question of plunder and the martial law governing it must have
been a great source of trouble in this war among Indians and white men
in the invasion of Canada and the Tory invasions hereabouts. [See Note
4.] It seems probable that, when Arnold falsely charged Easton and
Brown with plundering the baggage of British officers at the Sorel, he
could easily cast a shadow because of the uncertainty about the rules
of war and the orders given by general officers. Plunder was promised
the men by recruiting officers as early in the war as when the plan
was laid by Ethan Allen to capture Ticonderoga in April or May, 1775.
[See Note 5.]

In the early part of the summer of 1780 rumors were received tending
to show that Sir John Johnson might again invade the Mohawk Valley,
this time by way of Lake Ontario and Lake Oneida. Therefore, on the
twenty-second day of June, 1780, the General Court of Massachusetts,
at the earnest request of General Washington, directed that 4,726 men
should be raised from the militia by draft, lot or voluntary
enlistment, to serve three months in New York territory after they
arrived at Claverack on the Hudson. These levies, by reason of
apparent danger to the cause in Rhode Island, with the exception of
315 or more men raised in Berkshire County, were sent to General Heath
at Tiverton, R.I. Various meagre statements are in print in reference
to the men who served under Brown at this time. I find in the
Massachusetts Archives the names of officers and privates, in all 381
men, who served in the Mohawk Valley probably after August 5, 1780.
[See Note 4.] It may be that some of his men were stationed in
different forts or block-houses in other places than Stone Arabia, and
that only 217 men of the Berkshire Regiment were in the battle of
October 19, 1780. The killed and wounded are all from three of the
five companies. [See Note 4.] Some writers say that Colonel Brown had
New York men with him, and one statement refers to Captain John
Kasselman, of Tryon County Rangers, as being in conference with Brown
on the day he fell. [See Note 4.]

Each soldier was equipped at his own expense with a good fire-arm,
with a steel or iron ramrod and a spring to retain the same, a worm
priming wire and brush, and a bayonet fitted to his gun, a scabbard
and belt therefor, and a cutting sword or a tomahawk or hatchet, a
pouch containing a cartridge-box that will hold fifteen rounds of
cartridges at least, a one-hundred buck