The Benedict Arnold/Dr Benjamin Church Jr Confrontation - Part Four

   In June 1775, Benedict Arnold found himself in an untenable position. Massachusetts was trying to wash its hands of the Lake Champlain campaign, the Continental Congress was unsure of what it wanted to do, the Connecticut Committee appointed to oversee the campaign notified the Connecticut House of Assembly that it had postponed sending further assistance to Captain Arnold, New York was divided, and Ethan Allen hovered over the whole affair with his personal ambitions paramount. And, unbenownst to Arnold, his patron, Dr Joseph Warren, who until then had not apparently outlined Arnold's secret mission to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, became the President of the Congress and turned over the affairs of the Committee of Safety to its new Chairman, Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr.
  

Benedict Arnold sketch from Lossing

   Dr Church had become Chairman of the Committee in the early part of May and had personally signed Arnold's commission to take Fort Ticonderoga on May 10th. At this point it gets confusing again. Sometime in the middle of May, Dr Warren replaced Dr Church as Chairman of the Committee of Safety in what has been described as "a bloodless and even noiseless coup." I have not been able to determine the precise reason for this action or what the politics involved were. Although Drs Warren and Church were allied to each other as staunch Whigs, there was a rivalry between them and one gets the impression that they were more colleagues than friends. In any event, Church was selected by the Provincial Congress to take secret correspondence to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia asking it to assume control and support of the Massachusetts militia now besieging Boston. Church departed for Philadelphia on May 20th, 1775 and did not return to Cambridge until the afternoon of June 16th, arriving in the middle of the battle of Bunker Hill. On May 20th, Warren became President of the Provincial Congress, and on June 14th a major general in the Massachusetts militia only to die two days later at Bunker Hill. (See my post on" Dr Joseph Warren at Bunker Hill - Heroic or Foolish.")
   In the meantime, Arnold was awaiting authority from the Continental Congress to proceed with a plan he had drawn up to attack Canada. On June 15th, 1775, Arnold sent an aide to Philadelphia to outline his plans. But, on that very day George Washington was appointed as Commander in Chief of the new American Army by that Congress and it would be months before Washington could turn his attention to Arnold and his plans to invade Canada. Washington's first priority was to hasten to Cambridge and take command of the army besieging Boston.

Enterprise - Arnold's flagship

 In the absence of Drs Warren and Church, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety proceeded to undermine Arnold in a series of actions. The first was the dispatch of Colonel Henshaw to Connecticut. If Connecticut was ready to take control over the captured forts, Henshaw was to proceed to Ticonderoga and turn over command to a Connecticut officer. If Connecticut had not sent officers and men to take control of Ticonderoga, Henshaw was to tell Arnold to stay on. But on his arrival in Connecticut, Henshaw learned that it had opened up a third possibility by sending a delegation to Albany to ask New York to take control of the forts. New York was less than thrilled with the prospect of assuming responsibility for the Massachusetts-Connecticut attack on crown forts on its own territory and only wanted to make sure that the captured cannon and supplies remained in New York and were not sent on to Boston. Henshaw sent an aide to Arnold at Crown Point with a letter instructing him to guard against any surprise from the enemy and that he would receive further instructions. Arnold was left in a state of a bewildering confusion of interests and orders but could take relief in the fact that Massachusetts had not relieved him of command -yet.
  The Committee of Safety was receiving reports from a number of sources to include an account of the taking of Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen which only further increased their apprehension over the whole Ticonderoga affair. On June 12th, acting on a recommendation from the Committee of Safety, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress decided to send a an investigative committee to Ticonderoga with authority to review how Arnold had executed his commission and to give him such orders as they deemed necessary. The committee consisted of Walter Spooner, Jedediah Foster, and James Sullivan. In addition, Arnold was to turn over his command to an officer appointed by Connecticut and the three members of the special investigative committee were authorized to decide if Arnold should remain in the employ of Massachusetts and could discharge him and order him to return to Massachusetts and render an account of his actions.

James Sullivan - Member Spooner Committee, later Governor of Massachusetts



     The three Massachusetts investigators arrived at Crown Point on June 22nd and to the beleaguered Arnold they appeared to be just another delegation come in to reflect in his glory or perhaps to bring in some sorely needed cash. Nothing prepared him for the confrontation that took place abroad his flagship, Enterprise. The committee ordered Arnold to step down immediately as commander and was informed that, if he wished to remain in charge of his contingent of Massachusetts militia, it would have to be as second in command to a newly arrived Connecticut officer. Arnold flatly refused; he would resign first. There was no further negotiation. Later that day, the committee chairman, Walter Spooner, sent Arnold a note in which it was stated that "It is the expectation of the provincial congress that the chief officer of the Connecticut forces at these stations will command..." Arnold not only was to turn command of his troops over to a Connecticut officer but he was ordered  to "lay an account of your disbursements before the Provincial Congress."
   That night Arnold retired to his cabin and drafted a long letter to the Committee. He expressed his outrage in the manner in which he had been treated, stating, among other grievances, that the whole manner in which the committee had acted was "a most disgraceful reflection on him and the body of troops he commands " and was "a sufficient inducement to resign." Arnold ended the letter by offering his resignation because of the failure of Massachusetts to discharge its obligations honorably to him as well as to his men. The Congress had failed him and his men by only furnishing L100 to keep his army in the field for two months. He had advanced the army L1000 out of his own fortune and had borrowed money on his own word to pay his men when it became necessary. This had put him in a terrible financial bind.

Jedediah Foster home outside of Worcester

   Benedict Arnold then took the only action he thought he could. On June 24th, 1775, six weeks after taking Fort Ticonderoga, he disbanded his regiment and resigned his Massachusetts commission. Arnold now only wanted to go home to Connecticut, straighten out his financial affairs, and then proceed to Massachusetts to clear his name.
   He was soon to discover, however, that three days prior to his confrontation with the Spooner committee, on June 19th 1775, his wife of eight years, Peggy Mansfield, had died, leaving him a widower with three young sons.

  To be continued
  
  

    

George Washington's Commission as Commander-in-Chief

  I was sifting through some old notes today and came across this and thought I would post it. It's George Washington's commission from the Continental Congress, dated June 17th, 1775, appointing him as General and Commander-in-Chief of the army of the "United Colonies." Washington was unanimously selected as the Commander-in-Chief on June 15th. He accepted on June 16th, and the commission was drafted and signed by John Hancock as President and Charles Thomson as Secretary on the 17th.

   John Hancock had ambitions for this post and was very perturbed when John Adams, with Samuel Adams' concurrence, nominated Washington. Hancock thought himself somewhat of a military man and liked to refer to himself as "Colonel Hancock." He, indeed was appointed as "Captain of the Company of Cadets with the rank of Colonel" in the Massachusetts militia in Boston. This was largely a ceremonial post  as the unit was called the "Governor's Guard". The only real military experience Hancock had was to lead the company of cadets on parade through the streets of Boston. Hancock's first act after his appointment was to advertise for two fifers in the Boston papers, presumably to accompany him as he marched through the streets. General Gage revoked this commission shortly after he arrived in Boston in May of 1774. Later in February of 1776 Hancock was appointed a Major-General in the Massachusetts Militia.

   Charles Thomson was born in Ireland but emigrated to the colonies as a young boy. He later made his home in Pennsylvania and was referred to by John Adams as the "Samuel Adams of Philadelphia." Thomson served as secretary of the Continental Congress throughout its existence and his name appears, as secretary, on the Declaration of Independence. Thomson's tenure as secretary was not without problems as members sometimes had problems on the manner in which Thomson recorded their remarks. On one occasion, James Searles a delegate and friend of  both John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, started a cane fight on the floor of the Congress by attacking Thomson after alleging that Thomson had misquoted him in the Minutes. Both men received slashes to the face. Who says that a secretary's position is without danger?

Washington's Commission

  

The Benedict Arnold/Dr Benjamin Church Jr Confrontation - Part Three

Osprey Men-at-Arms drawing of Benedict Arnold in the uniform of Captain of the 2nd Connecticut Foot Guards.

                                                               
   The electrifying news that the two British Forts in New York had fallen with little effort was brought to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia in the saddlebags of Ethan Allen's friend, John Brown of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Naturally Allen's version quickly became the accepted version of the taking of Ticonderoga and the delegates were soon writing home calling Allen a "hero of the revolution." The euphoria  with which Brown's news had been initially greeted soon turned to consternation since many politicians were not prepared for the provocative act of seizing British forts and Crown property. The Continental Congress set up a committee on New York military affairs to be headed by the forty-three year old delegate from Virginia, Colonel George Washington. Allen and Arnold were instructed to take a complete inventory of everything taken from the Crown's fort and be prepared to return everything if peace negotiations were successful. Obviously, the Congress was not aware of the looting that had occurred. In a May 18th, 1775 resolution, the Congress urged the New York Provincial Congress to ask New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut to send in reinforcements, since the Continental Congress was not sure it had the authority to do so itself. This request, however, only created more controversy since New York, badly split over taking part in what they saw as a Massachusetts-bred revolt, had been officially ignoring all requests for aid by Allen and Arnold. But now, for the first time, the New York Committee of Safety joined with New England in opposing the Continental Congress's recommendation that Ticonderoga and Crown Point be evacuated thus leaving the New England and New York frontiers undefended.
   The Massachusetts Committee of Safety which had, until now, not publicly acknowledged Arnold's role in the campaign, now praised his efforts. The Committee Chairman, Dr Joseph Warren, according to the journal of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, wrote to Arnold that the Committee "highly approved" of his conquests and further had learned that Connecticut and New York were making "ample provisions" to reinforce him. (Reading between the lines, Arnold could determine that this was the Committee's way of saying that Massachusetts would not reinforce him.) Dr Warren went on to state that he and the committee were chagrined to hear of the command dispute between Arnold and Allen  and that Allen had, in three consecutive letters to them, asked to be relieved of command. The committee assured Arnold that it placed the "greatest confidence" in his "fidelity, knowledge, courage and good conduct"; they asked that he "at present dismiss the thoughts of quitting your important command." The letter, spread over the minutes of the Congress, clearly stated that Arnold was in overall command of the revolutionary forces on the frontier, especially in the absence of any conflicting commission from another colony's congress.
   In the meantime, the energetic Arnold set his sights on Canada. The British had a seventy ton sloop, a vessel essential for mounting a counter-assault on Ticonderoga and Crown Point from Canada, as well as a garrison of unknown size in the fortress town of St Jean, 25 miles into Canada. Arnold decided on a pre-emptive strike and, on about dawn on May 18, 1775, Arnold and about 35 men overwhelmed a sergeant and twelve regulars guarding the old and decaying French works at St. Jean. More importantly, Arnold seized the sloop from a sleeping crew of seven. Seizing another nine bateaux, five of which were sea (lake) worthy, Arnold made his escape back to Ticonderoga.

Fort St Jean - 1775

   Arnold was beside himself with joy and a sense of accomplishment. But the larger consequences of his actions eluded him. Americans under Arnold had now wantonly attacked a British fort 25 miles into Canada: the third flagrant act of rebellion by Arnold in eight days. When this news hit London, British officials, not surprisingly, concluded that the colonists were irrevocably committed to war. As a result, they were less willing to take seriously the conciliatory overtures of more cautious provincial politicians, who would keep trying to reconcile differences with the parent nation.

   We now have a situation for which the word confusion must have been invented. There was no clear cut command or political authority wishing to take responsibility for the Lake Champlain region in New York. Arnold was caught between the conflicting aims of the Continental Congress, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, the Connecticut Provincial Congress, New Hampshire and the various New York factions, not to mention his feud with Ethan Allen; all of whom clashed with his own ambitions. But our story is concerned primarily with the Massachusetts Provincial Congress which now decided to further muddy the waters. Foremost on the agenda for this Congress was to extricate Massachusetts from its commitments, especially its financial ones, in the Lake Champlain area. As a first step, the Congress wanted to see the records relating to the Committee of Safety's decision to send Arnold on "a secret warlike enterprise to the westward." Not sure "of the relation Colonel Arnold then stood, and now stands in to this colony," including his authority to raise a regiment to be in the pay of" Massachusetts, the delegates placed Arnold under their jurisdiction, at least until they shed him of all responsibilities in the Lake Champlain region. This, of course, meant getting rid of Arnold, and possibly even his regiment, as well.

   The Massachusetts Provincial Congress had the problem of funding  the massive siege of Boston, obviously its first priority.

    It now angled to have Connecticut and New York to take complete charge of the Champlain theater of war.  The delegates send a Colonel Henshaw to Watertown where the Massachusetts Provincial Congress was meeting to inform them of this development. The likelihood of Connecticut actually doing this was of little concern to Henshaw.

   It was obvious that Massachusetts was trying to wash its hands of Arnold, even, at one point, sending a communication in which it referred to Arnold as "Captain Arnold," his rank in the Connecticut militia.

  To be continued.