Although Washington mildly rebuked him, he gave him new offers of high command. It is clear to me that any such statements as are indulged in by historians are of no weight or consequence.
I cannot help referring to Colonel Brown's hand-bill of the winter of 1776-77, published and posted in public places, wherein he attacked Arnold with great severity, concluding with the words, "Money is this man's God, and to get enough of it he would sacrifice his country." A prophecy! Unhappily, the same might be said of too many men of to-day. Another incident painful to recall, but characteristic, was told to my great-uncle in 1834 by Colonel Morgan Lewis, a friend of Colonel Brown's, and printed elsewhere. At the camp and in the tent where Arnold sat with other officers at some time during the Saratoga campaign, Brown faced the arch-traitor and denounced him as a scoundrel, and then, apologizing to those present, left the tent. His reiterated charges were not regarded as worthy of him as a soldier, although he had resigned from the Continental service because he could not get justice and because Arnold was not tried for his crimes. Schuyler deplored Brown's conduct as an accuser though respecting him as a brave man.
I am unable to account for the record which accredits him with thirteen months' and eighteen days' service at German Flats, New York. From April 1, 1776, to May 18, 1777, he was Lieutenant-colonel of Elmore's Connecticut Regiment, which was stationed at Albany and later at Fort Stanwix. I suppose his resignation from the Continental army was accepted about May 18, 1777, but, whatever his loyal service in New York may have been, he again marched in September, 1777, in command of Massachusetts militia under direction of General Lincoln, from Pawlet, Vt., with a separate detachment to harry the British at Ticonderoga and Lake George. On the 18th of September, 1777, early in the day he made sudden and successful attacks on the landing-place near Ticonderoga, Mount Defiance, and that neighborhood, demanding the surrender of the fortress; but this time General Powel, of the British army, made a manly reply. His captures of men and material were very valuable. Some American prisoners were released, and a Continental standard of colors was recaptured and sent to General Lincoln with much delight. All the joy of conquest is expressed in his report from Pawlet, Vt., October 4, 1777, but in his letter of September 20, written at eleven o'clock at night to General Lincoln, he said he was censured by officers and men for not suffering them to make a rash attempt to carry the fortress at Ticonderoga, although on mature consideration he thought it impossible to take possession without too great loss of life. Here as late as 1777 appears the tendency of the militia to be insubordinate. He withdrew from Lake Champlain, and planned the capture of Diamond Island in Lake George, a place where some German troops were guarding a large amount of supplies. He had manned an armed sloop and boats, but was thwarted by the escape of a prisoner and a sudden and violent storm on the lake. The prisoner gave warning to the garrison, and the result of the storm gave time for the preparation of a defence, so that after two hours' hot engagement he withdrew after destroying some of his boats. General Lincoln commended him highly for the success of this expedition. He wrote to General Lincoln September 19, 1777, telling him he had given the men all the plunder to encourage them before the attack, although "going beyond the letter of the law." This action General Lincoln approved.
The question of plunder and the martial law governing it must have been a great source of trouble in this war among Indians and white men in the invasion of Canada and the Tory invasions hereabouts. [[See Note 4.]] It seems probable that, when Arnold falsely charged Easton and Brown with plundering the baggage of British officers at the Sorel, he could easily cast a shadow because of the uncertainty about the rules of war and the orders given by general officers. Plunder was promised the men by recruiting officers as early in the war as when the plan was laid by Ethan Allen to capture Ticonderoga in April or May, 1775. [[See Note 5.]]
In the early part of the summer of 1780 rumors were received tending to show that Sir John Johnson might again invade the Mohawk Valley, this time by way of Lake Ontario and Lake Oneida. Therefore, on the twenty-second day of June, 1780, the General Court of Massachusetts, at the earnest request of General Washington, directed that 4,726 men should be raised from the militia by draft, lot or voluntary enlistment, to serve three months in New York territory after they arrived at Claverack on the Hudson. These levies, by reason of apparent danger to the cause in Rhode Island, with the exception of 315 or more men raised in Berkshire County, were sent to General Heath at Tiverton, R.I. Various meagre statements are in print in reference to the men who served under Brown at this time. I find in the Massachusetts Archives the names of officers and privates, in all 381 men, who served in the Mohawk Valley probably after August 5, 1780. [[See Note 4.]] It may be that some of his men were stationed in different forts or block-houses in other places than Stone Arabia, and that only 217 men of the Berkshire Regiment were in the battle of October 19, 1780. The killed and wounded are all from three of the five companies. [[See Note 4.]] Some writers say that Colonel Brown had New York men with him, and one statement refers to Captain John Kasselman, of Tryon County Rangers, as being in conference with Brown on the day he fell. [[See Note 4.]]
Each soldier was equipped at his own expense with a good fire-arm, with a steel or iron ramrod and a spring to retain the same, a worm priming wire and brush, and a bayonet fitted to his gun, a scabbard and belt therefor, and a cutting sword or a tomahawk or hatchet, a pouch containing a cartridge-box that will hold fifteen rounds of cartridges at least, a one-hundred buckshot, a jack-knife and tow for wadding, six flints, one pound of powder, forty leaden balls fitted to his gun, a knapsack and blanket, a canteen or wooden bottle sufficient to hold one quart.
Long after the Stone Arabia fight, claims were presented to the General Court of Massachusetts for felt hats, coats, vests, linen overalls, shirts, shoes, blankets, canteens, and handkerchiefs, and of course for muskets,—all lost on the 19th of October, 1780.
Brown's major was Oliver Root, his adjutant James Easton, Jr., son of his old colonel. Dr. Oliver Brewster was surgeon, and Elias Willard quartermaster. He assumed command July 14, 1780, at Claverack, and marched probably August 5 to some of the Mohawk settlements or forts. His mission was to protect various neighborhoods from sudden raids.