While Dr. Joseph Warren was fighting the British as an ordinary soldier despite his rank at Bunker Hill, he wasn’t the only Dr. Warren there that day.
Joseph Warren had a brother named John, who was 12 years younger. John Warren followed in his brother’s footsteps and became a doctor, and followed him to battle as well. Only twenty-two at the time, John Warren did not fight but instead stayed a few miles away treating those who had been wounded at Bunker Hill.
As the day wore on, the militia evacuated the redoubt, and his brother did not return. Obviously concerned, John Warren desperately tried to get to Bunker Hill to find his brother, but the British regulars guarding the area would not let him through. In fact, he was threatened with a bayonet to leave the area.
Dr. Joseph Warren had, unfortunately, been fatally wounded during the retreat. His body would then be, according to reports from both sides, abused before being buried–and then dug up to be kicked around more and then reburied, and then be dug up to be properly identified by the silver in his teeth and then reburied again, this time properly. And still decades later, his remains would be dug up yet again and moved (at which point early photographs were taken of his skull and the bullet wound) to a new gravesite.
Meanwhile, John Warren went on to serve as a surgeon for the Continental Army. He followed George Washington’s command in New York and New Jersey through several battles, including Trenton.
John Warren cemented his own place in American history, too: he is one of the founders of a school you might have heard of by the name of Harvard Medical School. His own son, John Collins Warren, also became a surgeon and helped found Massachusetts General Hospital, where Mercy and her twin have both received care before.
Next week, we’ll dip into John Adams, Josiah Quincy, and some of the not-so-great arguments they used in the trial for the Boston Massacre.
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