"General," said Putnam, "that ship must be taken."
"Aye," replied the general, "I would give the world if she was taken."
"Give me some wedges, a beetle, and a few men of my own choice."
When night came, Putnam rowed under the vessel's stern, and drove the wedges between the rudder and the ship. In the morning she was seen with her sails flapping helplessly in the middle of the lake, and she was soon after blown ashore and captured.
Among other adventures, Putnam was taken prisoner by the Indians, and carried to his grave great scars of the wounds inflicted by the savages. He served to the very end of the war, pursuing the enemy even into the tropics, and assisting at the capture of Havana. He returned home, after nine years of almost continuous service, with the rank of colonel, and such a reputation as made him the hero of Connecticut, as Washington was the hero of Virginia at the close of the same war. At any time of public danger requiring a resort to arms, he would be naturally looked to by the people of Connecticut to take the command.
Eleven peaceful years he now spent at home. His wife died, leaving an infant a year old. He joined the church; he married again; he cultivated his farm; he told his war stories. The Stamp Act excitement occurred in 1765, when Putnam joined the Sons of Liberty, and called upon the governor of the colony as a deputy from them.
"What shall I do," asked the governor, "if the stamped paper should be sent to me by the king's authority?"
"Lock it up," said Putnam, "until we visit you again."
"We shall expect you to give us the key of the room where it is deposited; and if you think fit, in order to screen yourself from blame, you may forewarn us upon our peril not to enter the room."
"Your house will be level with the dust in five minutes."
Fortunately, the stamped paper never reached Connecticut, and the act was repealed soon after.
The eventful year, 1774, arrived. Putnam was fifty-six years of age, a somewhat portly personage, weighing two hundred pounds, with a round, full countenance, adorned by curly locks, now turning gray--the very picture of a hale, hearty, good-humored, upright and downright country gentleman. News came that the port of Boston was closed, its business suspended, its people likely to be in want of food. The farmers of the neighborhood contributed a hundred and twenty-five sheep, which Putnam himself drove to Boston, sixty miles off, where he had a cordial reception by the people, and was visited by great numbers of them at the house of Dr. Warren, where he lived. The polite people of Boston were delighted with the scarred old hero, and were pleased to tell anecdotes of his homely ways and fervent, honest zeal. He mingled freely, too, with the British officers, who _chaffed_ him, as the modern saying is, about his coming down to Boston to fight. They told him that twenty great ships and twenty regiments would come unless the people submitted.