s destination having been allayed, he
established his military family at or near Buttermilk Falls, about two
miles below West Point, where, says Major Humphreys, "he was happy in
possessing the friendship of the officers of the line, and in living on
terms of hospitality with them. Indeed, there was no family in the army
that lived better than his own. The General, his second son, Major
Daniel Putnam, and the author of these memoirs, composed that family."

Putnam was probably at this point when, on that dark and stormy night of
the fifteenth of July, "Mad Anthony" Wayne stormed and captured Stony
Point, on the river not far below. This remarkable exploit was not only
the most important event of the year, but, like the battle of Monmouth
of the year previous, almost the only action worthy of note. It had the
effect, probably, of causing the British to withdraw their troops from
along the Sound, where they were engaged in ravaging the seaboard places
of Connecticut; but the post was again taken by the enemy, who, like the
Americans, did not find it worth the while to hold it.

The most important members of Putnam's military family, his son Daniel
and Major Humphreys, accompanied him home on leave of absence, in
November, whence, early in December, the General set out on his return
to the army, which was to winter at Morristown. Soon after leaving
Brooklyn, and while on the road to Hartford, he "felt an unusual torpor
slowly pervading his right hand and foot. This heaviness crept gradually
on until it had deprived him of the use of his limbs on that side, in a
considerable degree, before he reached the house of his friend Colonel
Wadsworth"--the gentleman to whom he had written the letter of the
eleventh of May previous.

Having tried, though vainly, to shake off the terrible torpor and regain
the use of his limbs by exercise, the stricken soldier was at last
compelled to admit defeat and resign himself to the inevitable. He
returned home after a short tarry with his friend, and passed the
remainder of that winter at the farmhouse he had built in his younger
days, surrounded with loving care and affection by his children. At
first disposed to rebel against this stroke that had rendered him
useless while his country still stood in need of his services,
eventually he regained his cheerfulness and gave himself up to the
enjoyment of the home comforts of which for so many years he had been
deprived.

The partial paralysis