Benedict Arnold (born January 14, 1741, Norwich, Connecticut [U.S.]—died June 14, 1801, London, England) served the cause of the American Revolution as an officer until 1779, when he shifted his allegiance to the British. In 1780 he offered to surrender West Point to the British, and he led a British attack on New London, Connecticut, in 1781. His name became an epithet for traitor in the United States.
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Benedict Arnold
Arnold was born in Connecticut. He was a merchant operating ships in the Atlantic when the war began. He joined the growing American army outside of Boston and distinguished himself by acts that demonstrated intelligence and bravery: In 1775, he captured Fort Ticonderoga. In 1776, he deployed defensive and delay tactics at the Battle of Valcourt Island in Lake Champlain that gave American forces time to prepare New York’s defenses. His performance in the Battle of Ridgefield in Connecticut prompted his promotion to major general. He performed operations that provided the Americans with relief during the siege of Fort Stanwix, and key actions during the pivotal 1777 Battles of Saratoga in which he sustained leg injuries that put him out of combat for several years.
Arnold repeatedly claimed that he was being passed over for promotion by the Continental Congress, and that other officers were being given credit for some of his accomplishments.[3] Some in his military and political circles charged him with corruption and other bad acts. After formal inquiries, he was usually acquitted, but Congress investigated his finances and determined that he was indebted to Congress and that he had borrowed money heavily to maintain a lavish lifestyle.
Arnold mingled with Loyalist sympathizers in Philadelphia and married into the Loyalist family of Peggy Ship pen. She was a close friend of British Major John André and kept in contact with him when he became head of the British espionage system in New York. Many historians see her as having facilitated Arnold’s plans to switch sides; he opened secret negotiations with André, and she relayed their messages to each other. The British promised £20,000 for the capture of West Point, a major American stronghold. Washington greatly admired Arnold and gave him command of that fort in July 1780. His scheme was to surrender the fort to the British, but it was exposed in September 1780 when American militiamen captured André carrying papers which revealed the plot. Arnold escaped and André was hanged.
Arnold received a commission as a brigadier general in the British Army, an annual pension of £360, and a lump sum of over £6,000. He led British forces in the Raid on Richmond and nearby areas, and they burned much of New London, Connecticut to the ground and slaughtered surrendering forces after the Battle of Groton Heights—just a few miles downriver from the town where he had grown up. In the winter of 1782, he and Peggy moved to London, England. He was well received by King George III and the Tories but frowned upon by the Whigs and most Army officers. In 1787, he moved to Canada to run a merchant business with his sons Richard and Henry. He was extremely unpopular there and returned to London permanently in 1791, where he died ten years later.
Early life
Benedict Arnold was born a British subject, the second of six children of his father Benedict Arnold III (1683–1761) and Hannah Waterman King in Norwich, Connecticut, on January 14, 1741. Arnold was the fourth member of his family named after his great-grandfather Benedict Arnold I, an early governor of the Colony of Rhode Island; his grandfather (Benedict Arnold II) and father, as well as an older brother who died in infancy, were also named for the colonial governor. Only he and his sister Hannah survived to adulthood; his other siblings died from yellow fever in childhood.[8] His siblings were, in order of birth: Benedict (1738–1739), Hannah (1742–1803), Mary (1745–1753), Absalom (1747–1750), and Elizabeth (1749–1755). Through his maternal grandmother, Arnold was a descendant of John Lothrop, an ancestor of six presidents.
Arnold’s father was a successful businessman, and the family moved in the upper levels of Norwich society. He was enrolled in a private school in nearby Canterbury, Connecticut, when he was 10, with the expectation that he would eventually attend Yale College. However, the deaths of his siblings two years later may have contributed to a decline in the family fortunes, since his father took up drinking. By the time that he was 14, there was no money for private education. His father’s alcoholism and ill health kept him from training Arnold in the family mercantile business, but his mother’s family connections secured an apprenticeship for him with her cousins Daniel and Joshua Lathrop, who operated a successful apothecary and general merchandise trade in Norwich. His apprenticeship with the Lathrop’s lasted seven years. Arnold was very close to his mother, who died in 1759. His father’s alcoholism worsened after her death, and the youth took on the responsibility of supporting his father and younger sister. His father was arrested on several occasions for public drunkenness, was refused communion by his church, and died in 1761.
A hero with enemies
Benedict Arnold fought bravely and successfully against the British during the early years of the American Revolution. He rose to the level of major general in the Continental Army, but his discontent over his treatment by superiors and his connections to loyalists led him in 1780 to ask the British for £20,000 in exchange for betraying his army post. That autumn Arnold was appointed by General George Washington to command an expedition to capture Quebec. He marched with 700 men by way of the Maine wilderness, a remarkable feat of leadership and endurance, and, reinforced by Gen. Richard Montgomery, he attacked the well-fortified city. The combined assault was carried out on December 31, 1775, but it failed, Montgomery was killed, and Arnold was severely wounded.
Promoted to the rank of brigadier general, Arnold constructed a flotilla on Lake Champlain and inflicted severe losses on a greatly superior enemy fleet near Valcourt Island, New York, on October 11, 1776. He returned a hero, but his rash courage and impatient energy had aroused the enmity of several officers.
When in February 1777 Congress created five new major generalship, Arnold was passed over in favor of his juniors. Arnold resented this affront, and only Washington’s personal persuasion kept him from resigning. Promoted to the rank of brigadier general, Arnold constructed a flotilla on Lake Champlain and inflicted severe losses on a greatly superior enemy fleet near Valcourt Island, New York, on October 11, 1776. He returned a hero, but his rash courage and impatient energy had aroused the enmity of several officers. When in February 1777 Congress created five new major generalship, Arnold was passed over in favor of his juniors. Arnold resented this affront, and only Washington’s personal persuasion kept him from resigning.
Disillusionment and betrayal
Two months later, in April 1777, Arnold repelled a British attack on Danbury, Connecticut. He was made a major general, but Arnold’s seniority was not restored, and he felt his honor impugned. Again he tried to resign, but in July 1777 he accepted a government order to help stem the British advance into upper New York. Arnold won a victory at Fort Stanwix (now Rome) in August and commanded advance battalions at the Battle of Saratoga that autumn, fighting brilliantly until seriously wounded. For his services he was restored to his proper relative rank.
Crippled from his wounds, Arnold was placed in command of Philadelphia in June 1778. There he socialized with families of loyalist sympathies and lived extravagantly. To raise money, he violated several state and military regulations, arousing the suspicions and, finally, the denunciations of Pennsylvania’s supreme executive council. These charges were then referred to Congress, and Arnold asked for an immediate court-martial to clear himself. Meanwhile, in April 1779, he married Margaret (Peggy) Ship pen, a young woman of loyalist sympathies.
Early in May 1779, Arnold made secret overtures to British headquarters, and a year later he informed the British of a proposed American invasion of Canada. In July 1780 he revealed that he expected to obtain the command of the fort at West Point in New York—which happened in August—and through his British contact, Major John André, he asked the British for £20,000 for betraying this post.
French and Indian War
In 1755, Arnold was attracted by the sound of a drummer and attempted to enlist in the provincial militia for service in the French and Indian War, but his mother refused permission. In 1757 when he was 16, he did enlist in the Connecticut militia, which marched off toward Albany, New York, and Lake George. The French had besieged Fort William Henry in northeastern New York, and their Indian allies had committed atrocities after their victory. Word of the siege’s disastrous outcome led the company to turn around, and Arnold served for only 13 days. A commonly accepted story that he deserted from militia service in 1758 is based on uncertain documentary evidence.
Colonial merchant
Arnold established himself in business in 1762 as a pharmacist and bookseller in New Haven, Connecticut, with the help of the Lathrop’s. He was hardworking and successful, and was able to rapidly expand his business. In 1763, he repaid money that he had borrowed from the Lathrop, repurchased the family homestead that his father had sold when deeply in debt, and re-sold it a year later for a substantial profit. In 1764, he formed a partnership with Adam Babcock, another young New Haven merchant. They bought three trading ships, using the profits from the sale of his homestead, and established a lucrative West Indies trade.
During this time, Arnold brought his sister Hannah to New Haven and established her in his apothecary to manage the business in his absence. He traveled extensively in the course of his business throughout New England and from Quebec to the West Indies, often in command of one of his own ships. Some sources recount how, on one of his voyages, he fought a duel in Honduras with a British sea captain who had called him a “damned Yankee, destitute of good manners or those of a gentleman”. The captain was wounded in the first exchange of gunfire, and he apologized when Arnold threatened to aim to kill on the second. However, it is unknown whether this encounter actually happened or not.
A procession of men, depicting various members of the British Parliament at the time, accompany then-Prime Minister Grenville as he carries a small coffin representing the Stamp Act near a waterfront scene with a sailing ship, cranes, bales of goods, and wharf warehouses in the background The Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act of 1765 severely curtailed mercantile trade in the colonies. The Stamp Act prompted Arnold to join the chorus of voices in opposition, and also led to his joining the Sons of Liberty, a secret organization which advocated resistance to those and other restrictive Parliamentary measures. Arnold initially took no part in any public demonstrations but, like many merchants, continued to do business openly in defiance of the Parliamentary Acts, which legally amounted to smuggling. He also faced financial ruin, falling £16,000[b] in debt with creditors spreading rumors of his insolvency, to the point where he took legal action against them. On the night of January 28, 1767, he and members of his crew roughed up a man suspected of attempting to inform authorities of Arnold’s smuggling. He was convicted of disorderly conduct and fined the relatively small amount of 50 shillings; publicity of the case and widespread sympathy for his views probably contributed to the light sentence.
Revolutionary War (American service)
Arnold began the war as a captain in the Connecticut militia, a position to which he was elected in March 1775. His company marched northeast the following month to assist in the siege of Boston that followed the Battles of Lexington and Concord. He proposed an action to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety to seize Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York, which he knew was poorly defended. They issued him a colonel’s commission on May 3, 1775, and he immediately rode off to Castleton in the disputed New Hampshire Grants (Vermont) in time to participate with Ethan Allen and his men in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. He followed up that action with a bold raid on Fort Saint-Jean on the Richelieu River north of Lake Champlain. A Connecticut militia force arrived at Ticonderoga in June; Arnold had a dispute with its commander over control of the fort, and resigned his Massachusetts commission. He was on his way home from Ticonderoga when he learned that his wife had died earlier in June.
Death and funeral
In January 1801, Arnold’s health began to decline. He had suffered from gout since 1775, and the condition attacked his unwounded leg to the point where he was unable to go to sea. The other leg ached constantly, and he walked only with a cane. His physicians diagnosed him as having dropsy, and a visit to the countryside only temporarily improved his condition. He died after four days of delirium on June 14, 1801, at the age of 60. Legend has it that, when he was on his deathbed, he said, “Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another,” but this story may be apocryphal. Arnold was buried at St. Mary’s Church in Battersea, England. As a result of a clerical error in the parish records, his remains were removed to an unmarked mass grave during church renovations a century later. His funeral procession boasted “seven mourning coaches and four state carriages”; the funeral was without military honors.
Legacy
Biblical themes were often invoked. One 1794 textbook stated that “Satan entered into the heart of Benedict.” Benjamin Franklin wrote that “Judas sold only one man, Arnold three millions”, and Alexander Scammell described his actions as “black as hell”. In Arnold’s home town of Norwich, Connecticut, someone scrawled “the traitor” next to his record of birth at city hall, and all of his family’s gravestones have been destroyed except his mother’s. Early biographers attempted to describe Arnold’s entire life in terms of treacherous or morally questionable behavior. The first major biography of his life was The Life and Treason of Benedict Arnold, published in 1832 by historian Jared Sparks; it was particularly harsh in showing how Arnold’s treacherous character was formed out of childhood experiences. George Canning Hill authored a series of moralistic biographies in the mid-19th century and began his 1865 biography of Arnold: “Benedict, the Traitor, was born…”.
Social historian Brian Carso notes that, as the 19th century progressed, the story of Arnold’s betrayal was portrayed with near-mythical proportions as a part of the national history. It was invoked again as sectional conflicts increased in the years before the American Civil War. Washington Irving used it as part of an argument against dismemberment of the union in his 1857 Life of George Washington, pointing out that the unity of New England and the southern states which led to independence was made possible in part by holding West Point. Jefferson Davis and other southern secessionist leaders were unfavorably compared to Arnold, implicitly and explicitly likening the idea of secession to treason. Harper’s Weekly published an article in 1861 describing Confederate leaders as “a few men directing this colossal treason, by whose side Benedict Arnold shines white as a saint”.
Marriages and children
Peggy Shippen Arnold and daughter Sophia by Daniel Gardner, c. 1787
Arnold had three sons with Margaret Mansfield:[163][164]
Benedict Arnold (1768–1795) (Captain, British Army in Jamaica)
Richard Arnold (1769–1847) (Lieutenant, American Legion cavalry)
Henry Arnold (1772–1826) (Lieutenant, American Legion cavalry)
He had five children with Peggy Shippen:
Edward Shippen Arnold (1780–1813) (Lieutenant, British Army in India; see Bengal Army)
James Robertson Arnold (1781–1854) (Lieutenant General, Royal Engineers)
George Arnold (1787–1828) (Lieutenant Colonel, 2nd (or 7th) Bengal Cavalry)
Sophia Matilda Arnold (1785–1828)
William Fitch Arnold (1794–1846) (Captain, 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers)
Arnold left significant bequests in his will to John Sage (born 1786), who has been identified by some historians as a possible illegitimate son, but may also have been a grandchild.
History Resources
Benedict Arnold’s 1780 treason and the execution of John Andre recalled, 1823
During the American Revolution, the discovery of General Benedict Arnold’s plot to surrender West Point to the British was a deeply shocking revelation. In a memoir written some forty years after the war, William North, an aide-de-camp to General Baron Von Steuben, recalled how the news of the plot was broken to the Army:
It was midnight, Horses were saddling officers going from tent to tent, ordering their men, in a suppressed voice, to turn out & parade no drum beat– the troops formed in silence & in darkness – I may well say, in consternation, for who in such an hour, & called together in such a manner, & in total ignorance of the cause, but must have felt, & feared the near approach of some tremendous shock –
John Andre, aide-de-camp of the British commander in chief, Sir Henry Clinton, was General Benedict Arnold’s contact. Andre was taken by the American forces and hanged as a spy in Tappan, New York, on October 2, 1780. Although many on both sides felt Arnold should have been the one to die for treason, Washington determined that he had no choice but to execute the captured British officer. William North wrote of the execution:
I was at Tappan with the army when Andre was executed, but I did not attend his execution, nor as I have always believed did an great number of spectators go to witness the execution exit of that unfortunate gentleman- You must remember that no one rejoiced all mourned his fate though fully convinced of its Justice & propriety. . . . after the execution, it was asked if Major Andre’s request to be shot could not have been complied with– No, answered the Baron He was a spy & in no army was any other death than by the gibbet awarded to a spy–
EXCERPT
I was at Tappan with the army when Andre was executed, but I did not attend his execution, nor as I have always believed, did an great number of spectators go to witness the execution exit of that unfortunate Gentleman– You must remember that no one rejoiced all mourned his fate though fully convinced of its Justice & propriety– When Baron Steuben came from the house in which the court had been holden– I remarked to him that the trial had not taken so long a time as I had expected– No, said The Baron, gave us no The unhappy prisoner gave us no trouble in calling witnesses.
He confessed everything. after the execution, it was asked if Major Andre’s request to be shot could not have been complied with– No, answered the Baron He was a spy & in no army was any other death than by the gibbet awarded to a spy– I have thought that Andre’s request to those around him, to witness “that He died like a brave man”, ought not to have been made. with respect to The story told in Lees memory history of the Southern War, respecting the attempt to take Arnold, in which it is said, or hinted, that another General Officer, was suspected by the Comer in Chief all I can say is, that I never heired the remotest suspicion attaching to any one, of being concerned or in any Way implicated in Arnold’s treason – It is true, it was a moment of alarm & fear, & doubt how far the treason might have extended but to have Suspicion to have alighted on anyone, much more a General Officer, I can not bring my mind to believe it– I remember the dark moment well in which the defection of Arnold was announced in [strikeout] pers, It was midnight, Horses were saddling officers going from tent to tent, ordering their men, in a suppressed voice, to turn out & parade no drum beat– the troops formed in silence & in darkness – I may well say, in consternation, for who in such an hour, & called together in such a manner, & in total ignorance of the cause, but must have felt, & feared the near approach of some tremendous shock
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