In the year 1755, when active operations began in this war between
England and France, fought out on the soil of America, Israel Putnam was
thirty-seven years old and in the prime of life. There was no immediate
necessity for him to volunteer in defense of the frontier, where the
hostile French were gathering, for it was far distant from his home, the
forests around which were threatened by no roaming savages with
tomahawks and muskets. But his patriotic instincts were aroused by the
reports of massacres committed in other regions; he knew the tide must
be met before it became irresistible and breasted in the North. Four
great expeditions were planned by the English to frustrate the schemes
of the enemy: against Fort Niagara, Crown Point on Lake Champlain, Fort
Duquesne, and against the French in Nova Scotia.
It was to take part in the expedition with Crown Point as its objective
that Israel Putnam abandoned his farm, early in the summer of 1755, just
when it needed him most, and started on his second long journey away
from home. He reached the rendezvous at Albany, after a toilsome march
through the forests that intervened between the Connecticut and the
Hudson, and there found three thousand other "Provincials" gathered for
the defense of the colonies.
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