For generations, Boston families played and picnicked on the grassy lawns of the Bunker Hill Monument, unaware that musket balls and other artifacts from one of the American Revolution's most consequential battles lay buried just beneath their feet.
Discovery Inspired by a Centuries-Old Map
Inspired by a map drawn shortly after the battle, archaeologists have been digging in the park that sits on the site where American patriots hastily constructed an earthen fort to slow advancing British forces at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Ground-penetrating radar identified potential locations for the fort in Boston's Charlestown section. Soon after digging the first trench, the team led by Joe Bagley, the city of Boston's archaeologist, found definitive signs of a ditch constructed hours before the battle on June 17, 1775.
"The part that's really crazy to me is that we get to stand in the same ditch," said Bagley, standing over one of two dig sites, where soil is removed about 4 inches (10 cm) at a time, put in buckets, and filtered through screens. Any items found are bagged and identified.
Artifacts Unearthed
So far, the dig has uncovered musket balls and parts of a musket from the battle. They also found objects likely left behind by British troops who occupied the area after the battle, including teacups, tobacco pipes, sleeve buttons, and a wig curler. Nearly 150 combatants died there, but no human remains have been found, though a forensic archaeologist is on site to identify any bones.
"Everything about the ditch is from 1775. You've got musket balls, gun flints. It's what you would expect to see," Bagley said. "It's pretty powerful because these things are being dropped in the middle of the battle."
Significance of the Battle
The start of the American Revolution is often associated with the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. But many scholars cite Bunker Hill and June 17 as the war's first significant battle. The rebels intended to hold off a possible British attack by fortifying Bunker Hill, a 110-foot-high (34-meter) slope in Charlestown across the Charles River from British-occupied Boston. However, for reasons still unclear, they instead took a position on a smaller and more vulnerable ridge known as Breed's Hill, where most of the fighting occurred.
The battle ended with the rebels in retreat, but not before the British had sustained more than 1,000 casualties. Bunker Hill is often portrayed as an American victory, since the British failed to win decisively, and it served to galvanize the colonies against the British.
Commemoration and Continued Dig
Today, a 221-foot white obelisk atop Breed's Hill memorializes the battle. On Wednesday, a church service in Charlestown will be followed by a procession to the Bunker Hill Monument, where a remembrance ceremony will be held, including a wreath-laying, moment of silence, and musket firing demonstration. The dig also ends on Wednesday.
At the dig site, Joel Bohy, a battlefield archaeologist specializing in American Revolution weaponry, marveled at what had been pulled from the dirt. One volunteer held two jagged stones: a gray English gun flint and a beige French gun flint. When the trigger on the musket was pulled, flint struck steel, producing sparks that ignited the gunpowder. They also found eight marble-sized musket balls from both sides. The markings and shape of some bullets showed they had been fired from a distance but didn't hit anyone; if they had, the balls would have been deformed.
"You can see the ramrod mark from when the soldier rammed it down. You can see the little ring on the top where it was pushed down," Bohy said, adding that "marks on the edge of the ball" show it had been fired.
Construction of the Fort
Using pickaxes and shovels, more than 1,000 provincials and residents dug through the night to construct a ditch 3 feet deep and over 6 feet wide. They shoveled the soil in front to make a 6-foot-high wall or parapet that reached 150 feet long on each of the four sides. A map drawn by Henry Pelham two months after the battle showed a square redoubt on Breed's Hill, but it wasn't until this dig that anyone confirmed the shape was accurate. Previous digs in the 1990s had found items related to the battle and some evidence of the ditches.
"If you come to the site, we have the monument, we have a lot of maps on display, and the landscape is beautiful. But you can't really see the fort, the fortifications that were built," Bagley said. "Very little of what's here visibly is from 1775. So, this trench is the reason why all of this is here."
Public Engagement
Beyond locating the fort, the dig also provides visitors a chance to hold "a piece of the battle in their hand," Bohy said. "In a way, it makes the history more dimensional when you look at these objects from the battle itself." Several tourists from Colorado stopped by to watch the dig. Greg Nockleby, who had spent a week in Boston learning about American history, said watching the archaeologists at work was a "wonderful surprise." "A live dig happening right now to uncover our nation's history is amazing," he said. "To see that there have been people here who have died for our freedom and our nation is very immersive."
