He begged the savages to knock him on the head and end his sufferings; but he was soon to experience even more horrible sensations, for, arriving in advance of the main party at the place where they were to camp for the night, the small body of Indians that had him in charge concluded to burn him at the stake! He was suffering terribly from the blow on his jaw, from his swollen hands and mutilated feet, and also from a tomahawk gash in his cheek, so that he cared little what became of him, provided the end came quickly.

To be burned alive, however, was a fate that brought a shudder to the frame of even stout-hearted Israel Putnam, and he looked on in horror while his captors stripped him naked, bound him to a tree and piled the dry brush they had gathered for fuel around him in a circle.

All the while, as they labored at their fiendish task, they chanted a funeral dirge, which was almost as depressing to their captive as their sinister preparations for his immediate immolation.
"Major Putnam soon began to feel the scorching heat," says his biographer, Colonel Humphreys, who had these details from the chief actor's own lips.

"His hands were so tied that he could move his body, and he often shifted sides as the fire approached.

This sight, at the very idea of which all but savages must shudder, afforded the highest diversion to his inhuman tormentors, who demonstrated the delirium of their joy by yells, dances, and gesticulations.