Bunker Hill Revisited

Andreas Mink, a German-born Connecticut based journalist makes a timely visit to Boston to ponder the outbreak of the American War of Independence against the British monarchy 250 years ago. For the question has rarely seemed more urgent: Can the spirit of the Founding Fathers save American democracy? He asked me to be his guide for his visit to Bunker Hill. Here is a translation of the article he wrote for Aufbau, a German-language Jewish Magazine published since 1934, sold in Europe, Israel, Switzerland and the USA.

Col. Prescott statue by William Wetmore Story, installed in 1881., in front of the Bunker Hill Monument. (photo by Tom Paine)

Gates of Hell and Reconciliation, by Andreas Mink. July 2025

"Will he fight?" "I can't say anything about his troops. But Colonel Prescott will fight you to the gates of hell." The exchange between Sir Thomas Gage and the loyalist Abijah Willard on June 17, 1775, is part of the founding myth of the United States of America. The British general had served in the 1754-63 conflict against the French, who were still in Canada at the time. King George III subsequently appointed him Commander-in-Chief of his armed forces in the Thirteen Colonies and, in May 1774, Governor of Massachusetts. Gage was tasked with settling the escalating tensions with the colonists in Boston. He was unsuccessful. In April 1775, after initial skirmishes with British units west of the city in Lexington and Concord, militia from the region had formed a siege belt around Boston.

Now the nobleman stood next to Willard in the midday heat on Copp's Hill at the north end of Boston. The royalist merchant was the brother-in-law of William Prescott (1726-1795). The hill had long been the site of a burying ground. Now, the British had set up cannons there. About 1,200 colonists under Prescott's command had occupied Breed's Hill above the town of Charlestown directly across a narrow inlet on the evening of June 16. Militiamen from Massachusetts, as well as from the neighboring colonies of Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, hastily dug a redoubt of earth and boulders and brought in cannons: a direct threat to the British. Gage had no choice but to order an attack on the bastion. Thus, on the afternoon of June 17, 1775, the Charlestown peninsula became the scene of the "Battle of Bunker Hill."

250 years later, my guide Thomas Paine, inspecting the historic sites, first clarified an old misunderstanding: Prescott was originally supposed to occupy Bunker Hill, located 1,500 meters behind Breed's Hill, but considered a position near the shore more militarily prudent. Nevertheless, the ensuing confrontation did not go down in history as the "Battle of Breed's Hill."

In his mid-70s, slim and tall, Paine is an ideal guide not only for Boston and the surrounding area. The landscape architect turns out to be a godsend in the search for answers to questions as simple as they are difficult: How did the discontent among colonists develop into a bloody, protracted struggle for liberation against the British? Unrest began in Boston and New England in 1763 after the end of the conflict known in Europe as the "Seven Years' War." What motives and ideals drove the insurgents? And what of these remains important and productive in the second Trump era, which is rapidly tearing down the freedoms, rights, and institutions fought for 250 years ago?

Paine explores these questions not least because the history here is also his own, that is, that of his ancestors and relatives. His roots go back to the landing of the "Pilgrim Fathers" on what is now Cape Cod on the "Mayflower" in November 1620. This passenger, Stephen Hopkins, was the only one who had previously been to the New World, having lived in the Jamestown colony, Virginia, after a shipwreck in Bermuda in 1609. Not least among his ancestors is Robert Treat Paine (1731-1814), one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776: "But in total, nineteen relatives on both sides of the family participated in the War of Independence – thirteen of them in uniform. A militiaman named Richard Fowler was there at Bunker Hill."

Paine upholds the values and ideals of his ancestors: a society founded on the freedoms and rights enshrined in the Constitution; the separation of powers; but also education, a sense of community; and protection and assistance for the disadvantaged, and for minorities. It quickly becomes clear that he considers the current presidency a catastrophe and an existential threat to the order fought for 250 years ago. Paine also includes the attacks on Harvard University in this context. Like many of his ancestors, he himself studied there. Pastor Samuel Willard, Robert Treat Paine's great-grandfather, served as acting president of the university, founded in 1639, from 1701 to 1707. Paine's ancestors and relatives contributed in many ways to shaping the colonies and then the United States, and in more recent generations, they have also contributed as philanthropists. He is involved with the Massachusetts Historical Society and the maintenance of Stonehurst, the former estate of philanthropist Robert Treat Paine 2d, designed by architect H. H. Richardson and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted outside Boston. He is writing American Pluck, a book about ten ancestors: "This book is intended, above all, to help readers who are interested in our history and care about our future to understand what truly made America great – and the personal courage and imagination necessary to meet the moment. But above all, personal decency. These ancestors are the intellectual forebears of all of us."

The landscape architect, however, is not related to the historical Thomas Paine (1737-1809), the Quaker and freethinker who emigrated from England to the colonies only in 1774. He had no children. His pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776 – half a year after Bunker Hill – is considered the most widely read text in American history and, as an argument against the monarchy and a blueprint for a republican system, had an enormous influence on the course of the Revolution and the founding of the United States. Paine is used to the confusion: "My parents admired the pamphleteer and named me after him." It therefore seemed only logical to also to seek counsel with Common Sense on this hot June day. But the living and the historical Thomas Paines were not meant to provide information about the entire War of Independence, including the debates preceding the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, and then the Constitution, but only about its beginning, from the spring of 1775 until the British withdrawal from besieged Boston the following March. Here lie the roots of later crises in the USA – which Common Sense had already warned about.

Robert Treat Paine's copy.

As early as July 1775, George Washington had arrived in front of the city as commander-in-chief of the insurgents. They now increasingly referred to themselves as "Americans" – rather than as British subjects. Yet, at least in New England, a break with the motherland had long been in the making and went back to the “Mayflower”. Over half of the 102 passengers were radical critics of the Anglican state church and called themselves "separatists." Their model was the biblical exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt. Upon landing, the Calvinist sectarians and the other passengers adopted the "Mayflower Compact," establishing the framework for a "civilly ordered society; for the purpose of better organizing and protecting ourselves..." This would be achieved by "just and equal laws, ordinances, decrees, constitutions, and offices... for the common good of the colony," to which all members would "dutifully submit." The independence thus established was cultivated not only through extensive self-government, but also through educational institutions. The most important of these became—and remains—Harvard.

Here, Paine brings his ancestor Anne Hutchinson into play: The Bible-loving midwife agitated against the orthodoxy of the Puritans in Boston and for her own, direct interpretation of Holy Scripture. In debates and on trial for heresy, Hutchinson demonstrated such a sharp mind, challenging the male establishment, that the same leaders who had prosecuted her promptly enacted legislation to found a college, as a bastion of religious orthodoxy, lest such challenges gain the upper hand. Meanwhile she and her many followers left Massachsetts to form a new colony in Rhode Island in 1638. Biblical study and the education of clergy remained cornerstones of the Harvard curriculum for generations, as the college grew into a university of liberal arts and sciences—the oldest in America. By 1775 Harvard was already a very old establishment institution—but one of educated individuals who increasingly insisted on independence from their distant motherland and then became rebels themselves. From here, a direct path leads to Bunker Hill.

Common Sense also argues from the Bible—especially the Old Testament and the history of the people of Israel. The text, however, appears to be an enticing mixture of practical and theoretical considerations. Using King Samuel as an example, Paine aims to demonstrate that a hereditary monarchy is actually an aberration and even a sin. However, he also argues very pragmatically: Thanks to the participation of militias in the fight against Native Americans and the French, the colonies are now "trained in war." However, these skills could fade in a few years. An armed revolt against the monarchy therefore now has a realistic chance of success and is therefore urgently needed. Paine saw Bunker Hill as confirmation of this perception. He was by no means alone in this.

Fundamentally, however, it must be stated that the colonies could only be established and survive with effectively organized violence—against Native Americans and, in New England, soon also against the French. This society was therefore trained in – and willing to do enact violence. Paine already warned of the danger that this aggressiveness could turn inward: Given the escalating tensions with London, a "mob" could revolt and sow murder and chaos. And Boston, in particular, had been the scene of increasing mob violence since 1763. Naturally, differences over the future of the colonies also affected countless families, as the example of Prescott and Willard shows.

Common Sense therefore argues for a break with England, led by educated elites, to establish an independent republic as a new order. Founding fathers like Robert Treat Paine assumed precisely this role. His descendant researched his biography for his book project. Paine came from the New England elite, but he was also a self-made man whose father had lost the family fortune in failed business ventures. After Harvard, the young Paine went to sea, failed several times as an entrepreneur, then participated as a chaplain in a campaign against the French, and finally became a successful lawyer in Taunton, Massachusetts, and later Boston: a very American biography. He was considered a moderate, had pedantic tendencies, and in 1775/76, with his endless questions, he got on the nerves of other participants in the Continental Congress of the rebellious colonies in Philadelphia. But Paine also possessed humor, intelligence, and the courage to serve as prosecutor in the Boston Massacre trials in 1770.

The "Massacre" brought to a head tensions that had already begun in 1763. Due to the horrendous costs of the war, London felt compelled to unilaterally impose fees and customs duties (the Sugar Act of 1764; the Stamp Act of 1765) on the colonies. Parliament and the king responded to the colonies' protests with further tariffs and, in 1768, with the dispatch of an initial 2,000 soldiers to Boston. These soldiers were quartered with families or in requisitioned buildings: the perfect recipe for a spiral of escalation. On a winter day in March 1770, a confrontation over an officer's allegedly unpaid barber's bill led to a street riot in which a British patrol opened fire and shot five Bostonians. Paine acted as the prosecutor, while John Adams, another future Founding Father, took on the defense – and was successful. Paine and Adams knew each other well and agreed that due process would also demonstrate the colonists' commitment to law and order.

Nevertheless, unrest and violence continued to increase, for example in the gruesome form of a customs officer being tarred and feathered – and were fueled by covert agitators such as the Sons of Liberty. In addition to the outrage over taxes levied without representation – in Parliament in London – there were also the self-interests of merchants and smugglers. Disguised as Mohawk natives, the Sons of Liberty instigated the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, throwing 342 chests containing 40 tons of tea overboard from ships of the British East India Company. London responded by closing the port of Boston and imposing further reprisals. Even for cooler heads like Robert Treat Paine, this was the end of the line. The jurist was convinced of the "natural right" of the colonists as free subjects to defend themselves against hastily made decisions on the other side of the Empire regarding their taxation.

After Gage sent troops in April 1775 to confiscate powder stocks and cannons from militias, there was truly no turning back. Often led by veterans of the Seven Years' War, militiamen offered effective resistance at Lexington and Concord. The first "shot echoed around the world" – as Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1837 poem Concord Hymn put it – and immediately called in thousands of militiamen from across New England. As Nathaniel Philbrick describes in his excellent study Bunker Hill, these country people had no Harvard education and, beyond slogans like "natural rights," had little knowledge of Enlightenment ideas and debates. But they were used to violence and were now determined to use it against the British in Boston: a strong aversion to a rigid, authoritarian regime; pride in their honor and self-reliance as pioneers and fighters; and a local esprit de corps and a hunger for revenge must have come together as their motivations.

Prescott represents this background. He was a wealthy farmer from northern Massachusetts and had gained military experience from a young age, proving himself to be a skilled and courageous commander of a militia unit from his region against the French. Prescott also commanded local Minute Men, particularly well-trained militia commandos that were ever ready to respond to attacks by indigenous peoples. He therefore brought with him a level of competence, but also a charisma that instilled confidence in his diverse and sometimes young, inexperienced troops. Prescott also knew whom the rebels would now be up against. Gage had elite regiments like the First Marines and the Royal Welch Fusiliers ferried to the Charlestown Peninsula in rowboats.

Contrary to popular belief, these regiments were nothing like mindless tin soldiers and not only had high morale, but also operated flexibly in battle. But a few hundred "Colonials" only abandoned the bastion after three attacks by a total of 2,400 British troops, when they ran out of ammunition, which had been scarce from the outset. Prescott's legendary command: "Fire only when you see the whites of their eyes" – that is, at a distance of 35-40 meters – took this problem into account. "Few had bayonets either. In the end, they fought the British with rifle butts and stones," Paine notes. "And then they pulled off a fighting retreat – the most difficult maneuver in warfare." Embittered by the resistance, the British massacred even the wounded during the storming of the bastion and took no prisoners. The rebels lost 115 men, plus about 330 wounded or captured. But depending on estimates, up to half the British were killed or injured. Abijah Willard proved to be right. The gates of hell had opened on that hill. British General William Howe understood: "This victory was too dearly bought." This is how Brigadier General Nathaniel Greene, one of Washington's best officers, viewed the battle: "For this price, I would gladly sell the British another hill."

My guide Thomas Paine quotes this saying as we stand in front of the bronze statue of Colonel Prescott next to the 67-meter-high obelisk made of massive granite blocks, which was erected on the battlefield between 1825 and 1843. His head slightly bowed, Prescott has drawn a sword in the direction of Gage. Behind him lie a shovel and a pickaxe on the pedestal. Paine has photographed the statue of Prescott dozens of times: "I am captivated by the lines of his coat, which are so harmonious with the monument behind it."

 Col. Prescott statue was recently conserved by Joannie Bottkol for the 250th.  She sits on my board of the Friends of the Longfellow House Washingtons Headquarters National Historic Site. (photo by Tom Paine

Then we follow Prescott's gaze over to the cemetery on Copp's Hill, established in 1659. Arriving there, Paine strides purposefully through crowds of tourists to two basalt grave markers from 1769 and 1770. Here rest Captain Daniel Malcolm and his wife Ann. The chest- and waist-high slabs bear round bullet marks: "The British only used these stones as targets at the time of Bunker Hill," explains Paine. Both slabs feature crossbones and skulls at the top – and musket ball hits right in their eye sockets. Paine is moved: "You can see the hatred of that time!" For, as the gravestone states, Malcolm had been a "Son of Liberty" – but also a smuggler – and generally a thorn in the side of the British authorities.

Pointing out the musket ball craters on the headstone of "true son of Liberty" Daniel Malcolm, Copps Hill (photo by Andreas Mink)

A hundred meters further on, at the foot of the Copp's Hill Burying Ground, lies the Old North Church, built in 1723. Its leadership sided with the rebels. Inside, a plaque high on the left wall commemorates parishioner Daniel Malcolm and records his wish to be "buried ten feet deep" – to be "safe from British bullets." This wish was evidently something that soldiers of George III intended to blow to pieces in June 1775. But on the opposite right wall, a plaque commemorates British Major John Pitcairn. He led the Marines to their decisive assault on Prescott's Bastion, was hit multiple times and killed. His body lay in state in the Old North Church. "The revolution was ultimately also a fratricidal war," Paine points out. This is why he has long been preoccupied with concepts and processes of reconciliation, for example, in post-apartheid South Africa. At the exit, he shows the album of photos from 1976 showing Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip visiting the Old North Church to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: Bostonians were enthusiastic about this gesture.

But what went wrong with the United States? Why is the constitutional order fought for 250 years ago on the brink? At a late lunch at the Harvard Club with gazpacho, salad, and ice water, Paine refers to Common Sense: "The pamphlet warns of the serious differences between New England and the southern states founded on slavery and plantation farming, which were already evident in 1776: 'The colonies must now unite against the monarchy. After a few decades, these differences would be so deep that a union would be impossible.'" Paine sees racism, related authoritarian tendencies, and, not least, a lack of education as dividing wedges in American society. This includes the fanaticism of the Trump camp regarding firearms: "The Second Amendment links the right to bear arms to a "well-regulated militia." Bunker Hill provides the perfect example of this. The militia members had trained together and fought for their communities!" The barely controlled possession of military-grade automatic rifles by individuals these days is absolutely obscene and would reverse the legacy of the Founding Fathers.

But this also highlights the gap between the noble principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, based on the Bible and the Enlightenment, and deeper interests and impulses. After all, Common Sense warns against mob violence. This became evident in Washington on January 6, 2021, during the storming of the U.S. Capitol. But the pamphlet also conjures up the rise of a "fortunate ruffian” who could exploit a crisis in the existing order to seize power. The United States may already have experienced this event. And apparently, the rules and principles conceived by educated people 250 years ago might no longer suffice to hold together the broad population and thus a nation torn by conflicts and differences.

But Paine is undeterred. Perhaps he has no choice. His family history is too rich with personalities who have upheld and represented the values and principles of their culture – not only as suffragettes and environmentalists, philanthropists, and cultural figures, but who have repeatedly faced death as soldiers. Paine returns to his book project and calls ancestors like Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee (1789–1867) to the witness stand. She published her first writings anonymously and then portrayed women in the American West as people with their own voices in her bestseller "The World Before You, or the Log Cabin" (1844). Charles Jackson Paine (1833–1916), a great-grandson of Founding Father Robert Treat Paine, led Black troops against the slave states as a brigadier general during the Civil War and lost his then 18-year-old brother Sumner at Gettysburg in July 1863, fourscore and seven years after his forefathers brought forth a new nation. Robert Treat Paine had led the Continental Congress’ efforts to assure that the army had adequate supplies of powder and arms, and as Massachusetts’ first Attorney General, heading the committee to decide how best to celebrate July Fourth on America’s first birthday in 1777, insisted on fireworks.

Statue of Robert Treat Paine in Taunton Massachusetts (photo by Tom Paine)

But my guide looks beyond the USA: "Humanity has made progress. Paine acknowledges that "we are experiencing regression today: conservatives are cutting back the social safety net." But he is convinced: "No one will be able to take away women's right to vote again, or enslave people again."

Andreas Mink is the US correspondent for JM Jewish Media AG and lives in Connecticut.