Old Put" The Patriot"

Table of

had plodded the trails and military roads, and pushed his way through the swamps, morasses, forests, of the wilderness region of New York, which by the end of 1761 he should have known almost as we

ndian village of Caughnawaga, where he received his former captive with pride, and was highly delighted to see his old acquaintance, "whom he entertained in his own well-built stone house with great frie

, but no fighting of account. For, so far as the mainland of North America was concerned, the long struggle between France and England was nearly at an end. France had been shorn of her possessions in Canada, and sh

ngs unmolested. But in this they were somewhat premature, as England was still engaged in fighting, and, no matter where her battles were fought, she seemed to expect the loyal American colonists to furnish soldiers for h

oyage, Colonel Putnam had a rough experience all the way down, and off the north coast of Cuba the transport containing himself and five hundred of his men was wrecked on a coral ledge. "Old Put" was calm and collected, never more so, though unused to life at sea, and preserved strict discip

rm had so much abated as to permit the convoy to take them off. They soon joined the troops before Havana, who, having been several weeks in that unhealthy climate, had already begun to grow extremely sickly. The opportune arrival of the Provincial

ritish and Colonial invasion of Cuba "on the spot") that the subject is worthy of more extended notice. The English expedition against Havana was occasioned by the King of Spain, Charles III, ha

ling the seaboard of territory at present comprised in the South Atlantic States of our Union. So she hastened to seize the capital of Cuba, the "Pearl of the Antilles," and early in June, 1762, the surprise

o, then about a hundred years old, and its companion fortress called the Punta, between which two forts lay the deep and narrow entrance to the harbor. This harbor was blocked by some big war-ships, and a chain was stretched across the mouth, but the English did not even essay an entrance, having landed th

toria de Cuba, by Dr. Vi

nder. Afterward, however, they were transported to the Caba?as hills, and there, on the site of the fortifications (above which, in 1904, the American flag last waved in token of possession in C

na where the C

ear the bastion, the combined assailants poured through in an invincible flood. The Duke of Albermarle, who commanded the British forces, had informed the comandante of the castle that he had mined the bastion and demanded a capitulation. But the heroic commander, Don Luis de Velasco, spu

to trouble sturdy Old Put, who was everywhere among his men, with comfort and consolation, carrying water to the wounded, supporting the dying. The chaplain of the Connecticut troops one day recorded in his diary: "Col. Putman and Lt. Parks w

elings of the surviving soldiers who had gone so far and been exposed to so great peril, when they learned, less than a year later, that

me impetuosity, and seizing the stick, wrenched it away from its owner, who, joined by other exasperated Cubans, turned upon the American and compelled him to flee to a vessel for safety. Here he was followed by the negro, who so successfully appealed to the sol

he might an old garment now no longer of service, and became again the contented, humble farmer. In 1763, about the time the treaty of peace between England and France was signed, he was elected "selectman" of the town in which he lived, and the ensuing s

idespread conspiracy among the Indian tribes, believing he could eventually exterminate "those dogs dressed in red," as he called the English. The rising was appointed for the 7th of May, 1763, and no less than eight English garrisons were massacred, a five-months' siege ensuing at Detroit, where Pontiac himself commanded the Indians. The attacks were intermitted in the winter, but as they were sure to be renewed in the spring, a call was sent o

But alas! within five months of his arrival home he lost two of his dear ones by death: his daughter Elizabeth, only seventeen years of age, who died in the winter of 1764-'65, and his beloved wife, Hannah, who passed away in the April following. Of the ten children born to Israel and