Gratuitous Revolutionary War Geekery Posting

Death of General Warren by John Trumbull

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill (actually fought on Breed's Hill) in 1775. Although the Brits eventually won, they paid for it dearly through a combination of arrogance (it was believed that a straightforward infantry advance would buffalo the rebels out of their emplacements), military cock-up (there was no artillery barrage because the wrong caliber ammunition was brought for the cannon), and what I have always thought to be strategic blindness (Bunker Hill sits on a peninsula with a very thin neck. When the rebel army formed up, the Brits need only have landed forces behind them astride their escape route in order to bag the lot.)

Of the battle, in which the King's forces suffered almost 1100 killed and wounded compared to the rebel 440-odd, British General Henry Clinton later remarked: "A few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America."