LXXIV. INDIAN CRUELTY.
The French and Indian War ended, Putnam resumed work on his Connecticut farm. At the time of the Stamp Act trouble he and some of his fellow-citizens visited the house of one of the men who had stamped paper for sale. They told him he must not sell a single sheet of it; and when he objected that he must mind the king, Putnam declared that if he dared disobey them his house would "be level with the dust in five minutes."
Putnam's Ride.
You have already seen how quick Putnam was to respond to the call when the patriots flew to arms. Ever since the beginning of the war he had been equally active. Called upon to meet the British in Connecticut, with but very few men, Putnam nevertheless managed to hamper their movements greatly.
On one occasion he found himself almost surrounded by the British. Calling to his companions to save themselves, he drew off the British soldiers, who hotly pursued him. With the enemy on three sides of him, and a frightfully steep and rocky slope on the other, it seemed quite impossible that Putnam should escape. But he boldly drove his spurs into his steed, rode safely down the stone steps at Horse´neck, and as none of the British dared follow him, he thus managed to get away.
Hearing that the British were burning farmhouses and villages in Connecticut, Washington fancied it might be a good plan to strike a blow which would frighten them and make them come back. He therefore planned to storm Stony Point, a place on the Hudson, where the British were building a new fort.
Sending for Anthony Wayne, an officer who was so brave and daring that his men generally called him "Mad Anthony," Washington told him what he wanted. The young man, devoted to Washington, promptly cried: "I'll storm hell, general, if you will only plan it!" The patriotic young soldier's answer was so well meant that Washington, who never swore himself, and generally reproved his men when they did so, merely smiled on this occasion, and quietly said: "Hadn't we better try Stony Point first?"
The Americans, with guns unloaded and bayonets fixed, drew near the fort unseen, led by an old negro who often went in and out of the British camp to sell strawberries. He walked up to the sentinel, and whispered: "The fort is ours." As this was the password, the soldier began to chat with him, and thus did not notice the Americans creeping up behind him until they seized and gagged him.