ther 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.

"The old general, whose boast it was that he never slept but with one
eye, was already on the alert. A circumstance had given him proof
positive that Sir Henry was in New York, and had aroused his military
ire," writes Washington Irving. This paragraph refers to one of
Clinton's spies, who was captured while gathering information in
Putnam's camp at Peekskill. When Clinton heard of it he sent a
war-vessel up the Hudson with a flag of truce, claiming the man as one
of his officers. This was Old Put's reply:

Headquarters, _7th August, 1777_.

Edmund Palmer, an officer in the enemy's service, was taken as a
spy lurking within our lines. He has been tried as a spy, condemned
as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy; and the flag is ordered
to depart immediately.

I have the honor to be, etc., etc.,
Israel Putnam.

P.S.--Afternoon. He is hanged!

The last week in September, Washington drew upon the patient commander
in the Highlands for more soldiers, so that he had only eleven hundred
men left with which to meet and withstand the British invasion of his
territory, which began on the 5th of October. Putnam was fully cognizant
of the situation, for he wrote to Governor Clinton, his coadjutor in
the defense of the Highlands, on the 29th of September: "I have received
intelligence on which I can fully depend that the enemy received a
reenforcement at New York last Thursday of about 3,000 British and
foreign troops; that General Clinton has called in guides who belong
about Croton River; has ordered hard bread to be baked; that the troops
are called from Paulus Hook to Kingsbridge; and the whole are now un