I am honored to be able to
offer one lucky reader of a copy of Bunker
Hill by National Book Award winner Nathaniel Philbrick.
BUNKER HILL: A City, A Siege, A Revolution tells
the story of the battle that ignited the Revolutionary War, and—because
Nathaniel Philbrick is telling it—the story has never been more interesting.
In BUNKER HILL, Philbrick finds new characters, and new facets to
familiar ones. The real work of choreographing rebellion falls to a
thirty-three year old physician named Joseph Warren who emerges as the
on-the-ground leader of the Patriot cause and is fated to die at Bunker Hill.
Others in the cast include Paul Revere, Warren’s fiancé the poet Mercy Scollay,
a newly recruited George Washington, the reluctant British combatant General
Thomas Gage and his more bellicose successor William Howe, who leads the three
charges at Bunker Hill and presides over the claustrophobic cauldron of a city
under siege as both sides play a nervy game
of brinkmanship for control.
Key Events Leading Up To
BUNKER HILL: A City, A Siege, A Revolution
by Nathaniel Philbrick
In his new book, Nathaniel Philbrick tells the story of the
battle that transformed a revolution into a full-fledged war. Philbrick focuses his narrative on the little
known Dr. Joseph Warren, the charismatic physician who was at the forefront of
the revolution in Massachusetts during the
spring of 1775 and was fated to die at Bunker Hill .
What follows is an account of the events leading up to that historic battle in
June 17, 1775.
April 2: With
tensions rising, patriot families begin to evacuate Boston .
April 13: Massachusetts Provincial
Congress directs the Committee of Safety to create six companies of artillery.
April 17: Thomas Gage
prepares his plan to send Col. Francis Smith and 700 troops to destroy rebel
military stores in Concord .
April 18: at 10 pm,
British grenadiers and light infantry assemble at Boston Common for
transportation to Cambridge ; learning of the
plan, Joseph Warren orders William Dawes and Paul Revere to alarm the
countryside that the soldiers are headed to Concord .
April 19: British
regulars fire on militiamen at Lexington Green, killing eight and wounding ten;
later in the day, men die on both sides during a clash at Concord ’s
North Bridge
April 20: Thousands
of patriot militiamen from towns throughout Massachusetts
flood into Cambridge
and Roxbury.
April 23: Admiral
Graves begins building a gun battery on Copp’s Hill in Boston ’s
North End; the Provincial Congress reconvenes at Watertown and elects Joseph Warren as
President.
May 22: The
Provincial Congress passes a resolve that all persons who remain faithful to
the king “are guilty of such atrocious and unnatural crimes against their
country, that every friend to mankind ought to forsake and detest them.”
May 27: General
Israel Putnam captures and burns the British schooner Diana in the Battle of Chelsea Creek.
June 14: Joseph
Warren is appointed a major general in the provincial army.
June 16: At 6 p.m.
Colonel William Prescott and 1,000 soldiers assemble in Cambridge
with instructions to build a redoubt on Bunker Hill; for reasons that remain
unclear to this day, they build the fortification on Breed’s
Hill instead.
June 17: Joseph
Warren is killed during the final stages of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which
proves to be the bloodiest engagement of the Revolution.
If you would like to win a copy of BUNKER HILL, just send an email to contest@gmail.com, with " BUNKER HILL" as the subject. Make sure to include your name and mailing address in the US only. This contest is going to run for less than two weeks, so your odds of winning are pretty good - if you enter by April 22, 2013. Good luck!
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