Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill
by Richard M. Ketchum, Raphael Palacios (Illustrator)
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Boston, 1775: A town occupied by General Thomas Gage's redcoats and groaning with Tory refugees from the Massachusetts countryside. Besieged for two months by a rabble in arms, the British decided to break out of town. American spies discovered their plans, and on the night of June 16, 1775, a thousand rebels marched out onto Charlestown peninsula and began digging a redoubt (not on Bunker Hill, which they had been ordered to fortify, but on Breeds Hill, well within cannon shot of the show more British batteries and ships). At daybreak, HMS Lively began firing. It was the opening round of a battle that saw unbelievable heroism and tragic blunders on both sides (a battle that marked a point of no return for England and her colonies), the beginning of the Revolutionary War.Richard M. Ketchum recounts the early developments of the American Revolution in Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill. show lessTags
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Author Information
33+ Works 2,631 Members
Richard M. Ketchum was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on March 15, 1922. He received a degree in American history from Yale University in 1943. After college, he served as commander of a Navy submarine chaser in the Atlantic. He owned an advertising agency until 1951, when he joined the United States Information Agency, eventually becoming show more director of overseas publications. He was hired by American Heritage in 1956 and co-founded Country Journal, where he also served as editor. He wrote several history books including Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill, Saratoga: Turning Point of America's Revolutionary War, and The Borrowed Years, 1938-1941. He died on January 12, 2012 at the age of 89. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1962
- Important places
- Bunker Hill, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
- Important events
- American Revolution (1775 | 1783); Battle of Bunker Hill
- Epigraph
- The day--perhaps the decisive day--is come, on which the fate of America depends. -- Abigail Adams
- Dedication
- For my Mother and Father
- First words
- It had been a rough, unseasonable crossing.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)As they fought on, a nation was born, and many years later, when all but a handful of his comrades in arms had gone, one of the last surviving veterans of that war remembered how, "when peace was declared, we burnt thirteen candles in every hut, one for each State."
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Statistics
- Members
- 257
- Popularity
- 125,492
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.09)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 14
