Battle of Bunker Hill: A History from Beginning to End

In every war, there are those battles that mark a turning point, after which everything is different. These are the battles that help determine how the war will proceed. The Battle of Bunker Hill was one of those battles in the American Revolutionary War. While it was a battle that the American rebels lost, it was significant because it showed that a rag-tag band of civilian soldiers could in fact stand up to the best trained and most experienced military in the world at that time. Despite losing the battle, the American colonists managed to repulse the British advances twice before finally running out of ammunition during the third assault. Additionally, they killed or injured over 1,000 British soldiers as compared to only suffering a little over 400 casualties among their own ranks.

It came as a surprise to the British who had gone into the battle supremely confident that they would easily win. They didn’t count on the spirit of the colonial rebels who were, by that time, committed to the fight. The Battle of Bunker Hill changed the entire tone of the American Revolutionary War—from that point forward, the British knew they were in for a long, difficult fight, and the colonists had the confidence they needed to declare their independence from Great Britain and establish their own new country, the United States of America.