June 17, 1775: The Battle at Bunker Hill

In the long run, the Battle at Bunker Hill Breed’s Hill was a tactical win for the British, but they incurred heavy losses and it took three tries to get that win. So why is it one of the battles that so many Americans seem to remember all these years later? We’re speculating here, but it’s possible that, between this battle and the ones at Lexington and Concord, the Colonial forces realized that this was a war that they could actually win: it wasn’t crazy at all to fight the British army. It almost didn’t matter that we didn’t win this one; the colonial militiamen could stand up against the British and force them to work much harder for their victories. There’s a scene in The Godfather, Part II in which Michael describes an incident he’d seen earlier in the day. He says he saw some Cuban rebels being rounded up by the soldiers, and one of them, rather than being taken prisoner, detontated a grenade on his person, taking a Captain of the Guard with him. From that he concluded that because the rebels weren’t getting paid to fight, they can actually win. That’s pretty much what happened here. The post June 17, 1775: The Battle at Bunker Hill appeared first on 250 and Counting.