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been told of what was going on, dashed in, kicked the blazing brands to right and left, and cut loose the cap

It was Molang, the leader of the party, who severely reprimanded the savages and transferred Putnam to the care of the chief who had captured him and who had seemed disposed to treat him kindly.

Putnam was a miserable object when he reached Montreal, his scanty clothing in rags, his legs torn by thorns and briars, his face blood-stained and swollen. He had been wounded in the cheek with a tomahawk and struck on the jaw with the butt of a musket, and was almost unable to eat. Fortunately his captors did not know that they held a man who had won fame by his daring, and when an exchange of prisoners was made, this seeming old invalid, at the suggestion of General Schuyler, a fellow-prisoner, was included among them.

Thus Putnam got back to the army, in which he remained till the end of the war. Near its close he met again the Indian whose prisoner he had been and who was delighted to see him. At a later time Putnam, now with the rank of colonel, took part in the Pontiac War, and here marched side by side with his old chief, who had joined the English and went with them to do - battle with the ancient enemies of his tribe.

Before this war, in 1762, Putnam had taken part as leader of the colonial troops in the English expedition against Havana. That city was taken, but war and disease carried off most of those who took part, and he brought back few of the brave fellows who had followed him to the Spanish isle. After the Pontiac War he resigned, having been ten years in service, and during the succeeding ten years he dwelt quietly at home, turning his farmhouse into an inn, where he busied himself when not engaged in the fields.

A patriotic American, he was conspicuous among the "Sons of Liberty," and a bitter enemy of the English oppressors. When messengers reached Connecticut with news of the scene of blood at Lexington and the rise of the people Putnam was busy plowing in his fields. Leaving the plow in the furrow, he hastened home, bade his wife good-bye, and was off for Boston without waiting to change his clothes.

He was at once made brigadier general, in command of the Connecticut troops, and was active at the battle of Bunker Hill, where he was ranking officer, though he left the actual command in Prescott's hands. He bade his men to reserve their fire till the enemy were within eight rods, which Prescott bettered by telling them not to fire "till they saw the whites of their eyes." Promoted major general, he was in command on Long Island during the disastrous fight at Brooklyn, but was appointed only a few days before the battle to succeed General Greene, who was sick, and therefore had no chance to study the ground.

Crossing New Jersey with Washington on his retreat, he was left in command at Philadelphia during the night march on Trenton. After filling various posts of duty, he was in 1777 appointed to defend the Highlands of the Hudson, and while there selected. West Point as a defensive position and superintended the construction of its fortifications. In this command he showed his spirit in a characteristic incident.

While he was at Peekskill, a lieutenant in the British service was taken within his lines and condemned as a spy. Sir Henry Clinton, on hearing of this, sent a flag of truce to Putnam's head-quarters, threatening vengeance if the sentence was carried out. The reply was brief and significant.

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Head-quarters 7th August, 1777.-Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy's service, was taken as a spy lurking within our lines. He was 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."

In the winter of 1778 Putnam's daring was shown in an incident that has become famous. He, with one hundred and fifty men and two cannon, was at the brow of a steep declivity at a place called Horseneck, from which a series of stone steps led to the valley below. Here he was assailed by Governor Tryon with fifteen hundred men. He defended himself for a time with his artillery, but as the dragoons were about to charge and his small force was incapable of facing them, he ordered the men into a swamp unfit for horsemen and rode at full gallop down the steep steps, while the foe looked on expecting every moment to see him dashed to pieces. But the mettled steed dashed down the dangerous hill in safety and the daring rider escaped.

Putnam was now near the end of his long military career. In 1779, while returning from a visit home, one of his legs became paralyzed, and he was obliged to retire from the service. The remainder of his life was passed at home, where he died May 19, 1790.

President Dwight speaks of him as "A man whose generosity was singular, whose honesty was proverbial, who raised himself to universal esteem and offices of eminent distinction by personal worth and a useful life.”

To this eulogy we need but add that for thrilling adventures the life of Putnam is almost without a parallel in the history of the pioneers of America.

JOHN STARK, THE OLD SOLDIER OF

BENNINGTON

THE Victory of Bennington made John Stark famous, and still more his short and telling speech to his troops before the battle joined. But this was only an incident in Stark's warlike career, which was long and distinguished, in both the French and Indian and the Revolutionary struggles.

His father was a farmer of Londonderry, New Hampshire, where the son was born August 28, 1728. The father removed to Derryfield, now Manchester, in the same State, in 1736, and here the boy passed his youth in farming and hunting till one day in 1752, when he was taken prisoner while on a hunting excursion by a party of Indians. While with them they forced him to run the gantlet, but he escaped injury by snatching a club from the hand of the nearest Indian and laying about him to right and left with such energy that hardly a blow fell upon him. This and other exhibitions of courage and alertness so pleased the savages that they adopted him into their tribe, under the title of the "young chief." After six weeks' detention he was ransomed and set free.

Three years later the war with the French and Indians began, and Stark at once joined the corps of rangers under Robert Rogers, a bold partisan who became famous during the war. Stark, already known as an able scout, was made a lieutenant in the corps, with which he took part in many of its daring deeds.

After the battle with and defeat of Baron Dieskau, in which Stark took part, the militia regiments were

disbanded and he returned home. But he was quickly in the field again, in a new company recruited by Major Rogers, in which only rangers and hunters of courage and skill were admitted. Their duty was to act between the hostile hosts, to reconnoitre, surprise straggling parties, make false attacks, act as guides and couriers, and annoy the enemy in every available way. It was a service of constant adventure and danger, and Stark's life in the years that followed was one of ceaseless activity and frequent peril.

The rangers were kept in continual service, exploring the woods, lying in ambush for stragglers, and at times setting out on scouting expeditions in which they had to make their way “through vast forests and over lofty mountains." A party of Stockbridge Indians joined them, but their skill as woodsmen was in no degree superior to that of the rangers, whose lives had been spent on the frontier.

In January, 1757, the company of rangers went north on a long scouting expedition over the icy surface of Lake George, and on reaching a point on Lake Champlain half way between Crown Point and Ticonderoga, took some prisoners, from whom they learned that there was a strong force of French and Indians at Ticonderoga. A retreat at once began, but they had been seen and found themselves intercepted by a party of the enemy about two hundred and fifty strong. The rangers numbered only seventy-eight and a number of them were soon disabled by the fire of the enemy, Major Rogers among them. In this dilemma Stark took command and declared that he would shoot the first man who fled, telling them that they were in a good position and that a retreat would be fatal. The

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