PUTNAM 101 ered and organized a regiment, and after drill- ing them for some days marched to Cambridge. The British officers offered him a commission as major general in the royal service and a large sum of money, both of which he indig- nantly rejected. In May he led a battalion of 300 men to Noddle's island, now East Boston, and burned a British schooner, captured a sloop, killing and wounding 70 of the enemy, and brought off several hundred sheep and cat- tle. It was in great measure through his wish to bring on a general engagement while the spirit of the troops was high, that the determi- nation was taken to fortify Bunker hill. In the battle which followed he acted a conspic- uous part. When Washington arrived at the camp to take command in July, he brought with him commissions from congress for four major generals, one of whom was Putnam ; and to him alone did he deliver his commis- sion, the others being withheld on account of the general dissatisfaction attending these appointments. In March, 1776, Washington being about to take possession of Dorchester heights, Putnam was ordered to attack Boston with 4,000 men in case the enemy should at- tempt to dislodge the Americans. Soon after the evacuation of that city he was ordered to take command in New York. He par- ticipated in the battle of Long Island, Aug. 27, and afterward went to Philadelphia to prepare for the defence of that place. After completing the necessary fortifications, he was stationed at Crosswick and subsequently at Princeton. In May, 1777, he was ordered to take command in the highlands of New York. While there he sent the following famous re- ply to Sir Henry Clinton, who claimed a lieu- tenant of a tory regiment as an officer in the British service: "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 exe- cuted as a spy, and the flag is ordered to de- part immediately. Israel Putnam. P. S. He has been accordingly executed." In the sum- mer of this year the British troops surprised and took Forts Montgomery and Clinton, and obliged Putnam to retire to Fishkill. Subse- quently he was removed from his command in the highlands, as Washington says, " on ac- count of the prejudices of the people," and the dissatisfaction of Hamilton and other officers, and also from the fact that a court of inquiry had been ordered to investigate the causes of the loss of Forts Montgomery and Clinton. This court decided unanimously that no blame could be attributed to Putnam, who not long afterward was stationed in Connecticut. In March, 1779, a corps of 1,500 British troops under command of Tryon made an incursion into that state and approached Horseneck, one of Putnam's outposts. To oppose him were 150 men with two pieces of artillery, and with these Putnam took his position on the brow of a steep hill. After exchanging shots, as he saw the enemy's dragoons were about to charge, he ordered his men to retire to a swamp inacces- sible to cavalry. He himself was hotly pursued, and finding that the dragoons were gaining upon him, he rode down a steep declivity, receiving on his passage a ball through his hat. Riding on to Stamford, he called out the militia, and effecting a junction with his little party he hung upon the rear of Tryon in his retreat and took about 50 prisoners, whom he treated with a humanity customary on his park but so un- expected that the British general sent him a letter of thanks. During the summer of 1779 Putnam held command of the Maryland, Penn- sylvania, and Virginia troops in the highlands of New York, and, assisted by his cousin Rufus Putnam and others, completed the fortifications at West Point. After the army went into winter quarters, he returned home, and on setting out again for camp was attacked by paralysis of his left side. He then took up his residence on his farm in Brooklyn, and there remained until his death. He was of medi- um height and of great physical strength ; and decision and personal daring were his most marked characteristics. " He dared to lead where any dared to follow," is the inscription upon his tombstone. His life is contained in the " Miscellaneous Works " of Gen. David Humphreys (New York, 1790), and in Sparks's "American Biography," vol. vii., by O. W. B. Peabody. PUTNAM, Mary Lowell, an American authoress, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell, born in Boston, Dec. 3, 1810. She was married April 5, 1832, to Samuel R. Putnam, a merchant of Boston, who died in 1861. She possesses a remarkable knowledge of languages, compri- sing not only Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and the modern tongues of western Europe, but Swedish, Danish, Polish, Russian, Hungarian, Turkish, Sanskrit, and other oriental tongues. She has published " Record of an Obscure Man " (Boston, 1861) ; a dramatic poem in two parts, " Tragedy of Errors " and " Tra- gedy of Success " (1862) ; and a memoir of her son William Lowell Putnam, killed at the bat- tle of Ball's Bluff in 1861. PUTNAM, Rufns, an American pioneer, cousin of Gen. Israel Putnam, born in Sutton, Mass., April 9, 1738, died in Marietta, O., May 1, 1824. In 1757 he enlisted in the war against the French, and in 1760 was made ensign. He afterward worked as a farmer and millwright, and in 1773 went on an expedition to the new- ly created government of West Florida. In 1775 he entered the continental army as lieu- tenant colonel, in 1776 was appointed engineer with the rank of colonel, and in 1777 com- manded a regiment in the Massachusetts line. He constructed the fortifications at West Point, and in January, 1783, was commissioned briga- dier general. He removed to Rutland in 1782, and for several years was a member of the legis- lature and employed in government surveys. After a visit to the Ohio country he called and
