The Political Context

Understanding why the narrative of Bunker Hill was rewritten requires understanding the political embarrassment Massachusetts faced after the battle – and the powerful men who set about correcting it. The story that emerged was not the product of historical scholarship. It was the product of institutional power, family loyalty, and one of the most effective propaganda campaigns of the early republic.

The Massachusetts Problem

The Battle of Bunker Hill presented Massachusetts with a painful contradiction. The battle took place on Massachusetts soil, and the vast majority of the approximately 20,000 men available for duty were Massachusetts militia. Yet the heroes who emerged from the battle were overwhelmingly from other colonies.

General Israel Putnam of Connecticut was universally acclaimed as the hero of the day. Colonel John Stark of New Hampshire held the critical rail fence. Captain Thomas Knowlton of Connecticut commanded the troops who repulsed two British assaults. Meanwhile, General Artemas Ward, Massachusetts' senior military officer, had broken his promise to reinforce and resupply the exhausted men on the hill – a failure that likely cost the Americans the battle.

Only approximately 1,500 exhausted, poorly supplied men were left to face the greatest military force in the world, because Ward refused to commit even a fraction of the 20,000 troops at his disposal. Putnam repeatedly rode back to Ward's headquarters in Cambridge to demand that he honor his commitment. Ward refused. He eventually agreed only to release Stark's New Hampshire regiment – too little, too late.

The recriminations that followed were devastating to Massachusetts pride. The battle was lost at the redoubt, manned by Massachusetts troops. The commanding general who failed to reinforce them was from Massachusetts. And the man universally credited with the heroic defense was from Connecticut.

Washington's senior generals. Putnam (#6) served alongside Schuyler, Lafayette, Greene, and Knox at the highest levels of Continental Army command. Public domain.

This was the political environment that Massachusetts' most powerful men – Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, and their allies – resolved to change.

The Adams-Gerry Propaganda Campaign

Samuel Adams – the master propagandist of the Revolution, whose entire career was devoted to advancing and protecting the honor of Massachusetts – was in Philadelphia serving in the Continental Congress during the battle. He returned to Massachusetts on August 11, 1775, nearly two months after Bunker Hill.

On September 26, 1775, Adams wrote a revealing letter to Elbridge Gerry – his close political ally and future governor and vice president of the United States. The letter is the propaganda blueprint of the post-battle narrative campaign. Adams urges that the merits of Massachusetts officers be promoted "as far as decency will permit of it to their advantage, and the honor of a colony, which for its zeal in the great cause, as well as its sufferings, deserves so much of America." The full passage – and Adams's own concession that he had not heard of Prescott's valor at the time of writing – is examined in detail in Documentary Origins below.¹

Two features of the letter deserve emphasis here.

First, Adams explicitly acknowledges that Massachusetts officers "disgraced" the colony – and proposes that any story hinting at bravery among them be exaggerated "as far as decency will permit." This is not historical inquiry. It is a blueprint for a propaganda campaign.

Second, the letter was written to Elbridge Gerry – the man who would serve as Adams' successor in advancing Massachusetts' interests, and who maintained a close personal and political alliance with Henry Dearborn for decades afterward.

How Massachusetts Actually Treated Prescott

If the contemporary record supported Prescott as the hero of Bunker Hill, we would expect to see him treated accordingly in the weeks and months after the battle. The record shows the opposite.

In the weeks following Bunker Hill, numerous Massachusetts officers received promotions for their battlefield performance. William Prescott was passed over entirely. He received no promotion, no commendation, and no official recognition from Massachusetts.

More tellingly, approximately two weeks after the battle, Prescott submitted a request to the Massachusetts Legislature for reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses he had incurred in connection with the battle. This request was rejected.⁴

This is not how a colony treats the hero of its most celebrated battle. It is, however, entirely consistent with the picture Adams painted in his letter – that of a Massachusetts establishment embarrassed by the performance of its officers and searching for a narrative that would restore the colony's honor.

By contrast, Israel Putnam received his commission as Senior Major General from George Washington within three weeks of the battle – making him second-in-command of the entire Continental Army.

The Prescott Narrative: Documentary Origins

The institutional capture argument can be made directly from the documentary record of 1775 itself. The narrative that elevated Prescott – and by displacement, marginalized Putnam – was not contemporary with the Battle of Bunker Hill. It emerged in the late summer of 1775, was not reflected in the institutional treatment of Prescott in the months following the battle, and was unknown even to Prescott's most prominent political ally in the Continental Congress until he visited Cambridge in late August. Three pieces of contemporary evidence make the point in their own words.

The Verdict of Promotion

The Continental Army's institutional record speaks where individual testimony might be questioned. Of the colonels in the patriot army of 1775 – the men whose performance at and around Bunker Hill the military authorities had direct opportunity to evaluate – sixteen were promoted to brigadier or major general during the war, including John Nixon, Ebenezer Learned, John Glover, John Stark, James Reed, Benjamin Lincoln, Enoch Poor, and Joseph Frye.²

The list extends below the colonelcies, and several of the men who rose were Prescott's own subordinates. Major John Brooks, who served under Prescott on the night march to Bunker Hill, was promoted to lieutenant colonel, then colonel, then acting adjutant-general at Monmouth, and ultimately governor of the Commonwealth – the same John Brooks who would twice defeat Dearborn at the polls. Lieutenant Thomas Grosvenor became colonel. Captain Thomas Knowlton was made major, then lieutenant-colonel, before his death at Harlem Heights in 1776. Captain Henry Dearborn, of Stark's regiment, eventually rose to colonel himself.³

William Prescott was never promoted. He remained in the army until 1777, while contemporaries around him – and men who had served under him on the night march – rose to brigadier and major general. He retained the same rank he had carried with him from Pepperell on April 19, 1775. As Increase Tarbox concluded:

The Massachusetts Reimbursement Denial

On June 27, 1775 – ten days after the battle – Colonel Prescott and seventeen other officers from his and adjacent regiments petitioned the Massachusetts Provincial Congress for reimbursement of clothing, arms, and other personal property lost in the fighting at Charlestown. Prescott's name headed the list.

Two days later, on June 29, 1775, the Congress's response is recorded in the official journal:

The petition was not denied on the merits. It was returned. New Hampshire – "though poorly able to do so in comparison with Massachusetts" – reimbursed her men for their losses in the same battle.

The contrast is documentary. If Prescott had performed in late June 1775 as he was later remembered to have performed, the petition his name headed would not have been "coolly bowed out of the Massachusetts Assembly" ten days after the engagement.

Quoted with commentary in Tarbox, Life of Israel Putnam, p. 117.

Adams Heard Nothing of Prescott's Valor in the Summer of 1775

On September 26, 1775 – three months after the battle – Samuel Adams wrote to Elbridge Gerry from Philadelphia, urging that the merits of Massachusetts officers be promoted "as far as decency will permit" for the honor of the colony. The letter is striking for what it then concedes:

Adams had been at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia from June through August 11, 1775. He returned to Massachusetts, visited Cambridge in mid-to-late August, and only then – more than two months after the battle – first heard that Prescott was the hero of Bunker Hill.

Through the entire summer of 1775, while news of the battle circulated freely and contemporary publications named Putnam by name as the commander, Samuel Adams – one of Prescott's strongest political allies in the Continental Congress – had heard nothing of Prescott's valor. The narrative was not contemporary with the battle. It was constructed in late summer 1775, at Cambridge, in the aftermath of the political maneuvering Adams himself was simultaneously coordinating.

Quoted with surrounding context in Tarbox, Life of Israel Putnam, pp. 252–256.

Who Was Henry Dearborn?

Before examining Dearborn's allegations, it is worth understanding who made them – and why the timing matters.

Henry Dearborn was a man of genuine public accomplishment: U.S. Representative from Massachusetts (1793–1797), Secretary of War under Jefferson (1801–1809), and Major General commanding American forces in the War of 1812. He was also, by 1818, a man whose reputation had been badly damaged. His invasion of Canada in 1813 ended in failure attributed directly to his inaction; President Madison recalled him from command. In 1815, Madison nominated him for Secretary of War; the Senate rejected the nomination amid public opposition over his wartime record. He subsequently served as Minister to Portugal under Monroe (1822–1824), a posting that carried diplomatic rank but little political weight.

In 1817, Dearborn ran for Governor of Massachusetts against the incumbent, John Brooks – who had served under Israel Putnam at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Dearborn lost decisively. He ran again in 1818 and lost again to Brooks. It was in that same year – between the two defeats, 43 years after the battle – that Dearborn published his allegations against Putnam in The Port Folio.

The convergence of dates is relevant. Brooks was a Bunker Hill veteran whose public standing rested in part on that service. Dearborn's attack on Putnam's conduct at Bunker Hill was understood by many contemporaries as an attempt to reframe the battle's legacy in ways that diminished Brooks by implication. The strategy failed at the ballot box; the allegations outlasted the politics.

The timing carries one further dimension. Dearborn published his attack in the March 1818 edition of The Port Folio⁷ – 28 years after Putnam's death, and weeks after the death of the witness best equipped to contradict him. David Humphreys – Putnam's biographer and aide-de-camp, who had also resided at Mount Vernon with Washington and had intimate access to Washington's recollections of Putnam's service – had died on February 21, 1818,⁸ just over two months before Dearborn went into print.

The Silence of Six Journals

Henry Dearborn was an unusually diligent diarist. He maintained six separate journals that exhaustively chronicled his experiences throughout the Revolutionary War – from the march to Quebec through the final campaigns of the conflict.

Not one of these journals contains a single word suggesting that Israel Putnam behaved improperly at Bunker Hill – or at any other engagement.

This silence is not a minor omission. Dearborn was present at the battle. If he had witnessed the cowardice he would later describe in such vivid detail – a general hiding on a hill 600 yards from the fighting for the entire engagement – the natural moment to record it was in the journal he kept during the war, not 43 years later in the pages of a political pamphlet. The journals survive. The allegation does not appear in them.

The implications of this silence are straightforward. Either Dearborn did not witness what he claimed, or he did not consider it worth recording at the time – which itself strains credibility if the conduct was as egregious as he later alleged. In either case, the journals represent a devastating problem for his credibility as a witness.

Washington's Verdict

"Washington's Council of War after the Battle of Long Island" by John Ward Dunsmore. Putnam is depicted opposite Washington – a placement that reflects his standing as second-in-command. Washington, Parsons, Spencer, Mifflin, Scott, McDougall, Putnam, Wadsworth, and Fellows are pictured. Public domain.

George Washington arrived in Cambridge on July 2, 1775 – just three weeks after Bunker Hill – to take command of the Continental Army. He carried with him commissions for four major generals. His actions upon arrival speak louder than any subsequent revisionist account.

The first commission Washington presented was Israel Putnam's. He deferred delivery of the other three. This made Putnam second-in-command of all American forces – the man who would succeed Washington as commander-in-chief in the event of Washington's death or incapacity. Given that Washington had no fewer than eight horses shot from under him during the war, this was no ceremonial appointment.

Washington's decision to promote Putnam over General Ward – Massachusetts' senior officer – subjected him to intense political criticism from his Massachusetts hosts. He made the decision anyway, based on the reports he received about both men's conduct at Bunker Hill. Ward was promptly stripped of decision-making authority and soon resigned from the army.

The question the revisionist narrative cannot answer is simple: if Putnam had hidden from the battle, as Dearborn alleged 43 years later, would Washington have made him second-in-command of the army three weeks afterward? Would the Continental Congress — which had unanimously voted Putnam to major general weeks before the battle — have so honored a man known to its members as a coward? The premise is not merely unlikely – it is absurd.

Cambridge in 1776 vs. Cambridge in 1825

In 1776, the Committee of Safety wrote to Putnam – then preparing to take command at New York – in terms that admit no ambiguity about how Cambridge regarded his service through the post-Bunker-Hill siege. Frothingham, in his History of the Siege of Boston, preserves two passages from the letter:

And, from the same letter:

The letter speaks for the town of Cambridge in 1776, while Putnam's role in its defense through the siege of Boston was still fresh. "We hold in the highest veneration, and ever shall." "Acknowledged with the highest gratitude, not only by us, but by rising generations."

The Dearborn Family and the Bunker Hill Memorial

Henry Dearborn published his allegations against Putnam in 1818 – 43 years after the battle and 28 years after Putnam's death – in the same year he ran (and lost) his second consecutive gubernatorial campaign against John Brooks, the Bunker Hill veteran who was then serving as incumbent governor.

The strategy backfired. The Massachusetts electorate responded with outrage to the attack on one of America's most beloved heroes, and Dearborn was decisively defeated.

But the story did not end there.

In 1823, Henry A.S. Dearborn – Henry Dearborn's son – became a founding member of the Bunker Hill Memorial Association (BHMA), the organization responsible for planning the 50th anniversary celebration and determining which participants in the battle would be honored with statues and monuments at the battle site.

The younger Dearborn used his position within the BHMA to aggressively promote his father's discredited narrative. He lobbied relentlessly for the honoring of Massachusetts heroes – specifically Joseph Warren and William Prescott – and for the diminishment of Israel Putnam's role. To justify honoring Warren and Prescott instead of the universally recognized hero of the battle, Putnam's role had to be reduced.

To accomplish this, Henry A.S. Dearborn rehabilitated his father's allegations and mounted a ferocious public campaign – in the press, through friendly newspapers, and through the institutional machinery of the BHMA – to position the anti-Putnam narrative at the center of public consciousness.

The campaign succeeded. At the 50th anniversary celebration in 1825, attended by approximately 100,000 people, the narrative of the battle was the one crafted by the BHMA under the younger Dearborn's influence. Warren and Prescott were honored as the unqualified heroes. Statues were erected in their honor.

Israel Putnam's name was mentioned once.

How Institutions Become History

The shift in the Bunker Hill narrative was not the result of new evidence or superior scholarship. It was the result of institutional power exercised by men with personal and political motives. To summarize the chain:

Once the BHMA enshrined the revised narrative in stone – literally, in the form of statues and monuments – it became self-perpetuating. Subsequent writers, including those working two centuries later, could point to the monuments and the institutional record as "evidence" for a version of events that was manufactured by men with transparent political motives.

As Putnam biographer Increase Tarbox observed in 1876:

What was true in 1876 remains true today. The "subtle undertow" Tarbox described has continued for another 150 years – aided now by websites and documentaries that repeat the revised narrative without examining its origins or weighing it against the 63 sworn eyewitness testimonies that contradict it.

The 43-Year Silence

Perhaps the most damning fact about Dearborn's allegations is their timing. If Putnam had truly behaved as a coward at Bunker Hill, Dearborn had a duty – both moral and military – to report it. Cowardice in the face of the enemy was a capital offense. Officers were court-martialed for it in the weeks following the battle, with Judge Advocate William Tudor presiding. Tudor testified that in all those proceedings, he "never heard any insinuation against the conduct of General Putnam."

Dearborn said nothing for 43 years. He served alongside Putnam's defenders, rose to prominence in the political and military establishment, and never once raised the allegations he would publish in 1818. By that time, Putnam had been dead for 28 years, and many of the eyewitnesses who could have assisted in his defense had also passed.

In the law, there is a doctrine called laches – the principle that unreasonable delay in asserting a claim undermines its credibility, particularly when the delay prejudices the opposing party. Dearborn's 43-year silence, followed by allegations timed to a political campaign, is a textbook case.

As former President John Adams wrote in response to Dearborn's claims:

Adams placed Putnam's reputation in the company of the most revered figures of the Revolution – Greene, Knox, Lafayette – and expressed astonishment that anyone would question it. This was not a casual observation. It was the testimony of a man who had been at the center of revolutionary decision-making, who had personally voted to appoint Putnam as Major General, and who had never – in 43 years – heard a whisper of dissatisfaction with Putnam's conduct.

Why This Matters

The story of how Israel Putnam's reputation was diminished is not merely a historical curiosity. It is a case study in how institutional power can override primary source evidence – how a narrative constructed by men with political motives can, over time, become accepted as fact simply because it has been repeated often enough and inscribed in stone.

Washington himself anticipated this danger. Writing to Israel Putnam in June 1783, as the war drew to a close, he left a permanent record of where the General stood among the great officers of the Revolution:

The evidence has always been there – in the 63 sworn testimonies, in Washington's letter, in his appointment of Putnam as second-in-command, in Adams' unequivocal endorsement, and in the silence of the courts-martial that investigated officer conduct at Bunker Hill. What has been missing is the will to weigh that evidence against the institutional narrative and to ask the obvious question: who benefited from rewriting the story, and when did they start?

The answers are now before you.

Read the 63 eyewitness testimonies →

Examine the false claims →