dred and seventy-three, and the
latter about one hundred, in killed and wounded, twenty-three towns
being represented among the wounded and slain. "It was not a great fight
in itself, but it was great, and even grand, in its consequences. On
that day a nation was born. Then the American learned for the first time
how to stand and fight for their own liberties."

The rallying minutemen flocked to the scene of the encounter, springing
to arms without a thought of consequences, rising to the defense of
their homes as one man, and within a week there were sixteen thousand
men investing the demoralized enemy at Boston. Their alacrity in
assembling at the common rendezvous has been a matter of wonder ever
since, for nearly all marched on foot, without the assistance of horses
or steam. The writer of these lines had an ancestor who was foremost
among those minutemen hurrying to the defense of liberty, and who, it is
a tradition in his family, ran nearly all the way from Beverly, twenty
miles distant, with his flint-lock on his shoulder. Hence, as all were
equally prompt in leaping at the enemy's throat, Putnam's remarkable
feat was not at the time considered extraordinary.

In a few days our hero was at home again, having been called to Hartford
by the legislators, who were desirous of consulting with their most
experienced warrior, and bestowed upon him the rank and title of
brigadier-general. All these events took place within the space of a
week's time, and before another week had passed Brigadier-General Putnam
was in headquarters at Cambridge, occupying a house which stood within
the present grounds of Harvard University. General Artemus Ward, of
Massachusetts, was commander-in-chief of the forces, having been
commissioned by the Provincial Congress; but Putnam was the greater
favorite with the soldiers, in whose vocabulary (to paraphrase a saying
common at the time) "the British were the Philistines, and Putnam, the
American Samson, a chosen instrument to defeat the foe."

It is a matter of record that General Ward relied upon the advice of his
old friend, with whom he had fought, under Abercrombie, at Ticonderoga,
and kept him always within call at headquarters. Had he followed his
advice more closely, however, it would have been better for their sacred
cause, as was shown in the crucial test at the battle of Bunker Hill,
when Putnam's repeated requests for reenforcements were at first denied,
then so hesitatingly gra