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. "He
may _call_ us rebels now, if he will," he said to his son, "but why then
doesn't he hang his prisoners instead of exchanging them? By this act he
has virtually placed us on an equality, and acknowledged our _right_ of
resistance." That was one point gained by the general; another was, the
consent of the Committee of Safety to his plan of operations against the
British in Boston.

General Ward and Dr. Warren were in favor of moderation, and opposed to
the scheme advanced by Putnam, of forcing the enemy to either fight or
retire. They urged that they had no battering cannon and but little
powder, there being but sixty-seven barrels in the whole army, and no
mills to make any more when that was gone. And again, they feared for
the steadiness of the men, once they found themselves opposed by the
best of Britain's soldiers. But Putnam was persistent, not in advocating
the bombarding of Boston, or of a large expenditure of powder and ball
in trying to force the British from their position; but in fortifying
the heights of Dorchester and Charlestown, which completely commanded
the city.

He knew the British mode of attack and defense, knew their tactics
through long observation in the ranks; and yet for him and his
compatriots those same British professed to feel naught but contempt.
They had always ignored the Provincials' claims to advancement on equal
terms with their own officers; they thought their soldiers in the Indian
wars were boorish and uncouth, merely because they paid little attention
to dress or discipline; yet here was one