As the credulous Colonial Revival gave way to the early-twentieth-century debunking of America’s unsupported historical legends, the traditional story of “the whites of their eyes” appeared very shaky. Allen French exemplified how historians became suspicious of traditions and demanded stronger evidence:
All the late tales give stories of the setting of marks and the measuring of distances, and the warning to hold the fire until the men could see the whites of the eyes, or the buttons, or the gaiters appearing over a rise in the ground . . . But none of these things are told in contemporary stories.
The scholarly consensus now held that the famous quotation may never had been uttered at Bunker Hill after all. If any battlefield commander really did give that command, it had to be Colonel Prescott, regardless of what earlier sources had said about Colonel Putnam. And the quotation wasn’t an American original—those officers were just copying an older German expression.
We see that muddled understanding in recent reference books. For example, The Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations attributed the words to Prescott and adds, “Also attributed to Israel Putnam, but he was probably relaying the order from Prescott.” The Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations credited “Don’t fire ’til you see the whites of their eyes” to Prescott and “Men, you are all marksmen—don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes” to Putnam “relaying Prescott’s order.” The Yale Book of Quotations pushed back toward Putnam, citing an 1825 reference while acknowledging the other attributions. In Founding Myths, Ray Raphael noted that the American National Biography reference series quotes the words in its entries on both Putnam and Prescott, the former definitely and the latter as “Tradition has” it.
Some authorities emphasize the legendary aspect of the quotation, saying that neither Putnam nor Prescott nor any other commander spoke that famous line. Paul F. Boller’s They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions lists the traditional quote under Prescott’s name, with no mention of Putnam, but then reports earlier uses by Prussian royalty. The Quote Verifier lists Prescott first “By tradition,” mentions how “Others attribute” the words to Putnam, and concludes that they were “Probably a common military command.” In Men of War, Henry I. Kurtz wrote, “Did anyone say ‘Don’t fire ’till you see the whites of their eyes?’ Probably not.”