Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

commonwealth. To this, more than any other cause, is to be attributed the early and vigorous stand which the Berkshire population took in favor of colonial resistance.

staunch Whig, that was certain; and Colonel John Brown, then called 'Squire Brown, he being the only lawyer in town, who had just been sent for to the conclave, was also a firm friend of the peo

ister, Parson Allen, who had just walked through the hall towards the same, was not to be doubted, for he had preached resistance to England from the pulpit, ever since the passage of the Stamp Act; so that, quieted of patriotic fears, the veterans of the village drank their usual potations, and retired in good season to their homes.

It was here, during that night of the first day of May, 1775, that the plan for the attack upon Fort Ticonderoga was concerted. Sixteen men only had been raised for the expedition in Connecticut, the main reliance being placed upon re

Immediately after the battle at Lexing-ple's rights; and more than all, the minton, Gen. Pomeroy, then at the head of the undisciplined forces investing Boston, laid before several members of the Provincial Congress a plan for surprising and taking possession of Fort Ticonderoga. In pursuance of this plan, Benedict Arnold had been sent into the New Hampshire Grants, as Vermont was then called, to raise, if possible, the men and means to accomplish the undertaking. Fearing, from letters he had received, that Arnold was likely to be unsuccessful, Gen. Pomeroy communicated his plans to several members of the Provincial Assembly of Connecticut, then in session at Hartford, and solicited their interest in the under-cruits who should be raised on the New taking. These gentlemen entered immediately into the spirit of the affair, and very soon enlisted a number of persons in its behalf. Three of these, Capt. Noah Phelps, Mr. Bernard Romans, and Mr. Edward Mott, gentlemen of standing and reputation in the colony, having received three hundred pounds in money from the treasury, immediately started upon the enterprise.

It was early in the evening of the 1st of May, 1775, that three strangers on horseback arrived at Col. Easton's inn. The public was at this time in such a state of alarm, that every trivial incident was magnified into great importance, so that the news of the unexpected guests soon ran over the village. As one after another of the evening visitors at the bar-room dropped in, the subject of conversation turned upon the new-comers. Various were the speculations upon their character and purpose, and broad the intimations from the more patriotic of the duties which devolved upon all good citizens in these troublous times, to see that no harm, in the disguise of honest travellers, came to the commonwealth. As the Colonel was absent, however, no serious proposals were entertained for apprehending the strangers, though it was not until it was known that he had been closeted with them ever since their arrival, that the fears of the company were allayed. Colonel Easton was

a

Hampshire Grants. To this Col. Brown opposed the objection, that the people on the Grants were mostly poor, and that it would be difficult to induce them to leave their planting, at that season of the year. As a preferable plan, Col. Easton offered to raise fifty men from his own regiment, all of whom should be mustered at Bennington within four days, at which place Col. Brown with the Connecticut men was to meet him. In eight and forty hours after this, he had redeemed his pledge, and mustered his forces with those which Ethan Allen had raised, on the common at Bennington.

On the 4th of May, the Whig parson, Rev. Thomas Allen, thus writes to Gen. Pomeroy :

66

Pittsfield, May 4th, 1775. "GEN. POMEROY, Sir:-I have the pleasure to acquaint you, that a number of gentlemen from Connecticut went from this place last Tuesday morning, having been joined by Col. Easton, Capt. Dickenson, and Mr. Brown, with fifty expecting to be reinforced from the Grants soldiers, on an expedition against Ticonderoga; above here, a post having previously taken his departure to inform Col. Ethan Allen of the design, and desiring him to hold his Green Mountain boys in actual readiness. The expedition has been carried on with the utmost secresy. We expect they will reach there by Saturday, or the Lord's day at farthest. We earnestly pray for success in this important expedition, as the taking of those places would afford us a key to all Canada.

"We have had much work here of late with the Tories. A dark plot has been discovered of sending names down to General Gage, in consequence of which, and the critical situation

of this town, we have been obliged to act with vigor, and have sent Mr. Jones and Evans to Northampton jail, where they now lie in close confinement, and have sent a hue and cry after Major Stoddard and Mr. Little, who have fled to New York for shelter. We hope it will not be long before they are taken into custody and committed to close confinement. Our Tories are the worst in the province. All the effect the late and present operations have had upon them is, they are mute and pensive, and secretly wish for more prosperous days to Toryism.

"As to your important operations, sir, you have the fervent prayers of all good men, that success may attend them. I hope God will inspire you with wisdom from above in all your deliberations, and your soldiers with courage and fortitude, and that Boston will be speedily delivered into your hands, the general thereof, and all the king's troops, that that den of thieves, that nest of robbers, that asylum for murderers and traitors, may be broken up, and never another red coat from England set foot on these shores. I have been concerned lest General Gage should spread the small-pox in your army. May Heaven preserve you from his wicked wiles. May you be shielded, sir, in the day of battle, and obtain a complete victory over those enemies of God and mankind. I have but one observation to make, which I have often made upon the histories I have read, and then I must put an end to this tedious epistle. It is this: seldom or never do the greatest generals duly improve a victory when it is obtained. I am, sir, with the greatest respect, your obedient, humble servant, THOMAS ALLEN."

Twelve days after the date of this letter, on the 16th of May, Fort Ticonderoga had surrendered at the demand of Ethan Allen, on an authority it did not like to question.

It is not generally known, that Arnold, meeting at Castleton the forces already raised by Allen and Easton, showed his commission from the Provincial Congress, and demanded in a peremptory and insulting manner his right to the command. Mott says, in his letter, written to the Provincial Congress immediately after the surrender of the fort, that "after we had generously told him our whole plan, Mr. Arnold strenuously contended and insisted, that he had a right to command us and all our forces; which bred such a mutiny among our soldiers, as almost frustrated our whole design. Our men were

for clubbing their firelocks and marching home, but were prevented by Col. Allen and Col. Easton, who told them that he should not have the command of them, and if he did, that their pay should be the same as though they were under their command; but they would damn the pay, and say they would not be commanded by any others but those they engaged with." After the surrender of the fort, Arnold again assumed the command, and demanding that Allen should resign the charge of the garrison into his hands, insisted upon the direction of the whole business. Ethan Allen was not the man to be brow-beaten, especially when he was in the right; and though at most times his temper was completely under his control, he was occasionally most fearful in his anger. bore the insults of Arnold for several days with much patience, until at length, finding one of his orders countermanded, he sought him, and seizing him by the collar, said in his stentorian voice, "Go back to those who sent you here, and tell them if they want Ethan Allen to resign his command, to send a man to take it.'

He

It was at this time, that the misunderstanding commenced between Col. Brown and Arnold, which afterwards made so much noise in the colonies. As it was, until its close, a matter of private history only, and is not generally known, it is due to the sagacity of Col. Brown-a sagacity which saw at that early day through the disguise of the traitor-that it should be made public.

At

Brown was a young and highly promising lawyer in Pittsfield. From his capacity and active interest in behalf of the colony, he had been selected by the Committee of Correspondence to go in the year 1774 to Canada, to induce the people there to unite with the Provinces against the mother country. He was a man of winning manners and fine person, possessing great influence over those who knew him. great personal hazard, for his objects soon became known to the Canadian authorities, and with consummate ability, he discharged the duties of his mission to the entire satisfaction of his employers, though without any encouraging result. Canada needed the right kind of men-the descendants of those who learned the principles of civil liberty from Pym, and Elliot,

Dissatisfied by the apathy of the Congress, and disgusted with a service which might bring him under the command of a man whose principles and character he detested, Col. Brown threw up his commission and resumed the practice of law. He did not again enter the army until the year 1780. Solicited at that time to take command of a regiment which had been mustered for the relief of Fort Schuyler, then greatly endangered by the invasion of Sir John Johnson, he consented and was immediately ordered up the Mohawk. On his birth-day, October 19, 1780, being then thirty-six years old, he and forty-five Berkshire men with him, fell dead in the murderous attack of the Indians at Stone Arabic.

and Hamden-to organize an efficient op- | cause, from his avaricious love of gold position against British tyranny; and his a prophecy fulfilled at last to the very mission was, therefore, unsucessful. After letter. the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga, he was employed in company with Allen to precede the expedition against Canada, mainly to assure the inhabitants that no designs against their liberties were intended by the invading army. In an attack upon Montreal, projected by himself, and undertaken with a very inadequate force, Allen was taken prisoner, and after the most cruel usage, was sent in chains to Great Britain. Col. Brown then joined the forces under Arnold, and was present on the 31st of December, in the unfortunate attack upon Quebec. Charged with the Boston troops, of whom he had the command, to co-operate with Col. Livingstone in making a false attack upon one of the gates of the city, he triumphed over all the obstacles in his way, and succeeded in accomplishing his purpose, Livingstone having been unable to reach the spot, owing to the great depth of the snow. The history of the attack is well known, and need not be recited here.

It was during this campaign, that the growing dislike of Col. Brown towards Arnold was increased to an avowed and implacable hostility. He had repeatedly remonstrated with him upon the impolicy of making treacherous promises to the Canadians, of exacting needless and heavy distraints upon their property, and wickedly devastating their villages. Finding entreaties and reason to be of no avail, and having proof of Arnold's constant peculation of the public funds intrusted to him, he broke entirely from all connection with him, and posted him as a coward and a villain. In fourteen articles of accusation which he published against Arnold, he branded his name with every epithet which it bears at this day, and challenged him to falsify the charges. Before a committee of Congress, he offered to prove

all

he had published, but finding the leading men desirous at that early day, and wisely so, to quiet all contention among the officers of the still new and undisciplined army, and unwilling to investigate the charges he brought, Brown declared publicly, that though they might now "trust in Arnold as a brave officer, he would yet prove a traitor to the American

We have alluded to the cruel treatment which Ethan Allen received from the British authorities, after he was made prisoner at Montreal. In the numerous sketches of his life, we do not remember ever to have seen the following letter, written by his brother to Gen. Washington, which deserves to be preserved, if for nothing else, as a curious document of the times:

66

Salisbury, Ct., Jan. 27, 1776. "MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY:--I have rode some hundred miles in consequence of my brother, Ethan Allen, (commonly called Col. Allen,) being taken prisoner near Montreal, 25th Sept. last; have waited on your Excellency at head-quarters, in Cambridge, December last; since that, waited on Gen. Schuyler on the same business. He read me a paragraph of your Excellency's letter directing him to inquire what was become of Col. Allen, and desired me, if possible, to get some evidence of the treatment he received after being taken prisoner. Accordingly have spared neither trouble, nor pains, nor cost, to accomplish the

same.

One affidavit have only been able to obtain, which I inclose.

"There is a number of ministerial troops in this and the neighboring towns prisoners, but few of them have seen my brother since a prisoner, only those taken on board the Gasper brig, and it is next to impossible to get any of them to say that Allen or any other prisoner

was used ill, for fear of retaliation; besides they have been charged by Prescott and all the officers, not to mention Allen's being put in irons, on pain of death.

"The soldier who made the affidavit here in

closed, was very loth, and I should not have obtained it but he had previously dropped words to the same import as the affidavit. I then brought him before proper authority, and told him he must declare under oath whether Col. Allen

his name.

was put into irons or not, and then he declared on oath what the affidavit says, at the same time begged that none present would mention Have some thoughts of going to England incog. after my brother, but am not positive he is sent there, though believe he has. Beg your Excellency would favor me with a line, and acquaint me with any intelligence concerning him, and if your Excellency pleases your opinion of the expediency of going after him, and whether your Excellency would think proper to advance any money for this purpose, as my brother was a man blessed with more fortitude than fortune. Your Excellency may think at first sight I can do nothing by going to England. I feel as if I could do a good deal, by raising a mob in London, by bribing the jailor, or by getting into some servile employment with the jailor, and by over faithfulness make myself master of the keys, or at least be able to lay my hand on it some night. I beg your Excellency will countenance my going; can raise more than £100 on my own property; shall regard spending that no more than a copper.

[ocr errors]

his ardor in the cause of American freedom had suffered no abatement, he felt too certainly the disadvantages of old age for the duties of active military life, and voluntarily resigned his place to younger men. Congress had honored him with the appointment of Brigadier General, and his acceptance of the office was earnestly desired by the Commander-in-chief. His own inclinations also were strong in the same way, but the apprehensions of his family, the failure of his usual robust health, and the earnest desire of his personal friends, decided him at last to decline it.

duties of the field, Pomeroy had not deBut though withdrawn from the active serted the service of his country. As soon as it was known that he had retired from the camp, the Provincial Congress, then holding its sessions at Watertown, immediately appointed him to the command of the militia in Hampshire county, with instructions to see that they were duly trained and disciplined, in preparation for actual service. For nearly two years he was engaged in "Your Excellency must know that Allen this duty, diffusing a spirit of military arwas not only a brother, but a friend that stick-dor among the people, training them to eth closer than a brother. Have two brothers the use of arms, urging early enlistments in the Continental army, one a captain, the among the other a lieutenant. The last with the army supplying disciplined troops for the rank young men of the county, and before Quebec. Whether these now, or with and file of the army. His services in this Gen. Montgomery, cannot tell. We look up to your Excellency as our political father, and respect were repeatedly acknowledged, head of a great people. both by the Provincial and Continental Congress.

"Your Excellency's most obedient,

"Ever faithful and very humble servant,
"LEVI ALLEN.

"N. B.—If your Excellency choose, I shall wait on you personally. I only want your commands; cannot live without going to England if my brother is there. Beg your Excellency will be very secret, lest the opposite party should discover my design."

History does not inform us what action Gen. Washington took upon this very remarkable and curious letter. It is certain, however, that the wild project of Mr. Levi Allen, if it was ever attempted, was without any favorable results, as Ethan Allen, after his imprisonment in England, was sent back to this country, and after a time exchanged as prisoner of war.

But to return to the subject of our notice. Upon the accession of Gen. Washington to the command at Cambridge, Pomeroy retired from the field. Although

When, at the call of the country, the rough peasantry of New England were crowding into the camp at Saratoga, a large number marched from Northampton and the adjacent towns. As the regi

ment, mustered from them, wheeled one morning into the lines, Gen. Gates, who was surveying his army from a little eminence on the right, remarked that they must be old soldiers. "Those?" asked Wilkinson; "why, those are raw recruits from Northampton." What? Pomeroy's men, eh! I ought to know them!" and putting spurs to his horse, he rode over to that part of the field where they stood, and complimented the commanding Colonel upon the appearance of his men.

But though conscious of rendering service to the cause of the colonies by remaining at home, the ardent soul of the old man could not be satisfied with the mere

preparation of soldiers for the field. With recovering health came the old ardor for active service in the camp. Solicited personally by Washington during the close of the year 1776 to take command of a regiment during the ensuing campaign, Pomeroy determined to enter again into the active duties of the war. In January, 1777, he left Northampton for the division of the northern army, then stationed at Peekskill under the command of Gen. M'Dougal. "I know not," were his favorite words to his family, "I know not whether it be God's will that I should return home again, but it is of little matter, provided I am doing His work."

It is no mean illustration of the zeal of the Americans in behalf of their cause, that an old man of seventy-one years, worn out in the fatigues of military service for more than a third of a century, should again buckle on his armor for the contest. The usual stimulants to military ardor in

the human breast, do not often outlive the prime of life. It is not the nature of old age to look forward to the honors and emoluments of toil and danger, but to seek its enjoyment and repose in the recollections of the past. A higher motive must be sought, than any which the camp, or the field of battle, or the love of power, can produce, in a case like this. That motive is to be found only in the righteous cause for which our fathers contended. "That is no mean cause," said his minister on the Sabbath after he left, "that is no mean cause which can call the young man from his pleasures, and the man of middle age from his family, to the field of strife and carnage; but that cause which enlists in its behalf the toil and labor of gray hairs, inducing it to sacrifice the love of quiet, the infirmities of years, and the need of repose, to its country's good, must be the cause of God."

There are but few letters preserved, written by the old man after his re-enlistment to the army. Indeed he could have written but few, as he lived but four weeks

after he bade farewell to his family. With a single one of these, we will close our already too protracted notice:—

"Peekskill, Feb. 11th, 1777. "DEAR SON-I have once more an oppor

tunity to write from this place, which will be the last, as I design to-morrow or the day after to set out for Morristown in the Jerseys. I understand this day, that some of the prisoners whom Lieut. Brown went up with, are sent to Northampton. If there should be a smith among them, I should be glad to have you try him at the smith's business, or you may find one who will suit for the husbandry business.

"I should be glad to hear how the filling up of the continental army gets along in the county of Hampshire. It is reported here, that they fill up fast towards Boston. I hope

[blocks in formation]

General Pomeroy was buried at Peekskill. There was living a few years ago a venerable lady, sister to the late Pierre Van Cortland, who remembered to have watched, when a child, the funeral procession which followed the old soldier to the grave, and to have seen through the trees the place where they buried him. It is not possible at this day to identify the spot. His bones lie somewhere within the precincts of the old churchyard in Peekskill, mingling with other human dust. It matters not. He left the impress of his character upon the age in which he lived, and its features are not lost upon the generations which have followed. N. S. D.

« AnteriorContinuar »