"
It is a matter of record that General Ward relied upon the advice of his
old friend, with whom he had fought, under Abercrombie, at Ticonderoga,
and kept him always within call at headquarters. Had he followed his
advice more closely, however, it would have been better for their sacred
cause, as was shown in the crucial test at the battle of Bunker Hill,
when Putnam's repeated requests for reenforcements were at first denied,
then so hesitatingly granted that they proved of small avail.
To Putnam, then, and not to Ward, the officers and men of the assembled
militia looked for advice and encouragement. They were quite naturally
doubtful as to the result of their hasty action, and as most of them had
never been under fire they were timid and even down-hearted. But Putnam
was continually engaged in arousing both their patriotism and their
hopes. When General Warren asked him (wrote Putnam's son Daniel, many
years later) "if 10,000 British troops should march out of Boston, what
number, in his opinion, would be competent to meet them, the answer was,
'Let me pick my officers, and I would not fear to meet them with half
that number--not in a pitched battle, to stop them at once, for no
troops are better than the British--but I would fight on the retreat,
and every wall we passed should be lined with the dead!'"
"Our men," the General said on another occasion, "would always follow
wherever their officers led--I know this to have been the case with
mine, and have also seen it in other instances.
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