Part 3

"And scarce Columbia's arms the fight sustains, While her best blood gushed from a thousand veins. Then thine, O Brown, that purpled wide the ground, Pursued the knife through many a ghastly wound. Ah! hapless friend, permit the tender tear To flow e'en now, for none flowed on thy bier, Where cold and mangled, under northern skies, To famished wolves a prey, thy body lies, Which erst so fair and tall in youthful grace, Strength in thy nerves and beauty in thy face, Stood like a tower till, struck by the swift ball, Then what availed to ward th' untimely fall, The force of limbs, the mind so well informed, The taste refined, the breast with friendship warmed (That friendship which our earliest years began), When the dark bands from thee expiring tore Thy long hair, mingled with the spouting gore."

We do not know whether the news of Arnold's flight from West Point September 25 reached Brown's ears. Perhaps, if it did, he would have appreciated the patriotic and lofty self-control of Washington when the next day he wrote to Rochambeau: "General Arnold, who has sullied his former glory by the blackest treason, has escaped to the enemy." "This is an event that occasions me equal regret and mortification, but traitors are the growth of every country in a revolution of the present nature. It is more to be wondered at that the catalogue is so small than that there have been found a few."

Arnold's flight to the enemy was his flight from what all men, excepting Brown and a few others [see Note 6], supposed was his soul's desire; i.e., to serve the people of America to the death. For twenty-one years after 1780 he lived, pursuing a checkered career. John Fiske said he often looked at the sword given him for his valor at Saratoga, and bemoaned the results of his treason. However that may be, his name is remembered with harshness and disgust, the result of an untruthful life.

NOTE 1.

"in a state of nature." See "The Struggle for American Independence," Fisher, vol. i, p. 27 et seq. Burlamaqui's "Principles of Natural Law."

NOTE 2.

See "New York in the Revolution," vol. i, p. 61. "The Line, Additional Corps, Green Mountain Boys, Major Brown's Detachment in General Arnold's Regiment." 244 men.

I take great pleasure in this record. Some writers have intimated that Brown was insubordinate at Quebec because Montgomery referred to one of his friends as going beyond proper bounds in objecting to Arnold. If so, why does Arnold permit Brown to remain in command? Some men went home after the defeat of December 31, 1775, others fled. Fisher says Arnold had only seven hundred men, of which the Brown detachment is a large part,--no doubt induced to stay because they trusted him.

NOTE 3.

Smith's History of Pittsfield, 1734-1800, p. 271:--

To the Honorable Horatio Gates, Esq., Major-General in the Army of the United States of America, commanding at Albany.

Humbly sheweth, that, in the month of February last, Brig.-Gen. Arnold transmitted to the honorable Continental Congress, an unjustifiable, false, wicked, and malicious accusation against me, and my character as an officer in their service, at the time when I was under his immediate command; that, had there been the least ground for such an accusation, the author thereof had it in his power--indeed, it was his duty--to have me brought to a fair trial by a general court-martial in the country where the pretended crime is said to have originated; that I was left to the necessity of applying to Congress, not only for the charge against me, but for an order for a court of inquiry on my own conduct in respect thereto; that, in consequence of my application, I obtained a positive order of Congress to the then general commanding the Northern Department for a court of inquiry, before whom I might justify my injured character; that the said order was transmitted to your Honor at Ticonderoga, in the month of August last; and, notwithstanding the most ardent solicitations on my part, the order of Congress has not yet been complied with; that, upon my renewing my application to your Honor for a court of inquiry, you were pleased to refer me to the Board of War.

Thus I have been led an expensive dance, from generals to Congress, and from Congress to generals; and I am now referred to a Board of War, who, I venture to say, have never yet taken cognisance of any such matter; nor do I think it, with great submission to your Honor, any part of their duty. I must therefore conclude, that this information, from the mode of its origin, as well as from the repeated evasions of a fair hearing, is now rested upon the author's own shoulders.

I therefore beg that your Honor will please to order Brig.-Gen. Arnold in arrest for the following crimes, which I am ready to verify, viz.:--

1. For endeavoring to asperse your petitioner's personal character in the most infamous manner.

2. For unwarrantably degrading and reducing the rank conferred on your petitioner by his (Gen. Arnold's) superior officers, and subjecting your petitioner to serve in an inferior rank to that to which he had been appointed.

3. For ungentlemanlike conduct in his letter to Gen. Wooster, of the 25th of January last, charging your petitioner with a falsehood, and in a private manner, which is justly chargeable on himself.

4. For suffering the small-pox to spread in the camp before Quebec, and promoting inoculation there in the Continental army.

5. For depriving a part of the army under his command of their usual allowance of provisions, ordered by Congress.

6. For interfering with and countermanding the order of his superior officer.

7. For plundering the inhabitants of Montreal, in direct violation of a solemn capitulation, or agreement, entered into with them by our late brave and worthy Gen. Montgomery, to the eternal disgrace of the Continental arms.

8. For giving unjustifiable, unwarrantable, cruel and bloody orders, directing whole villages to be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof put to death by fire & sword, without any distinction to friend or foe, age or sex.

9. For entering into an unwarrantable, unjustifiable & partial agreement with Capt. Foster for the exchange of prisoners taken at the Cedars, without the knowledge, advice, or consent of any officer then there present with him on the spot.

10. For ordering inoculation of the Continental Army at Sorel, without the knowledge of, and contrary to the intentions of the general commanding that Northern Department; by which fatal consequences ensued.

11. For great misconduct in his command of the Continental fleet on Lake Champlain, which occasioned the loss thereof.

12. For great misconduct during his command from the camp at Cambridge, in the year 1775, until he was superseded by Gen. Montgomery, at Point Aux-Tremble, near Quebec.

13. For disobedience of the orders of his superior officers, while acting by a commission from the Provincial Congress of the Province of Massachusetts Bay; and for a disobedience of the orders of a committee of the same Congress, sent from that State to inspect his conduct, and also for insulting, abusing, and imprisoning the said committee; as also for a treasonable attempt to make his escape with the navigation men, at or near Ticonderoga, to the enemy at St. Johns, which oblidged the then commanding officer at Ticonderoga and its dependencies to issue a positive order to the officers commanding our batteries at Crown Point, to stop or sink the vessels attempting to pass that post, and by force of arms to make a prisoner of the said Gen. Arnold (then a colonel), which was accordingly done.

JOHN BROWN, Lieutenant-Colonel.