When all else failed, Arnold opened his own wallet to help the suffering Warren family. He concluded that the new United States had become even more corrupt than Great Britain. And if that was the case, then the colonies might as well reconcile with the mother country. And who better to bring about that reconciliation than Arnold himself—the one and only virtuous revolutionary remaining? Self pitying and increasingly delusional,Arnold contemplated the unthinkable: He would defect to the British!
He even convinced himself that his treason would inspire other officers to defect, crushing the Revolution once and for all. Arnold used his influence with his loyal mentor, General Washington, to obtain command of the critical U. He then closed his infamous secret deal with the British: He would turn over West Point to the enemy without a fight! Even worse, he would betray the commander who had always stood up for him.
Arnold carefully arranged the surrender to take place while General Washington was present at West Point, so that the British would not only acquire the strategic stronghold, but would also obtain Washington as a prisoner! The turncoat fled to the British for protection.
Andre, a handsome, charming, well liked young British officer, died at the gallows in place of Arnold. Although appointed a British general as he had been promised, Arnold never obtained the fame and recognition he craved.
Having proven himself a traitor, the British could never trust him with significant responsibilities. After the war, Arnold went to England, where he lived until he died at the age of After being appointed to brigadier general, Arnold watched as Congress passed him over for promotion to the post of major general five times in favor of his subordinates. He was rewarded in with a promotion to major general and a post as military commander of Philadelphia.
Arnold lived extravagantly in Philadelphia and also engineered a variety of business deals that earned him a reputation for questionable practices in his desperate desire to impress Edward Shippen, a wealthy Philadelphia Loyalist, so that he could marry his year-old daughter, Peggy. After receiving command of West Point in , Arnold willingly provided the British with vital information for taking control of West Point.
Andre was executed for his crimes while Arnold managed to escape to England. Arnold would continue to serve in the military, only now he served the British against his former countrymen. In December, he led a force of British troops into Virginia, capturing Richmond and laying waste to the countryside. But had he really? There is no evidence that Reed was indeed bent on a treasonous effort to bring down Congress, but as Thomson made clear in a letter to him, his monomaniacal pursuit of Arnold was threatening to accomplish exactly that.
In the meantime, Arnold needed money, and fast. There was one hitch, however. Now Arnold had a young, beautiful and adoring wife who was, he proudly reported the next morning to several of his friends, good in bed—at least that was the rumor the Marquis de Chastellux, a major general in the French Army who was fluent in English, heard later when visiting Philadelphia.
However, within just a few weeks, Arnold was finding it difficult to lose himself in the delights of the connubial bed. Reed had not only forced a court-martial upon Arnold; he was now attempting to delay the proceedings so that he could gather more evidence.
Arnold began to realize that he was, in fact, in serious trouble. Aggravating the situation, his left leg was not healing as quickly as he had hoped, and his right leg became wracked by gout, making it impossible for him to walk. Arnold had been in tight spots before, but always had been able to do something to bring about a miraculous recovery. But now, what was there to do? If the last nine months had taught him anything, it was that the country to which he had given everything but his life could easily fall apart.
Instead of a national government, Congress had become a facade behind which 13 states did whatever was best for each of them. Indeed, it might be argued that Joseph Reed was now more influential than all of Congress combined. What made all of this particularly galling was the hostility that Reed— and apparently most of the American people—held toward the Continental Army. More and more Americans regarded officers like Arnold as dangerous hirelings on the order of the Hessian mercenaries and British regulars, while local militiamen were looked to as the patriotic ideal.
In reality, many of these militiamen were employed by community officials as thuggish enforcers to terrorize local citizens whose loyalties were suspect. In this increasingly toxic and volatile environment, issues of class threatened to transform a collective quest for national independence into a sordid and self-defeating civil war.
By the spring of , Arnold had begun to believe that the experiment in independence had failed. And as far as he could tell, the British had a higher regard for his abilities than his own country did. John Burgoyne was in London defending himself before Parliament with the claim that if not for Arnold, his army would have won the Battle of Saratoga.
Arnold is usually credited with coming up with the idea himself, but there are reasons to think the decision to turn traitor originated with Peggy. Certainly the timing is suspect, following so soon after their marriage. Arnold was bitter, but even he had to admit that the Revolution had catapulted him from the fringes of respectability in New Haven to the national stage. Peggy, on the other hand, regarded the Revolution as a disaster from the start. Not only had it initially forced her family to flee from Philadelphia; it had reduced her beloved father to a cringing parody of his former self.
How different life had been during those blessed months of the British occupation, when noble gentleman-officers had danced with the belles of the city. With her ever-growing attachment to Arnold fueling her outrage, she had come to despise the revolutionary government that was now trying to destroy her husband.
By marrying Peggy, Arnold had attached himself to a woman who knew how to get what she wanted. When her father had initially refused to allow her to marry Arnold, she had used her seeming frailty—her fits, her hysteria, whatever you wanted to call it—to manipulate him into agreeing to the engagement for fear that she might otherwise suffer irreparable harm.
Now she would get her way with her equally indulgent husband. But that was not the case. He still felt a genuine loyalty to Washington.
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