Ten years of quiet followed, and Israel Putnam was fifty-seven years of age—­an age when most men consider their life work done.  On the afternoon of April 20, 1775, he was engaged in hauling some stones from a field with a team of oxen, when he heard galloping hoofbeats down the road, and looking up, saw a courier riding up full speed.  The courier paused only long enough to shout the tidings of the fight at Concord, and then spurred on again.  Putnam, leaving his oxen where they stood, threw himself upon horseback, without waiting to don his uniform, and at sunrise next day, galloped into Cambridge, having travelled nearly a hundred miles!  Verily there were giants in those days!

He was placed in command of the Connecticut forces with the rank of brigadier-general, and soon afterwards was one of four major-generals appointed by the Congress for the Continental army.  For four years thereafter he took a conspicuous part in the war, bearing himself always with characteristic gallantry.  But the machine had been worn out by excessive exertion; in 1779 he was stricken with paralysis, and the last years of his life were passed quietly at home.  For sheer, extravagant daring, which paused at no obstacle and trembled at no peril, he has, perhaps, never had his equal among American soldiers.

Not far from West Greenwich, Connecticut, there is a steep and rocky bluff, the scene of one of Putnam’s most extraordinary feats, performed only a short time before he was stricken down.  An expedition, fifteen hundred strong, had been sent by the British against West Greenwich, and Putnam rallied a company to oppose the invaders, but his little force was soon routed and dispersed, and sought to escape across country with the British in hot pursuit.  Putnam, prominent as the leader of the Americans, was hard pressed, and his horse, weary from a long march, was failing; his capture seemed certain, for the enemy gained upon him rapidly; when suddenly, he turned his horse down the steep bluff at his side, reached the bottom in safety by some miracle, and rode away in triumph, leaving his astonished and baffled pursuers at the top, for not one dared follow him!

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I have spoken of how the test of war winnows the wheat from the chaff.  This was so in those days as in these, and, as an amusing proof of it, one has only to glance over the names of the generals appointed by the Congress at the same time as Putnam.  Artemas Ward, Seth Pomeroy, William Heath, Joseph Spencer, David Wooster, John Thomas, John Sullivan—­what cursory student of American history knows anything of them?  Four others are better remembered—­Richard Montgomery, for the gallant and hopeless assault upon Quebec in which he lost his life; Charles Lee for disobeying Washington’s orders at the battle of Monmouth and provoking the great Virginian to an historic outburst of rage; Nathanael Greene for his masterly conduct of the war in the South; Horatio Gates, first for a victory over Burgoyne which he did very little to bring about, and second for his ill-starred attempt to supplant Washington as commander-in-chief.