"It would teach our men how little
danger there is from cannon-balls; for though they have sent a great
many at us, nobody has been much hurt by them." He was wet from head to
foot, and covered with mud to his waist; but he did not mind that at
all, and was as hilarious as a boy just let out from school.
The British were greatly chagrined at this second defeat, the first
engagement after the Concord-Lexington fight, but at an exchange of
prisoners, conducted, on the one hand, under Putnam and Warren, and on
the other under Majors Small and Moncrief, the sixth of June, no ill
feeling was shown. Putnam and Small (whose life the former was
instrumental in saving at Bunker Hill, and who were old
companions-at-arms), embraced, and one eye-witness said, kissed each
other, in the excess of their joy at meeting; yet less than two weeks
later they were opposed in a fight to the death.
CHAPTER XII
AT THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL
General Putnam was greatly elated over the exchange of prisoners,
recognizing, with the prescience of a statesman, that General Gage had
conceded a point of importance as to the status of his opponents.
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