the humiliation of repeated defeats in their
subsequent efforts to reduce those important fortifications.

The reduction of Crown Point was abandoned for that season; but
notwithstanding this, and the fact that the brunt of the fight had been
borne by General Phineas Lyman and his New England militia, the
commander-in-chief was rewarded for the victory by a baronetcy and a
grant of five thousand pounds!

That the results of this victory at Lake George were far-reaching, and
not forgotten by posterity, was shown, for example, nearly a century and
a half after it was won, by the erection of a monument upon the site of
the battle-field. On the eighth of September, 1903, the governors of
four States--New York, Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts--gathered
at the unveiling of a bronze memorial (erected by the Society of
Colonial Wars), the heroic figures of which, nine feet in height, are
General Johnson and Chief Hendrick. The inscriptions on the granite
pedestal tell the story: "Defeat would have opened the road to Albany
and the French.... Confidence inspired by the victory was of inestimable
value to the American Army in the War of the Revolution."

It should be borne in mind that Israel Putnam was present at this
battle, and rendered important service.

CHAPTER IV

A PARTIZAN FIGHTER

The shore of the beautiful lake was strewn with the slain, its waters
crimsoned by their blood, the French having lost nearly half their
regular force, and the English more than two hundred men. Several days
succeeding to the battle were passed in gathering the wounded and
burying the dead, in which dismal duty Putnam was engaged, with the rest
of the uninjured survivors.

As our hero kept no diary of his doings, we know only in a general way
that he was in the thickest of the fight, that he went out with the
devoted band under Colonel Williams, and was foremost at the finish
under General Lyman. It has been stated by some of Putnam's biographers
that he held the rank of captain in this, his first, battle; but a
careful search of the colonial records makes it appear that he was
merely a private. With his accustomed eagerness to be foremost in a good
cause, he had hurried to the front without thought of rank or wages; and
although the General Assembly of Connecticut, which convened in August,
promptly made him out a commission as captain of a company, it did not
reach him until after the fight.

He had outstripped his