Professor Ed Larson, Drama on Dorchester Heights: Washington's First Victory -- American Heritage Magazine

Professor Edward J. Larson's excerpt from his book Declaring Independence: Why 1776 Matters, titled Drama on Dorchester Heights: Washington's First Victory, is published in American Heritage Magazine. The except details general George Washington's plan to force British troops out of Boston 250 years ago. The special 250th anniversary issue of the magazine contains articles by over a dozen prominent historians.

From Drama on Dorchester Heights: Washington's First Victory

In their relatively comfortable winter quarters in Boston, the British were largely ignorant of George Washington’s audacious plan to force them out of Boston. On the other hand, patriot leaders alerted by informants always seemed to know precisely what the British would do before they did it, such as the prior April when the British marched on Concord to try to capture the patriot armory, or two months later when the British took the highlands around Bunker Hill. 

At those critical junctures, by acting first, the patriots turned both efforts by the British into pyrrhic victories at best. “Another such would have ruined us,” one British general at the scene commented on his army’s “dear bought victory” at Bunker Hill. But confident in their might and dismissive of their foe, British leaders never seemed to attend in advance to patriot operations even when they should have foreseen them.

The complete article may be found at American Heritage Magazine