Next morning I discovered that it had cleared off, and that the thermometer had gracefully descended to zero. [Well, that was _nothing_.] In fact, during the ensuing six weeks which I spent in the New England States, the sleighing continued excellent, and the thermometer ranged pretty generally from about five degrees above zero to five below. To be sure, we had a cool night or two, now and then, when it went down to ten or fifteen below; but no one thought much of that. Such is the character of the winter in New England—the good old-fashioned kind that a fellow likes to see.
I glanced over toward Charlestown early on the morning after my arrival, beheld Bunker Hill Monument towering far above the smoke-stacks and steeples in the perspective; and I determined to visit it at once. I accordingly climbed to the top of an omnibus, cold as it was—for I wanted to see all I could—and rode over.
It is not universally known that the battle of Bunker Hill is so called because it was fought on Breed’s Hill. The latter is near Bunker’s Hill, and it is on Breed’s Hill that the monument now stands—and always has stood since it was built, (for they never moved it.) The reason the battle was called the battle of Bunker Hill, and, consequently, that the monument is styled the “Bunker Hill Monument,” is, that the engagement _should have been_ fought there. Colonel Prescott was sent with a thousand men to throw up earthworks on Mr. Bunker’s Hill, which overlooked Charlestown Neck; but either mistaking his instructions, or not being acquainted with the vicinity, he took possession of Breed’s Hill instead, and threw up an earthwork there in rather unpleasant proximity to the British fleet in the harbor.
The monument is built of granite, is about twenty-five feet square at the base, and about twelve or fifteen at the top; which top is accessible by means of an interior winding stone stairway, dimly lighted with rather small jets of gas that are too few and too far between. At intervals of about twenty feet there are narrow apertures to let in air; and that cold morning they let in too much. During the previous night, too, the rain had blown in and frozen on the stone steps, so that fully one half of them were perfectly enameled with ice.