Benedict Arnold might have been remembered among the greatest heroes of the Revolution. Instead his name became the American word for traitor. Few soldiers did more to win American independence in the early war, and no one did more to betray it.
The fighting general
Born in Connecticut in 17411, Arnold proved among the boldest and most capable American commanders of the early Revolution, from the march on Quebec to the naval fight on Lake Champlain2. At the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, he fought with reckless courage and did much to win the victory that brought France into the war3, though he was badly wounded and felt robbed of the credit.3
General Arnold wounded in the attack on the Hessian redoubt at Saratoga, an engraving of 1860 in the New York Public Library. Public domain
Grievance and betrayal
Passed over for promotion, accused of corruption, and deep in debt1, Arnold grew bitter. In 1780, while commanding the vital fortress of West Point on the Hudson, he secretly agreed to surrender it to the British for money and rank4. The plot was exposed when his British contact, Major Andre, was captured with the incriminating papers.1
The Capture of Major Andre, painted by Asher Brown Durand in 1833. Worcester Art Museum. Public domain
The turncoat's end
Arnold escaped to the British, who made him a brigadier5, and he led raids against his former countrymen before the war ended. He spent his last years in Britain, never fully trusted and never prosperous, and died in London in 1801.5 His battlefield brilliance was all but erased by the single word his name became: traitor.
Arnold watching the destruction of New London during his raid on Connecticut in 1781, an illustration from Cassell's History of the United States, 1874. Public domain
Sources and notes
Numbered notes in the text point to the works below.
