France had been shorn of her possessions in Canada, and she was losing her islands in the West Indies, where, early in 1762, beautiful Martinique (to become famous as the birthplace of the Empress Josephine, and a rich land of sugar and spices) was captured by the British.
In fact, the theater of war was transferred to the more southern regions of the Caribbean Sea, and the New Englanders took a long breath and congratulated themselves that at last they were at liberty to pursue their callings unmolested.

But in this they were somewhat premature, as England was still engaged in fighting, and, no matter where her battles were fought, she seemed to expect the loyal American colonists to furnish soldiers for her wars.

Connecticut, Putnam's home State, was again called upon for the same number of able-bodied men she had furnished year by year, and promptly proffered her bone and sinew to fight the wars of King George the Third.
A thousand men, besides fifteen hundred from New York and New Jersey, embarked at the port of New York, in the month of June, 1762, bound for Havana in Cuba, where British regulars were dying by hundreds of pestilence, and sorely needed those colonial reenforcements.

On this, his first sea voyage, Colonel Putnam had a rough experience all the way down, and off the north coast of Cuba the transport containing himself and five hundred of his men was wrecked on a coral ledge.

"Old Put" was calm and collected, never more so, though unused to life at sea, and preserved strict discipline among his men, thus aiding the mariners in their endeavors to get out rafts and boats, on and in which the entire company finally reached the shore.