God Save Benedict Arnold, page 23
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TO SOME, ARNOLD’S April 1779 marriage to the exquisite Peggy Shippen aroused further suspicion. During the British occupation, Peggy had danced the night away with enemy officers and was particularly friendly with Captain John André, who would later be promoted to major and named the British Army’s adjutant general.
In writing to Edward Shippen asking for his daughter’s hand, Arnold had downplayed their political differences. “I flatter myself the time is at hand,” he wrote, “when our unhappy contests will be at an end and peace and domestic happiness be restored to everyone.” It was a sentiment widely shared in the country.
Theirs was an attraction of opposites. Peggy reveled in art, poetry, and music. Arnold expressed little interest in high culture and wanted the education of his sons to be “useful rather than learned. Life is too uncertain to throw away in speculation.” Yet their marriage was marked by a devotion that would withstand extraordinary adversity.
Although he wanted to return to active duty, Arnold was still held back by his leg injury. At his wedding, another officer stood at his side to help support him. He decided to take a leave from the army and settle into his new life with Peggy. He had borrowed money to buy a beautiful estate on the Schuylkill River. Unfortunately, he was so short of cash that he had to rent the mansion and move with his bride into a smaller home in the city.
Idleness was Arnold’s enemy. In action, he inspired men, improvised brilliantly, and never flinched from the blows of adversity. During gaps in the fighting he brooded, squabbled with those around him, and dwelled on perceived injustices.
In one of his rare comments about his inner life in the days before their marriage, Arnold wrote to Peggy, “I am heartily tired with my journey and almost so with human nature. I daily discover so much baseness and ingratitude among mankind that I almost blush at being of the same species.”
On May 5, he sent Washington a frantic appeal to hold the delayed court-martial that would allow him finally to clear his name. “If Your Excellency thinks me criminal,” he wrote, “for Heavens sake let me be immediately tried and if found guilty executed.” He reminded his commander that he had made every sacrifice of fortune and blood, “and become a Cripple in the Service of my Country.” He complained of the “ungrateful Returns I have received of my Countrymen.”
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ON MAY 10, 1779, a nervous thirty-five-year-old glass and china salesman from Philadelphia walked into the New York office of Major John André, who had recently been named head of intelligence by his mentor, the British commander in chief Sir Henry Clinton. The visitor, Joseph Stansbury, was loyalist in his sentiments, although he had dutifully taken the oath of allegiance to the United States that was required of citizens when patriots regained control of Philadelphia from the British.
Stansbury could hardly pour out his story quickly enough. He had come under a “solemn obligation of secrecy.” A very important Continental Army general, a man who had once purchased furniture from him for his Philadelphia mansion, wanted to convey “his intention of offering his services to the Commander-in-Chief of the British forces, in a way that would most effectually restore the former government.” His name: Major General Benedict Arnold.
André was astounded. If the information proved authentic, it would be the most consequential defection of the war. If handled properly, it might go a long way toward assuring a British victory. He quickly set up a means to communicate with Arnold, involving code names, ciphers, invisible ink. The news excited the usually dour Clinton, who had been struggling to find a way to prevail in America since Burgoyne’s disaster at Saratoga.
Because Arnold currently held no command, André and Clinton decided that it was best for him to remain in the Continental Army rather than join them openly. He could feed them intelligence while waiting for an assignment that would allow him to make the most helpful contribution to the British cause. The delay would also give Clinton a chance to make sure Arnold’s offer was not a ruse.
When he did defect, Arnold would be risking his position and property in America. He insisted that the British adequately compensate him for his losses. André sent a letter back with Stansbury, assuring Arnold that if his efforts would lead to the defeat of rebel troops or the capture of important patriots, “then would the generosity of the nation exceed even his own most sanguine hope.”
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AFTER ARNOLD HAD taken the first step toward treason, events seemed to confirm him in his decision. Joseph Reed had repeatedly postponed Arnold’s court-martial as he tried to gather evidence to prop up his case. When the panel of officers finally met in December 1779, they found Arnold guilty of two of the four charges and sentenced him to a simple reprimand. Washington wrote up the softest censure possible and sent it with a consoling letter. But Arnold, always thin-skinned, was stung.
Another blow came when the Treasury Board of Congress weighed in on his convoluted financial claims for distributions and outlays that went back to his service in Canada. Again, lost and nonexistent records became the basis for a judgment against his assertion that the government owed him a substantial amount of money. The finding was an injury piled on an insult. Arnold, in serious need of cash, felt it acutely.
The dismal record of Congress in supporting the Continental Army, along with the British military resurgence during 1780, further convinced Arnold, if he needed convincing, that he had been right in his decision to join the enemy.
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FIFTEEN MONTHS PASSED after Arnold’s initial contact with André. He occasionally sent the British information about American troop movements and operations, including a plan, never carried out, to renew the invasion of Canada using an army led by Lafayette. He also passed on word of the impending arrival of the French fleet and army in Providence, Rhode Island—the British did not move quickly enough to intercept them. He resisted Washington’s suggestion that he might be ready to take on another field command. His leg wound, he said, would not allow it.
All this time, Arnold was playing a life-or-death game. One breach of secrecy within the British command, one betrayal, one intercepted message, would mean disgrace and an ignominious death by hanging.
During 1780, he set his sights on command of the Hudson Valley, including West Point. In that position, he could facilitate the British capture of one of the most strategic posts in America, along with a substantial garrison of troops. It was an offer that tantalized Henry Clinton.
Washington gave Arnold the command in June 1780. By September, everything was in place. Arnold had weakened West Point’s defenses and sent detachments of defenders to other locations. General Clinton had made plans to rush transports loaded with his own troops up the Hudson River. He kept the target secret, letting on that the force would attack the Chesapeake region. Detailed information from Arnold would allow an easy victory at the undermanned fort.
All that was needed was a final meeting to solidify the arrangements and make sure the offer was genuine. André would go to meet his informant face-to-face and judge his trustworthiness.
It was never clear whether Arnold imagined that the British could move quickly enough to take Washington prisoner in the process of capturing the fort. “How far he meant to involve me in the catastrophe,” Washington later wrote, “does not appear by any indubitable evidence.” He felt that Arnold would not have endangered the main objective of handing over West Point by trying to also arrange the simultaneous capture of the commander in chief, but such a double coup would certainly have pleased Sir Henry Clinton.
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THE EVENTS THAT unfolded that last weekend of September 1780 were among the most dramatic of the Revolution. André came up the river on the British warship Vulture the night of Thursday, September 21, landed on the west bank of the Hudson, and met Arnold in a grove of fir trees. The two rode north on horseback to a house owned by Joshua Hett Smith. The thirty-one-year-old New York lawyer lived on a hilltop overlooking King’s Ferry, the main crossing point to patriot-held Peekskill. Smith was suspected of having loyalist sympathies, and Arnold’s aides had warned him against having any dealings with the man.
On the way, Arnold and André passed through a checkpoint from neutral ground into patriot-controlled territory—André had covered his scarlet regimental uniform with a blue cloak. It was a fatal error.
The two men discussed military details of the British seizure of West Point and finalized the terms of compensation for Arnold. If the operation was a success, André promised him a payment of £20,000 (around $4 million today). It was a substantial amount but, to Arnold, only fair recompense for the losses he would sustain for his action.
Their talk lasted until nearly dawn, too late for André to return to the Vulture under cover of darkness. Cannon fire from an American battery then forced the warship’s captain to retreat down the river. Arnold convinced André to return to British lines that evening by land along the eastern bank. Smith would serve as guide.
The British major would have to disguise himself in civilian clothing. Arnold gave him plans and maps he had drawn up to help with the conquest of West Point. He told André to conceal the papers inside his stocking. The forcefulness of Arnold’s personality overcame direct orders that General Clinton had conveyed to his aide not to venture into rebel-held territory out of uniform or to carry incriminating papers. In his enthusiasm for the plot, André had slipped from being a British officer under a flag of truce. He was now officially a spy.
Smith took André across on the ferry that Friday afternoon, and they headed south on horseback. They were stopped several times by patriot sentries and patrols. Each time, Smith showed passes written out by Arnold and convinced the questioners of his sincerity. The two men shared a bed at a roadside inn that night.
After breakfast on Saturday morning, Smith told his companion that he was turning back and that André should continue southward until he reached British lines. Smith headed north to the Robinson house to let Arnold know that André was safely on his way.
The adjutant general of the British Army found himself riding alone through the treacherous no-man’s-land of Westchester County. If he could make it to British lines, the long war in America might soon be over, and he a hero. If not, he might himself become a casualty of that war.
He rode through a dismal landscape of deserted farms, where irregulars from both sides operated. “Cowboys” were loyalists who served the British by stealing cattle. “Skinners” supported the patriot cause. Both groups raided farms and robbed travelers for their own benefit. New York governor George Clinton had recently offered a bounty for any cattle that patriots recovered from the cowboys.
André’s horse plodded along the hilly, heavily wooded terrain that would be made famous as Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow. Suddenly, three armed men appeared, blocking the back road Smith had told him to follow.
“Gentlemen,” André said, “I hope you belong to our party.”
One of the men asked, “What party?”
“The lower,” said André, meaning the British to the south. Assuming they were loyalists, he now told the men he was an English officer.
“Get down,” the stranger said, “we are Americans.”
The men were members of a local militia unit and had been hoping to meet up with some of the cattle rustlers. Their leader was twenty-two-year-old John Paulding, a tall, sturdily built farmer.
André presented the pass from Arnold. The men ignored it, searched him, found the documents, took him prisoner, refused the bribe he offered for his release, and escorted him to an American outpost.
The officer in charge there sent a messenger to Arnold, the commander of the region, describing the suspicious circumstances. Then he had second thoughts and sent the papers found on André, including the plan of West Point, by another courier directly to George Washington. André, acutely embarrassed by being discovered out of uniform behind American lines, wrote a full confession, which was also sent in the packet that Washington would open at the Robinson house.
The message to Arnold arrived first. He immediately understood that the plot had been discovered. After a quick goodbye to his wife, he had eight privates row and sail his barge toward the Vulture, the British warship, which now lay well down the river.
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“THE STRANGEST THING in the world has happened,” General Henry Knox told the chief gunner at West Point. “Arnold has gone to the enemy.”
Following his shocking discovery, Washington immediately sent Hamilton and another aide racing down the river with the distant hope of catching Arnold before he reached British lines. He issued a flurry of orders to bring a substantial portion of his army up the river to head off an enemy attack, which might already be in motion. Men were roused from sleep that night, hastily mustered and set marching northward.
Next, Washington had to address a domestic drama. Mrs. Arnold had fallen into a fit of hysteria. She had stripped off her clothes except for a scanty morning gown and paraded in front of an embarrassed Colonel Varick, ranting about the missing Arnold and insisting on seeing Washington. Although Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and other aides believed her both sincere and innocent, Varick later concluded that it was “a piece of splendid acting” intended to distract the officers and aid Arnold’s escape.
By that time, her husband was approaching the Vulture waving a white handkerchief. At the last minute he announced to his crew his intention of changing sides. He offered them promotions if they would join him. Two of them did, but coxswain James Lurvey, a five-year veteran, answered decisively, “No, Sir, one coat is enough for me to wear at a time.”
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ALL AGREED THAT Major John André had what Alexander Hamilton called “a becoming sensibility.” Educated in England and Switzerland, he was adept at writing poetry and was a skillful artist. After his capture in a treasonous plot, he charmed American officers, Washington included, just as he had beguiled the ladies of Philadelphia. Some British officers, on the other hand, regarded the thirty-year-old adjutant as a “cringing, insidious sycophant.” The favoritism shown him by Sir Henry Clinton incited jealousy and rumors of homosexuality.
Washington appointed a board of general officers in camp to hear André’s case. The plot was uncovered on Monday, the board condemned him to death on Friday, and he was hanged the following Monday, October 2. Many contrasted the suave, honorable André, who went to his death gallantly, with the rough-edged, treasonous Arnold.
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ARNOLD’S BETRAYAL SHOCKED and disappointed his friends. The artilleryman John Lamb, who had been wounded with him at Quebec and fought beside him at Ridgefield, witnessed the discovery of Arnold’s treason firsthand at West Point. Among the officers who led troops to the Point during the emergency were Return Jonathan Meigs and Henry Dearborn, both of whom had endured the grueling march over the Maine mountains with Arnold, and Alexander Scammell, who had faced some of the hottest fighting at Saratoga by his side.
Eleazer Oswald, who had been Arnold’s trusted aide from the earliest days of the war, said, “Let his name sink as low in infamy, as it was once high in our esteem.” Patriots throughout the country were likewise stunned, then consumed by hatred. “The streets of every city and village in the United States,” a New Jersey newspaper stated, “rung with the crimes of General Arnold.”
The idea that one of the foremost heroes of the war had become a traitor was almost too much to bear. “The days of eternity would be too few to atone for his crime,” a writer declared in the New York Packet. His betrayal “confounds and distresses me,” Lafayette said, “and, if I must confess it, humiliates me.”
Effigies of Arnold were paraded through the streets of many cities. The one in Philadelphia showed him with two faces and holding a mask for good measure. A devil stood behind to prod him to hell. In Norwich, Connecticut, patriots smashed the grave of Arnold’s father, who shared his name.
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ON SEPTEMBER 6, 1781, nearly a year after openly switching sides, Benedict Arnold sailed up the Thames River at New London, Connecticut. It was familiar territory for him, only twelve miles south of his birthplace at Norwich. That day, he was aboard a British warship, dressed in a scarlet uniform, and leading a force of loyalists, Americans who opposed the “anarchy” of the Revolution. Together with British regulars and Hessian mercenaries, his battalion totaled 1,700 men.
Both sides had suffered in the previous nine months. On New Year’s Day, 1781, the Continental soldiers of the Pennsylvania line had mutinied, left their camp near Morristown, New Jersey, and begun a march to Philadelphia to enforce their grievances against Congress. In doing so, they let it be known that they were seeking fairness, not intending to become “Arnolds” by joining the enemy. Negotiations and concessions kept the mutiny from going too far. But a few weeks later an uprising by New Jersey Continentals ended with two soldiers being shot dead by a firing squad.
The British also struggled. Their campaign in the South was brilliantly thwarted by patriot troops under Nathanael Greene. General Cornwallis transferred his army to Virginia in May. By August he had taken refuge at Yorktown. Stranded there, he hoped to be rescued by the British fleet.
In New York, General Sir Henry Clinton had named Arnold a brigadier general in his army. At the end of December 1780, he had sent him to fight in Virginia. Arnold’s “thundering excursions” of destruction at the head of two thousand regulars and loyalists spread “terror and alarm” through the state, a major provider of food and forage for patriot armies. He was so successful wearing a scarlet coat that he proved something of an embarrassment to British generals who had tried for similar results without success.
