquer or die”
attitude of the militiamen inside the fort (pp. 225, 226).
Philbrick considers the role of the famous Powder It was just such an attitude that cost Warren his life that
Alarm in expanding the scope of the American resistance bloody day—a death that was, in General Howe’s estiin chapter 4 and determines that “the country people out- mation, “worth five hundred” Redcoats (p. 230). Samuel
side the city were the ones now leading the resistance Adams added that Warren’s death was “greatly afflicting”
movement” (p. 73). Chapter 5 delves into the backlash
(p. 235).
against the treasonous behavior, a response not merely
from Loyalists but also from many sympathetic to the PaThe final section addresses the siege of Boston and
triot movement. Here Philbrick proffers a sensitive por- the birth pangs of the Continental army. Chapter 11 is
trait of the internal struggle over this, in Warren’s words, devoted to Washington, the struggles of civilians living
“unnatural contest between a parent honored and a child in a war zone, and the inherent difficulties in forming
beloved” (p. 98). Although both sides wished to avoid a unified army from loosely organized and geographistriking the first blow, the leaders of each group faced cally scattered militias. The battle culminated months
tremendous pressure to act.
of suffering inside Boston, especially among the poor
and elderly, leaving Loyalist Jonathan Sewall to declare:
Part 2 focuses on how these irrepressible pressures “Death has so long talked among us that he is become
culminated in rebellion. Chapter 6 witnesses the evolu- muss less terrible to me than he once was” (p. 233). The
tion of Warren and a moment of hesitant action by Gen- days following the battle also witnessed the arrival of
eral Thomas Gage. According to one observer, Warren the aristocratic General Washington. Philbrick smartly
“turned from … lectures of caution and prudence [in
observes that merely one year prior to the general’s arthe fall of 1774] … to asserting and defending the most
rival, “Boston’s patriots had spoken disparagingly of the
bold and undisguised principals of liberty” the following aristocratic opulence of the loyalists of Tory Row” and
spring (p. 110). Ironically, neither these escalating ten- now Washington, “whom everyone referred to as His
sions nor clear instructions from the ministry in London Excellency.” Washington lived in that very neighborcompelled Gage to move. Rather, Philbrick notes, it was a hood. Rather than finding an army of twenty thousuggestion from a spy—Dr. Benjamin Church. In chapter
sand battle-hardened veterans in Boston, Washington
7, Philbrick provides a number of humanizing vignettes
was greeted by an interracial, overly republican, mob—in
(much in the same way as historian Robert Gross) of mili- fact, “an exceeding dirty and nasty people” (p. 241). Altiamen engaged in those first encounters at Lexington though Washington successfully navigated these issues
and Concord, illuminating the very real differences be- with some difficulty, Philbrick was left to “wonder what
tween them and the British regulars.
would have happened if at the outset Washington had
Chapter 8 reveals how the bloody skirmishes in the had a New England general with the polish and empathy
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of Joseph Warren on his staff” (p. 261).
We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the physician, and
the warrior” (p. 236). Loyalist Peter Oliver offered an
astonishing assessment, at least to our modern sensibilities, stating that if Warren had lived, Washington would
have been reduced to a mere “obscurity”—but he did not
(p. 248).
Chapter 12 brings British control of Boston to a
conclusion following the Herculean efforts by General
Henry Knox’s detachment to transport cannon from Fort
Ticonderoga to Washington’s camp, a feat one British officer equated “to that of the Genii belonging to Aladdin’s
wonderful lamp” (p. 280). General Howe subsequently
struck an evacuation agreement with Washington, which
left many of the region’s Loyalists unprotected and alone,
necessitating the first Loyalist diaspora. “By purging itself of loyalists,” Philbrick maintains, “Boston had … reaffirmed its origins [and could once again think of itself as
the] city on a hill” (p. 285).
Philbrick is an engaging storyteller and lucid writer
with keen insight into the subtleties, hypocrisies, and
contingencies of history and this in on full display in
Bunker Hill. He exhibits an impressive mastery of the
secondary literature and is adept at inserting just the
right quotation from the available primary sources, as
his impressive bibliography will attest. Although those
seeking a strictly traditional military history of this camAs mentioned at the outset, Bunker Hill is, in many
paign and battle—replete with unit rosters, battle formaways, a biography—of a town, of Warren, and of Wash- tions, and tactical discussions—may be disappointed (and
ington (in that order). Warren was a jack-of-all-trades, should consult Lockhart’s work), those seeking a fuller
filling a variety of vital positions within the burgeon- understanding of warfare will find much of value in this
ing revolutionary movement. As Massachusetts’s “most volume. Perhaps the biggest criticism of this work, aside
influential leader,” Warren was an esteemed physifrom the incessant cries from the “he left this out crowd,”
cian, writer and propagandist, mediator, mason, philanis the way in which Philbrick laid out his endnotes. The
thropist, warrior, inspiration, agitator, paramour, and notes for each chapter can only be described as a comadrenaline addict. Perhaps Abigail Adams best encap- bination of traditional notes and an annotated bibliograsulated Warren’s vast and oft understated importance to phy (although he provides a separate bibliography). Ulthe early revolutionary movement when she wrote that timately, they were imminently frustrating and seemed
summer: “We want [i.e., need] him in the senate, we
designed to impede one’s personal quest for sources.
want him in his profession, we want him in the field.
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Citation: Greg Brooking. Review of Philbrick, Nathaniel, Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution. H-War, H-Net
Reviews. November, 2014.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=41461
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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