A Brace of Bunker Hill Authors in 2011

This season has brought two new books on the Battle of Bunker Hill and surrounding events, and both authors will be speaking in Boston over the next two days.

On Thursday, 16 June, Prof. Paul Lockhart of Wright State University will lecture at the Massachusetts Historical Society on his book The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington. His previous books include The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army.

This talk is co-sponsored by the Longfellow House–Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site in Cambridge, now offering free tours every Wednesday through Sunday. Lockhart’s lecture is free and open to the public, with refreshments before and books for sale after, but the historical society asks people to reserve a space in advance.

On Friday, 17 June, James L. Nelson will be the orator at the Bunker Hill Day Commemorative Exercises. His latest book is With Fire and Sword: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Beginning of the American Revolution. The exercises at the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown start at 10:00 A.M., following a religious service and a parade.

Nelson is the author of George Washington’s Secret Navy, Benedict Arnold’s Navy, and George Washington’s Great Gamble, as well as some award-winning maritime historical fiction. With Fire and Sword might be Nelson’s first book about fighting over (gasp!) land. But of course Royal Navy gunners were the first British to fire on the provincials building their redoubt on Breed’s Hill.