ng, the smoke and stench from which were offensive and
suffocating. Innumerable fragments, human skulls, and bones were still
broiling, half consumed, in the smoldering flames. Dead bodies, mangled
with knives and tomahawks, including those of more than one hundred
women, were everywhere to be seen, affording a spectacle too horrible
for description."

And this awful occurrence might have been obviated, if, in the first
place, Major Putnam's precautions had been adopted and a firm stand made
in the face of the enemy; or if, in the second place, the reenforcements
so often requested by the commander of the garrison had been sent.
Montcalm himself told Major Putnam, when he was a prisoner in Canada,
the next year, that when Sir William Johnson with the militia and
Rangers set out from Fort Edward one of his runners reported as to their
number, "If you can count the leaves on the trees, you can count them."

Believing, then, that a mighty force was advancing against him, Montcalm
was on the point of abandoning the siege, when General Webb's order to
return saved the situation for the French. Of a truth, the conduct of
General Webb, in command of the forces at Fort Edward and Fort William
Henry, deserves the execration of the world. Fuming inwardly against
their unjustifiable detention, yet so well disciplined as to accept
their commander's orders with impassive faces, the soldiers all,
Provincials as well as regulars, were compelled to inaction, and thus
became in a sense accessories to the blood-thirsty savages who had
murdered their friends.

We have no record of any oath that Putnam may have taken, but doubtless
one was registered in Heaven, that his comrades should be avenged, for
his acts accord with this assumption. He was even more active than
before in annoying the enemy and in taking prisoners, both French and
Indian; but there is no stain of cruelty affixed to any of his deeds. He
fought honorably, without thought of himself, without regard for what
Fame might say of him, or the future hold in store. His courage was of
the sort that shuts its eyes to the consequences and goes straight
ahead, in the path of duty and rectitude.

Soon after the massacre at Fort William Henry, General Webb was relieved
of his command and succeeded by General Lyman, an old soldier under
whom Putnam had already served. Even old soldiers make mistakes, as will
now be shown. Having despatched one hundred and fifty men into the
forest