NEW HAMPSHIRE MEN AT BUNKER HILL AND BENNINGTON. 211
��and how many men from Western Mas- sachusetts, joined them. To whom does the honor of that day belong? We are only told how the fight was waged, and where the assaults were made, and what were the results. If Mr. Bancroft had examined American State archives more and European less, we should have de- lighted more in his history.
Anderson's popular School History of the United States, published in 1874, and heralded by numerous recommendations from men who never read it, confines the history of the battle of Bunker Hill to less than one page, including in it a small map, and makes no mention of New Hampshire or her troops in that memorable battle. Only Col. Prescott and his thousand men are named. Stark and Reed, with their two regiments of volunteers, are consigned to oblivion. Is this the proper method of teaching history to the rising generation?
Goodrich, in his Pictorial History of the United States, devotes two pages to the battle of Bunker Hill. He mentions Col. Prescott and his one thousand men, and adds : " The Americans were re-in- forced by a body of troops, and by Gen- erals Warren, Pomeroy and Putnam. The latter, who had just been made a Brigadier General, was commander-in- chief for the day." This last statement has been emphatically denied ; and Gen. Dearborn, who was present in the fight, then a captain, affirms that Putnam had no command, and brings charges derog- atory to the character of the old wolf- killer. Gen. Warren, we know, declined his command and served as a private. Pomeroy, then an old man of seventy, also fought bravely as a private, as men- tioned above. But where were Stark and Reed ? Why was not the greatest hero of the day mentioned? Shall such writers teach American history to our children? In Wilson's History of the United States only Col. Prescott is named in the battle of Bunker Hill. The re- maining description of the events of that day are vague, general and unimportant. The chief actors are left out. New Hampshire has no roll of honor for her scholars to read and reverence. Such
��histories might be written from memory by any man who had read the story once. Lossing, in his School History of the United States, follows the same beaten track, escorted by Col. Prescott and his one thousand heroes, but says nothing of New Hampshire troops or New Hamp- shire officers. He adds in a note that during the forenoon of June 17th Gen. Putnam brought in about five hundred men to reinforce Prescott. Stark, we know, led his own men to the scene of action in the afternoon. Here, again, New Hampshire is slighted. Eliot's His- tory of the United States fails to name New Hampshire or her brave sons. After reciting Prescott's work in the night, in raising the, redoubt, he says : "Reinforced by a thousand men, they partly completed the fortifications in time to receive three thousand British troops assailing them from Boston." Such dry bones are served up for the in- tellectual food of the children of New Hampshire. These School Histories are palmed off upon us by the score, with flaming notices ; and yet they all pursue the beaten track. They make no new in- vestigations, adduce no new facts, cor- rect no old errors, and give nothing in re- turn for the money received for them. Suppose the scholars in our New Hamp- shire schools to study one or a score of these United States Histories, written especially for common schools, what can they know of the Revolutionary services of their own State, when her great men, with a national reputation, are not named in connection with the great bat- tles in which they formed the controlling power? In the two most important bat- tles of the Revolution (except York- town), Bunker Hill and Bennington, lit- tle credit, or none at all, is given to New Hampshire troops and New Hampshire officers. In the battle of Bunker Hill more than half, in that of Bennington more than three-fourths of the fighting men were from New Hampshire; and in neither of those perilous days could the soldiers from other States have main- tained the fight half an hour without them. Let the records of those glorious achievements be reviewed and corrected.
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