The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775

Artist John Trumbull (1756–1843) was in the colonial army camp at Roxbury, Massachusetts on June 17, 1775, the day of the Battle of Bunker Hill. He watched the battle unfold through field glasses, and later decided to depict one of its central events. Joseph Warren, a Massachusetts politician and member of the colony's Committee of Safety, volunteered to serve under Colonel William Prescott in the defense of the redoubt which the colonists had constructed on top of Breed's Hill. This redoubt was the target of three British attacks, of which the first two were repulsed. The third attack succeeded, in part because the defenders had run out of ammunition. Warren was struck by a musket or pistol ball during the evacuation of the redoubt, and killed instantly. ==Description==

The central focus of the painting is Warren's body, dressed in white, and British Major John Small dressed in a scarlet uniform (holding a sword in his left hand). Small, who had served with American general Israel Putnam during the French and Indian War, is shown preventing a fellow soldier from bayoneting Warren. Trumbull wanted to express the poignancy in the conflict of men who had earlier served together. On the far right of the painting is a colonial officer, Thomas Grosvenor, with a black man holding a musket behind him. The black man was long thought to be Peter Salem, a freed slave who served in the cause of American independence. Later research identified him as a slave belonging to Grosvenor. ==People depicted==

British soldiers • Major John Small, the officer stepping over an injured Abercrombie to hold back the bayonet of a fellow soldier • Major John Pitcairn, falling back dying in his son's (Lieutenant Pitcairn's) arms • General Henry Clinton, bare-headed officer with raised sword at the rear, center of the painting • General William Howe, standing to the left of Clinton from the viewer's point of view with his sword pointing forward. • Lord Rawdon, then a lieutenant, holds the regimental colour of the fifth regiment of foot, center-right in the painting • Lieutenant Colonel James Abercrombie, the officer laying injured underneath John Small and at General Warren's feet. Colonists • Joseph Warren, Founding Father • Thomas Grosvenor, soldier to the far right • An African-American slave of Grosvenor, shown behind the officer • A black freeman, possibly Peter Salem, head visible below the flags on the left side of the painting • General Israel Putnam, colonial officer on the far left of the painting • Thomas Knowlton, standing over Warren and holding a musket • Lieutenant-Colonel Moses Parker of Chelmsford is depicted sitting wounded to the left of Warren • Colonel Thomas Gardner lying on ground lower right. Both Gardner and Parker were taken prisoner, and both died in early July in Boston. • Colonel William Prescott, a commander if minutemen ==References==