Bunker Hill by Howard Fast

become the most
valued and admired of the whole Boston crowd, many of whom I would not give
twopence for. His reputation has become known in Philadelphia, and this
incredible Continental Congress of yours—or should I say of mine as well—has
responded by making him a major general and thereby adding to the current
confusion. For not only is Joseph Warren the last person on earth to command an
army, but he is ill with what I suspect to be milk fever, and since he asked me
to examine him, I prescribed a week in bed with emetic salts—but with no hope
that he will follow my advice.
    Thus,
we have two men in command of the same army, which is no army at all, but only
a mob of men and boys gathered around Boston, without uniforms or more than a
few rounds of ammunition or a few days’ supply of food, and neither men have
even the vaguest notion of what to do or when to do it. If anyone is in command
of this motley lot, it is Israel Putnam, a wild old man whose contempt for the
British will surely lead us into some kind of disaster. He and an engineer
named Gridley have some idea of fortifying a hill outside of Charlestown and
thereby gaining the upper hand over the British. They talk of doing this
tomorrow night or the night after, but perhaps they will think better of it,
since Charlestown, as you may remember, is almost an island and to fortify it
in face of the British fleet is to be cut off and destroyed.
    As
to what the British may be thinking or doing in the face of all this, I cannot
image. We hear that they have almost four thousand men, among them some of the
best regiments in the army, and it would appear to me that they have only to
march onto the mainland and there would be nothing to oppose them. I think they
hesitate to make a war. It is not yet a war, and perhaps if things go well,
there will be no war, and please believe that I hope for this as much as you
do. How many times have you heard me say that of all the obsessions of mankind,
war is the most stupid and the most beastly? To think that intelligent men can
find no other way of settling disputes is to lose heart and hope in man.
    It is well past midnight now, and I have written much
of the conditions here and the men I have met but little of myself. Why is it
so easy to communicate when we are far apart—and so hard to find proper words
to speak to each other when we are together? Of course you were right in
charging me that I was not what you like to think of as a patriot, and that it
was no great surge of emotional indignation that took me away from you and
brought me here. I think that as a physician I know better than most how
complex people are and how difficult it is for them to know why they do what
they do, much less to explain coherently to others.
    I
wonder how many of the thousands of men around Boston could explain the truth
of what brought them here. I know that I cannot. But you were wrong, my dear,
to say that I fled from you. Better have it that I fled from myself and, like
all men who engage in doing so, found that the flight was quite futile.
    What
will be of my coming here and what will ensue over the next few days, I cannot
imagine. But let me say that I am filled with unease, for there is something
morose and heartbreaking in the making here. I would not say this and leave you
in uncertainty if I intended to send this letter off now. But rather than do
that, I shall hold it for a few days so that perhaps I may have a more cheerful
postscript—or indeed find that there is no immediate need for me here and that
I can make my way back to Connecticut…
    Then
Feversham sat pen in hand for a while, brooding over what he had written. His
eyes were heavy, and he put the pen into the ink bottle, pushed it away, and
thought that he would rest his head on his arms for just a moment and doze.
When he opened his eyes, dawn was creeping through the many-paned windows. He
spread his cramped arms and yawned, and a voice said, “I bid you good