A history of the United States of America, on a plan adapted to the capacity of youth .. . , however, rallied by their officers, being,in some instances, pushed on by their swords, and were again ledto the attack. The Americans now suffered them to approachwithin six rods, when their fire mowed them down in heaps, andagain they fled. Unfi)rtunately fiar the Americans, their ammuni-tion here fiiiled; and, on the third charge of the British, theywere obhged to retire, after having obstinately resisted, evenlono-erthan prudence admitted. The British lost in this engage-ment two hundred and twenty
A history of the United States of America, on a plan adapted to the capacity of youth .. . , however, rallied by their officers, being,in some instances, pushed on by their swords, and were again ledto the attack. The Americans now suffered them to approachwithin six rods, when their fire mowed them down in heaps, andagain they fled. Unfi)rtunately fiar the Americans, their ammuni-tion here fiiiled; and, on the third charge of the British, theywere obhged to retire, after having obstinately resisted, evenlono-erthan prudence admitted. The British lost in this engage-ment two hundred and twenty-six killed, among whom wasMajor Pitcairn, who first lighted the torch of war at Lexington,and eight hundred and twenty-eight wounded. The Americanslost one hundred and thirty-nine killed, and of wounded and miss-ing there were three hundred and fourteen. Among the killetlwas the lamented Gen. Warren. The horrors of this scene were greatly increased by the con-flagration of Charlestown, effected, during the heat of the battle,by the orders of Gen. Gage. By this wanton act of barbarity,. two thousand people were depriveu ui laeir habitations, andproperty to the amount of one hundred and twenty thousandpounds sterling, perished in the flames. Wanton, however, asthe burning of Charlestown was, it wonderfully enhanced thedreadful magnificence of the day. To the volleys of musketry and WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 171 the roar of cannon; to the shouts of the fighting and the groansof the dying; to the dark and awful atmosphere of smoke, en-veloping the whole peninsula, and illumined in every quarter bythe streams of fire from the various instruments of death; theconflagration of six hundred buildings added a gloomy and amaz-ing grandeur. In the midst of this waving lake of flame, thelofty steeple, converted into a blazing pyramid, towered and trem-bled over the vast pyre, and finished the scene of desolation. To the Americans, tlie consequences of this battle were thoseof a decided victor
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