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| Fallout 4 Bunker Hill monument (left) and the IRL Bunker Hill monument (right) PS4 screen capture by Jewelsmith - Photograph by Chensiyuan CC BY-SA 4.0 |
In Fallout 4, the Freedom Trail seems to end at the Old North Church, with the conclusion of the Road to Freedom quest.
However, there are bits of red line that can still be seen in the video game, going from the church to North End Graveyard and on to Bunker Hill.
Because in real life, the Freedom Trail ends at Bunker Hill Monument.
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| In Fallout 4, the red brick line of the Freedom Trail can be seen leading to the Bunker Hill Monument. In Boston, the North Washington Street Bridge connects Charlestown with the North End, just like this bridge that spans the Charles River in Fallout 4. PS4 screen capture by Jewelsmith |
New England soldiers faced British forces in the Battle of Bunker Hill, on June 17, 1775. It is considered the first major battle of the American Revolution.
Two months after the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775 (and Paul Revere's Midnight Ride), colonial troops assembled to face off against the British soldiers stationed in Boston under General Thomas Gage (possibly where the raider character "Gage" gets his name in the game's Nuka-World expansion?).
According to Britannica, more than 15,000 colonial troops from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and 5,000 British troops, assembled around Boston. However, Battlefields.org puts the number of troops who actually engaged in the Battle of Bunker Hill at 2,400 colonists and 3,000 British soldiers.
During the battle, the British set fire to Charlestown. Spectators watched from hills, rooftops and steeples in Boston, and among them were Abigail Adams and her son, John Quincy, who was about 8 years old at the time but would go on to become the sixth president of the United States.
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| Google map of the Charlestown and North End neighborhoods of IRL Boston, next to a map of the same areas in the video game Fallout 4 (courtesy of Fallout4map.com), showing Bunker Hill, USS Constitution, Copps Hill/North End Graveyard, Old North Church, and the North Washington Street Bridge |
Charlestown is the area around Bunker Hill in Fallout 4, as well, where players also find the USS Constitution, BADTFL Regional Office, Charlestown laundry, Charlestown Condo creation club player home, abandoned house, and a piece of perfectly preserved pie.
The Battle of Bunker Hill was considered a victory for the British but at great cost. They sustained twice as many casualties as the colonists and lost many officers. About 450 colonial troops were killed, wounded or captured, and over 1,000 British troops were killed or wounded.
The Bunker Hill Monument was completed in 1842 to memorialize the event. The stones of the monument came from quarries at Quincy. Players of Fallout 4 will know Quincy as the place overrun by Gunners, and the nearby Quincy Quarries as the site of Vault 88, but there's a Quincy and quarries in real life, too.
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| William Prescott statue and Bunker Hill monument, Boston, Massachusetts Photo by Tom Klein 2016, courtesy of The Cultural Landscape Foundation |
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| Minuteman statue in front of Bunker Hill monument in Fallout 4 Screen capture by Jewelsmith |
In the game, Bunker Hill is a post-apocalyptic settlement built around the monument and its adjacent lodge, the partially-ruined building where players meet Old Man Stockton, Deb and the caravan merchants.
During the quest titled "The Battle of Bunker Hill," the lodge is also where players find escaped synths amidst a battle between the Railroad, Institute and Brotherhood of Steel factions.
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~ Jewelsmith (aka JLHilton)
