without waiting to verify the
report, he started out to alarm the country. This proved a false alarm,
and he was strongly censured by those who had not kept a close watch on
happenings in Boston; but he defended himself so sturdily that his
critics were silenced. Two things were proved by this false alarm: that
the people were ready to be aroused on the slightest provocation, for
they filled the highways and flocked by thousands in the direction of
Boston; again, that the British intended to stay where they were, for
they extended their fortifications. Both sides were warned, and the
lines of demarcation began to be visible where before they had seemed
hardly to be distinguished, between loyalists and patriots. It was now
either for England or for America, even the common people felt, while
the leaders, like Israel Putnam, saw in the closer approach of warlike
preparations only the fulfilment of their predictions.

The very next month, October, 1774, the militia of Putnam's State were
ordered to provide themselves with an increased supply of powder,
bullets and flints for their muskets. More vigorously than ever now he
applied himself to the training of the sturdy militia; hoping for
continued peace, perhaps, but preparing for nothing less than war. When
war broke finally, with the first blood shed at Lexington, it found the
minutemen of New England better prepared than their enemies believed,
and when the news of this epoch-making event reached Israel Putnam, this
great exemplar of the minutemen proved a model worthy their emulation.

The messenger with the doleful tidings found him plowing in the field
back of his house at Brooklyn Green. His son Daniel was with him
driving the oxen, and when the patriot had gathered the full meaning of
the news he left the boy to unyoke the team, and himself hastened to his
barn, where he saddled and mounted his best horse and started out to
arouse the country again, as he had done seven months before. He had no
doubts this time as to the truth of the rumor, for it had come direct
and contained its own confirmation on its face.

The British, eight hundred strong, had left Boston for Concord, where
they hoped to find some military stores. Encountering a small body of
militia at Lexington, Major Pitcairn, in command of the British
soldiers, called out to them to throw down their arms and disperse; but
as they did not do so he ordered his men to fire, killing eight of the
sturdy Amer