1. Larned, Ellen. History of Windham County. Worcester, 1874.
2. Barber, J. W. Connecticut Historical Collections. J. W. Barber. New Haven, 1836.
3. Todd, Charles Burr. In Olde Connecticut. The Grafton Press. New York, 1906.
4. Sylvester, Herbert Milton. Indian Wars of New England. W. B. Clarke Co. Boston, 1910.

Old Wolf Putnam

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.

[Image: 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.”