Charlestown Heights on the night of June 16,
1775, was of strategic value, however transient, equalizing the
relations of the parties opposed, and projecting its force and fire
into the entire struggle for American Independence. (Pages
290-302.)

(b)The Siege of Boston, which followed, gave to the freshly
organized Continental army that discipline, that instruction in
military engineering, and that contact with a well-trained enemy
which prepared it for immediate operations at New York and in New
Jersey. (Pages 37-44.)

(c) The occupation and defence of New York and Brooklyn, so
promptly made, was also an immediate strategic necessity, fully
warranted by the existing conditions, although alike temporary.
(Pages 34-161.)]

An exhaustless theme may be so outlined that fairly stated data will
suggest the possibilities beyond.

Waterloo is incidentally related to the crowning laurels of Wellington;
but, primarily, to the downfall of Napoleon, while rarely to the assured
growth of genuine popular liberty.

No battle during the American Rebellion of 1861-65 was so really
decisive as was the first battle of Bull's Run. As that Federal failure
enforced the issue which freed four millions of people from slavery, and
had its sequence and culmination, through great struggle, in a
perpetuated Union, so did the battle of Bunker Hill open wide the breach
between Great Britain and the Colonies, and render American Independence
inevitable.

The repulse of Howe at Breed's Hill practically ejected him from Boston,
enforced his halt before Brooklyn, delayed him at White Plains,
explained his hesitation at Bound Brook, near Somerset Court-House, in
1777, as well as his sluggishness after the battle of Brandywine, and
equally induced his inaction at Philadelphia, in 1778.

[Illustration: The Battle of Breeds Hill, on Bunker Hill. Compiled and
Drawn by Col. Carrington.]

Just as a similar resistance by Totlben at Sevastapol during the Crimean
War prolonged that struggle for twelve months, so did the hastily
constructed earthworks on Breed's Hill forewarn the assailants that
every ridge might serve as a fortress, and every sand-hill become a
cover, for a persistent and earnest foe.

Historical research and military criticism suggest few cases where so
much has been realized by the efforts of a few men, in a few hours,
during the shelter of one night, and by the li