[Original]
The intrepid Captains D’Ell and Harman, who now commanded, were forced to give ground for a little distance; the savages, conceiving this to be the certain harbinger of victory, rushed impetuously on, with dreadful and redoubled cries. But our two partisans, collecting a handful of brave men, gave the pursuers so warm a reception as to oblige them in turn, to retreat a little beyond the spot at which the action had commenced.
Here they made a stand. This change of ground occasioned the tree, to which Putnam was tied, to be directly between the two parties. Human imagination can hardly figure to itself a more deplorable situation. The balls flew incessantly from either side, many struck the tree, while some passed through the sleeves and skirts of his coat. In this state of jeopardy, unable to move his body, to stir his limbs, or even to incline his head, he remained more than an hour. So equally balanced, and so obstinate was the fight! At one moment, while the battle swerved in in favor of the enemy, a young savage chose an odd way of discovering his humor. He found Putnam bound. He might have despatched him at a blow; but he loved better to excite the terrors of the prisoner, by hurling a tomahawk at his head, or rather it should seem his object was to see how near he could throw it without touching him—the weapon struck in the tree a number of times at a hair’s breadth distant from the mark. When the Indian had finished his amusement, a French officer, (a much more inveterate savage by nature, though descended from so humane and polished a nation,) perceiving Putnam, came up to him, and levelling a fuzee within a foot of his breast, attempted to discharge it; it missed fire—ineffectually did the intended victim solicit the treatment due to his situation, by repeating that he was a prisoner of war. The degenerate officer did not understand the language of honor or of nature; deaf to their voice, and dead to sensibility, he violently and repeatedly pushed the muzzle of his gun against Putnam’s ribs, and finally gave him a cruel blow on the jaw with the butt of his piece. After this dastardly deed he left him.
At length the active intrepidity of D’Ell and Harman, seconded by the persevering valor of their followers, prevailed. They drove from the field the enemy, who left about ninety dead behind them. As they were retiring, Putnam was untied by the Indian who had made him prisoner, and whom he afterwards called master.
Having been conducted for some distance from the place of action, he was stripped of his coat, vest, stockings, and shoes; loaded with as many packs of the wounded as could be piled upon him: strongly pinioned, and his wrists tied as closely together as they could be pulled with a cord. After he had marched through no pleasant paths, in this painful manner, for many a tedious mile, the party, who were excessively fatigued, halted to breathe. His hands were now immoderately swelled from the tightness of the ligature; and the pain had become intolerable. His feet were so much scratched that the blood dropped fast from them. Exhausted with bearing a burden above his strength, and frantic with torments exquisite beyond endurance, he entreated the Irish interpreter to implore as the last and only grace he desired of the savages, that they would knock him on the head and take his scalp at once, or loose his hands.
A French officer, instantly interposing, ordered his hands to be unbound, and some of the packs to be taken off. By this time the Indian who captured him, and had been absent with the wounded, coming up, gave him a pair of moccasins, and expressed great indignation at the unworthy treatment his prisoner had suffered.
That savage chief again returned to the care of the wounded, and, the Indians, about two hundred in number, went before the rest of the party to the place where the whole were, that night, to encamp. They took with them Major Putnam, on whom (besides innumerable other outrages) they had the barbarity to inflict a deep wound with a tomahawk, in the cheek. His sufferings were in this place to be consummated. A scene of horror, infinitely greater than had ever met his eyes before, was now preparing. It was determined to roast him alive. For this purpose they led him into a dark forest, stripped him naked, bound him to a tree, and piled dried brush with other fuel, at a small distance, in a circle round him. They accompanied their labors, as if for his funeral dirge, with screams and sounds inimitable but by savage voices. Then they set the piles on fire. A sudden shower damped the rising flame. Still they strove to kindle it, until, at last, the blaze ran fiercely round the circle. Major Putnam soon began to feel the scorching heat. His hands were so tied that he could move his body. He often shifted sides as the fire approached. This sight, at the very idea of which all but savages must shudder, afforded the highest diversion to his inhuman tormentors, who demonstrated the delirium of their joy by corresponding yells, dances, and gesticulations. He saw clearly that his final hour was inevitably come. He summoned all his resolution and composed his mind, as far as the circumstances could admit, to bid an eternal farewell to all he held most dear.
To quit the world would scarcely have cost a single pang, but for the idea of home; but for the remembrance of domestic endearments, of the affectionate partner of his soul, and of their beloved offspring. His thought was ultimately fixed on a happier state of existence, beyond the tortures he was beginning to endure. The bitterness of death, even of that death which is accompanied with the keenest agonies, was, in a manner, past—nature, with a feeble struggle, was quitting its last hold on sublunary things—when a French officer rushed through the crowd, opened the way by scattering the burning brands, and unbound the victim. It was Molang himself—to whom a savage, unwilling to see another human sacrifice immolated, had run and communicated the tidings. That commandant spurned and severely reprimanded the barbarians, whose nocturnal powwows and hellish orgies he suddenly ended. Putnam did not want for feeling and gratitude. The French commander, fearing to trust him alone with them, remained until he could deliver him in safety into the hands of his master.