PREPARATIONS TO CAPTURE TICONDEROGA.—DIARY OF EDWARD MOTT.—EXPEDITIONS PLANNED.—BENEDICT ARNOLD.—GERSHOM BEACH.

On March 29, 1775, John Brown, a Massachusetts lawyer, wrote from Montreal to Boston:

The most minute account of the preparations to capture Ticonderoga is furnished by the diary for April, 1775, of Edward Mott, of Preston, Conn., a captain in Colonel S. H. Parson's regiment. He had been at the camp of the American army beleaguering Boston; took charge of the expedition to seize Ticonderoga; reported its success to Governor Trumbull at Hartford; was sent by Trumbull to Congress at Philadelphia with the news; resumed the command of his company at Ticonderoga in May; was with the Northern army during the campaign; was at the taking of Chambly and St. Johns; and became a major in Colonel Gray's regiment next year.

The following account of expenses incurred on this expedition is amusing, pitiful, and interesting, as evidence of the small beginnings of the Revolution, and as compared with the machinery of transportation and the wealth of the nation in its Civil War:

The 3d of May, 1775, is an eventful day. Four scenes interest us. At Albany there is hesitation. Halsey and Stevens have been there to obtain permission for the Ticonderoga expedition. The Albany committee-men are alarmed, for the proposition seems to be hazardous. What will the New York Congress think of it? Will the next Continental Congress, to meet seven days hence, approve of it? The committee write to the New York Congress for instructions, suggesting that if New York goes in for the invasion it will plunge northern New York into all the horrors of war.

A second scene is at Cambridge. The Committee of Safety, without waiting for permission from New York, decided to act. They issue a commission to Arnold without consulting the Massachusetts Congress, and authorize him to raise four hundred men in western Massachusetts and near colonies for the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point; they give him money and authority to seize and send military stores to Massachusetts. We can imagine Arnold quickly in the saddle, for the enterprise suits his genius.

Benedict Arnold was now thirty-five years old; educated in the common schools, apprenticed as a druggist, fond of mischief, cruel, irritable, reckless of his reputation, ambitious and uncontrollable. As a boy he loved to maim young birds, placed broken glass where school-children would cut their feet, and enticed them with presents and then rushed out and horsewhipped them. He would cling to the arms of a large water-wheel at the grist-mill and thus pass beneath and above the water. When sixteen years of age he enlisted as a soldier, was released; enlisted again, was at Ticonderoga and other frontier forts; deserted; served out his apprenticeship, became a druggist and general merchant in New Haven; shipped horses, cattle, and provisions to the West Indies, commanded his own vessels, fought a duel with a Frenchman in the West Indies, became a bankrupt, and was suspected of dishonesty. Fertile in resource, he resumed business with energy but with the same obliquity of moral purpose.

With sixty volunteers, a few of them Yale students, marching from New Haven to Cambridge, he had an interview with Colonel Samuel H. Parsons near Hartford the 27th of April, and told him about the cannon and ammunition at Ticonderoga and the defenceless condition of that fort. Such was the man who endeavored to wrest the command of the expedition from Allen.

But the grandest scene of all on that 3d of May is the assemblage in Bennington, perhaps in the old Catamount Tavern of Stephen Fay. Allen, Warner, Robinson, Dr. Jonas Fay, Joseph Fay, Breakenridge are there with fifteen Connecticut men and thirty-nine Massachusetts men. Easton's Massachusetts men outnumber Warner's recruits, and Warner ranks third instead of second. No one dreams of any one but Allen for the leader. Easton is also complimented by being made chairman of the council. Allen with his usual energy takes the initiative and leaves the party to raise more men. He has been gone but a short time when Benedict Arnold arrives on horseback with one attendant at the hamlet and camp of Castleton. He sees Nott and other officers. They frankly communicate to him all their plans, and are in turn astounded by Arnold's claiming the right to take command of their whole force. He shows them his commission from the Committee of Safety in Cambridge, Mass. This paper gave authority to enlist men, but no more power over these men than any other American volunteers. Arnold's temper brooked no opposition. There is almost a mutiny among the men. They would go home, abandon the whole expedition which had so enkindled their enthusiasm, rather than be subject to Arnold. Whether this was owing to his domineering temper as exhibited before them, to his reputation in Connecticut as an unprincipled man, or entirely to their regard for their own officers and aversion to others, we can only conjecture. Tuesday morning this wrangling is resumed. Again the soldiers threaten to club their guns and go home. When told that they should be paid the same, although Arnold did command them, they would "damn" their pay. But Arnold suddenly started to leave this company and overtake Allen. The soldiers, knowing Allen's good-nature, as suddenly leave Castleton and follow Arnold to prevent his overpersuading Allen to yield to his arrogance.

When this stampede occurred, Nott and Phelps with Herrick were with the thirty men on the march to Skenesborough. They left the Remington camp at Castleton, and had gone nearly to Hydeville. The stampede left all the provisions at Castleton, so that Nott and Phelps were obliged to return to Castleton, gather up the provisions, and follow the main party to Ticonderoga. They arrived in Shoreham too late to take part in the capture, but crossed the lake with Warner. This incident deprives us of the benefit of Nott's journal account of the capture itself, a loss to be deplored. Some time Tuesday, somewhere between Castleton and the lake, Allen and Arnold met, and the scene occurred which has been so often and so well told in romance and history.

Within three weeks after the world-renowned 19th of April, 1775, Ethan stood in Castleton with an old friend by his side, Gershom Beach, of Rutland, a whig blacksmith, intelligent, capable, and true. Besides some sixty Massachusetts and Connecticut allies, Allen is surrounded by from one to two hundred Green Mountain Boys. More men were wanted, and Beach was selected from the willing and eager crowd to go, like Roderick Dhu's messenger with the Cross of Fire, o'er hill and dale, across brook and swamp, from Castleton to Rutland, Pittsford, Brandon, Middlebury, and Shoreham. The distance was sixty miles, the time allowed twenty-four hours, the rallying-point a ravine at Hand's Point, Shoreham. Paul Revere rode on a good steed, over good roads, on a moonlight night, in a few hours. Gershom Beach went on foot, crossed Otter Creek twice, forded West Creek, East Creek, Furnace Brook, Neshobe River, Leicester River, Middlebury River, and walked through forests choked with underbrush, but at the end of the day allotted the men were warned and were hastening to the rendezvous. Then and not till then Beach threw himself on the ground and gave himself up to well-earned sleep. Let us give this hero his full meed of praise. After a few hours' rest he followed the men whom he had aroused and joined Allen.