But, with his customary promptitude, Putnam ordered his men into their single boat, himself taking the helm, and pushed off just as the savages came within sight of the shore.

The disappointed and infuriated Indians sent a shower of balls after the boatmen, but none took effect; though the fugitives seemed doomed to certain death by drowning in the foaming rapids of the river.

Calmly taking the helm, Putnam steered the boat through the roaring rapids, avoiding the half-hidden rocks and protruding ledges, and, while the Indians looked on in amazement, in a few seconds brought his charge into smooth water at the foot of the falls.

Throughout all this turmoil and danger, he maintained his self-possession, his customary placidity of countenance even; and it is said that after that the Indians looked upon him as more than human and under the special protection of the Great Spirit.
It was the misfortune of the Provincials to become the sport of fate in the shape of inefficient commanders from England, who led them, not only to defeat, but to death by wholesale, in their endeavors to carry out plans insufficiently matured and schemes which would not have received the sanction of military experts at all.

One of the most disastrous of defeats was encountered at Ticonderoga, against which General Abercrombie led a force of fifteen thousand men, consisting of six thousand regulars and nine thousand Provincials.