COLONEL TRUMBULL AND HIS PAINTINGS. 73 



Dr. Warren's house, and there he showed me also a book 

 of prayer and hymns, which was in the pocket of his uncle 

 when he fell. It was taken to England by a British sol 

 dier, and a benevolent clergyman there purchased and 

 transmitted it to the family friends in Boston. It is still in 

 good preservation. In my last interview with Dr. John C. 

 Warren, two or three years ago, at his house, he showed to 

 me and my companion the skull of General Warren, and 

 also the skull of his own father. They were cleaned as 

 bones usually are when prepared for an anatomical museum. 

 General Warren's skull having been perforated by the ball 

 which killed him, the hole, as we saw it, was well defined. 

 He fell as our troops were returning, and the ball was 

 found in the skull. Dr. Warren remarked that probably 

 this skull might be wanted again on Bunker Hill. I sup 

 pose that he alluded to its expected association with the 

 monumental statue which we had seen in the studio of 

 Mr. Dexter, the sculptor, in Cambridgeport, and which has 

 been recently established, with imposing ceremonies, on 

 Bunker Hill. He gave no solution of his having disin 

 terred the skull of his own father, with whom, more than 

 fifty years ago, I passed an agreeable and instructive even 

 ing at his house in Boston. Now the eyeless orbits, the 

 speechless mouth, and the vacant skull, once belonging to 

 a great man, could assign no reason why they were evoked 

 from the tomb. Was it in sympathy with that ultra- profes 

 sional feeling which induced the late distinguished surgeon 

 to order in his will, regardless of family claims, that his 

 own body should be anatomically prepared and placed in 

 the anatomical museum ? which was done accordingly. 

 General Warren was buried first, I believe, on the battle 

 field, then in Park-Street Cemetery, from which his re 

 mains were disinterred by his nephew, I suppose, as 



remarked above, for monumental commemoration 



It will be remembered that in the battle of Bunker's Hill 

 the British troops were twice repulsed with great slaughter. 



