Colonel John Brown, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the Brave Accuser of Benedict Arnold

Whether Washington had his doubts about Arnold's character may never be known, but more than once he gave him opportunities to hold high command because he fought battles through. So Lincoln, when told that Grant drank whiskey, asked for more such whiskey for other generals. Sparks, the historian, a Unitarian clergyman, when writing Arnold's life, detailed his sins, his youthful desertion from the British army, his financial dishonor at New Haven, his overbearing self-assertion, and yet he added, when telling of the attitude of the members of Congress towards Arnold, that "these stern patriots, regarding virtue as essential to true honor, did not consider great examples of valor, resource, and energy even of arousing and sustaining the military ardor of a country as an adequate counterpoise to a dereliction of principle and a compromising integrity." "How far a judicious policy and a pure patriotism were combined on th