Project Gutenberg's The Battle of Bunkers-Hill, by Hugh Henry Brackenridge

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Title: The Battle of Bunkers-Hill

Author: Hugh Henry Brackenridge

Editor: Montrose J. Moses

Release Date: June 26, 2009 [EBook #29225]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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TRANSCRIBERS' NOTES

This e-book contains the text of _The Battle of Bunkers-Hill_, extracted
from Representative Plays by American Dramatists: Vol 1, 1765-1819.
Comments and background to all the plays and the other plays are
available at Project Gutenberg.

Spelling as in the original has been preserved.

THE BATTLE OF BUNKERS-HILL

_By_

HUGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE

[Illustration: HUGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE]

HUGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE

(1748-1816)

The battle of Bunker's Hill was an event which stirred whatever dramatic
activity there was in America at the time of the Revolution. Therefore,
a play written on the subject should not be omitted from a collection
supposed to be representative of the different periods in American
history and in American thought. The reader has an interesting
comparison to make in Hugh Henry Brackenridge's play, which the
title-page declares is "A dramatic piece of five acts, in heroic
measure, by a gentleman of Maryland," and a later piece entitled "Bunker
Hill, or the Death of General Warren," written by John Daly Burk
(1776-1808), who came to America because of certain political
disturbances, and published his drama with a Dedication to Aaron Burr
(1797), the year it was given in New York for the first time.[1] It will
be found that the former play is conceived in a better spirit, and is
more significant because of the fact that it was written so soon after
the actual event.

It is natural that Hugh Henry Brackenridge should have been inspired by
the Revolution, and should have been prompted by the loyal spirit of the
patriots of the time. For he was the stuff from which patriots are made,
having, in his early life, been reared in Pennsylvania, even t