Dearborn–Putnam controversy

The Dearborn–Putnam controversy erupted in 1818 when Henry Dearborn published a post-war account of General Israel Putnam's performance during the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775.

During the battle, there was a fair amount of disorganization among the hastily assembled Continental Army[a] and militia, making it difficult for any one participant to give an overall assessment of everyone's performance.

The Patriot forces decided to take the offensive, occupy the peninsula, fortify it, and deny the British the advantage of this important and strategic location.

[9] On June 16, Colonel Prescott assembled 1200 men from various regiments and companies,[10][11] acting on orders from General Artemas Ward, and departed from Cambridge[d] at 9:00 that evening.

[18][20] When it was certain that the British would attack soon, Putnam took flight to Cambridge on horseback to request badly needed supplies and reinforcements from General Ward, but since Charleston Neck was under heavy fire from British ships, and fearing that General Gage might make his principal attack at Cambridge, at this time Ward, not wanting to weaken his troop strength, only released one-third of Stark's regiment[21] for deployment at Charlestown.

[18][22] At 12:00 on July 17 British troops began crossing the harbor on barges from Boston and landed at Morton's Point on the peninsula, southeast from Breed's Hill.

[26] Historian Richard Frothingham and Colonel Samuel Swett claim that General Putnam was at the redoubt during the first attack, but after the failed assault rode to the rear to call for reinforcements.

[28][29] The Americans, very few of them outfitted with bayonets,[30] began a hasty retreat, many of them unable to escape as the British regulars were on them too quickly, and a bloody hand-to-hand combat ensued.

[33] Putnam was observed by several men in this capacity, including Major General William Heath, whose account of the battle he published in his memoirs in 1798.

[35] Dearborn later contended that the battle could have been won if Putnam, who commanded a force approximately equal to that on the front lines, had advanced with his troops.

When Charles Miner, the editor of The Port Folio, asked Dearborn to verify and edit a British soldier's map depicting the Battle of Bunker Hill, he jumped at the opportunity.

[42] In the process he accused the now deceased General Putnam, a popular patriot and Revolutionary War veteran, of incompetence, cowardly leadership and failing to provide support for the retreating American troops.

[43] Dearborn's accusations were completely unexpected and generally frowned upon, causing a political and a soon to be social controversy throughout New York and New England that lasted generations.

[5][17][23] In his controversial account published in The Port Folio on April 29, 1818, Dearborn directly attacked the integrity of Putnam's involvement at the Battle,[43] maintaining: I heard the gallant Col. Prescott (who commanded in the redoubt) observe, after the war, at the table of his Excellency James Bowdoin, then Governor of this Commonwealth, " that he sent three messengers during the battle to Gen. Putnam, requesting him to come forward and take the command, there being no general officer present, and the relative rank of the Colonel not having been settled; but that he received no answer, and his whole conduct was such, both during the action and the retreat, that he ought to have been shot."

No reinforcement of men or ammunition was sent to our assistance; and, instead of attempting to cover the retreat of those who had expended their last shot in the face of the enemy, he retreated in company with Col. Gerrish, and his whole force, without discharging a single musket; but what is still more astonishing, Col. Gerrish was arrested for cowardice, tried, cashiered, and universally execrated; while not a word was said against the conduct of Gen. Putnam, whose extraordinary popularity alone saved him, not only from trial, but even from censure.

[43][47] The younger Putnam, apparently perplexed as to Dearborn's motives, expressed: What, Sir, could tempt you at this distant period to disturb the ashes of the dead, and thus, in the face of truth, to impose on the public such a miserable libel on the fair fame of a man who "exhausted his bodily strength, and expended the vigor of a youthful constitution in the service of his country"?

Claiming that "like an assassin in the dark cowardly mediated this insidious blow against...a character as much above your level, as your base calumny is beneath a Gentleman and an Officer.

[52] Henry S. Commager, a scholar of the Revolutionary War, maintains that the best American accounts[i] of the battle were recorded by ordinary soldiers and from civilian onlookers.

[53] Veteran accounts of Putnam's involvement in the battle materialized at different times in the years that immediately followed Dearborn's initial accusations as published in The Port Folio in 1818.

A fair number of these accounts however claim that when the actual fighting began Putnam was not on the front line at the rail fence, where Captain Dearborn and Colonel Benjamin Pierce and his companies were positioned.

Several of the accounts about Putnam have him overseeing the effort to fortify Bunker Hill behind front lines or making rides to nearby Cambridge to request reinforcements.

Webster suggested that Dearborn stepped beyond the line of common decency by attempting to reprehend a widely respected war veteran who gave much of his life serving his country and who had long since been dead.

[57] The lie, however improbable or monstrous, which has once assumed the semblance of truth, by being often repeated with minute and plausible particulars, is, at length, so thoroughly established, as to obtain universal credit, defy contradiction, and frustrate every effort of refutation.

In his attempt to garner positive press coverage he committed a serious error by assaulting the honor of someone who was considered a notable war hero and who had long been deceased: Putnam had died in May 1790.

Subsequently, Dearborn lost his bid for the governorship of Massachusetts and major controversy over Putnam's conduct followed which was covered frequently in the press.