Asa Pollard is generally identified as the first soldier to fall at the Battle of Bunker Hill

Battle of Bunker Hill

The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775, mostly on and around Breed's Hill, during the Siege of Boston early in the American Revolutionary War...

 in the American Revolutionary War

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

.

Though for some reason often described as a "farm boy", Pollard was 40 years old when he fell at Breed's Hill

Breed's Hill

Breed's Hill is a glacial drumlin located in the Charlestown section of Boston, Massachusetts. It is best known as the location where in 1775, early in the American Revolutionary War, most of the fighting in the Battle of Bunker Hill took place...

, reportedly beheaded by a cannon ball fired from the British ship the Somerset in Boston Harbor. Accounts of the circumstances of his death differ. A popular book Now We Are Enemies: The Story of Bunker Hill by Thomas Fleming (1960) relates an often told story that he was killed as he led other soldiers to water.

However, an account from 1897, Abram English Brown's Beside Old Hearth-stones, gives a different version:

It was about noon, and they were taking their lunch brought over from camp on the previous evening. An occasional cannon-ball had been fired over from the war-vessels of the enemy during the morning hours, but they had been easily dodged by the busy workmen. Asa Pollard had seen such missiles before, and made light of the poorly directed shot. But about midday this brave son of Billerica, when seated on the embankment, was struck by a cannon-ball, which severed his head from his body.

External links

• excerpts from "Beside Old Hearth-stones"