wn move and seize Bunker Hill above Charlestown. Col. William Prescott supported the plan and was asked to lead a night mission to establish a redoubt (small fort) on Bunkers Hill. Together with 300 men of Prescott's regiment, and parts of Ebenezer Bridge's and Colonel James Frye's regiment were added 200 Connecticut men under Captain Thomas Knowlton from Putnam's regiment and Captain Samuel Gridley's artillery company with two light guns. About 5 oclock in the evening of June 16th this force assembled on the common in Cambridge and after a prayer set off quietly for the Horse's Neck. Positioned like a drop of ink extending into the harbor just to the north of Boston, the Charlestown peninsula is approximately one and a quarter miles long and lies between the Charles River on the West and the Mystic river on the East. On the north, the peninsula is joined to the mainland by a narrow stretch of land (called the Neck), which is only thirty feet wide at high tide. Bunker's Hill rises across the narrow western end of the peninsula and at 100 feet high, dominates the Neck of the peninsula. Any fortifications constructed there would be out of effective range of the British battery on Copp's Hill in Boston and would be too high to allow elevation of shipboard guns in the harbor. To the south and east of Bunker's Hill lies Breed's Hill, some 60 feet high gradually sloping to the harbor and Charlestown to its south and west. Under the cover of darkness, the American force crossed the Neck and mounted Bunker's Hill. On the far slope the column stopped and a violent argument broke out among the leaders, with Prescott saying that Ward's verbal orders had been to fortify the lower and more exposed Breed's Hill. Colonel Gridley, who was serving the role of engineer added to the problem contending that valuable time was being lost. At last the decision was made to make Breed's Hill the primary fortification and Bunker Hill the secondary fortification...
