A Dear-Bought Victory

The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston, 1775–1776

Daniel T. Davis, Phillip S. Greenwalt

• Publisher: Savas Beatie
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781611217841
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

“I wish we could sell them another hill at the same price we did Bunker Hill,” Nathanael Greene wrote to the governor of Rhode Island after the battle of June 17, 1775.

Fought on Breed’s Hill outside Boston, Massachusetts, the Battle of Bunker Hill proved a pyrrhic victory for British forces. Confident in their ability to overwhelm the New England militia that opposed them, long lines of neatly uniformed British infantry and marines swept uphill toward a quickly built earthen redoubt defended by a motley collection of farmers, shopkeepers, and tradesmen.

“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” the colonials urged each other—or did they? By the end of the fight, the British gained the summit and Colonial forces scattered. One of the patriot leaders, Dr. Joseph Warren, lay dead—one of the first martyrs of the American Revolution. But for the British, the scene was far, far worse: it would be the largest number of casualties they would suffer in any battle of the Revolution. As British General Henry Clinton commented afterward, “A few more such victories would have surely put an end to British dominion in America.”

The siege of Boston would continue, but the sobering lesson of Bunker Hill changed British strategy—as did the arrival soon thereafter of a new commander-in-chief of Continental forces: General George Washington.

In A Dear-Bought Victory: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston, 1775–1776, historians Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt separate fact from myth as they take readers to the slopes of Breed’s Hill and along the Boston siege lines, illuminating the clash of arms, personalities, and decisions behind a battle that continues to hold a place in popular memory unlike few others.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• The Emerging Revolutionary War Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword by Christian Di Spigna
• Prologue
• Chapter One: Aftermath of the Battle Road
• Chapter Two: Affairs Wear a Serious Aspect
• Chapter Three: Undoubted Veracity
• Chapter Four: Any Man Who Shall Quit His Rank
• Chapter Five: An Eye for Good Ground
• Chapter Six: The First Attack
• Chapter Seven: The Second Attack
• Chapter Eight: The Loss We Have Sustained
• Chapter Nine: The Siege
• Chapter Ten: A Noble Train of Artillery
• Chapter Eleven: Evacuation Day
• Appendix A: Walking Tours
• Appendix B: “The Whites of their Eyes”: Myth or Reality? by Phillip S. Greenwalt
• Appendix C: The Liberty Tree: Casualty of War by Chris Mackowski
• Appendix D: Bunker Hill in Memory by Kate Egner
• Appendix E: From Cambridge to Quebec: The Continental Invasion of Canada by Daniel T. Davis
• Order of Battle
• Suggested Reading
• About the Authors