American women would knock them over the head with their ladles!" Soon after Colonel Ingersoll's resignation of the office of "Stamp Distributor," Putnam, accompanied by two other gentlemen, visited Colonel Fitch, determined to prevent, by fair means or foul, the entrance into Connecticut of stamped paper. Fitch was dubious, and wanted to look at every side of the matter before acceding to the demands of his visitors. However, when he learned that a refusal would be followed by the levelling of his house to the ground he yielded at once, and no stamped paper entered Connecticut. The intelligence of the Concord fight roused the whole country in April of the following year. Putnam was employed in ploughing a field of Indian corn when the news reached him. He was swift to act. Leaving the cattle and plough in the furrow, not stopping to change his clothes, he mounted a fleet horse and was soon well on his way to Cambridge, which he reached at sunrise the next morning, and his gallant steed galloped into Concord later the same day. At the same time that Washington was appointed commander-in-chief, Putnam was made brigadier-general and given command of the army-certer at Cambridge. At Bunker Hill, Putnam was ranking officer and conducted the retreat, though reluctantly. In point of fact, he was absolutely furious about it, for he was an officer little used to reverses in battle. Standing among his men he waved his sword and shouted, "Victory shall be ours! Make a stand here, boys. We can stop them yet! In God's name, fire and give them one shot more!" Finding his exhortations useless, he lost control of himself, and for the first and last time in his life he swore roundly at the retreating colonists. Instead of leading he followed on their retreat, and was almost the last to leave the earth-works. Years afterward the old general went on his crutches into the Brooklyn church and told the deacons of his profanity. He closed his confession with these words, "It was enough to make an angel swear to see those cowards refuse to secure a victory so easily won." The deacons could not find it in their hearts to do anything but forgive him. After this battle Howe offered Putnam WOLF'S HEAD ON THE BROOKLYN STATUE. a large sum of money and a commission as one of four major-generals. As might have been foreseen, Howe might have saved himself the trouble of making this offer which Putnam refused with indignation, and four days afterward Washington sent him the same commission, only it was in the "rebel army." A humorous incident is told of Putnam's stay in Cambridge. His wife had joined him at the house of one Ralph Inman, a runaway Tory, and frequently drove out 264 And now Putnam's more active military At Har While in command at Peekskill a young Royalist lieutenant was captured in the HEADQUARTERS, August 7, 1777 Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy's service, was taken as a spy, lurking within our lines. He has been tried as a spy, condemned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy, and the flag is ordered to depart immediately. ISRAEL PUTNAM. P. S. He has accordingly been executed. Throughout the trying exigencies of war, Putnam, now almost sixty years old, retained his youthful spirit and humor. Colonel Moylan relates in a letter how, upon the capture of two brigs with plenty of ammunition, "Old Put," as he was nicknamed, mounted a large mortar with a bottle of rum in his hand, and as parson, with the help of Mifflin, an aide of Washington, as godfather, christened it 66 Congress." Says Colonel Moylan, "Old Put's cry throughout the winter has been, Powder powder!! Ye gods, give me powder!' and now at last he is satisfied." The same year, 1777, the intelligence of the decease of his beloved wife came to him at Fishkill. He took but a short absence, saw her buried in the Robinson family vault, and then, smothering his grief, returned to his place of duty. The suffering was intense throughout the army that year. While Washington was at Valley Forge, Putnam was enduring the same privations with his men at the Hudson Highlands; he never made his age an excuse for shirking duty. Before the winter was over he was obliged to give up his command to McDougal, merely because his treatment of the Tories had been gentler than his envious detractors thought proper. Washington wrote to him deploring this, and adding that he was obliged to do it because those who objected to him were the powerful and influential ones, the withdrawal of whose support would be a great inconvenience. Putnam did not complain, but returned to Connecticut and endeavored to labor there for the cause he so loved. When the dissatisfaction of the Connecticut troops threatened at one time to make trouble for Congress, Putnam rode to meet them as they marched toward Hartford, and by a judicious speech contrived to restore their good humor. He That same winter he performed an exploit which will live in song and story. While visiting an outpost at Horseneck (now West Greenwich), he saw in the mirror by which he was shaving, the red coats of the advancing British regulars. Dropping the razor he seized his sword, and half shaved roused his men. mounted his horse and ordered a retreat, for his little company of one hundred and fifty men could do nothing but retreat from the fifteen hundred under Tryon. But the orderly retreat became a wild, ungovernable rout, every man seeking his own safety. Putnam spurred toward Stamford, pursued by a large number of dragoons. Upon discovering that they were gaining on him, the general, urged by desperation, turned his horse and went at full gallop down a steep declivity near a rude flight of stone steps. Picture the bluff, florid, good-humored face of the daring old hero as he dashed down the hill amid the flying bullets! His hat gone, his dark hair ruffled by the breeze, his keen, kindly light-blue eyes sparkling with humorous satisfaction and triumph as he waved one arm at the wondering regulars reining up their horses on the brow of the hill! With steady nerves not in the least shaken by his astonishing ride, he called the Stamford militia, and following Tryon captured forty of his men. In the summer of 1779 Putnam was posted with his men two miles below West Point at Buttermilk Falls, and early that winter he made his headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey. Returning there from a visit to his family, he had a stroke of paralysis at the house of Colonel Wadsworth at Hartford. His was a hopeful mind, and he refused to believe the dis ease dangerous. But as his illness necessitated the resignation of all public duties, he returned to the bosom of his family at Brooklyn, where he spent the remainder of his life among the affectionate friends and neighbors of his youth. He lived eleven years after this, and was able to walk, ride and enjoy society to some little extent. Two years before his death his biographer, Colonel Humphreys, finished his "Essay on the life of the Honorable Major-General Israel Putnam." It is said that this was the first biography attempted in America, and we are certainly indebted to Colonel Humphreys for selecting from the hundreds of lives about him our Connecticut hero. On May 27, 1790, an acute inflammatory disease attacked the veteran and he considered it as fatal. In two short days he was gone to that country from which there is no return. His children were almost inconsolable, for he was the kindest and most affectionate of fathers. At his funeral religious rites were mingled with military honors, and the address was delivered by a personal friend whose warmest praises, however, could do no more than justice to the departed hero. His is but a humble monument; yet upon its marble surface are graven words which find an answering thrill in the heart of every patriot who scans that last tribute to the memory of Israel Putnam. junction the library stands. Occasionally the almost studious quiet is broken by the whirr of the trolley, suggesting noisy Bridgeport or collegiate New Haven. In the afternoon in the panelled oak hallway, before the delivery desk troops of children mingle with their elders, their piping voices calling for this or that of the six teen hundred juvenile books provided by Colonel Taylor and his friends for their delectation. Beyond the hallway the reading room welcomes the visitor with its refreshing coolness or by the grateful warmth of its large fireplace, where the eye is caught and memory held by "To one whose image never may depart Deep graven on this grateful heart Till memory be dead To one whose love has longer dwelt About the walls of rough light olive plaster frescoed in festoons of deeper tint, hang a series of colored lithographs of Venice, including her famous squares and buildings. Chairs of antique oak, and been utilized as memorial windows. They flood the passage way between the wide double stacks of oak thus making, on the south, (or right side of the room as one enters it) three alcoves A, (a double one`, B, C, D, and on the north side four, one of which has had to be subdivided to accommodate certain books. The library now holds in round numbers nine thousand volumes. By replacing the present stacks with the narrow and lighter iron ones more commonly in use its capacity could be doubled. One |