Chap. Xxxix} 1775. June 17. |
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holocaust was now come.
Pretending that his flank-
ing parties were annoyed from houses in the village, Howe sent a boat over with a request to Clinton and Burgoyne to burn it. The order was immediately obeyed by a discharge of shells from Copp's Hill.
The inflammable buildings caught in an instant, and a party of men landed and spread the fire; but from the sudden shifting of the wind, the movements of the assailants were not covered by the smoke of the conflagration.
At half past 2 o'clock, or a very little later, General Howe not confining his attack to the left wing alone, advanced to a simultaneous assault on the whole front from the redoubt to Mystic river.
In Burgoyne's opinion, ‘his disposition was soldierlike and perfect.’
Of the two columns which were put in motion, the one was led by Pigot against the redoubt; the other by Howe himself against the flank, which seemed protected by nothing but a fence of rails and hay easy to be scrambled over, when the left of Prescott would be turned, and he would be forced to surrender on finding the enemy in his rear.
As they began to march, the dazzling lustre of a summer's sun was reflected from their burnished armor; the battery on Copp's Hill, from which Clinton and Burgoyne were watching every movement, kept up an incessant fire, which was seconded by the Falcon and the Lively, the Somerset and the two floating batteries; the town of Charlestown, consisting of five hundred edifices of wood, burst into a blaze; the steeple of its only church became a pyramid of fire; and the masts of the shipping, and the heights of the
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