[643] The firing lasted about
two hours. At length some of the Canadians gave way, and the rest of the
French and Indians followed.[644] They broke into small parties to elude
pursuit, and reuniting towards evening, made their bivouac on a spot
surrounded by impervious swamps.
[Footnote 643: _Thomas Barnsley to Bouquet, 7 Sept. 1758_.]
[Footnote 644: _Doreil au Ministre, 31 Aout, 1757_.]
Rogers remained on the field and buried all his own dead, forty-nine in
number. Then he resumed his march to Fort Edward, carrying the wounded
on litters of branches till the next day, when he met a detachment
coming with wagons to his relief. A party sent out soon after for the
purpose reported that they had found and buried more than a hundred
French and Indians. From this time forward the war-parties from
Ticonderoga greatly relented in their activity.
The adventures of the captured Putnam were sufficiently remarkable. The
Indians, after dragging him to the rear, lashed him fast to a tree so
that he could not move a limb, and a young savage amused himself by
throwing a hatchet at his head, striking it into the wood as close as
possible to the mark without hitting it. A French petty officer then
thrust the muzzle of his gun violently against the prisoner's body,
pretended to fire it at him, and at last struck him in the face with the
butt; after which dastardly proceeding he left him. The French and
Indians being forced after a time to fall back, Putnam found himself
between the combatants and exposed to bullets from both sides; but the
enemy, partially recovering the ground they had lost, unbound him, and
led him to a safe distance from the fight.
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