About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the twenty-first century.
At dinner, they were talking about former Lee Police Chief Joseph Buffis.
“He was a good officer and a good chief,” someone said.
No one disagreed.
“He did his job, did it well, and then the revelations.”
Buffis was found guilty of extortion.
“Why would any man throw away his whole life and reputation for a few dollars?”
No one had an answer.
Two hundred and thirty eight years earlier, in 1777, a Pittsfield man asked the same question. His name was John Brown. Born in Sandisfield in 1744, Brown was educated at Yale, and moved to Pittsfield to open his law practice. He was one of just two lawyers in Pittsfield; the other was Woodbridge Little.
In his history of Pittsfield, J. A. E. Smith wrote that the people of Pittsfield quickly placed their confidence in Brown “…and he never gave them reason to repent their trust.”
Brown was a representative to the General Court in Boston, sat as a judge, and when the Revolutionary War was declared, Brown served as an officer in Colonel James Easton’s Berkshire regiment. Brown fought at Ticonderoga. There he met both Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold. It was about Arnold that Brown asked the question.
Benedict Arnold is a name synonymous with treason. The facts seem clear; the motivation eludes us. Why did Arnold, a man good at his job, throw it all away? Were his actions motivated by love, greed, hubris, or a rich mix of all three?
Like Brown, Arnold volunteered. He was in the Connecticut militia and first engaged the enemy at the Siege of Boston. Arnold would prove to be a good soldier and a brilliant tactician. He is credited with suggesting the attack on Ticonderoga because it was a small garrison with big guns. Ticonderoga was comparatively lightly guarded and the heavy artillery stored there could be captured and moved to the harbor at Boston for its defense. It was an inspired plan, readily adopted.
It was at Ticonderoga, as the wider war raged, that the personal battle between Allen, Brown and Arnold began.
Arnold felt he should be commanding officer at Ticonderoga. Allen was confident it was his command. Brown supported Allen and the other Pittsfield men fell in behind Brown. Allen won command and led his men to victory. Allen rewarded Brown by sending him to deliver the message of victory to the Continental Congress. Arnold steamed at what he perceived as insult and injustice, and it was not his only loss.
People and places in Berkshire County figure prominently in the story of Benedict Arnold. The battle won, the heavy guns had to be moved from Ticonderoga to Boston. The best route was through Berkshire County. Arnold was passed over as leader, and an officer named Henry Knox was selected. Once again another man was feted for executing Arnold’s plan.
Arnold was not an injured innocent. He waited his chance and when opportunity presented itself, Arnold accused Allen and Brown of plundering. Brown defended himself but also countered by saying this of Arnold:
“Money is this man’s God and to get enough of it, he would sacrifice his country.”
The Berkshire attorney’s statement was prophetic and ignored. It was viewed as an empty cross-complaint. Pity; if Brown had been heeded he could have saved the country grief; might even have saved the man himself.
Brown died in battle in 1780. He was thirty-six. He has gone down in history as the first man to bring a charge against Benedict Arnold.
Henry Knox, the man who fought his way through a Berkshire winter along what would become known as Knox’s Trail played a further role in the saga of Benedict Arnold.
It was 1777 and Margaret Shippen was seventeen years old, a creature of fashion, and an acknowledged beauty. Philadelphia was in the hands of the British and Margaret, Peggy to her friends, was a Tory. Peggy’s youth and beauty was a heady mix for the British officers. Peggy favored a British officer named John Andre, handsome, sophisticated, and insinuating.
In war fortunes change. General Washington recaptured Philadelphia, and Arnold marched in as commander of the city in 1778. Arnold and Peggy met. Benedict Arnold was none of the things the lady was: he was neither Tory nor fashionable nor particularly handsome. Crippled and embittered by war, and what he deemed “slights,” Arnold was still a patriot, well-weathered if not well-worn. By whatever alchemy, they fell in love and married the following year.
There is no mystery about what happened. John Andre was captured by the patriots. He was carrying papers that proved Arnold had conspired to help the British take West Point – a key strategic position.
When British officer John Andre was captured, he was carried by ship to the place of his trial. Knox guarded him on board. Of a similar age, class, and educational level, reputedly they became friends. Nonetheless, it was Knox who sat in judgment at Andre’s court marshal and pronounced him guilty.
Andre was hanged as a spy. Arnold was condemned as a traitor and escaped to England. Peggy, now mother of the first of five children she would bear Arnold, followed. Two mysteries remain. The first is: who was Peggy Shippen Arnold? Was she instigator, co-conspirator, or innocent young wife?
Here is the other: what motivated Arnold? Peggy and his love for her; Brown, Allen and Knox, and his jealousy of them, his perceived insult at their hands; Andre and his bag of gold, or was it something in the Arnold himself? History is a tapestry. The intertwining threads are people interacting and creating our story.
