We are at a loss to account for the author's hallucination: perhaps, being an antiquarian, he has adopted the odd notion of our ancestors, that some men are born for perdition, whose good deeds are filthy rags, and all efforts to save them useless; in fact, that Putnam was one of those culprits described in our common-law code as outlaws, who wear wolves' heads, "_caput lupinum_," and whose brains it is the duty of every one to beat out. He seems to imagine, that the head of the wolf Putnam slew in the cavern may by some legerdemain have been transferred to his shoulders; and it must be acknowledged there are some who appear to be of that opinion.
Putnam was a large, strong, muscular man, with an open, bold, determined countenance, and a large head, with full broad forehead and brain, proclaiming prodigious power and energy of mind to govern and direct, and passion to impel. As a farmer-boy, born and brought up in Essex, Massachusetts, one of the most enlightened counties in America, he must have partaken of the universal cultivation around him, though his schooling was confined to a few winter weeks annually. Before the Revolution, he had been many years in the army, in continual desperate battle on the continent and in the West Indies, and fought his way up from captain to a colonelcy. For particular accounts of him, we refer to the biographies, eulogies, and histories that mention him. Frothingham has given us the flattering eulogies on him by Gen. Reed, than whom a more intelligent officer was not under Washington. The late eminent scholar, John Pickering, sent us an eulogy upon him, from the English Annual Register, which he thought was written by the great Edmund Burke. Gen. Dearborn says, "The universal popularity of Putnam at the commencement of the Revolution was such as can scarcely _now_ be conceived, even by those who _then_ felt the whole force of it." Gen. Burbeck says, "He was the great gun of the day." President Dwight, and no one knew him better, says he was "a man whose generosity was singular, whose honesty was proverbial; a hero who dared to lead where any dared to follow." But Washington has stamped on Putnam the fiat of fame. The first moment he met him on Prospect Hill, he paid him a flattering compliment, "that he inspired every man under him with his own energy and spirit;" and he pronounced various eulogies on him up to the moment of bidding him his last farewell. Their mutual confidence and friendship were uninterrupted, except for an instant, when Washington thought Putnam was desirous of doing more than his share of the fighting. Washington called for part of the troops of Putnam, who waited to entreat permission to head them first against New York, as he had before against Boston. Washington, though his military sternness was as gigantic as all his other good qualities, rebuked him with more forbearance than he ever exhibited on a similar occasion. He was more severe on Hamilton for a slight want of punctuality, when he said to him, "You must change your watch, or I must change my Aid."[6]