1775, and
served in that capacity with the rank of colonel until relieved by
General Gates. The services rendered by Colonel and afterwards General
Glover in this as well as in other campaigns is a well-known record.
Learned and Nixon became Continental brigadiers. Shepherd, Brooks,
Jackson, Winthrop Sargent, and many other officers from this State,
distinguished themselves in the later years of the Revolution. But
perhaps no man proved his worth more in this campaign than Colonel
Rufus Putnam, of Brookfield, Washington's chief engineer. He succeeded
Colonel Gridley at Boston; and at New York, where engineering skill of
a high order was demanded in the planning and construction of the
works, he showed himself equal to the occasion. That Washington put a
high estimate on his services, appears from more than one of his
letters.[87]

[Footnote 87: Document 43, Part II., contains interesting and
important extracts from Colonel Putnam's Journal, now published for
the first time.]

Rhode Island at this time had two regiments in the field. In 1775 they
were around Boston; in 1776 they were here again with the
army--Varnum's Ninth and Hitchcock's Eleventh Continentals. A third
regiment from this State, under Colonel Lippett, did not join the army
until September. Varnum and Hitchcock were rising young lawyers of
Providence, the former a graduate of Brown University, the latter of
Yale. Hitchcock's lieutenant-colonel was Ezekiel Cornell, of Scituate,
who subsequently served in Congress and became commissary-general of
the army. Greene, Varnum, Hitchcock, and Cornell were among those
Rhode Islanders who early resisted the pretensions of the British
Ministry. In the discipline and soldierly bearing of these two
regiments Greene took special pride, and not a few of their officers
subsequently earned an honorable reputation. Varnum was created a
brigadier; Hitchcock, as will be seen, closed his career as a
sacrifice to the cause; Colonels Crary and Angell and the Olneys
served with the highest credit; and the men of the regiments, many of
them, fought through the war to the Yorktown surrender.

In proportion to her population, no State contributed more men to the
army in 1776 than Connecticut, nor were all ranks of society more
fully represented. Fortunately the State had in Trumbull, its
governor, just the executive officer which the times demanded. A man
of character and ability, greatly respected, prompt, zealous, ardent
in