ility
cannot rest.[157]

[Footnote 157: RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DEFEAT.--According to some of
our more recent versions of this battle, the disaster is to be
referred to the wilful disobedience, criminal inattention, and total
incapacity of General Putnam. Several writers make the charge so
pointedly and upon such an array of fact, that the reader is left to
wonder how all this should have escaped the notice of the
commander-in-chief at the time, and why Putnam was not immediately
court-martialled and dismissed the service, instead of being
continued, as he was, in important commands. The charge is the more
serious as it is advanced by so respectable an authority as Mr.
Bancroft. Mr. Field, Mr. Dawson, and Dr. Stiles, following the latter,
incline strongly in the same direction.

Mr. Bancroft first assails Putnam for sending Stirling out to the
right when word came in that the enemy were advancing and our pickets
flying. This is criticised as "a rash order," because it sent Stirling
to a position which was "dangerous in the extreme," with the Gowanus
marsh in his rear. But as to this, it only needs to be said that
Putnam's written instructions from Washington were imperative to
prevent the enemy from passing the hills and approaching the works. It
would have been a clear disregard of Washington's intention had Putnam
not sent Stirling out precisely as he did. The enemy were coming up
from the Narrows and must be checked "at all hazards." Furthermore,
the position Stirling took up at about Nineteenth Street was actually
safer than any other on the outpost line. His right could not be
turned, for it rested on the bay, and he could see every movement of
the fleet. His left was well covered by Parsons, and no one could have
imagined his rear in danger with the other outposts guarding it for
more than three miles. As a matter of fact, Stirling was nearer the
lines than either Miles or Wyllys.

Again, it is charged that when Putnam and Sullivan visited the extreme
left on the 26th "the movements of the enemy plainly disclosed that it
was their intention to get into the rear of the Americans by the
Jamaica Road," yet nothing was done. The foundation of this is
probably a statement of Brodhead's and another by Miles to the effect
that these generals might have themselves observed that the enemy were
preparing for the Jamaica move. But if the intentions of the latter
were so obvious at that time, it is proper to ask why it was