The name.

Every blog needs a good title.

"Drivethedogs" comes from story of General Israel Putnam.

Israel "Old Put" Putnam was a celebrity in his day. His service in the French and Indian Wars -- from being in Roger's Rangers to shipwrecking in the Caribbean -- had earned him much respect and many friendships. Weary of the steady stream of visitors to his homestead, his wife convinced him to move to their household to center of town and open a tavern, so they could at least profit from their hospitality.

The morning of April 20th, 1775 he was plowing a field behind that tavern when a messenger arrived with word of the previous day's Battle of Lexington and Concord. As the senior general of the Connecticut Militia, he left the plow in the field and rode on horseback first to Governor Trumbull's War Office in Lebanon, Connecticut for a war council, then back to Brooklyn, then to Cambridge, finally arriving in Concord in the wee hours of the morning. He rode one hundred and thirty miles in eighteen hours, including the time spent in meetings -- a remarkable feat for a man of fifty seven.(1)

Here's a man on the verge of greatness, with plenty of friends, lots of trust, in good health. Memorable enough for equestrian statutes in his home town, for a statute in the park adjoining the state capitol, Putnam State Park on the western side of the state is named after him, as well as the Town of Putnam near me.

We even have a really big equestrian statute of him in the center of my town:


Most school kids are taught the saying, "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes!" but few can attribute it to General Putnam. While not a footnote of history, he never made it into the category of the best remembered generals -- the realm of Washington, Greene, Knox.

What is it that makes that difference?

By the time of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Putnam had a commission as Major General (third in seniority to Washington). Colonel Prescott with a regiment of Massachusetts militia had managed to occupy Bunker and Breed's Hill under cover of dark and fortify them. The British attack focused on Breed's Hill, and at great cost to the British managed to drive Prescott's men off the hill.

In retreat Prescott encountered Putnam, "Why did you not support me, General, as I had reason to expect from our agreement?"

"I could not drive the dogs up!" replied General Putnam.

The incensed Colonel Prescott retorted, "If you could not drive them up, you might have led them up!" (2)

What is it, aside from luck, that separates the good from the very good, and the very good from the great?

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Footnotes:
1) During the heyday of the U.S. Cavalry it was expected a healthy troop could, in an emergency, cover one hundred miles in twenty four hours.

2) Historical Magazine, June 1868