Arnold spent three months in the hospital in Albany before he was finally able to sit up in bed.1 It was another month before he was strong enough to begin the long, exhausting journey home to New Haven, carried in a litter to his carriage. When only a day’s journey from New Haven he stopped for some weeks to convalesce at the home of his old friend, Comfort Sage, in Middletown, Connecticut. The two men discussed the business options still available for the shipping trade in seas patrolled by the British navy, and Arnold began learning to walk with crutches. As he was slowly regaining his strength, his spectacular victory at Saratoga was roiling the American Congress and the courts of Europe. Thanks to the surrender of Burgoyne’s army in October while the wounded hero of the battle convalesced, the fortunes of the American cause changed dramatically.
The fates of three nations were at stake as France and Britain competed to woo the American Congress. France had been secretly sending supplies to the Americans. Now convinced the Americans had a chance of winning, her government began supporting them openly. It was the perfect opportunity for the French, still smarting from Britain’s capture of Canada, to humiliate the British. Uncoupling Britain’s American colonies would be sweet revenge and afford a chance to attack other British possessions. Britain, on the other hand, was anxious that no agreement be concluded between her rebellious colonists and her old enemy. An alliance between them would mean war with France not only in North America but, even worse, in the English Channel itself, and everywhere across the world where the two countries had colonial territories and ambitions. With the surrender of the British army at Saratoga that terrible possibility seemed likely. The Continental Congress, for its part, was anxious for France’s help but fearful of being tied to a powerful ally that would manipulate the fledging states and draw them into European wars. Worries all around.
As 1778 began events moved quickly. On February 6, while Arnold and his doctors were awaiting their own merciful separation, representatives of the French government and the Continental Congress, meeting in Paris, signed two treaties. One focused on trade, putting the two countries on a most-favored-nation status. In the second, France recognized the independence of America and formed a military alliance. Louis XVI also renounced French territorial ambitions in North America, including Canada, and in return was promised a free hand attacking the rich British possessions in the Caribbean. The sugar and rum they produced were more valuable than any products from their other colonies. Both signatories agreed not to sign any peace treaty with Britain without mutual agreement. Whether either government would adhere scrupulously to these terms was unclear. What was clear was that the Americans had a powerful foreign ally and while they were wary of being exploited by the French, they were delighted to have their considerable help and recognition.
Washington learned of the treaties in April with tears of joy.2 “It has pleased the Almighty ruler of the universe,” he informed his troops, “propitiously to defend the cause of the united American States and finally, by raising us up a powerful friend among the princes of the earth, to establish our liberty and independence upon lasting foundations. . . .”3 War, like politics, makes strange bedfellows. For years the colonies had suffered savage raids by French troops and their Indian allies swooping down from Canada attacking isolated villages on the frontiers and towns along the Atlantic coast, burning homes and slaughtering or carrying off men, women, and children. Terrorizing the settlers was French policy. In particular, New Englanders abhorred the dishonorable betrayal of the hapless British soldiers and civilians during the French and Indian War when Fort William Henry surrendered to the French in 1757. The English soldiers and American civilians had been promised safe passage by the French commander but as they marched out, France’s Indian allies butchered every man, woman, and child they could lay hands on. That particular atrocity took place during Arnold’s first military service. In addition, the liberty-loving colonists had an English sense of freedom, and grew up mocking the French for their slavish subordination to an absolute monarch supported by a large, professional army. Now, ironically, George III was the tyrant, Louis XVI their liberator.
At the beginning of May Congress ratified the treaties with France, and on May 6 Washington and his army celebrated. The men mustered at nine o’clock in the morning to hear the treaties read. Thirteen cannon were then fired, their boom and smoke followed by the firing of muskets in sequence. The soldiers gave three cheers, “Long Live the King of France.” Each man was given a gill of rum for the occasion. If Washington had reservations about the collaboration, they were not apparent. John Laurens, son of the president of the Congress, reported that the commander “wore a countenance of uncommon delight.”4 The French officers, on the other hand, would be singularly unimpressed with their first sight of Washington’s Continentals and thought even less of state militiamen.
John Adams had been fretting about an alliance with France as early as 1775.5 He hoped any negotiations would be conducted with “great caution,” fearful of “any alliance with her which should entangle us in any future wars in Europe.” As for the broader strategy, he added, “it never could be our interest to unite with France in the destruction of England, or in any measures to brake her [England’s] spirit or reduce her to a situation in which she could not support her independence.”6 Any alliance with either Britain or France, he judged, would make the states “too subordinate and dependent on the nation.” Foreign powers “should find means to corrupt our people, to influence our councils, and in fine we should be little better than puppets danced on the wires of the cabinets of Europe.”7 During the negotiations with France three years later Adams reckoned the French foreign minister was prepared to keep “his hand under our chin to prevent us from drowning, but not to lift our heads out of water.” 8
The British were in a panic over the surrender at Saratoga and the pending alliance between the Congress and France. “[F]rom the moment when the news of Saratoga arrived,” J. W. Fortescue wrote, “all thinking Englishmen were filled with apprehension for its possible influence on the policy of France.”9 In December the British port cities of Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen began raising battalions of eleven hundred men at their own expense to defend them from the French.10 Some Scots nobles also offered to raise regiments. The British Cabinet and Parliament were deeply divided about what to do next, but the Cabinet was well aware of American negotiations with the French, as Benjamin Franklin’s secretary was a British agent. On February 17, just before the final treaties between France and America were announced, Lord North submitted a proposal to Parliament for a royal commission to negotiate a peace treaty with Congress. It was dubbed the Carlisle Commission for Frederick Earl of Carlisle, one of its three members. The commission would be empowered to offer concessions that met the original American complaints. The Coercive Acts and all revenue acts passed since 1763 were to be repealed, any claims from war damage would be forgiven. No standing army would be placed in the colonies in time of peace; no change would be make in any colonial charter except at the request of the assembly of the colony concerned; judges would be appointed during good behavior as they were in England; and Parliament would consider giving the colonies representation in the British parliament or, if Americans preferred, would recognize the American Congress. What the commission was not to offer was independence.
Edmund Burke had proposed these concessions two years earlier when they might have been accepted.11 Oddly misreading the Americans, many British leaders were convinced that the proposed terms would be happily accepted and peace restored. Lord Germain, Secretary of State for America, wrote Sir Henry Clinton on March 8 that his information about American opinion was that “the generality of the people desire nothing more than a full security for the enjoyment of all their rights and liberties under the British Constitution.” There could be no doubt, Germain added, “that the generous terms now held out to them will be gladly embraced.”12 Should the Congress fail to accept these generous terms and “the horrors and devastations of war should continue,” the commissioners were to warn, “we call God and the world to witness that the evils which must follow are not imputed to Great Britain, and we cannot without the most real sorrow anticipate the prospect of calamities which we feel the most ardent desire to prevent.”13
After three years of brutal warfare, after a major British defeat and with an alliance with France, these concessions were too little too late. Nevertheless, after Britain had expended so much blood and treasure, many members of Parliament felt the terms were much too generous. To Horace Walpole, “The Astonishment of a great part of the House at such extensive offers, precluded all expression.”14 Lord Chatham, affectionately known as the “Great Commoner,” though in failing health, made a desperate appeal to the House of Lords against the commission: “Shall we tarnish the luster of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions? Shall the great kingdom, that has survived whole and entire the Danish depredations, the Scottish inroads, and the Norman conquest, that has stood the threatened invasion of the Spanish Armada, now fall prostrate before the House of Bourbon?” “If we must fall,” he concluded, “let us fall like men.”15 Despite all these misgivings and the treaties Americans had already concluded with the French, the Carlisle Commission set sail for the New World hoping for a peace agreement.
In addition to the agreed-upon concessions the commissioners were secretly authorized to offer bribes to American leaders starting with Washington. Sir John Dalrymple, a shrewd observer, compared Washington to George Monk, the parliamentarian general who changed sides to restore Charles II to the English throne in 1660.16 Dalrymple suggested the ministers or the king himself should write to Washington, “to remind him of the similarity between his situation and Monk’s, desiring him to ask terms for America fair and just, and they should be granted, and that the terms for himself should be the dukedom like Monk received and an appropriate revenue to give dignity to the man who generously gave up his own power to save his country.” This popular view of Monk was in Arnold’s mind when he, like Monk, became disillusioned with the cause he had supported.
On March 17 Britain declared war on France. In April the British fleet refrained from challenging a French fleet under the Comte d’Estaing as it set sail for North America, for fear of weakening the British vessels in the English Channel. France, with an army far stronger than its navy, was actually considering landing forty thousand men on the British Isles but decided against it.
The Carlisle Commission’s mission was undercut by the British government itself when, without notifying the commissioners, it ordered General Clinton to send eight thousand troops, one third of his men, to the Caribbean and Florida and to evacuate Philadelphia. The commissioners reached Philadelphia just as the British army was withdrawing. They were shocked and angry. Without that military presence, the commission lost much of its credibility. There was little chance they could accomplish their mission in any case. Washington vehemently urged delegates to Congress to oppose the British terms. He branded the commissioners’ offers and powers a “malignant influence.”17 They were authorized to deal with any assembly or person or persons, to grant pardons and set up royal government in any agreeable colony. This was clearly intended to undermine American unity should Congress fail to accept their terms. “Nothing short of independence,” Washington wrote, “can possibly do. A peace on any other terms would, if I may be allowed the expression, be a peace of war.”
Washington needn’t have worried. Congress agreed with him completely. They had just concluded an alliance with France recognizing their independence. Congress refused to meet with the Carlisle commissioners unless they agreed to independence first. And of course the commission was not authorized to grant that fundamental concession. Given the standoff, the commissioners never met with Congress at all, but lingered in New York until the end of 1778, hoping some change in the military situation might persuade Congress to deal with them. Also hoping, no doubt, that some leading American politician or general might be persuaded and bribed to support the British cause.
In addition to their proposal the commissioners had sent a packet of private letters for individuals with English friends. One went to Joseph Reed, president of the Pennsylvania executive council and a member of Congress. Washington passed these letters on to Congress, writing Henry Laurens that if any of them were addressed to persons Laurens did not know, “it may not be improper to open them.”18 George Johnstone, one of the three commissioners and a former governor of West Florida, wrote Laurens that if Congress failed to meet with the commissioners, “I shall hope from private friendship that I may be permitted to see the country and the worthy characters she has exhibited to the world.”19 The opportunity these visits would give him to stir disaffection was obvious. Johnstone’s letter and Laurens’s planned answer were both published in the Pennsylvania Gazette. Laurens’s reply was blunt: “Until the basis of mutual confidence shall be established I believe, Sir, neither former friendship nor any other consideration can influence Congress to consent that even Governor Johnstone, a gentleman who has been so deservedly esteemed by America, shall see the country.”20 The problem of disaffection was serious. This was, after all, a civil war and Congress knew it.
Congress was delighted with the alliance but worried about the loyalty of its military. Three days before the treaties were concluded, the Continental Congress resolved that every military officer and all those holding government office take a loyalty oath. Congress had drawn up a loyalty oath after declaring independence in 1776. The signatory had to swear that the United States were “free, independent and sovereign states, and declare that the people thereof owe no allegiance or obedience to George the Third, King of Great-Britain,” and would “support, maintain and defend the said United States against the said king George the third and his heirs and successors, and his and their abettors, assistants and adherents, and will serve the said United States in the office of which I now hold, with fidelity, according to the best of my skill and understanding. So help me God.”21 The new oath was similar, adding after mention of King George the additional phrase, “I renounce, refuse and abjure any allegiance or obedience to him.”22
The timing of this oath for army and navy officers and civil servants three years after war had started may have been prompted by the pending alliance with France and the new pressure from Britain to reconcile their differences. Congress was, as always, fearful of its own military and now, apart from the blandishments of foreign powers, had good reason to be. It was a bitter time for the woefully neglected army barely surviving at Valley Forge that winter. Washington put off asking his officers to take the oath from February until early May. As he confessed to Henry Laurens on May 1, “In compliance with the request of Congress I shall call upon the officers of the Army to take the Oath of Allegiance and Abjuration. This I should have done, as soon as the Resolution was passed, had it not been for the state of the Army at that time, and that there were some strong reasons which made it expedient to defer the matter.”23 That winter at Valley Forge was so miserable and with the army increasingly mutinous, he feared many officers would refuse to sign. Once the French alliance was publicly announced with its promise of proper support and funding, men would be more willing to take the oath. It had to be taken before the end of May. Arnold was fit enough to return to duty shortly before that deadline.
There were other concerns about the French alliance that troubled Americans. General John Lamb, in his memoir, referred to the “great diversity of opinion” in the army about the use of French land forces.24 Major Samuel Shaw, aide to General Knox, worried:
How will it sound in history that the United States of America, could not, or rather, would not, make an exertion, when the means were amply in their power, which might at once rid them of their enemies, and put them in possession of that liberty, and safety, for which we have been so long contending? By Heaven! if our rulers had any modesty, they would blush at the idea of calling in foreign aid! ‘Tis really abominable, that we should send to France for soldiers, when there are so many sons of America idle. Such a step ought not (had these great men any sensibility) to have been taken, until the strength of the country had been nearly exhausted, and our freedom tottering on the brink of ruin.
Shaw had no problem with getting help from the French navy, “because we can not get one seasonably among ourselves” but added, “do let us unless we are contented to be transmitted to posterity with disgrace, make an exertion of our own strength by land, and not owe our independence entirely to our allies.”25 Support for the treaties prevailed and history has recorded the consequences.
The victory at Saratoga also had serious repercussions for Arnold’s commander and supporter, George Washington. Gates had been proclaimed the hero of Saratoga and his supporters in Congress, mainly from New England, were quick to point out how their favorite general had been victorious while Washington had been defeated at Brandywine and Germantown and failed to oust the British from Philadelphia.26 Washington had sent troops to reinforce the Northern Department against Burgoyne instead. John Adams also saw Washington’s popularity as a danger to liberty, writing, “The people of America have been guilty of idolatry in making a man their God.” This judgment was circulated anonymously.27 The solution of this group was to replace Washington with Gates. Washington was aware of their criticism and attempt to reduce his power or replace him. A copy of Adams’s comment was sent to Patrick Henry who passed it on to Washington. Further, little more than a month after the battle of Saratoga, Congress reorganized the Board of War to more closely monitor the army. Gates was appointed to head the board, giving him administrative oversight over the daily operations of the army and thus over Washington himself. Another member of the Board of War was Thomas Mifflin, a former aide to Washington and later quartermaster general, who resented Washington’s decision to send reinforcements north rather than assaulting the British army in his home city of Philadelphia. As quartermaster general He proved himself woefully incompetent in supplying the army at Mount Vernon, focusing instead on scheming against the commander.28
The issue over command of the army came to a head when Washington learned of a letter to Gates from Thomas Conway shortly after the surrender at Saratoga, commending Gates and remarking, “Heaven has been determined to save your Country or a weak General and bad Councellors would have ruined it.” Conway, an Irishman connected with the French army, had been commanding a brigade under Washington. He was critical of Washington’s leadership at the battle of Germantown but boasted of his own efforts, and wrote Congress requesting a promotion to major general. Conway told members of Congress that in his view while Washington was a perfect gentleman, “or appeared to more advantage at his table, or in the usual intercourse of life . . . his talents for the command of an army . . . they are miserable indeed.”29 Washington, usually politely deferential, vehemently opposed Conway’s promotion, explaining to Richard Henry Lee, a Virginia delegate to Congress, that the promotion of Conway would be as “unfortunate a measure as ever was adopted. I may add (and I think with truth) that it will give a fatal blow to the existence of the Army.”30 In Washington’s opinion, “General Conway’s merit, then, as an Officer and his importance in this Army, exists more in his own imagination, than in reality.” Moreover, he argued, that as the youngest brigadier general in the service, Conway “should be put over the heads of all the Eldest? And thereby take Rank, and Command Gentlemen, who but Yesterday, were his Seniors, Gentlemen, who, I will be bold to say . . . are of sound judgment and unquestionable Bravery?” Washington was sure these men would refuse to serve under Conway. He stressed that while his officers were loyal and did not dispute the right of Congress to make promotions, “the service is so difficult, and every necessary so expensive, that almost all our Officers are tired out. Do not, therefore, afford them good pretexts for retiring: No day passes over my head without application for leave to resign.” Unfortunately, Lee was one of the congressmen critical of the commander. Washington seemed as tired as his officers, and hinted he might resign: “I have been a Slave to the service: I have undergone more than most Men are aware of, to harmonize so many discordant parts, but it will be impossible for me to be of any further service, if such insuperable difficulties are thrown in my way.”31
Then on November 8 Washington was informed of Conway’s letter praising Gates for his victory and bemoaning the current “weak general.” The letter’s content was leaked by a drunken James Wilkinson, Gates’s adjutant, on his leisurely journey to Congress to report the victory at Saratoga. The day after learning of the comment Washington wrote Conway a terse note citing the insulting paragraph. Gates later feigned innocence and asked Washington’s help in “tracing out the Author of the Infidelity which put Extracts from General Conway’s Letters to me into your Hands.”32 Wilkinson denied he was the source and Gates accused Alexander Hamilton, Washington’s brilliant young aide, of glancing at his personal correspondence when alone in Gates’s room on a visit to Albany.33 Gates even informed Congress that Hamilton had “stealingly copied” his correspondence. At that point Washington informed Gates through Congress that the “Author of the Infidelity” was his own aide, James Wilkinson. Gates may have been upset by the news but Congress was not and made Wilkinson secretary of the Board of War. Conway offered his resignation to Congress but instead Congress passed it on to the new Board of War. Adding insult to injury in December, over Washington’s vehement objections, Congress promoted Conway to major general and appointed him to the new post of inspector general in charge of drilling and training the Continental Army. Rather than reporting to Washington, Conway was to report directly to the Board of War, staffed by men hostile to the commander. When Conway appeared at Valley Forge to take up the assignment, Washington treated him so coldly that he stalked off in a huff.
This so-called “Conway Cabal” ended on January 19, 1778, after Washington’s officers informed Congress of their complete confidence in him while Gates and Conway refused to provide the controversial letter to Congress. In mid-February Gates wrote Washington assuring him he was not involved in any faction. Congress sent Gates back to the Northern Department in April, where the general hoped to lead an attack on Canada. When that idea was dropped he was ordered west to protect New York’s Mohawk Valley. He refused. A benefit of his transfer to New York, however, was to keep Gates and Washington apart, presumably pleasing both men.
While the political and military world Arnold knew was in flux, his zest for life was returning. At Middletown he and Comfort Sage visited taverns to discuss the problems he had seen in the army and explore business options. Arnold’s shipping trade was ruined. Hannah had sold his ships and he had advanced his own money to support his troops, leaving little for himself and his family. Congress, typically behind in paying the army, had not paid his salary for over two years. As for investment opportunities, he learned that some men were making good profits outfitting merchant ships as privateers, licensed to seize British vessels as prizes. With the help of Sage he was able to buy a quarter share in a large, captured British transport ship, the ten-gun General McDougall. The McDougall’s new task as an American privateer would be capturing other British vessels. The Sage and Arnold families were old and steadfast friends. With Arnold only a day’s journey from home, Hannah and Arnold’s sons must have visited him while he was at Middletown. The reunion, while upsetting, as her dear brother was so badly wounded, was a time of relief for Hannah that he was for the moment out of harm’s way, and joy for the boys in seeing their father again.
Feeling more optimistic Arnold decided to renew his unsuccessful courtship of young Betsy DeBlois. He was facing a return to his old home without a wife to love and to share raising his three young sons. With the prospects of profits from his privateer he bought a gold ring with four diamonds for Betsy.34 He wrote a passionate letter to her on April 8 comparing his “trembling hand” penning the letter to his heart so often “calm and serene amidst the clashing of arms and all the din and horrors of war.” As a national hero he obviously hoped the reference would help win the fair lady. He reminded Betsy of his former courtship: “Long have I struggled to efface your heavenly image,” but “neither time, absence, misfortunes, nor your cruel indifference have been able to efface the deep impression your charms have made.” Arnold asked whether she would now “doom a heart so true, so faithful, to languish in despair?”35 The young lady and her family, especially her mother, were prepared to do just that, replying coolly that he “solicit no further” for her affections. Politics in addition to the lack of personal attraction may have played a part as Betsy’s father had fled to British-controlled Halifax. Still Arnold was not easily put off and solicited again two weeks later, conceding that “the union of hearts” was necessary to happiness and his infatuation was one-sided but explaining that when there is “tender and ardent passion on one side and friendship and esteem on the other,” happiness would ultimately result.36 He even tried writing to her father to ask for her hand, all to no avail.
Arnold finally traveled on to New Haven arriving home on May 1 to a joyous welcome. He had been away a year. For whatever reason, his impatience to be back in action, the excitement that only military activity could bring him, the comparative dullness of New Haven life, he remained only two weeks. On May 21, still hobbling on crutches, he was at Washington’s side at Valley Forge. He was not fit enough to lead a field army, but Washington now had another post in mind. In response to the French entry into the war, General Clinton was about to evacuate Philadelphia. The timing seemed perfect. Washington needed an officer to ensure the orderly, peaceful return to American hands of the largest American city, site of the Continental Congress and the executive council of Pennsylvania. On May 28 he appointed Arnold military governor of Philadelphia. Two days later, on the very last day allotted for taking the new loyalty oath, Arnold swore to “support, maintain, and defend the said United States of America with fidelity, according to the best of my skill and understanding.” The new assignment to reconcile residents who had remained while the British were in occupation and those who had fled required tact and diplomacy, not skills the blunt, impetuous Arnold possessed. Moreover, Congress had never been enamored of the man, despite his obvious martial valor, or maybe because of it. Nor did many delegates like his defenders, George Washington and Philip Schuyler. The Pennsylvania state government’s Executive Council was dominated by radicals anxious to punish moderates and anyone suspected of British sympathies. Council members were imperious, touchy about their prerogatives, suspicious of military men. It was perhaps the worst assignment Washington could have chosen.