Charles John Forbes (10 February 1786 – 22 September 1862) was an official in the Commissariat Department of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars.

After he retired from the Commissariat Department in 1836, Forbes and his family settled in Lower Canada, where he bought a large estate at Carillon.

Forbes was involved in the suppression of the Lower Canada Rebellion in the Deux-Montagnes region, including the burning of Saint-Benoît in December, 1837.

The next year, he was transferred to Montreal in Lower Canada, where he was responsible for providing all supplies needed by the British Army units in the district.

By 1837, rebellion was in the air, following the British government's rejection of proposals for constitutional change set out by the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada in the Ninety-Two Resolutions.

[4] The commander of the British military forces was Sir John Colborne, a veteran of the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo.

He asked Forbes to report to him on possible Patriote activity in the Deux-Montagnes region, north-west of Montreal, which included Carillon.

In October 1837, Colborne moved a detachment of British soldiers to Carillon, where they were lodged in a large stone building which Forbes owned.

Although they were placed under the command of a British Army officer, Major Henry Dive Townshend, the volunteers referred to Forbes as "the General".

[5] On 16 December, Colborne and his forces joined Forbes and approximately two hundred of the volunteer group at the neighbouring village of Saint-Benoît.

According to one volunteer who was present, Colborne and Forbes watched "the whole of the troops galloping through the flames ... everybody plundering, bringing hoard, stealing horses, furniture, sleighs, etc."

One Patriote who was captured by the British forces said that the volunteers were undisciplined and "fanatical partisans or ignorant and uncouth immigrants" who believed they were to be pitiless.