Lexington and Concord reached him while he was ploughing on his farm; he instantly left the plough in the furrow and hastened to Cambridge; and he was later made second brigadier of the Connecticut forces. He was with the force, commanded by Colonel William Prescott, which on the night of the 16th of June fortified Breed's Hill, and on the next day he took a conspicuous part in resisting the British attack[1] (see Bunker Hill). Soon afterward, on his own authority, he occupied Prospect Hill, an important point for the siege of Boston, in which he commanded the centre (two brigades) of the American army at Cambridge. After the evacuation of Boston he was in command of New York City till Washington's arrival (April 13, 1776), and then was put in general charge of the city's fortifications. Immediately before the battle of Long Island he succeeded General John Sullivan in command of the troops on Brooklyn Heights, and in the battle of Long Island (of Aug. 27) he was in immediate command of the American side. In the retreat from New York City he commanded one of the three grand divisions, and took part in the battle of Harlem Heights (September 16). His attempt to close the Hudson by sinking vessels in the channel was unsuccessful. In December he was ordered to Philadelphia to superintend the fortification of the city, was stationed at Princeton, New Jersey, from January to May 1777, and in May took command of the Hudson Highlands at Peekskill, which with Forts Montgomery and Clinton he abandoned in October, being out-manœuvred by the British, and having been weakened by Washington's repeated demands for reinforcements. In the spring of 1778 he was superseded by General Alexander McDougall, but in April a court of inquiry acquitted him of “ any fault, misconduct or negligence ” in connexion with the loss of Forts Montgomery and Clinton. After a few months' recruiting service in Connecticut he returned to the main army at White Plains. In the winter of 1778–1779 he commanded the troops quartered near Redding, Conn., where Putnam Memorial Park now is.[2] In May he took command of the right wing on the west side of the Hudson. An attack of paralysis in December 1779 terminated his active service in the war. He spent his last years on his farm in Brooklyn, Conn., where he died on the 29th of May 1790. A bronze equestrian statue by Karl Gerhardt, over a sarcophagus, was erected at Brooklyn, Conn., by the state in 1888, and there is another statue (1874) in Bushnell Park, Hartford, by J. Q. A. Ward.
Putnam was a brave, intrepid and very industrious soldier rather than a great general, but his fame in the Indian wars, his personal courage, his bluff heartiness and his good-fellowship made him an idol of the rank and file; and he is one of the popular heroes in American history. He seems to have taken no part in the political manœuvrings and cabals which busied many of the officers of the American army.
See W. F. Livingston, Israel Putnam, Pioneer, Ranger and Major-General (New York, 1901) in the “ American Men of Energy ” series; I. N. Tarbox, Life of Israel Putnam (Boston, 1876); and Essay on the Life of the Honorable Major-General Israel Putnam (Hartford, 1788; enlarged ed., Boston, 1818), by David Humphreys, for a time Putnam's aide-de-camp.
PUTNAM, RUFUS (1738–1824), American soldier and pioneer,
was born in Sutton, Massachusetts, on the 9th of April 1738
(O.S.). His grandfather was a half brother to Israel Putnam's
father. He served in the French and Indian War in 1757–60;
was a millwright in New Braintree in 1761-1768, during which
time he studied surveying; and from 1769 until the War of
Independence was a farmer and surveyor. In 1773, with Israel
Putnam and two others, he visited West Florida to examine
lands which, it was expected, were to be granted to the provincial
troops for their services against the French and Indians, and
which he charted (see Mississippi). He became lieutenant-colonel
in one of the first regiments raised after the battle of
Lexington, and served before Boston; in March 1776 he was made
chief engineer of the works at New York; in August he was
appointed engineer with the rank of colonel; and when Congress
did not act on his plan (submitted in Oct. 1776) for the
establishment of a distinct engineer corps he resigned (Dec. 1776),
and in 1777 served in the northern army under Major-General
Horatio Gates, commanding two regiments in the second battle
of Saratoga. In 1778 he laid out fortifications, including Fort
Putnam, at West Point, and in 1779 he served under
Major-General Anthony Wayne after the capture of Stony Point. For
the remainder of the war he saw little active service. In
January 1783 he was commissioned brigadier-general. After the
war he returned to Rutland, Mass., where he had bought a
confiscated farm in 1780. In March 1786 he founded, with other
officers of the War of Independence, the Ohio Company of
Associates for the purchase and settlement of Western lands.
In November 1787, after Congress had made its grant to the
Ohio Company, he was appointed by the company superintendent
of its proposed settlement on the Ohio, and in 1788 he led the
small party which founded Marietta, Ohio. He was a judge of
the court of the North-West Territory in 1790–1796; was a
brigadier-general in the army and a commissioner to treat with the
Indians in 1792–1793; was surveyor-general of the United States
in 1796–1803; and in 1802 was a member of the Ohio state
constitutional convention. He died, in Marietta, on the 4th of May
1824. He has been called “ The Father of Ohio,” and he contributed
greatly toward the material building up of the North-West
Territory.
See John W. Campbell, Biographical Sketches (Columbus, Ohio, 1838); Sidney Crawford, “ Rufus Putnam, and his Pioneer Life in the North-west,” vol. xii., new series, pp. 431–454, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, 1899), and Rowena Buell (ed.), The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam (Boston, 1903), in which his autobiography, his journal and other papers, now in the library of Marietta College, are reprinted. His Journal, 1757–1760, dealing with his experiences in the French and Indian War, was edited with notes by E. C. Dawes (Albany, New York, 1886).
PUTNAM, a city and the county-seat of Windham county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in the township of Putnam, on the Quinebaug
river, at the mouth of the Mill river, in the N.E. part of
the state, about 6 m. from the Rhode Island boundary and about
7% m. from that of Massachusetts. Pop. (1900), of the township
(including the city), 7348; of the city, 6667 (2012 being
foreign born); (1910) 6637. Putnam is at the intersection of two
branches of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway,
and is connected by electric line with Worcester, Norwich and
Providence. The city is the seat of two Roman Catholic institutions,
St Mary's Convent and Notre Dame Academy, and has
a public library and an endowed hospital. The Quinebaug and
Mill rivers provide excellent water-power. The township
(named in honour of General Israel Putnam) was incorporated
in 1855, and the city was chartered in 1895.
PUTTEE, or Puttie, the name, adapted from the Hindī
pattī, bandage (Skr. patta, strip of cloth), for a covering for the
lower part of the leg from the ankle to the knee, consisting of a
long narrow piece of cloth wound tightly and spirally round the
leg, and serving both as a support and protection, worn especially
by riders, and taking the place of the leather or cloth gaiter.
It has been adopted as part of the uniform of the mounted soldier
in the British army.
PUTTENHAM, GEORGE (d. 1590), the reputed author of
The Arte of English Poesie (1589). The book was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1588, and published in the following year with a dedicatory letter to Lord Burghley written by the printer Richard Field, who professed ignorance of the writer's name and position. There is no contemporary evidence for the authorship, and the name of Puttenham is first definitely associated with it in the Hypercritica of Edmund Bolton, published in 1722, but
- ↑ So loose was the army's organization that it is impossible to settle the question whether Putnam or Prescott was in command at Bunker Hill. Apparently their authority did not clash and was practically independent. See Justin Winsor in his Narrative and Critical History, vi. 190–191 (reprinted in Livingston's Israel Putnam, as app. ii.).
- ↑ On the 26th of February 1779, with a small outpost, he was surprised near Greenwich by a superior force under General William Tryon. He ordered a retreat, started to Stamford for reinforcements and, being closely pursued by several dragoons, is said to have ridden down a steep hill (marked in 1900 with a granite monument), and thus escaped. From Stamford he hastened back with reinforcements and took thirty-eight prisoners from Tryon.
