Arnold, Benedict (1741-1801)

Benedict Arnold (1741-1801)

Sources

General

A Synonym for Treachery. In the first two years of the Revolution, Benedict Arnold made a reputation as a daring and skilled fighter, perhaps the best tactician who fought in the Revolution. His bold leadership was decisive in winning the pivotal battle of Saratoga. If the serious wound he sustained there had killed him, his military glory would be immortal. Yet few remember today his feats of arms in behalf of the Revolution, while any child knows that “a Benedict Arnold” is a traitor.

Background. Born in Norwich, Connecticut, Arnold was brought up in a strict religious household and attended boarding school for three years before being apprenticed to an apothecary in 1755. He joined the militia in the French and Indian War, deserted, returned to duty and deserted again. In 1762, when his parents died, he opened an apothecary shop in New Haven. Five years later, when he married into a prominent family, he was a successful businessman, trading and perhaps smuggling in the West Indies and Canada. He became captain of a Connecticut militia company in 1775 and participated in the Siege of Boston.

Years of Glory. Soon Arnold had wangled a colonelcy in the Massachusetts militia with the task of raising a regiment with which to capture Fort Ticonderoga. Ethan Allen had already set out on that mission, and Arnold joined him as a volunteer. His wife having died on 19 June, Arnold assuaged his grief by leading an expedition through the Maine woods to link up with Gen. Richard Montgomery in an attack on Quebec. The attack, launched on the last day of 1775, was unsuccessful; Montgomery was killed and Arnold wounded. Holding his position and continuing to threaten Quebec, Arnold was promoted to brigadier general. In May he had to retreat to Montreal in the face of British reinforcements. By July all American forces had been driven out of Canada and were trying to fore-stall a British offensive down the Lake Champlain and Hudson River valleys to New York. Arnold patched together a makeshift flotilla of gunboats on Lake Champlain and led them into battle at Valcour Island. In two sharp fights on 11 and 13 October 1776, his boats were destroyed. Nonetheless, he had held up the advance, and it was now too late in the year for the British to march any farther. For this feat Arnold expected promotion to major general. When it was not forthcoming, he threatened to resign but was persuaded not to by George Washington. The promotion came after he repulsed a British landing at Danbury, Connecticut, in April 1777. His finest hour came at Saratoga. Under the command of Horatio Gates in the Battle of Freeman’s Farm on 19 September, Arnold’s troops hurled back Gen. John Burgoyne’s attack on the colonial left and might have destroyed the British if Gates had released troops for a counterattack. When he protested to Gates after the battle, he was relieved of his duties. The British attacked again on 7 October. Without a command, Arnold raced to the battlefield and led an attack that broke the British, sustaining a crippling wound in the process. Saratoga was the turning point of the war, and Arnold was the turning point of Saratoga.

Years of Shame. When he was able to walk again, Arnold was assigned to the command of Philadelphia. Soon he was accused of corruption and subjected to an investigation. Though he married Peggy Shippen, daughter of a prominent Loyalist Philadelphia family, he was blackballed socially. Enraged by this treatment, in May 1779 he opened a treasonous correspondence with Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander in chief. Although he received only a mild reprimand as punishment for his activities in Philadelphia, Arnold, now commanding the American stronghold at West Point on the Hudson River, determined to revenge himself by giving up the fortress to the British. After his British contact, Maj. John André, was caught, Arnold defected to the British on 25 September 1780. He was commissioned as a brigadier general of provincial troops and commanded a force that burned Richmond, Virginia, early in 1781. His last command was in his home state of Connecticut, where he burned New London. In December 1781 he sailed for London.

The Wages of Sin. As a traitor, Arnold was valuable to the British but not particularly well liked. His fellow officers disdained him, and the British government rewarded him with a small pension. In 1787 he moved to St. John, New Brunswick, and tried to emulate his former success in trading between Canada and the West Indies. His reputation for treachery was an immense obstacle to any business success. His explanation that he had acted to hasten the demise of a revolution that was politically rotten and doomed to failure was too self-serving to be convincing. It was all too evident that whatever problems Arnold had with the Congress in being slighted for promotion and being court-martialed were the fault of his own towering ambition and greed. Moving back to London in 1792, he lost heavily on privateering ventures during the 1793-1800 hostilities against the French. He even tried to obtain a command in the British Army but found himself an object of loathing in military circles. He died of dropsy in 1801.

Sources

Brian Richard Boylan, Benedict Arnold: The Dark Eagle (New York: Norton, 1973);

James Kirby Martin, Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero: An American Warrior Reconsidered (New York: New York University Press, 1977);

Randall W. Stern, Benedict Arnold: Patriot or Traitor (New York: Morrow, 1990).