A HEROINE OF THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL JUNE 17, 1775

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Charlestown, Massachusetts
Surname/tag: Sergeant

Boston, Massachusetts, 1775: A 15 year old girl was present when the first shots of the Battle of Bunker Hill were fired. Rather than running away, she took her friend’s hand and ran toward the battle.

Mara Sargeant is little remembered today, but she is no less a folk hero than many who are still celebrated in verse and song. She was the daughter of John Sargeant, a sea captain who drowned at sea shortly before Mara’s birth, and Elizabeth Sargeant, granddaughter of the famous Puritan minister, physician, and poet Michael Wigglesworth, who wrote the influential poem “The Day of Doom,” often printed and carried in the Bibles of Puritan congregants. The poem delighted its Puritan audience with its vivid descriptions of hell and damnation and chilled them to the core with its stern warnings. The Puritan ethic was still manifest in Wigglesworth’s descendants, and Mara is reported to have left her fiancé, son of a wealthy ship owner, on the day of their wedding because he arrived with the smell of alcohol on his breath.

Life was not easy for the Sargeant family in the wake of John’s death at sea, and the children worked to help support their life in Boston. Mara became an accomplished seamstress at an early age. When George Washington took over the command of the Siege of Boston, she entered his employment, handling the family’s washing and ironing. She would also sew caps for Martha and stockings for George, and endeared herself to them so much, that when they fled Boston, Washington gave her a silver dollar which she kept as a memento rather than spending it. But before her time with the Washingtons was the fire and blood of Bunker Hill.

Perhaps one of the best-known facts about the battle is that it was not actually fought on Bunker Hill, since most of the conflict unfolded on Breed’s Hill instead. Colonial forces learned that the British were planning to occupy the numerous hills surrounding the city, giving them unfettered control of Boston Harbor from their lofty perch. On June 16, during the night, forces lead by William Prescott occupied the hills, building a strong fortification on Breed’s Hill and lesser fortifications up and down the Charlestown Peninsula. When the British took note upon daybreak of the 17th, action swiftly followed. Two waves of British soldiers failed to capture the redoubt, and only when the colonialists ran out of ammunition was a third wave able to overtake the Hills. Even though the battle was technically won by the British, it was so Pyrrhic that the British were reluctant to commit to a frontal assault on a well-defended colonial position ever again. The British suffered 1,054 casualties, with around 100 of the 226 dead being officers. The Colonial Army was not unscathed, losing 140 men, but most causalities were taken during the withdrawal. General Clinton is reported to have quipped that “a few more such victories would have shortly put an end to British dominion in America.

Why young Mara Sargeant and her friend were around such a dangerous battlefield is unknown, though she was to later marry Joseph Grace, a combatant in the struggle. When the shelling from the H.M.S Lively began, Mara and her friend remained on the field of battle, even as some soldiers cut and ran. She carried water for the thirsty men, to cool the defending cannon, and for the medics tending to the wounded. As casualties mounted Mara began to rip her clothes and petticoats to help provide bandages for the wounded and began to actively tend to their wounds herself. Though the story is romanticized, the reality was as gritty and raw as one could imagine. Describing the state of wounded British soldiers from Bunker Hill disembarking in Plymouth for care, the New England Essex and Gazette wrote: “A few of the men came on shore, when never hardly were seen such objects: some without legs, and others without arms; and their clothes hanging on them like a loose morning gown…”. As Mara tended to the grisly wounds of the Colonialists, she later said that “…the bullets fell around us like hailstones!” According to a poem written about that day (although I could not confirm the accuracy in any historical records), “Miss Mara, dressed immodestly, / Explained to Mother at her door, / ‘I couldn’t take off any more.” / Her proper Boston mother cried, / “My soul and body! Get inside!’”

Mara Sargeant Grace lived a long life, finally dying at the age of 84 while living with her son. In a sad and terrible twist of fate, the old woman who survived the fire and blood of Bunker Hill fell forward into her fireplace while preparing tea and died of her burns. She was buried in the Leona Cemetery in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, a simple fieldstone her only memorial. In 1918, she was given a suitable gravemarker through the efforts of the Os-Co-Hu Chapter of the D.A.R. The marker was updated to its current state in the 1970s.

Is this story true? Who can say? But it is yet another in a long train of stories both remembered and forgotten of a proud people who yearned for freedom and were willing to fight to achieve it. Whether the particulars are true in fact, they still partake of Truth. She is an American hero.

My daughter is named Mara after her maternal relative Mara Sargeant. I took this picture of her at the graveside of her ancestor when she was only a year old.

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