Frederick A. Ober

“ His one cry was, "fight, fight; bring our men into contact with the enemy, in order that they shall gain confidence and learn that they are really their equals, and more than that. Fight and entrench, entrench and fight; run away when it comes to a pinch, fight while you run; but fight!"
"But will our men stand before an enemy?" queried the timid ones. "Yes, they will," declared Putnam with a laugh. "Our troops are not all afraid of their heads, though very much concerned for their legs, and if you cover these they'll fight forever!" ”

“ The movements of the British were slow, and mid-afternoon had arrived before the agonizing suspense was over and they began their advance up the hill. The eager Americans were hardly to be kept behind their earthworks, much less restrained from firing at the advancing foe, as the solid ranks came marching up the acclivity, ominously silent, with deadly intent. But Putnam was with them, riding slowly up and down the lines. ”

“ Not satisfied with one futile assault, in which his men were cut down by hundreds, torn by grape-shot and mangled by cross-fires of musketry, Abercrombie ordered another and another, until the heroic and desperate fighting men were entirely exhausted. Never was there a greater display of courage and senseless devotion to a mistaken sense of duty, than on that day when the fifteen thousand British and Provincial soldiers tried vainly to dislodge one-third their number of Frenchmen from their position at Ticonderoga. ”

“ Like lions making for their lairs in the hills, Prescott and Putnam gave way at last before the overwhelming forces of the enemy; and, after passing through the storm of cannon-balls still hurtling across the Neck, they had leisure to count up their losses; for the British were too exhausted, too much in awe of their prowess, even, to pursue. ”

“ Down below, on the slope near the Neck, was the infuriated Putnam, doing his utmost to urge forward the belated reenforcements. When he saw the onpouring mass of men in retreat he was wild with rage. "Halt, you infernal cowards!" he yelled. "Halt here and make a stand. We can stop them yet!" But he was overborne by the resistless stream, and with an impious imprecation on his lips he dismounted, near a field-piece, "and seemed resolved to brave the foe alone." One man only, a sergeant, took his stand beside him, but he was soon shot down, and brave Old Put was left without support. ”

“ As the Rangers under Putnam were the first in the assault, so they were the last to retire, being obliged to protect the retreat of the main army, and remained till dusk on the edge of the forest, where they maintained a continuous fire, to prevent pursuit. With but one-third as many soldiers as Abercrombie brought to the attack, Montcalm did not feel like pursuing the retreating foe, but contented himself with the great victory—a victory won not so much by the valor of his men as by the incompetency of his chief opponent. ”

“ Of a truth, the conduct of General Webb, in command of the forces at Fort Edward and Fort William Henry, deserves the execration of the world. Fuming inwardly against their unjustifiable detention, yet so well disciplined as to accept their commander's orders with impassive faces, the soldiers all, Provincials as well as regulars, were compelled to inaction, and thus became in a sense accessories to the blood-thirsty savages who had murdered their friends. ”

“ There are some persons in the world who appear to bear a charmed life, which no amount of daring or exposure can endanger. Foremost in the charge, and the last to retreat, they are never found with the dead. Fate seems to delight to place them in the most desperate straits, on purpose to make their deliverance appear the more miraculous. Putnam was one of those favored beings, and was not born to be killed in battle. ”

“ Lieutenant Durkee was slightly wounded in the thigh, but he and Putnam immediately rose to their feet and made the best of their way out into the darkness amid a shower of bullets, and pursued by the awakened enemy. Unable "to see his hand before his face," Putnam soon fell into a clay-pit, and Durkee, like the immortal "Jill" in the nursery rhyme, came tumbling after. Knowing that the enemy were in swift and close pursuit, Putnam raised his tomahawk to give the supposed hostile a deadly stroke, when Durkee fortunately spoke. ”

“ He had borrowed a horse from General Ward, but, with characteristic Yankee caution, had left it the other side of the Neck, in charge of a sentry, and had walked over, amid the hail of shot from the frigates and batteries.
Pomeroy and Putnam would have made a good pair to represent Valor and Intrepidity, were statues desired for those noble qualities. When Putnam saw him he cried out: "You here, Pomeroy? By God! a cannon-shot would waken you out of your grave!" He was in his seventieth year, having been born in 1706, and twelve years Putnam's senior. ”

“ Israel Putnam met nearly all the great British commanders, with the possible exception of Wolfe, and had assisted with all his might at the upbuilding of English power in America, so it was not strange that when, later, the Revolution opened, he was looked upon by them more as a friend than an enemy. The next year, when Amherst moved upon Montreal, then the chief, almost sole possession of the French in Canada, Colonel Putnam went along, as a matter of course, and, it is gravely related by his first biographer, he assisted the general at a critical moment and in a very novel way. ”

“ As he and his men were posted on an island, he and they waded through the water to dry land, and in pressing to the scene of conflict passed near the fort, on the parapet of which stood General Lyman, who, imagining the attack came from the main body of the enemy, had called in his outposts and closed the gates. As Major Putnam and his men dashed past on the double-quick, intent only upon rescuing their friends from the savages, the General ordered them to return, believing that they were needlessly exposing their lives in a vain attempt against an overwhelming force. ”

“ While Washington the soldier recognized the sterling qualities of Old Put, the veteran fighter, yet Washington the aristocratic planter shrank from contact with Putnam the blunt, and at times perhaps uncouth-appearing, farmer. Writing about that time, a surgeon in the American army said: "This is my first interview with this celebrated hero, Putnam. In his person he is corpulent and clumsy, but carries a bold, undaunted front. He exhibits little of the refinements of a well-educated gentleman, but much of the character of the veteran soldier." ”

“ This brisk engagement gave the raw soldiers just the confidence they needed, and they returned in high spirits to their camp.
"I wish we could have something of this kind to do every day," remarked Putnam to Ward and Warren, as he reached his headquarters, where they were waiting for him to appear. "It would teach our men how little danger there is from cannon-balls; for though they have sent a great many at us, nobody has been much hurt by them." ”

“ General Putnam, remarked his first biographer, "is universally acknowledged to have been as brave and honest a man as ever America produced.... He seems to have been formed on purpose for the age in which he lived. His native courage, unshaken integrity, and established reputation as a soldier, were necessary in the early stages of our opposition to Great Britain, and gave unbounded confidence to our troops in their first conflicts on the field of battle." ”

“ Washington hurried over reenforcements, until there were nearly ten thousand men at the Heights; but Putnam soon found it impossible to conduct its defense against twenty thousand of the enemy, with ten thousand more in reserve, and, with Washington's sanction and cooperation, he withdrew his men from their perilous position by a night retreat across the river, which was a triumph of military sagacity and achievement. The more than nine thousand men, with their ammunition, arms, provisions, etc., were safely over the river before the British became aware of what was going on. ”

“ From his earliest years he craved, and was always in pursuit of, some daring adventure, yet he was the most sober and apparently contented youth in the village, loving hard work, even seeking to perform a man's task at daily labor, while yet a mere stripling. Brought up mainly on the farm, spending his days in severe labor and his nights in sweet slumber, he became the peer of all his companions in athletic feats involving strength and skill. He could "pitch the bar," run, leap, wrestle with the best of them, and more than held his own with the most doughty champion. ”

“ Existing forts must be strengthened, others erected, a boom stretched across the Hudson to impede the passage of British ships, and obstacles of all kinds placed in the path of the British, should they advance northward. Needing a reliable man in this emergency, Washington sent Putnam to Peekskill, on the Hudson, preceded by a letter to General McDougall, then in command there, which was, to say the least, not very flattering to the gallant soldier who had been his right-hand man in the various retreats through the Jerseys. ”

“ Born a hero, whom nature taught and cherished in the lap of innumerable toils and dangers, he was terrible in battle.... But from the amiableness of his heart, when carnage ceased, his humanity spread over the field like the refreshing zephyrs of a summer's evening. ”

“ During these years he acquired an enviable reputation as one of the best farmers in all the region of which Pomfret was the center, and had it not been for the lamentable struggle between the French and the English for supremacy in North America, he might have continued as the humble and prosperous citizen-cultivator to the end of his days. The breaking out of the prolonged strife which is known in history as the French and Indian War, found Putnam in possession of what in those days was considered a competency. ”

“ The British, eight hundred strong, had left Boston for Concord, where they hoped to find some military stores. Encountering a small body of militia at Lexington, Major Pitcairn, in command of the British soldiers, called out to them to throw down their arms and disperse; but as they did not do so he ordered his men to fire, killing eight of the sturdy Americans, who even then did not run away, but joined themselves to other minutemen now assembling, and again came in contact with their foes at Concord Bridge. ”

“ In Havana, where he was one day roaming about unarmed, Colonel Putnam met with an adventure which nearly cost him his life and made him the involuntary owner of a negro slave. Seeing a Spaniard beating a black man with a bamboo cane, he darted in with his old time impetuosity, and seizing the stick, wrenched it away from its owner, who, joined by other exasperated Cubans, turned upon the American and compelled him to flee to a vessel for safety. ”

“ Crown Point was also evacuated by the French, and thus at last the main object of so many months' toil in the wilderness with such woful waste of life and vast expenditure of treasure, was accomplished. While Putnam and his comrades were engaged in restoring the fortifications of Crown Point, they heard the news of British victories on every hand: of the fall of Fort Niagara; and of the storming and capture of Quebec, when, on that fateful thirteenth of September, 1759, Wolfe and Montcalm found death and fame, the former at the hour of victory, the latter in defeat. ”

“ A brisk cannonade was opened from the war-ships upon the weary, toiling men in the entrenchment; but they still worked on, incited to their utmost by the gallant Prescott, who himself is said to have lent a hand with pick and shovel. General Putnam's predictions as to their coolness under fire were more than verified, and had he been there then he would have been surprised at their indifference to the cannonading now going on so furiously. One man only was killed in this preliminary firing, and he had strayed outside the breastwork.
"Man killed, what shall we do with him?" ”

“ While the little army of less than four thousand men was constantly depleted, it seemed as if its foes increased, in that country of loyalists and British sympathizers. It was with only the "skeleton of an army" that Washington, on the eighth of December, crossed the Delaware at Trenton, less than three thousand troops remaining by him then. Cornwallis and his soldiers were not far behind, during a portion of that gloomy retreat, a few days measuring the distance between the rival armies; but they did not catch up with the Americans that time. ”