Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold — A Closer Reading

A Document-Based Portrait

The address relies heavily on primary sources, including Brown’s own petitions to Congress. One excerpt reproduces Brown’s 1779 letter to John Jay, then President of Congress, in which Brown complains about the “very extraordinary trial” of Arnold and notes that Congress had refused him a hearing in 1776, referring him instead to the “Officer commanding the northern Department.” Another document, Brown’s “Memorial and Remonstrance,” quotes the Board of War’s report that Arnold’s conduct gave “intire Satisfaction” and that Brown’s publication was “cruelly and groundlessly aspersed.” Howe does not simply narrate; he lets these documents speak, giving readers direct access to the language of 18th-century grievance and procedure. The effect is a portrait built from legalistic complaint and congressional response, not from later heroic gloss.

Brown’s Early Life and Local Context

Howe provides a brief sketch of Brown’s origins: his father Daniel moved from Haverhill to western Massachusetts in 1752, when John was eight. Daniel Brown, called “Deacon Brown,” was a local magistrate under the king and a prosperous early settler in Sandisfield. John, the youngest son, entered Yale at twenty-three, older than most students in 1767, and married before graduating in 1771. Howe describes him as “tall and powerful, an athlete able to kick a football over the elm-tree on the college green.” These details ground Brown in a specific social world—rural Massachusetts, Congregationalist, with aspirations to education—before his military and political career. The address thus connects the later accusations against Arnold to a man shaped by provincial ambition and Revolutionary fervor.

The Accusation and Its Aftermath

The core of the address is Brown’s 1776 charge against Arnold, reproduced in full: Brown accused Arnold of “disobedience of the orders of a committee of the same Congress,” “insulting, abusing, and imprisoning the said committee,” and a “treasonable attempt to make his escape … to the enemy at St. Johns.” The charge forced Arnold’s arrest at Ticonderoga. Howe then traces Arnold’s successful counterattack: a hearing before the Board of War in 1777, where Arnold produced letters and testimony from Mr. Carroll that cleared him. Brown’s later petitions to Congress, including the one to Jay, argue that the Board exceeded its authority and that Carroll was not a proper witness. The excerpts end with Brown still pressing his case, a reminder that historical memory of Arnold’s treason was shaped by earlier, unresolved conflicts.

Readers should approach this address as a period piece—a 1908 lecture with a specific local agenda—rather than a comprehensive biography. The excerpts reveal a work that is as much about archival preservation as about Brown himself. Howe’s use of original documents invites scrutiny of how accusations were made and defended in the Revolutionary era. For those interested in the mechanics of reputation and the paper trail of political conflict, this text offers a focused case study.

Colonel John Brown’s fierce, lonely stand against Benedict Arnold reminds me of another righteous fire, burning far away and years later—the Taiping rebels, who also trusted a flawed leader too long. Both books sit on my shelf like old friends who never met, yet share a quiet, stubborn faith in the cost of conviction. Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (Volume II) — Inside the Classic holds that same ache, I think.