George Canning Hill

“ As it happened, the division which was to have captured certain boats at Skenesboro', on the lake, had not yet sent down their boats to Shoreham, as expected, and how to proceed was a truly puzzling problem. There were only eighty-three men with Allen, in all; and to assail an armed fortress like Ticonderoga with a puny force like this, seemed hardly less than madness. Yet it was more dangerous still to remain there idle. Nothing could come of waiting but increased hazard. ”

“ He could not bear such a thought with patience; few men of spirit would have borne it; he gave loose to his passion, and denounced with fury and indignation the men who sought thus to hold him up to public scorn, declaring that he would submit to no such insults, and that he would continue no longer in any such service. ”

“ The Committee declared that this undertaking was one purely their own; they had first conceived the plan, and afterwards first set it on foot. They added that the men who were raised in Massachusetts were in the pay of the Connecticut Legislature, as well as themselves; and that Arnold, by joining them as he did merely as a volunteer, conceded that his parchment commission gave him no authority as an officer over any part of the expedition. ”

“ They accepted his proposal with eagerness; and gave him a commission with the title of Colonel, with authority to enlist not to exceed four hundred soldiers in the western part of Massachusetts, and wherever else along the line he might be able.
Accordingly, on the 3d day of May, 1775, Benedict Arnold assumed his new command. Meantime, the Connecticut men already spoken of had been active in carrying forward their plans, and had already started off up the valley of the Connecticut on the projected expedition. ”