Israel Putnam, a distinguished soldier in the French and English wars,
and subsequently in that of the revolution, was born of English
parents, at Salem, in the then province of Massachusetts, Jan. 7th,
1718. Being intended for a farmer, he received only a common
education. He had a strong mind, vigorous constitution, great bodily
strength, enterprise and activity, excelled in athletic exercises,
and, while a stripling, was ambitious of performing the full labor of
manhood. He married very young, and removed, in 1739, to Pomfret, in
Connecticut, where he had purchased a tract of land. During his
residence there, his flocks and those of his neighbors being terribly
thinned by a monstrous she wolf, Putnam with a few associates, traced
the ferocious animal to a deep cavern in a rock. Into this he crept
alone, with a torch in one hand and a musket in the other, and, at the
utmost personal risk, destroyed the creature. When the war of 1755
broke out between France and England, he was appointed, at the age of
thirty-seven, commander of a company, enlisted the necessary number of
recruits from the young men in his vicinity, and joined the army then
commencing the campaign near Crown Point. His services as a partisan
officer were unremitting and great, and caused him to be promoted, in
1757, to the rank of major, by the legislature of Connecticut. In
1758, he fell into the Indian ambuscade, and was taken prisoner, when
returning to Fort Edward from an expedition to watch the enemy’s
movements near Ticonderoga. The Indians were about to burn him to
death, having already tied him to a tree and set fire to a circle of
combustibles around him, when he was rescued by the interposition of
their leader, Molang, a famous French partisan officer. He was then
carried to Ticonderoga, where he underwent an examination before the
Marquis De Montcalm, who ordered him to Montreal. There he found
several fellow prisoners, among whom was colonel Peter Schuyler, who
immediately visited, and found him almost destitute of clothing and
dreadfully wounded and bruised. The colonel supplied him with money
and, having clothed himself in a decent garb, he was immediately
treated with the respect due his rank. An exchange of prisoners
procured Putnam his liberty. He resumed his military duties, and,
having been previously appointed a lieutenant-colonel, rendered
especial service at the siege of Montreal by the British, in 1760. In
1762, after war had been declared between England and Spain, he
accompanied the expedition, under Lord Albemarle, against the Havana.
In 1764, having been appointed colonel, he marched, at the head of a
regiment, with general Bradstreet, against the savages of the western
frontier. On his return from this expedition, which resulted in a
treaty between the contending parties, he betook himself, once more,
to a country life, filled several offices in his native town, to
represent it in the general assembly. In 1770, he went, with general
Lyman and some others, to explore a grant of land on the Mississippi.
General Lyman died there; but Putnam returned after having made some
improvements on his tract. When hostilities commenced between England
and the colonies (April 18th, 1775,) Putnam received the intelligence
as he was plowing in the middle of a field; he left his plow there,
unyoked his team, and, without changing his clothes, set off for the
scene of action. Finding the British shut up and closely invested with
a sufficient force in Boston, he returned to Connecticut, levied a
regiment under colonial authority, and marched to Cambridge. His
colony now appointed him a major-general on the provincial staff, and
congress soon after confirmed to him the same rank on the continental.
About this time the British offered him the rank of a major-general in
his majesty’s army, with a pecuniary remuneration for his treason; but
the temptation could not influence him. In the several preparatory
operations for the battle of Bunker’s hill, he took an active part.
After the commencement of the retreat at the battle of Bunker’s hill,
Putnam arrived on the field with a reinforcement, and performed
everything to be expected from a brave and experienced officer; the
enemy pursued the retreating Americans to Winter hill, but Putnam
halted there, and drove them back, under cover of their ships. On the
evacuation of Boston, March 17th 1776, the greater part of the forces
were dispatched to New York, and Putnam was, some time after, sent
thither to take upon him the command. After the disastrous action on
Long Island, and general Washington’s masterly retreat from thence,
Putnam was nominated to the command of the right grand division of the
army. He served some time in the vicinity of New York and was sent to
the western side of the Hudson, and shortly after, to suprintend the
fortifications of Philadelphia. After the battles of Trenton and
Princeton, he was posted at Princeton, where he continued till the
ensuing spring, with a very inferior force, guarding a considerable
extent of frontier, curtailing and harrassing the enemy, without
sustaining the least disaster. During his stay at Princeton, by
attacking the foraging parties of the enemy and assemblages of the
disaffected who infested his vicinity, he captured nearly a thousand
prisoners.
In the spring of 1777, he was appointed to the command of a separate
army in the highlands of New York. There was no regular enemy in this
neighborhood, but the country around was filled with tories, and a
species of banditti, called _cow-boys_, who committed shocking
depredations. Many of the tories clandestinely traversed the country,
with messages from one British army to another, and even on recruiting
expeditions for the royal service. One of them, a lieutenant in the
new tory levies, was detected in the American camp, and reclaimed by
governor Tryon, his commander, with threats of vengeance in case of
his punishment. He received this laconic answer from general Putnam:
‘Sir: Nathan Palmer, a lieutenant in your king’s service, was taken in
my camp as a spy; he was tried as a spy; he was condemned as a spy;
and you may rest assured, Sir, he shall be hanged as a spy.… P. S.
Afternoon. He is hanged.’ After the capture of Fort Montgomery, Putnam
selected West Point as the best calculated site for a fortress to
protect the river. The reputation it afterwards attained, evinced the
judiciousness of this selection. After the battle of Monmouth, Putnam
was posted, for the winter, at Reading in Connecticut, that he might
protect the country adjoining to the Sound, and the garrison at West
Point. While he was on a visit to one of his outposts governor Tryon
advanced upon him with 1500 men. Putnam had with him but 150 men and
two field-pieces, with which he kept the enemy at bay some time. At
length, seeing the enemy preparing to charge, he ordered his men to
retire to a swamp, while he plunged down a precipice so steep as to
have artificial steps, nearly one hundred in number, for the use of
foot passengers. The enemy’s dragoons stopped short, afraid to
venture, although within a sword’s length of him. While they went
round the brow of the hill to gain the valley, he raised a force
sufficiently strong to pursue Tryon on his retreat. In the campaign of
1779, he commanded the Maryland line, stationed near West Point. In
the autumn of this year, the American army retired into winter
quarters, at Morristown, and Putnam accompanied his family into
Connecticut for a few weeks. At the commencement of his journey from
thence to Morristown, while on the road between Pomfret and Hartford,
he was seized with an extraordinary numbness of his right hand and
foot, which crept gradually upon him, until his right side became, in
a considerable degree, paralyzed. This severe affliction produced a
transient depression of his mind; but he conquered his dejection, and
resumed his naturally cheerful temper. He was still able to walk and
ride moderately, and the faculties of his mind were unimpaired. In
this situation he lived to see his country enjoying that independence
of which he had been so able a champion, and died at Brookline, in
Connecticut, May 29th 1790, aged seventy-two years.