Putnam was later accused by Hamilton, Washington's aide-de-camp, of making a "hobby-horse" out of his desire to march upon New York, and of riding it on all occasions; but it was no less a hobby-horse with him than the defense of Philadelphia was with his Commander-in-Chief, who many times imperiled the safety of other sections by withdrawing troops in hot haste and flying to the succor of a city which was captured and occupied by the British notwithstanding. Washington rode his hobby-horse full-tilt at the unfortunate Putnam and threw him to the ground. With one hand, as it were, he wrote him to keep an eye on the movements of the enemy and be fully prepared to meet them; but with the other he signed an order for the weakening of his force. The consequences came when Burgoyne, having descended from Canada and invaded northern New York, Putnam found himself between two fires, that of the former and that of Sir Henry Clinton, who finally set out on the long-meditated trip up the Hudson in order to cooperate with the southward-marching army. Putnam had learned of the successive moves on the military chess-board as Burgoyne progressed in his triumphal march. First, of the fall of Ticonderoga, in June; then of Fort Edward; finally, of the glorious victory achieved by his former comrade in the Indian wars and at Bunker Hill, the redoubtable General Stark, at Bennington. He was called upon to furnish reenforcements not only to Washington, unfortunate in his defense of Philadelphia, but to Schuyler and Gates in the north. The post of danger, as usual, Old Put occupied in the Highlands, and he was delighted; only repining that whenever he was nearly ready to do something, away went his troops on some wild-goose mission, of which he knew neither the end or aim. Washington surmised that Howe's scheme of sailing southward with an army aboard his ships was for the purpose of luring him away from the real point of attack, which was to be in the Highlands, so he wrote Putnam to be on the alert and to send spies down to New York to ascertain Clinton's plans. "If he has the number of men with him that is reported, it is probably with the intention to attack you from below, while Burgoyne comes down upon you from above." Thus wrote Washington in August, but still the depletion of the perplexed Putnam's command went steadily on. When he protested he was recommended to hurry up the militia from Connecticut, or some other New England State, and thus supply the place of the seasoned troops he had trained, with raw recruits.