One day, long ago, some boys were out bird-nesting. They saw a
nest they wanted high up in a tree and far out on a limb, in a
hard position to reach, One of the boldest of them climbed the
tree to try to get it, but a branch broke with him and he fell. A
lower projecting limb caught his clothes, and he hung there head
down, arms and legs dangling helplessly. He could not climb back
and he could not drop down, because he could not get free.
The other boys below looked up, terrified, for the limb was high
above ground; they could not reach him, and they did not know
what to do. One of them carried a gun, and Israel,--that was the
name of the boy who had climbed the tree,--catching sight of the
gun as he swung in the air, cried out, "Shoot! Shoot the branch
off near the trunk!"
The boy with the gun was afraid and hesitated. Israel's position
grew more and more uncomfortable and dangerous.
"Shoot, I tell you!" he cried again. "Shoot! I'll take the risk."
The boy lifted the gun with shaking hands, took aim, and fired.
The branch cracked off and down came Israel with it, head first;
but as he fell he managed to grasp another bough with his hands,
hold by it, and swing safely to the ground. The next day he went
back alone, climbed that tree again, and brought home the nest.
This is a story told of Israel Putnam, afterward major-general in
the American army in the Revolutionary War, and it shows the
qualities of courage and perseverance, invention and quick
decision, which made him useful to his country when he grew to be
a man.
He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, January 7, 1718, and most of
his boyhood was spent there. It is said that the first time he
went to Boston as a little awkward country lad, some city boys
made fun of him. Israel stood this as long as he could, then he
suddenly challenged a bigger boy than himself, fought him, and
beat him, to the great amusement of a crowd of spectators. After
that the boys let him alone. He was strong and vigorous and loved
all kinds of outdoor sports. Before he was grown he could do a
man's full day's work in the fields and was very proud of it.
When he was twenty-two years old he moved with his wife and baby
son to Pomfret, Connecticut, bought a farm there, and cast in his
lot with the people of this state, so that he is a son of
Connecticut by adoption.
He worked hard in his new home, and in a few years he was in a
fair way to be rich and prosperous. It was at this time that the
incident happened that gave him his nickname of "Wolf Putnam."
Just across the narrow valley from his farm there was a steep
hillside, and among its rocks a wolf had her den. She was old and
wary, and did a lot of damage in the neighborhood by killing
sheep and lambs. Traps were set to catch her and the farmers
often tried to shoot her, but she always got away safely.
In the winter of 1743, she destroyed many of Israel Putnam's fine
flock and he was greatly exasperated and made a plan with five
other men to hunt her regularly, by twos in turn, until she was
found and killed. She had once been nearly caught in a trap, and
had only got out by leaving the claws of one foot behind her, so
that her trail was easy to distinguish on the snow, one foot
being shorter than the other, and making a different mark. One
night they followed her all night long, and in the morning traced
her back to her den in the hillside and made sure of its exact
location. Then all day long they worked hard, trying to get her
out. They burned straw and brimstone in the entrance of the cave,
hoping to smoke her out; they sent in the dogs, but these came
back wounded and bleeding and refused to go again. Putnam's own
fine bloodhound refused to go in, and then he decided to try it
himself and shoot the wolf inside the cave, since there was no
way of making her come out. He took off his coat, tied a rope
around his waist, and with a torch and a gun, crawled in on his
hands and knees as well as he could. Far back in the deep
darkness the blazing eyes of the wolf showed him her lair. She
growled and made ready to spring at him, but he fired and
fortunately killed her with the first shot, and the men outside
dragged him and the wolf out together. Israel Putnam was a young
man then and almost a stranger in the place, but his courage and
resourcefulness that day made him known to the people and gave
him a reputation among them.
In some ways he had been at a disadvantage in Pomfret, for the
people there, even in those early times, cared much about
education. Soon after the place was settled, a library association
was formed to provide reading matter for the families living near.
Ten young men from Pomfret graduated at Yale College in the class
of 1759. Now, Israel Putnam's early education had been neglected.
He did not love study, he loved outdoor life, and there was no
schoolhouse near his home in Salem. He never learned to spell correctly.
Some of his letters, which have been preserved, are almost impossible
to read now, the spelling is so very curious. Later in his life, when
he became a general in the army and was brought in contact with
Washington and other educated and trained men, he was mortified and
much ashamed of his own lack in this respect. He tried then to dictate
his letters as often as possible so that people should not laugh at
his ignorance. It made him careful to give his children a better
education than his own.
In 1755, when he was thirty-seven years old, Israel Putnam
entered the Provincial army for service in the French-and-Indian
War, and rose to the rank of colonel before the war was over in
1764. He went with the Connecticut troops on several expeditions
against the French forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, on Lake
Champlain and Lake George. He had plenty of exciting adventures
in this war, and long afterward, in his old age, he liked to tell
them over to his friends and neighbors at home. Some of the
stories have come down to us.
Once word came to the English camp at Fort Edward that a wagon
train bringing supplies had been plundered by a party of French
and Indians, and Major Robert Rogers, with his New England
Rangers and a detachment of Provincial troops,--some of whom were
under Putnam's command,--was sent out to intercept the enemy on
their retreat. These rangers, or scouts, had been drilled by
their famous leader until they almost equaled the Indians in
their own mode of fighting, and they were of great use in the
war. This time they were too late and the plunderers escaped, but
as other parties were said to be hovering near, Rogers spent some
days searching for them. He saw no signs of them and at last
turned back toward the fort.
One morning, contrary to his usual practice, he allowed some of
his men to fire at a mark for a wager. This was a dangerous thing
to do because they could never be sure that there were no enemies
lurking near. It happened this time that a large body of French
and Indians were not far off, and, hearing the firing, they came
up quickly and silently through the thick forest and hid
themselves in ambush, Indian fashion, near a clearing in the
woods where the tall trees had been cut down and a thicket of
small underbrush had grown up. The English were obliged to pass
this clearing on their way home and the only path across it was a
narrow one used by the Indians, who always went through the woods
in single file, one behind another, each stepping in the
footprints of the man ahead of him.
The English were in three companies, the first commanded by
Putnam, the last by Rogers himself. Putnam and his men had got
safely across the clearing and were just entering the forest
again, when suddenly, the enemy sprang out of their ambush and
rushed upon them. Putnam rallied his men and made the best stand
he could and the other companies hurried to his assistance. 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. His
arms were tied tightly behind him, his shoes were taken away so
that his feet were bruised and bleeding, and he was loaded with
so many packs that he could scarcely move. When he could stand
it no longer he begged the savages to kill him at once. The
Indian who had captured him came up just then and gave him a pair
of moccasins, and made the others loosen his arms and lighten his
load. But when they reached the camping-place a worse ordeal was
before him. His clothes were taken off, he was tied again to a
tree, dry brushwood was piled in a circle around the tree, fire
was set to this, and, as the flames rose up and the heat grew
greater, he felt sure that his last hour had come. However, word
had reached one of the French officers that the Indians were
torturing their prisoner, and he rushed in, scattered the burning
brush, and unbound the prisoner.
The Indians who had captured Israel Putnam may not have intended
to kill him, but it was their custom to torture prisoners taken
in war, and both the French and the English officers often had
great difficulty in controlling their savage allies.
Putnam was carried to Canada and treated kindly by the French,
and a few months later he was exchanged and sent home with some
other prisoners.
Once before he had had a narrow escape from the Indians and only
his quick decision and courage saved him. He was on a river-bank
when they crept up belind him. Calling to the five men with him,
he rushed for the boat and pushed off downstream toward some
dangerous rapids. The Indians fired and missed him, and the boat
shot down the rapids. It came out safe below them,--the first
boat that had ever done so,--and the Indians thought it must be
under the protection of their own Great Spirit.
Two years after his unwilling visit to Canada as a prisoner,
Israel Putnam went there again, this time with the army under the
command of General Amherst. The French-and-Indian War was ending
in victory for the English; Quebec had fallen, but a few other
posts still held out, and this expedition was against Montreal.
On the way there a French ship on Lake Ontario opposed the
progress of the English, and a story is told of Putnam's original
way of overcoming this difficulty.
"Give me some wedges, a beetle [that is, a large wooden hammer],
and a few men of my own choice, and I'll take her," he said to
General Amherst. He meant to row under the stern of the ship and
wedge her rudder so that she would be helpless. Whether the plan
was carried out, we do not know, but in the morning she had blown
ashore and surrendered. Montreal, too, surrendered to the
English, and in an Indian mission near there Putnam discovered
the Indian who had taken him prisoner two years before. The chief
was delighted to see him and entertained him in his own stone
house.
When he returned to Connecticut at the end of the war, he found
himself a hero and a favorite with everybody. So many people came
to see him that at last he turned his house into an inn, and hung
out a sign on a tree in front of it. That sign is now in the
rooms of the Connecticut Historical Society at Hartford.
The next ten years, until the Revolution, he spent in peace on
his farm. Just before that war began he drove a flock of sheep
all the way to Boston for the people there who were in distress.
"The old hero, Putnam," says a letter written from Boston in
August, 1774, "arrived in town on Monday bringing with him 130
sheep from the little parish of Brooklyn. He cannot get away, he
is so much caressed both by officers and citizens."
The next spring he was ploughing in the field when a messenger
rode by bringing the news of the battle of Lexington. Putnam left
the plough in the furrow in the care of his young son Daniel, and
without stopping to change his working clothes, set off at once
on horseback for Boston, making a record ride for a heavy man
fifty-seven years old.
His popularity in Connecticut made men ready to enlist under him.
The battle of Bunker Hill was fought at Boston in June, and he
took part in it. "The brave old man," says Washington Irving,
"rode about in the heat of the action, with a hanger belted across
his brawny shoulders over a waistcoat without sleeves, inspiriting
his men by his presence, and fighting gallantly at the outposts to
cover their retreat."
When Washington arrived at Cambridge to take command of the
American army, Israel Putnam received from him his appointment by
the Continental Congress as major-general. He held this rank
through the rest of his life and fought in many campaigns of the
Revolution. He was with the army in New York, and at the battle
of Long Island; he was sent by Washington to Philadelphia to
protect that city when it was threatened by the British, and
later, he was put in charge of the defenses of the Hudson River.
One of his last exploits in the Revolutionary War was his famous
ride down the stone steps at Horseneck, near Greenwich. The
British, under General Tryon, invaded Connecticut in 1779, and
threatened Greenwich, and General Putnam, who was in command
there, after placing his men in the best position for defense,
hurried off alone, on horseback, for Stamford, to bring up
reinforcements. Some British dragoons, catching sight of him down
the road, started in pursuit. They were better mounted than he
and gained on him steadily. Putnam, looking back, saw the
distance between them grow less and less. In a moment more they
would overtake him; what should he do? He was on the top of the
hill near the Episcopal Church, there was a curve in the road
ahead, and a precipice at the side, with some rough stone steps
up which people sometimes climbed on foot on Sundays, to the
church, from the lower road at the bottom of the hill.
Putnam struck spurs into his horse and dashed around the curve at
full speed. The instant he was out of sight he wheeled and put
his horse over the precipice down the steep rocks. The dragoons
came galloping around the corner and, not seeing him, stopped
short in astonishment. Before they discovered him again, he was
halfway down to the lower road. They sent a bullet after him
which went through his beaver hat and he turned, waved his hand
in a gay good-bye, and rode on to Stamford. It is said that
General Tryon afterward sent him a suit of clothes to make up for
the loss of his hat.
That same year he had a stroke of paralysis which disabled him so
that he could never again take part in the war. He lived at home
in retirement until his death on May 19, 1790. Perhaps no brave
deed in his life was quite as brave as the cheerful and resolute
way he met this hard blow near its end. He did not die as he
would have liked, in the roar and thunder of battle; he was laid
aside and the war went on without him. But after the first bitter
disappointment, he regained his courage and good spirits, and no
one heard him complain. People gathered about him and his last
days were honored in his own home. When the war ended in 1783,
Washington wrote him a letter which he counted as one of his
greatest treasures.
Any number of stories are told of "Old Put," as the soldiers
called him, of his adventures, and his odd humor. It is said that
once "a British officer challenged him to fight [a duel]; and
Putnam, having the choice of weapons, chose that they should sit
together over a keg of powder to which a slow match was applied.
The officer sat till the match drew near the hole, when he ran
for his life, Putnam calling after him that it was only a keg of
onions with a few grains of powder sprinkled upon it."
We have several descriptions of his personal appearance. He "was
of medium height, of a strong, athletic figure, and in the time
of the Revolutionary War weighed about two hundred pounds. His
hair was dark, his eyes light blue, and his broad, good-humored
face was marked with deep scars received in his encounters with
French and Indians,"
"Putnam, scored with ancient scars,
The living record of his country's wars,"
as a poet of those days expressed it.
[Illustration: GENERAL PUTNAM--A drawing from life by John
Trumbull]
There were greater generals in the Revolution than Israel Putnam,
men who, partly because they were better educated, were better
fitted than he to plan and carry out large operations. But he
excelled as a pioneer, as a bold leader, and a brave, independent
fighter. As a well-known historian says, "He was brave and
generous, rough and ready, thought not of himself in time of
danger, but was ready to serve in any way the good of the cause.
His name has long been a favorite one with young and old; one of
the talismanic names of the Revolution, the very mention of which
is like the sound of a trumpet."