The rallying minutemen flocked to the scene of the encounter, springing to arms without a thought of consequences, rising to the defense of their homes as one man, and within a week there were sixteen thousand men investing the demoralized enemy at Boston. Their alacrity in assembling at the common rendezvous has been a matter of wonder ever since, for nearly all marched on foot, without the assistance of horses or steam. The writer of these lines had an ancestor who was foremost among those minutemen hurrying to the defense of liberty, and who, it is a tradition in his family, ran nearly all the way from Beverly, twenty miles distant, with his flint-lock on his shoulder. Hence, as all were equally prompt in leaping at the enemy's throat, Putnam's remarkable feat was not at the time considered extraordinary. In a few days our hero was at home again, having been called to Hartford by the legislators, who were desirous of consulting with their most experienced warrior, and bestowed upon him the rank and title of brigadier-general. All these events took place within the space of a week's time, and before another week had passed Brigadier-General Putnam was in headquarters at Cambridge, occupying a house which stood within the present grounds of Harvard University. General Artemus Ward, of Massachusetts, was commander-in-chief of the forces, having been commissioned by the Provincial Congress; but Putnam was the greater favorite with the soldiers, in whose vocabulary (to paraphrase a saying common at the time) "the British were the Philistines, and Putnam, the American Samson, a chosen instrument to defeat the foe." 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!'"