Offer to surrender West Point
Early in April, Philip Schuyler had
approached Arnold with the possibility of giving him the command at
West Point. Discussions had not borne fruit between Schuyler and
Washington by early June. Arnold reopened the secret channels with
the British, informing them of Schuyler's proposals and including
Schuyler's assessment of conditions at West Point. He also provided
information on a proposed French-American invasion of Quebec that was
to go up the Connecticut River (Arnold did not know that this
proposed invasion was a ruse intended to divert British resources).
On June 16, Arnold inspected West Point while on his way home to
Connecticut to take care of personal business, and he sent a highly
detailed report through the secret channel. When he reached
Connecticut, Arnold arranged to sell his home there and began
transferring assets to London through intermediaries in New York. By
early July, he was back in Philadelphia, where he wrote another
secret message to Clinton on July 7 which implied that his
appointment to West Point was assured and that he might even provide
a "drawing of the works ... by which you might take [West
Point] without loss".
Major André returned victorious from
the Siege of Charleston on June 18, and both he and General Clinton
were immediately caught up in this news. Clinton was concerned that
Washington's army and the French fleet would join in Rhode Island,
and he again fixed on West Point as a strategic point to capture.
André had spies and informers keeping track of Arnold to verify his
movements. Excited by the prospects, Clinton informed his superiors
of his intelligence coup, but failed to respond to Arnold's July 7
letter.
Benedict Arnold next wrote a series of
letters to Clinton, even before he might have expected a response to
the July 7 letter. In a July 11 letter, he complained that the
British did not appear to trust him, and threatened to break off
negotiations unless progress was made. On July 12, he wrote again,
making explicit the offer to surrender West Point, although his price
rose to £20,000 (in addition to indemnification for his losses),
with a £1,000 down payment to be delivered with the response. These
letters were delivered by Samuel Wallis, another Philadelphia
businessman who spied for the British, rather than by Stansbury.
Command at West Point
On August 3, 1780, Arnold obtained
command of West Point. On August 15, he received a coded letter from
André with Clinton's final offer: £20,000 and no indemnification
for his losses. Neither side knew for some days that the other was in
agreement with that offer, due to difficulties in getting the
messages across the lines. Arnold's letters continued to detail
Washington's troop movements and provide information about French
reinforcements that were being organized. On August 25, Peggy finally
delivered to him Clinton's agreement to the terms.
Arnold's command at West Point also
gave him authority over the entire American-controlled Hudson River,
from Albany down to the British lines outside New York City. While en
route to West Point, Arnold renewed an acquaintance with Joshua Hett
Smith, who had spied for both sides and who owned a house near the
western bank of the Hudson about 15 miles south of West Point.
Once Arnold established himself at West
Point, he began systematically weakening its defenses and military
strength. Needed repairs were never ordered on the chain across the
Hudson. Troops were liberally distributed within Arnold's command
area (but only minimally at West Point itself) or furnished to
Washington on request. He also peppered Washington with complaints
about the lack of supplies, writing, "Everything is wanting."
At the same time, he tried to drain West Point's supplies so that a
siege would be more likely to succeed. His subordinates, some
long-time associates, grumbled about Arnold's unnecessary
distribution of supplies and eventually concluded that he was selling
them on the black market for personal gain.
On August 30, Arnold sent a letter
accepting Clinton's terms and proposing a meeting to André through
yet another intermediary: William Heron, a member of the Connecticut
Assembly whom he thought he could trust. In an ironic twist, Heron
went into New York unaware of the significance of the letter and
offered his own services to the British as a spy. He then took the
letter back to Connecticut, suspicious of Arnold's actions, where he
delivered it to the head of the Connecticut militia. General Parsons
laid it aside, seeing a letter written as a coded business
discussion. Four days later, Arnold sent a ciphered letter with
similar content into New York through the services of the wife of a
prisoner of war. Eventually, a meeting was set for September 11 near
Dobb's Ferry. This meeting was thwarted when British gunboats in the
river fired on his boat, not being informed of his impending arrival.
Plot exposed
Arnold and André finally met on
September 21 at the Joshua Hett Smith House. On the morning of
September 22, from their position at Teller's Point, two American
rebels, John "Jack" Peterson and Moses Sherwood, under the
command of Col. James Livingston fired on HMS Vulture, the ship that
was intended to carry André back to New York. This action did little
damage besides giving the captain, Andrew Sutherland, a splinter in
his nose—but the splinter prompted the Vulture to retreat, forcing
André to return to New York overland. Arnold wrote out passes for
André so that he would be able to pass through the lines, and he
also gave him plans for West Point.
André was captured near Tarrytown, New
York, on Saturday, September 23, by three Westchester militiamen.
They found the papers exposing the plot to capture West Point and
passed them on to their superiors, but André convinced the
unsuspecting Colonel John Jameson, to whom he was delivered, to send
him back to Arnold at West Point—but he never reached West Point.
Major Benjamin Tallmadge was a member of the Continental Army's
Culper Ring, a network of spies established under Washington's
orders, and he insisted that Jameson order the prisoner to be
intercepted and brought back. Jameson reluctantly recalled the
lieutenant who had been delivering André into Arnold's custody, but
he then sent the same lieutenant as a messenger to notify Arnold of
André's arrest.
Arnold learned of André's capture the
morning of September 24 while waiting for Washington, with whom he
was going to have breakfast at his headquarters in British Col.
Beverley Robinson's former summer house on the east bank of the
Hudson. Upon receiving Jameson's message, however, he learned that
Jameson had sent Washington the papers which André was carrying.
Arnold immediately hastened to the shore and ordered bargemen to row
him downriver to where HMS Vulture was anchored, fleeing on it to New
York City. From the ship, he wrote a letter to Washington requesting
that Peggy be given safe passage to her family in Philadelphia—which
Washington granted.
Washington remained calm when he was
presented with evidence of Arnold's treason. He did, however,
investigate its extent, and suggested that he was willing to exchange
André for Arnold during negotiations with General Clinton concerning
André's fate. Clinton refused this suggestion; after a military
tribunal, André was hanged at Tappan, New York, on October 2.
Washington also infiltrated men into New York City in an attempt to
capture Arnold. This plan very nearly succeeded, but Arnold changed
living quarters prior to sailing for Virginia in December and thus
avoided capture. He justified his actions in an open letter titled
"To the Inhabitants of America", published in
newspapers in October 1780. He also wrote in the letter to Washington
requesting safe passage for Peggy: "Love to my country
actuates my present conduct, however it may appear inconsistent to
the world, who very seldom judge right of any man's actions."
Revolutionary War (British service)
Raids in Virginia and Connecticut
colonies
The British gave Arnold a brigadier
general's commission with an annual income of several hundred pounds,
but they paid him only £6,315 plus an annual pension of £360 for
his defection because his plot had failed. In December 1780, he led a
force of 1,600 troops into Virginia under orders from Clinton, where
he captured Richmond by surprise and then went on a rampage through
Virginia, destroying supply houses, foundries, and mills. This
activity brought out Virginia's militia led by Colonel Sampson
Mathews, and Arnold eventually retreated to Portsmouth to be
reinforced or to evacuate.
The pursuing American army included the
Marquis de Lafayette, who was under orders from Washington to hang
Arnold summarily if he was captured. British reinforcements arrived
in late March led by William Phillips who served under Burgoyne at
Saratoga. Phillips led further raids across Virginia, including a
defeat of Baron von Steuben at Petersburg, but he died of fever on
May 12, 1781. Arnold commanded the army only until May 20, when Lord
Cornwallis arrived with the southern army and took over. One colonel
wrote to Clinton concerning Arnold: "There are many officers
who must wish some other general in command." Cornwallis
ignored Arnold's advice to locate a permanent base away from the
coast, advice that might have averted his surrender at Yorktown.
On his return to New York in June,
Arnold made a variety of proposals for attacks on economic targets to
force the Americans to end the war. Clinton was uninterested in most
of his aggressive ideas, but finally authorized him to raid the port
of New London, Connecticut. He led a force of more than 1,700 men
which burned most of New London to the ground on September 4, causing
damage estimated at $500,000. They also attacked and captured Fort
Griswold across the river in Groton, Connecticut, slaughtering the
Americans after they surrendered following the Battle of Groton
Heights—and all these deeds were done just a few miles down the
Thames River from Norwich, where Arnold grew up. However, British
casualties were high; nearly one quarter of the force was killed or
wounded, and Clinton declared that he could ill afford any more such
victories.
British surrender and exile in
England
Even before Cornwallis's surrender in
October, Arnold had requested permission from Clinton to go to
England to give Lord George Germain his thoughts on the war in
person. He renewed that request when he learned of the surrender,
which Clinton then granted. On December 8, 1781, Arnold and his
family left New York for England.
In London, Arnold aligned himself with
the Tories, advising Germain and King George III to renew the fight
against the Americans. In the House of Commons, Edmund Burke
expressed the hope that the government would not put Arnold "at
the head of a part of a British army" lest "the
sentiments of true honour, which every British officer [holds] dearer
than life, should be afflicted". The anti-war Whigs had
gained the upper hand in Parliament, and Germain was forced to
resign, with the government of Lord North falling not long after.
Arnold then applied to accompany
General Carleton, who was going to New York to replace Clinton as
commander-in-chief, but the request went nowhere. Other attempts all
failed to gain positions within the government or the British East
India Company over the next few years, and he was forced to subsist
on the reduced pay of non-wartime service. His reputation also came
under criticism in the British press, especially when compared to
Major André who was celebrated for his patriotism. One critic said
that he was a "mean mercenary, who, having adopted a cause
for the sake of plunder, quits it when convicted of that charge".
George Johnstone turned him down for a position in the East India
Company and explained: "Although I am satisfied with the
purity of your conduct, the generality do not think so. While this is
the case, no power in this country could suddenly place you in the
situation you aim at under the East India Company."
New businesses, new controversies
In 1785, Arnold and his son Richard
moved to Saint John, New Brunswick, where they speculated in land and
established a business doing trade with the West Indies. Arnold
purchased large tracts of land in the Maugerville area, and acquired
city lots in Saint John and Fredericton. Delivery of his first ship
the Lord Sheffield was accompanied by accusations from the builder
that Arnold had cheated him; Arnold claimed that he had merely
deducted the contractually agreed amount when the ship was delivered
late. After her first voyage, Arnold returned to London in 1786 to
bring his family to Saint John. While there, he disentangled himself
from a lawsuit over an unpaid debt that Peggy had been fighting while
he was away, paying £900 to settle a £12,000 loan that he had taken
while living in Philadelphia. The family moved to Saint John in 1787,
where Arnold created an uproar with a series of bad business deals
and petty lawsuits. The most serious of these was a slander suit
which he won against a former business partner; and following this,
townspeople burned him in effigy in front of his house, as Peggy and
the children watched. The family left Saint John to return to London
in December 1791.
In July 1792, Arnold fought a bloodless
duel with the Earl of Lauderdale after the Earl impugned his honor in
the House of Lords. With the outbreak of the French Revolution,
Arnold outfitted a privateer, while continuing to do business in the
West Indies, even though the hostilities increased the risk. He was
imprisoned by French authorities on Guadeloupe amid accusations of
spying for the British, and narrowly eluded hanging by escaping to
the blockading British fleet after bribing his guards. He helped
organize militia forces on British-held islands, receiving praise
from the landowners for his efforts on their behalf. He hoped that
this work would earn him wider respect and a new command; instead, it
earned him and his sons a land-grant of 15,000 acres (6,100 ha) in
Upper Canada, near present-day Renfrew, Ontario.
Death and funeral
In January 1801, Benedict 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.
Arnold left a small estate, reduced in
size by his debts, which Peggy undertook to clear. Among his bequests
were considerable gifts to one John Sage, perhaps an illegitimate son
or grandson.
Legacy
Benedict Arnold's name became
synonymous with "traitor" soon after his betrayal
became public, and biblical themes were often invoked. 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.
Arnold was aware of his reputation in
his home country, and French statesman Talleyrand described meeting
him in Falmouth, Cornwall in 1794:
The innkeeper at whose place I
had my meals informed me that one of his lodgers was an American
general. Thereupon I expressed the desire of seeing that gentleman,
and, shortly after, I was introduced to him. After the usual exchange
of greetings … I ventured to request from him some letters of
introduction to his friends in America. "No," he replied,
and after a few moments of silence, noticing my surprise, he added,
"I am perhaps the only American who cannot give you letters for
his own country … all the relations I had there are now broken …
I must never return to the States." He dared not tell me his
name. It was General Arnold.
Talleyrand continued, "I must
confess that I felt much pity for him, for which political puritans
will perhaps blame me, but with which I do not reproach myself, for I
witnessed his agony".
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".
Fictional invocations of Benedict
Arnold's name carry strongly negative overtones. A moralistic
children's tale entitled "The Cruel Boy" was widely
circulated in the 19th century. It described a boy who stole eggs
from birds' nests, pulled wings off insects, and engaged in other
sorts of wanton cruelty, who then grew up to become a traitor to his
country. The boy is not identified until the end of the story, when
his place of birth is given as Norwich, Connecticut, and his name is
given as Benedict Arnold. However, not all depictions of Arnold were
so negative. Some theatrical treatments of the 19th century explored
his duplicity, seeking to understand rather than demonize it.
Canadian historians have treated Arnold
as a relatively minor figure. His difficult time in New Brunswick led
historians to summarize it as full of "controversy,
resentment, and legal entanglements" and to conclude that he
was disliked by both Americans and Loyalists living there. Historian
Barry Wilson points out that Arnold's descendants established deep
roots in Canada, becoming leading settlers in Upper Canada and
Saskatchewan. His descendants are spread across Canada, most of all
those of John Sage, who adopted the Arnold surname.
Honors
Boot Monument
The Boot Monument at Saratoga National
Historical Park pays tribute to Arnold but does not mention his name.
It was donated by Civil War General John Watts DePeyster, and its
inscription reads: "In memory of the most brilliant soldier
of the Continental army, who was desperately wounded on this spot,
winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American
Revolution, and for himself the rank of Major General." The
victory monument at Saratoga has four niches, three of which are
occupied by statues of Generals Gates, Schuyler, and Morgan. The
fourth niche is pointedly empty.
There are plaques on the grounds of the
United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, commemorating
all of the generals who served in the Revolution. One plaque bears
only a rank and a date but no name: "major general… born
1740". Historical markers in Danvers, Massachusetts, and
Newburyport, MA commemorate Arnold's 1775 expedition to Quebec. There
are also historical markers bearing his name at Wyman Lake Rest Area
on US-201 north of Moscow, Maine, on the western bank of Lake
Champlain, New York, and two in Skowhegan, Maine.
The house where Arnold lived at 62
Gloucester Place in central London bears a plaque describing him as
an "American Patriot". He was buried at St Mary's
Church, Battersea, England which has a commemorative stained glass
window. The faculty club at the University of New Brunswick,
Fredericton has a Benedict Arnold Room in which letters written by
Arnold hang on the walls.
Marriages and children
Arnold had three sons with Margaret
Mansfield:
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)
Published works
To the Inhabitants of America
(1780)
A Proclamation to the Officers and
Soldiers of the Continental Army (1780)
In popular culture
Benedict Arnold, a 1909 short film
directed by J. Stuart Blackton and played by Charles Kent.
Benedict Arnold: A Question of
Honor, a 2003 TV film directed by Mikael Salomon, with Aidan Quinn as
Arnold
Washington, 2020 miniseries in
which Ciarán Owens portrays Arnold
Benedict Arnold, played by Owain
Yeoman, is a major character in the TV series Turn: Washington's
Spies
Benedict Arnold, voiced by Andy
Samberg, as the primary antagonist and werewolf in the animated
action parody America: The Motion Picture
The episode Benedict Arnold Slipped
Here from TV series Murder, She Wrote.
Benedict Arnold, voiced by Dee
Bradley Baker, as the minor antagonist in the episode "Twistory"
from the TV series The Fairly OddParents.
Benedict Arnold, played by Stephen
Macht, is a major character in the 1984 miniseries George Washington.
Benedict Arnold, played by Curtis
Caravaggio, is a one-time character in the episode "The Capture
of Benedict Arnold" in the 2016-18 TV series Timeless.
Benedict Arnold, voiced by Jim
Meskimen, appeared only in 2 episodes from the 2010-13 TV series Mad.
Benedict Arnold: Hero Betrayed, a
2021 TV documentary film directed by Chris Stearns and played by
Peter O'Meara.
Drunk History Season 2 Episode 8 as
retold by Erin McGathy featuring Chris Parnell as Benedict Arnold,
Derek Waters as John André, and Wynona Ryder as Peggy Shippen.
Benedict Arnold. (2023, January 5). In
Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Arnold