"Oh!" exclaimed Gracie, "I hope that brave Colonel Prescott didn't get killed, Papa!"
"No; he escaped unhurt, though his coat and waistcoat were pierced and torn in several places by the bayonets of the British, which he parried with his sword.
"It was now a hand-to-hand fight, British and Americans mingled together, our men walking backward and hewing their way out, dealing deadly blows with their muskets.
"Fortunately the British were too much exhausted to use their bayonets with vigour; and so intermingled were they and the Americans that the use of firearms would have been dangerous to their own men as well as to ours."
"Oh," sighed Rosie, "I have always been so sorry that our men didn't have plenty of gunpowder! I don't think there's a doubt that if they had been well supplied with it, they would have won a grand victory."
"Yes; they did wonders considering all they had to contend with," said the Captain. "Their courage, endurance, and skill as marksmen astonished the British, and were never forgotten by them during the long war that followed.
"The number engaged in the battle of Bunker Hill was small, all taken together not more than fifteen hundred of the Americans,--less than seven hundred in the redoubt,--while of the British there were, according to Gage, more than two thousand; other and accurate observers said, 'near upon three thousand.'
"But in spite of the smallness of the numbers engaged, the battle was one of the severest and most determined on record. Neither side could claim a victory, but both displayed great courage and determination."
"And Joseph Warren was one of the killed!" sighed Grandma Elsie, "one of the bravest, best, and most lovable of men, as those who knew him have testified. I remember reading that Mrs. John Adams said of him and his death, 'Not all the havoc and devastation they have made has wounded me like the death of Warren. We want him in the Senate; we want him in his profession; we want him in the field. We mourn for the citizen, the senator, the physician, and the warrior.' General Howe said, 'His death was worth more to the British than that of five hundred of the provincial privates.'"
"And that was not an over-estimate, I think," said the Captain. "It was indeed a sad loss to the cause of the colonies when he was slain."