That officer had brought to Cambridge from New Haven a company of which he was 76 the captain, and upon arriving there at once reported to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety that it would be possible, before the forts had been reinforced, to seize the works at Ticonderoga and Crown Point with a comparatively small body of men.
He proceeded to organize an expedition for such a purpose, and to this end was supplied with the money and munitions of war mentioned by Isaac, together with a colonel’s commission, which gave him the chief command of troops, not exceeding four hundred in number, which he might raise to accompany him against the lake fortresses.
Upon arriving at Stockbridge, in the province of Massachusetts, he learned that another expedition had set out—that is to say the same one Corporal ’Lige and Isaac accompanied—and after engaging officers and men to the number of fourteen he hastened 77 onward, overtaking the militia as Isaac has said.
In this camp where military discipline was conspicuous by its absence, the recruits, who had learned within the hour what had been decided upon the night previous by the council of war, soon ascertained the position which the officer from New Haven claimed, and knew exactly what he proposed to do by virtue of his commission.
Even though the men had not learned such facts from their officers, those recruits who accompanied Colonel Arnold would have at once made the matter public.
At about the time Isaac finished the letter to his mother the encampment was in a state bordering on insubordination.
Colonel Arnold’s recruits raised in Stockbridge insisted that their leader should command the forces, not only because he was 78 authorized to do so, but owing to the fact that he had the money and ammunition necessary to carry out the plan, while the members of Colonel Allen’s regiment, known as the Green Mountain Boys were equally determined that such honor as might be gained should be their colonel’s, and in a brief space of time these new-fledged patriots were ripe for riot.
Now was come the hour when Corporal ’Lige had shown him some portion of that consideration which he believed due his experience in military affairs.
Those members of Colonel Easton’s militia regiment which had joined the expedition, jealous because their leader had given way to Colonel Allen, now demanded loudly and publicly that he must lead the party or they would turn back.
Inasmuch, however, as this portion of the 79 troops amounted to fifty or thereabouts, they had a small showing when the Green Mountain boys, who were more than two hundred strong, came forth in turn with their threats.