This remarkable exploit was not only the most important event of the year, but, like the battle of Monmouth of the year previous, almost the only action worthy of note.

It had the effect, probably, of causing the British to withdraw their troops from along the Sound, where they were engaged in ravaging the seaboard places of Connecticut; but the post was again taken by the enemy, who, like the Americans, did not find it worth the while to hold it.
The most important members of Putnam's military family, his son Daniel and Major Humphreys, accompanied him home on leave of absence, in November, whence, early in December, the General set out on his return to the army, which was to winter at Morristown.

Soon after leaving Brooklyn, and while on the road to Hartford, he "felt an unusual torpor slowly pervading his right hand and foot.

This heaviness crept gradually on until it had deprived him of the use of his limbs on that side, in a considerable degree, before he reached the house of his friend Colonel Wadsworth"-- the gentleman to whom he had written the letter of the eleventh of May previous.
Having tried, though vainly, to shake off the terrible torpor and regain the use of his limbs by exercise, the stricken soldier was at last compelled to admit defeat and resign himself to the inevitable.

He returned home after a short tarry with his friend, and passed the remainder of that winter at the farmhouse he had built in his younger days, surrounded with loving care and affection by his children.