17 June in military history: Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775

It was fought on 17 June 1775 on the Charlestown peninsula, across the river from Boston, Massachusetts, two months after the fighting at Lexington and Concord.

The British won, taking the American redoubt and the peninsula on the third assault, but the official British return counted 1,054 killed and wounded, against about 450 American casualties.

Most of the fighting took place on the neighboring Breed's Hill, where the redoubt was built, though the battle is named after Bunker Hill, the higher hill behind it.

The official British return counted 226 killed and 828 wounded, 1,054 in all. General Ward's orderly book recorded 115 Americans killed, 305 wounded and 30 captured, about 450 in all.

American officers did order their men to hold their fire until the British were close, because powder was short. Frothingham found the words about the white of their eyes among several such orders in veterans' depositions, credited to different officers; the American Battlefield Trust repeats them as a legend about Prescott.