12 of Prospect Hill, where, in hot haste, he was throwing up intrenchments, often laying some of the sods himself to encourage his men. The day after the battle, he observed that for three days he had neither washed nor changed his clothes. But, though the battle was over, Sargent could not deny himself the satisfaction of scenting the British Lion. He lingered under the enemy’s cannonade till every one of his men had run away, and he himself was wounded, when he returned to Cambridge. Putnam, in defiance of Ward’s orders, who, notwithstanding his urgency, had always refused him permission, was fortifying Prospect Hill, and sent repeatedly for Sargent to join him, which he declined ; but why he does not intimate. He might have exposed himself to a court-martial by a compliance. These are all the facts the author has for the assertion, that Sargent disobeyed Putnam’s order to go on to Bunker Hill. It is simply and palpably impossible that any such order should have been given or disobeyed. (For more of Sargent, see Appendix.) The only other instance in the author’s book of Putnam’s being disobeyed, to make good his allegation that such cases existed, is that of Capt. Callender of the Artillery. If any thing could be more wonderful than the author’s mistaking one hill for another, when both have been before his eyes from his birth, it would be his adducing this case as one of disobedience, or a case of any kind to disprove that Putnam was the commander. And it is quite as extraordinary that he should refer to a newspaper for the facts in Callender’s case, when he had before him a complete statement of them in the report of a committee to the Massachusetts Congress ; a report from which he has extracted only five words, saying that Putnam ordered Callender to go back, though it is so important in a description of the battle, and especially for the fame of Gen. Putnam, that any historian who neglects it commits a most unfortunate mistake. This com- mittee say, “ We applied to Gen. Putnam and other officers, who were in the heat of the engagement, for further intelli- gence. Gen. Putnam informed us, that, in the late action, as he was riding up Bunker Hill, he met an officer in the
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