The author brings to life the main characters and events of the story. He briefly introduces the major figures - British Generals Thomas Gage and William Howe, and American leaders Joseph Warren, General Israel Putnam, Colonel William Prescott, and Henry Knox - and traces the story of the conflict in the Boston area in the spring of 1775. Ketchum then sets the scene of the battle by describing how the Americans, chronically short of munitions, supplies and manpower, successfully avoided British detection and entrenched themselves on Breed's Hill (mistaking it for the higher Bunker Hill), and how the British reacted once they discovered the fortifications. Drawing on letters and other first-person accounts of the battle's participants and observers, both the American and British, Ketchum vividly describes the military action of June 17, 1775; I found myself almost able to hear the firing of guns, and smell the smoke of battle, as I read the final chapters of the book.
As an avid reader of American History, I thought I knew everything about battle of Bunker Hill; however, Ketchum's powerfully written narrative introduced me to many new facts about the people and events of this, the first major battle in America's war for independence. It is a book of outstanding scholarship, and "must read" for anyone interested in American history.
Mr. Ketchum tells a great story, and backs it up with solid scholarship and documentation. Even the notes in the back of the book are interesting. You first meet the people, Clinton, Howe, etc., then get to the story, and what a glorius story it is. It feels real, alive, and you are a part of it. I could almost smell the air it was described so well. Mr. Ketchum also treats the battle as the Decisive Day, events lead to it and then from it, and the magnatude of the Bunker/Breed's Hill Battle is truely felt, all the way to March 17, 1776 when the Brits finally leave Boston.
Check this out: "...two parallel lines of 14 boats in single file, loaded to the gunwales with scarlet-coated British soldiers. Here was all the pageantry and color and drama of war in the 18th century manner, the face of battle that caught at men's hearts and made them see it as beautiful and majestic and terrible all at once." When you get to this in the book, it will jump out at you. You'll then understand the greatness of this book.
Don't wait, get it now. 4 nights and you'll be finished, and moved by it.
