Israel Putnam

“ But Washington would not stir, for he knew that General Israel Putnam, in charge of the forces there, was well able to look out for himself. As this Putnam is one of the heroes of the Revolutionary War, it will interest you to hear a few stories about him, which all Americans should know.
We are told that, even as a lad, Putnam was famous for his courage. Once, when a wolf caused great damage in his neighbors' herds, he determined to kill it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The call to arms found Israel Putnam—a hero of the last French and Indian War—plowing in his field. Unyoking his oxen from the plow, Putnam bade a lad run for his coat and gun, while he saddled his horse. He then rode quickly away to take part in the struggle, which was to last about seven years. Two other patriots, John Stark from New Hampshire, and Benedict Arnold from Connecticut, were equally prompt in responding to this appeal, and it is said that in less than three days, sixteen thousand Americans were assembled around Boston, completely hemming in General Gage and the British troops. ”

“ The Putnams settled early in Salem. John, the first emigrant, came from Buckinghamshire, in 1634, with three sons, Thomas, Nathaniel, and John. Some of the name exercised a fatal influence during the reign of witchcraft. Israel was already an old man when he left his plow in the furrow to gallop to Cambridge, having been born in 1718. At twenty-one he removed to [Pg 218] Pomfret, Connecticut. Putnam was prompt, resolute, and incapable of fear—full of fight, and always ready. Washington, who did not judge badly, thought him the only fit man to make an assault on Boston. ”

“ Israel Putnam was a soldier of native growth. One of the military productions of the French war; seasoned and proved in frontier campaigning. He had served at Louisburg, Fort Duquesne, and Crown Point; had signalized himself in Indian warfare; been captured by the savages, tied to a stake to be tortured and burnt, and had only been rescued by the interference, at the eleventh hour, of a French partisan of the Indians. ”

“ Among those who entered the town with Amherst was Israel Putnam, a man who had been brought into Montreal a year before a prisoner by the French. He had great physical strength and decision of character, and was absolutely incapable of fear. On the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, he entered with zeal into the cause of the colonists, and lead them in the battle of Bunker Hill. True to his convictions, he refused the large sums of money offered him by the British for his services. By the American troops he was lovingly called "Old Put." ”

“ Israel Putnam seemed never to know when he had enough of fighting; or else his sense of duty to the king and his country was paramount to all other considerations else. At all events, one of his bravery and force could not be omitted from the great expedition that General Amherst (who had been sent by Pitt to supersede Abercrombie) was then organizing. In July, 1759, we find him with his command at Lake George, where the second expedition against Ticonderoga set forth, following the route taken by Abercrombie, over the lake to Ticonderoga, which was reached on the 22d. ”

“ Many of his race and family have since become pioneers in various parts of the world, and this country owes them much for blazing out the way in which others might follow; but young Israel Putnam was the first of them—the pioneer of pioneers, in the great American movement. ”

“ But every one knows all about the battle. Suffice it, that Israel was one of those marksmen whom Putnam harangued as touching the enemy’s eyes. Forbearing as he was with his oppressive father and unfaithful love, and mild as he was on the farm, Israel was not the same at Bunker Hill. Putnam had enjoined the men to aim at the officers; so Israel aimed between the golden epaulettes, as, in the wilderness, he had aimed between the branching antlers. With dogged disdain of their foes, the English grenadiers marched up the hill with sullen slowness ”

“ Putnam, Israel, was born at Salem, Mass., Jan. 7, 1718, removing to Pomfret, Conn., in 1739. Courage, strong will, and knowledge of men rather than of books soon made him a leader among his neighbours ”

“ Men and boys pulled with all their might; and Putnam and the wolf were drawn out together.
This happened when Israel Putnam was a young man. When the Revolutionary War began he was one of the first to hurry to Boston to help the people defend themselves against the British soldiers. He became famous as one of the bravest and best of the generals who fought to make our country free.
THE HORSESHOE NAILS I A blacksmith was shoeing a horse.
"Shoe him quickly, for the king wishes to ride him to battle," said the groom who had brought him.
"Do you think there will be a battle?" asked the blacksmith. ”

“ Eleazer3 Putnam, born in 1665, seventh child of Captain John2 and his wife, Rebecca Prince, was a deacon of the church in Danvers. The farm on which he settled lies north of the General Israel Putnam house. Henry4 Putnam, born in 1712, son of Deacon Eleazer3 and his second wife, Elizabeth, dauglder of Benjamin and Apphia (Hale) Rolfe, of Newbury, removed in middle life from Danvers to "Charlestown, where he kept school, and thence about the year 1763, it is thought, removed to Medford. ”

“ Webb’s reports to the governor during this period are noted in Goldsbrow Banyar’s diary (Aug. 5-20) , in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., January, 1877. The Journal of General Rufus Putnam, kept in Northern New York during four campaigns, 1757-1760, with notes and biog. sketch by E. C. Dawes (Albany, 1886) , shows (pp. 38-41) how the news came in from the lake,—the diarist, whose father was a cousin of Israel Putnam, being stationed at Fort Edward.
[1436] Niles’ French and Indian Wars; Minot’s Massachusetts (ii. 21) ; Belknap’s New Hampshire (ii. 298) ; Hoyt’s Antiq. Researches, Indian Wars, (p. 288) ”

“ He was acquitted, went to England, and, after suffering imprisonment for debt, returned to America, where he remained until the Revolution broke out. He took up arms for the king, and in 1777 went to England, where he died. His "Journal of the French and Indian War" is a valuable work. (Back)
Footnote 34: Israel Putnam, afterward the Revolutionary general. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in January, 1718. He was a vigorous lad, and in 1739 we find him cultivating land in Pomfret, Connecticut, the scene of his remarkable adventure in a wolf's den, so familiar to every reader. ”

“ See W. F. Livingston, Israel Putnam, Pioneer, Ranger and Major-General (New York, 1901) in the “ American Men of Energy ” series; I. N. Tarbox, Life of Israel Putnam (Boston, 1876) ; and Essay on the Life of the Honorable Major-General Israel Putnam (Hartford, 1788; enlarged ed., Boston, 1818) , by David Humphreys, for a time Putnam's aide-de-camp.
↑ So loose was the army's organization that it is impossible to settle the question whether Putnam or Prescott was in command at Bunker Hill. ”

“ Putnam is one of the most thorough believers in intellectual liberty in the world. He believes with all his heart, is full of enthusiasm, ready to make any sacrifice, and to endure any hardship. Had he lived a few years ago, he would have been a martyr. He has written some of the most stirring appeals to the Liberals of this country that I have ever read. He believes that Freethought has a future; that the time is coming when the superstitions of the world will either be forgotten, or remembered—some of them with smiles—most of them with tears. ”

“ But in the sharp skirmish that followed, as Putnam aimed his gun at a large, powerful Indian chief, it missed fire. The Indian sprang upon him, dragged him back into the forest, and tied him securely to a tree. As the fight went on, bullets from both parties began to fly past him and to hit the tree, so that for a time he was in as great danger from his friends as from his enemies. When, at last, the French and Indians were repulsed, the latter marched Putnam away with them as their prisoner back to their camp. ”

“ The other, a friendly Mohawk, was taken prisoner, and Major Putnam afterward saw him in Canada.
On the way back to Fort Edward, Putnam and his men were fired upon by a scouting party of Provincials, who mistook them for Frenchmen; but they were quickly undeceived when the doughty major ordered his men, "in a stentorophonick tone," to advance and give a good account of themselves. Putnam's "stentorophonick" voice—as his original biographer styles it—was well known to all the army, having been heard many times rising above the din of battle, and always in the forefront of the fighting. ”

“ It bore the laurel-wreathed image of a man with a big nose, and curious words that were like those in the detested Latin grammar. It was very heavy, too. The Worst Boy rubbed it on his knee, bit it, hurt his mouth, and then clenched it secretively in the moist hollow of his hand, as a horseman clattered up over the hill from Rand. Almost at the same time there appeared a second horseman along the highroad from Nazareth; and at the fork the two drew rein and exchanged greetings. The first to speak was the young sheriff, who pulled off his wide-brimmed hat and wiped his serious pink face. ”

“ He was stationed the following winter at Danbury, when the famous descent of the precipice at Horse Neck occurred, one of the latest marvels of Putnam's anecdotical career. While he was on a visit to one of his outposts at Horse Neck, Governor Tryon of New York, advanced upon the place with a considerable body of troops. Putnam planted his small force on the hill, but was speedily compelled to provide for the safety of his men by a retreat, and for his own, by plunging down a formidable rocky steep by the roadside. ”

“ He had seen her twice in Albany. Her conduct was most questionable.
His New England Puritanism had been weakened none by his experience as an Indian-fighter. Putnam had spoken to his common sense in saying she was not the kind of a girl for him to marry. She was his antithesis. He had been brought up to believe that harmony could never be built up out of contradictions. ”

“ In 1740 he removed to a farm in the present townships of Pomfret and Brooklyn, Connecticut. Here in the winter of 1742–1743 he went down into a wolf den (still shown in Pomfret) and at close quarters killed a huge wolf. Putnam took an active part in the French and Indian War, enlisting as a private in 1755 and rising to the rank of major in March 1758. He was conspicuous for personal courage and for skill in Indian warfare, and was the hero of numerous exploits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ride with me as far as the creamery.”
“All right!” said the young sheriff, wheeling his horse about. “I hear that this gypsy feller is powerful strong. D’yer know he broke the winder bars with his bare hands?”
The rest of his speech was lost in the clatter of hoofs; and again the Worst Boy was left sentinel at the fork. He looked at the sun. It was high noon now, and he was hungry. From the distant village came the faint chime of a bell. School was out! It would be safe to go home now. ”

“ Judging from the stability of his position in Danvers, it would seem that young Farmer Putnam was established for life. He had land enough to satisfy any ordinary cultivator of that period, and a comfortable house in which dwelt with him wife and child, to cheer him by their presence. But the future patriot felt within him an ardent thirst for adventure. He longed for a wider field, and though to all appearances firmly rooted in the soil of Salem Village, he was already thinking of transplanting himself and family into that of another region. ”

“ Putnam had discharged his piece several times, and once more pulled trigger, with the muzzle against the breast of a powerful Indian. His piece missed fire. Instantly the warrior dashed forward, tomahawk in hand, and by threat of death compelled his antagonist to surrender. Putnam was immediately disarmed and bound to a tree, and his captor returned to the fight.
The battle continued, one party after the other being forced back. In the end, the movements of the struggling foes were such as to bring the tree to which Putnam was bound directly between their lines. ”

“ On the retreat from New York, Major General Putnam with his troops, was the last to leave the city. To avoid any parties of the enemy that might be advancing towards it, he made choice of a road along the river, from which, at a certain point, another road would conduct him in a direction to join the American army. It happened that a force of British and Hessians more than twice as large as his own, was advancing on the road at the same time, and but for a fortunate occurrence, would have encountered that of General Putnam, before he could have reached the turn into the other road. ”