Note 198 — A CATALOGUE of REVOLUTIONARY ARTICLES in THE POUGHKEEPSIE MUSEUM.

Footnote 198: On the night of the 28th, an unsuccessful attempt was made to surprise the British outposts on Charlestown neck, and then to attack the enemy on Bunker's hill. The Americans started to cross from Cobble hill, on the ice. One of the men slipped and fell when they were half way across, and his gun went off. This alarmed the British, and they were on their guard. It was computed that, from the burning of Charlestown, on the 17th of June, until Christmas day, the British had fired more than two thousand shot and shells. They hurled more than three hundred bombshells at Plowed hill, and one hundred at Lechmere's point. Gordon says that, with all this waste of metal, they "killed only seven men on the Cambridge side, and just a dozen on the Roxbury side."(Back)