Having made every sacrifice of fortune and blood, and become a cripple in the service of my country, I little expected to meet the ungrateful returns I have received from my country, but as Congress has stamped ingratitude as the current coin, I must take it.
—Arnold to Washington, May 5, 1779
Time and again over the years that followed, Arnold must have thought back to the reasons why he had abandoned the cause for which he had fought and bled, a decision that devastated his reputation at the time and destroyed his honor forever. There were, of course, the increasingly vicious assaults on his reputation and his court-martial with its deeply disappointing results. He was angry and bitter, tired of fighting the enemies on his own side. But there were two particular points during this period pushing him to abandoning the American cause that his shocked contemporaries and most later historians missed in their haste to attribute the meanest motives to him from the beginning, motives transparently contrary to his years of brave and selfless dedication. Of course the ignominy he experienced before he left the cause was only a foretaste of what was to come. Jared Ingersoll, a New Haven attorney and later delegate to Congress, who had converted to the revolutionary side when threatened by the Sons of Liberty, put Arnold’s defection down to “personal ambition and pique and an untamed individualism.”1 With the shock of Arnold’s betrayal there was a rush by many patriots to conclude, even a need to conclude, that Arnold had always been mercenary, selfish, reckless. Only a deep character flaw could explain his switching sides. No decent man would do it. He was given no credit for his valor before that switch, military brilliance and courage that saved the new states and led to the French alliance, no credit for having continued to serve in the army despite the insulting behavior of Congress. Historian Charles Royster, in his portrait of Americans during the Revolutionary war, claims Arnold insisted from the start on being on top of everything while, after his treason, he writes that “Americans saw more than a criminal in Arnold—they saw a freak. He was not just a deserter or an assassin on a grand scale, he was an aberration in nature.”2 British military historian J. W. Fortescue assesses Arnold’s combination of martial skills as “staggering,” dubbing him “the most formidable opponent that could be matched against the British in America.” Nevertheless Fortescue feels compelled to add that Arnold was “of course shallow, fickle, unprincipled and unstable in character.”3 How such a person could have accomplished amazing military achievements Fortescue doesn’t feel the need to explain.
Brushed aside were inconvenient facts. Arnold, unlike most of his fellow officers, continued fighting for the cause despite being hauled repeatedly before congressional committees for malfeasance, despite being passed over for promotion while junior officers were promoted. Other officers had left the service for far less. He remained at Saratoga for the sake of the cause and the men in the ranks when Gates treated him with distain and confined him to his tent during the battle. While Gates never set foot on the battlefield, Arnold dashed into the thick of the fighting without any official position and achieved victory only to see Gates get the credit. He risked his life time after time and suffered grievous and crippling wounds. He was denied the naval commission he hoped would take him from Philadelphia. Even after he resigned his commission as they demanded, he was berated and dishonored by the Pennsylvania executive councilors. When he was attacked in the city streets by their thugs Congress refused to provide a guard for him.
Congress owed Arnold years of salary while he exhausted his own financial resources to pay his men. Yet greed was often cited as his chief motive. But financial problems were not the only, or even the worst, reality pressing on him. He was besieged by enemies in the Pennsylvania executive council and in Congress. Their demeaning attacks were broadcast in the city’s gazette and throughout the country. Only the chance to clear his name made it possible to bear these insults. Despite all this he wanted to serve. The same day he resigned his commission in Philadelphia he wrote Washington offering to take a field post in the army as soon as he was fit. On Washington’s advice he appealed to Congress to refute the Council’s charges rather than demand a court-martial at once. He expected to be exonerated. Then he changed his mind, or at least hedged his bets, as the chance he could clear his name promptly dimmed.
Five days before his wedding John Jay, president of Congress, ordered Washington to summon a court-martial on four of the eight charges. While Congress found no evidence to support several of the charges against him, it caved in to the powerful and vindictive Pennsylvania council. This blow came as his sister Hannah and two youngest sons were arriving to live with the new couple, to be a family. The joys and responsibilities of his new family life made the necessity to retain his honor and position all the more vital.
Congress’s decision was a bitter blow. Arnold wrote Washington on April 18 deeply upset: “Your Excellency will doubtless be surprised to find, that Congress have directed a court-martial to try me (among other charges) for some of those of which their committee have acquitted me in the fullest and clearest manner; and though this conduct may be necessary for the public interest, it is hard to reconcile it to the feelings of an individual, who is thereby injured.”4 He understood Congress was eager “to avoid a breach with the State.” But he wrote Washington predicting that Reed would “use every artifice to delay the proceedings,” and begged “that an early day may be fixed for it as possible” closing with a heartfelt appeal: “When your Excellency considers my sufferings, and the cruel situation I am in, your own humanity and feeling as a soldier will render everything I can say farther on the subject unnecessary.” Washington obliged and two days later informed Arnold that he had scheduled the court-martial for May 1, only a short time away.5
Four days later, as Arnold feared, Reed demanded Washington postpone the court-martial indefinitely so he could gather evidence. At the same time Reed threatened to deny wagons to the army and warned Congress that Pennsylvania would secede if they didn’t press for a court-martial.6 On April 26 Washington wrote to inform Arnold that the court-martial set for May 1 had been postponed. This was one of Arnold’s pivotal moments. He felt sure this would be only the first of many postponements. Washington was his friend and supporter but Washington and Congress felt compelled to accommodate Reed. Washington would, or could do nothing to help.
On May 5 Arnold wrote Washington again, his misery leaping from the text:
From a knowledge of my public conduct, since I have been in the Army, no man is better qualified to judge whether I have merited the treatment I have received.7 If your Excellency thinks me a criminal, for Heaven’s sake let me be immediately tried, and if found guilty, executed. I want no favor; I only ask justice. If this is denied me by your Excellency, I have nowhere to seek it but from a candid public; before whom I shall be under the necessity of laying the whole matter. . . . Having made every sacrifice of fortune and blood; and become a cripple in the service of my country, I little expected to meet the ungrateful returns I have received from my countrymen; but as Congress have stamped ingratitude as a current coin, I must take it. . . . Delay in the present case is worse than death.
Washington replied two days later to inform Arnold he had set the trial for June 1 but the campaign season was approaching and assembling the officers required to sit as a jury, as Reed surely knew, was increasingly unlikely. Arnold was delighted with the news though, writing Washington how happy he was to hear of the new date:
As nothing can be more disagreeable than the cruel situation I am in at the present, not only as my character will continue to suffer until I am acquitted by a court-martial, but as it effectually prevents my joining the army, which I wish to do as soon as my wounds will permit; and render my country every service in my power at this critical time; for though I have been ungratefully treated, I do not consider it as from my countrymen in general, but from a set of men, who void of principle, are governed entirely by private interest.8
He concluded, “The interest I have in the welfare and happiness of my country, which I have made ever evident when in my power, will I hope always overcome my personal resentment for any injury I can possibly receive from individuals.”9 Arnold wrote to Congress asking for a copy of its committee report and letters between the committee and the Pennsylvania Council for his use at the court-martial. The chairman of the congressional committee replied the next day that it would not be possible to provide copies of these key documents. Arnold then set out for the army’s headquarters at Middlebrook where the trial was to take place only to find it was postponed yet again.
Arnold had seen enough. The court-martial would not convene until late December, another eight months, but it was in early May, when it was postponed for the first time, that he made the initial contact with a British representative. Lieutenant Christopher Hele was on parole in Philadelphia after being arrested by Congress for delivering the Carlisle manifesto and proclamation. Arnold invited him to visit.10 Hele brought with him a letter written by Colonel Beverly Robinson, commander of the Loyal American Regiment. The same letter had been used to recruit other disenchanted Americans.11 Its author was a former friend of Washington and owned an estate near West Point with extensive friends and tenants in that area. It was Robinson’s house Arnold would use when he became commander of the West Point garrison.
Robinson’s letter was artfully designed to appeal to the patriotism of rebels, conceding that their “only object has been the happiness of their country.” It never mentions Arnold’s grievances against the American cause. The arguments it espouses undoubtedly helped Arnold justify to himself his decision to join the British. These patriotic rebels, Robinson writes, “will not be influenced by motives of private interest to abandon the cause they have espoused.” After all, the British government was now offering “everything, which can render the colonies really happy”: an American assembly, freedom of commerce “in every part of the globe subject to the British navy,” “the blessings of good government,” and “they shall be sustained in time of need, by all the power necessary to uphold them, without being themselves exposed to danger or subjected to the expenses that are always inseparable from the conditions of a state.”12 Robinson then reminds his readers of the present alternatives; the needless suffering “without limitation of time,” “America a scene of desolation.” He asks whether Arnold wants the country to enjoy “peace and all the blessings of her train?” Will you “pursue the shadow of liberty, which escapes your hand, even when in the act of grasping it? And how soon would that very liberty, once obtained, turn to lewdness, if it not be under the safeguard of a great European power? Will you rely upon the guarantee of France?”
Then Robinson slips in the least palatable part of the argument. A peace agreement was not to be “negotiated and agreed upon between us as between two independent powers; it is necessary that a decisive advantage should put Britain in a condition to dictate the terms of reconciliation.” But there was no need to worry, he writes, because it is Britain’s “interest as well as her policy to make these [conditions] as advantageous to one side as the other.” Robinson urges speed to save lives “without unnecessary waste of blood of which we are already as sparing as though it were again our own.”13 This was patently false as British officers had been brutal. He then appealed directly to Arnold as the one man who can bring peace:
There is no one but General Arnold who can surmount obstacles so great as these. A man of so much courage will never despair of the republic, even when every door to a reconciliation seems sealed. Render then, brave General, this important service to your country. The colonies cannot sustain much longer the unequal strife. Your troops are perishing in misery. They are badly armed, half-naked, and crying for bread. The efforts of Congress are futile against the exhaustion of the people. Your fields are untilled, trade languishes, learning dies. The neglected of a whole generation is an irreparable loss to society. The youth, torn by thousands from their rustic pursuits or useful employment are mown down by war. Such as survive have lost the vigor of their prime, or are maimed in battle.
Clearly this was meant to evoke Arnold’s own crippled condition. Again Robinson refers to global trade, “all ruled by a uniform system that bears on every feature the stamp of liberty.” British constraints on the American shipping trade, one of the main provocations for war although not explicitly stated, will presumably be eliminated. Robinson sees great glory ahead, a glory designed to appeal to a merchant seaman like Arnold: “United in equality, we will rule the universe, we will hold it bound, not by arms and violence, but by the ties of commerce . . . the lightest and most gentle bonds that human kind can wear.”
In June, with the court-martial postponed yet again, this time because of a British attack on the Hudson River forts, Arnold took another step toward the British. He sent for Joseph Stansbury, a Philadelphia china merchant and a known loyalist, to discuss the political situation. Stansbury opposed independence and armed resistance but prudently took the oath of allegiance to the patriot cause. In October 1776, however, passersby heard “God Save the King” being sung in his house and he was sentenced to house arrest for a time. Stansbury had welcomed the British when they conquered the city and was appointed a commissioner for selecting and governing the city watch.14 He was also a British secret agent and later became a courier for John André, Clinton’s aide and chief of British intelligence, and an acquaintance of Peggy Shippen.15 After his conversation with Arnold, Stansbury left for a secret journey to New York City to convey the exciting news to John André and General Clinton.
The British had already approached other leading American officers and statesmen, including Israel Putnam, John Sullivan, Philip Schuyler, Ethan Allen, Samuel Holden Parsons and Congress’s representatives in Paris, Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin.16 Ethan Allen was ready to bring Vermont to the British.17 A string of trusted American “patriots” were already working for the British. Benjamin Church, the director of the first American army hospital, was a paid informer of Gage in Boston. Metcalf Bowler, the chief justice of Rhode Island and William Heron, a member of the Connecticut assembly, were supporting the British. Edward Fox of Maryland, the clerk in the Continental Congress treasury in Philadelphia, offered to procure information and received payments. William Rankin, colonel of militia in York, Pennsylvania, was an informer. General Charles Lee, an experienced British officer who—like other British officers who fought for the Americans had been unable to get the desired promotion in the British army—had wanted Washington’s post, was taken prisoner by the British, and had a secret plan to end the revolution. Arnold alone would suffer the terrible consequence of his betrayal.
Clinton was wary about the contact with Arnold. Writing later to Lord Germain he confessed, “I was not at first sanguine in my idea of General Arnold’s consequence, as he was said to be in a sort of disgrace, had been tried before a general court-martial and not likely to be employed, and whatever merit this officer might have had, his situation, such as I understood it then to be, made him less an object of attention.”18 For his secret correspondence with the British Arnold chose the alias Gustavus Monk. The choice is key to his attitude toward his actions. Gustavus Adolphus was a famous seventeenth-century Swedish king, the Lion of the North as he was known, a brilliant military leader who brought his army into the Thirty Years War in support of the Protestant cause. He would die in the struggle. George Monk was a general in Parliament’s army during the English civil war of the mid-seventeenth century. After the overthrow of the monarchy, after Oliver Cromwell overthrew Parliament, and during the chaos that followed his death, Monk marched his troops from Scotland to London where he set in motion the events that led to recalling Charles II and restoring the monarchy. He was hailed for returning the country to royal government and elevated to the highest ranks of the nobility.
On Stansbury’s arrival in New York he met with the Reverend Jonathan Odell, a priest whose pro-British newspaper articles resulted in his being placed on parole in New Jersey and escaping to New York. Odell took Stansbury to British army headquarters where they met with the new head of British intelligence, Major John André. André had the persona of the consummate gentlemen, a lover of theater, a passable artist—he had drawn a likeness of Margaret Shippen—and popular aide to General Howe. But beneath that glamorous exterior lay the ruthless soldier and now spymaster for General Henry Clinton. André was at General Grey’s side when they launched a surprise attack on Anthony Wayne’s men in the dead of night, writing later: “We ferreted out their piquets and advanced guards, surprised and put them to death and, coming in upon the camp, rushed on them as they were collecting together and pursued them with a prodigious slaughter.”19 The Americans who fled were caught and butchered. But the veneer of the charming gallant would be the image André took to the grave, admired by contemporaries of both sides.
Stansbury was spirited back to Philadelphia before he was missed while André contacted Clinton, who approved the information he was sending Arnold and gave André the code names John Anderson and Joseph Andrews. Stansbury was to refer to Arnold as A.G. and André as Mr. Andrews.20 They decided Arnold should remain in place for the time being and provide logistical information about the American army. He was simply to be a high-placed spy. Just a month earlier John André had become Clinton’s chief intelligence officer. With his dramatic and inexperienced bent, he now provided a list of helpful suggestions about what information would be useful, but was vague about the reward Arnold might expect. Arnold’s “own judgment” André suggested, “will point out the services required,” adding:
For fair satisfaction we give the following hints. Counsel [of Congress]. Contents of dispatches from foreign abettors (France). Original dispatches and papers which might be seized and sent to us. Channels through which such dispatches pass, hints for securing them. Number and position of troops, whence and what reinforcements are expected and when. Influencing persons of rank with the same favourable disposition in the several commands in different quarters. Concerting the means of a blow of importance. Fomenting any party which when risen to a height might perhaps easily be drawn into a desire of accommodation rather than submit to an odious yoke [the yoke of France.]. Magazines—where any new are forming. To interest himself in procuring an exchange of prisoners for the honor of America.
After assuring Gustavus Monk that in “the very first instance of receiving the tiding or good offices we expect from him, our liberality will be evinced; that in case any partial but important blow should be struck or aimed, upon the strength of just and pointed information and co-operation, rewards equal at least to what such service can be estimated at will be given. “André then suggested not just information but battlefield successes Arnold might facilitate, noting that the “zeal of that able and enterprising gentlemen” might enable them to seize “an obnoxious band of men, to the delivery into our power or enabling us to attack to advantage and by judicious assistance completely to defeat a numerous body,” then “would the generosity of the nation exceed even his most sanguine hopes.”21 Of course Arnold had resigned his commission and was not yet fit enough to return to the battlefield. André added that should Arnold’s “manifest efforts be foiled and after every zealous attempt flight be at length necessary, the cause for which he suffers will hold itself bound to indemnify him for his losses and receive him with the honors his conduct deserves.”22
The British were guarded in their attitude toward Arnold. There was always the possibility this was a ploy to penetrate their intelligence network and learn key information. In fact Clinton was unenthusiastic about this American hero wounded and under attack from his own party. Still he was willing to get what he could in the way of information from Arnold. After learning from Stansbury that his proposals were agreeable to Clinton, Arnold wrote to assure the British commander that he “may depend on my exertions and intelligence.”23 But he added: “It will be impossible to co-operate unless there is a mutual confidence.” Since he had everything at stake he asked for “some certainty my property here secure and a revenue equivalent to the risk and service done. I cannot promise success. I will deserve it. Inform me what I may expect.”24 The British steadfastly refused to be specific about what reward he might expect.
Arnold and Stansbury would correspond and their letters would be in cipher. This was essential since letters might be intercepted. Each man was to have a copy of Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England.25 Each word in their letters would be represented by three figures, the first the number of the book’s page on which the word would be found, the second the number of the line, the third the number of the word in that line. Alternatively they might resort to invisible ink, which would be exposed either by acid or flame. Particular topics were to be expressed in misleading language, for example the health of an old woman.
André also had plans for correspondence with Margaret Arnold that would pass through a mutual friend, Peggy Chew, with invisible ink interleaving prosaic chat about social events and clothing, that Margaret Arnold would read.26 But André had to be content with Benedict as he was unable to involve either Peggy Chew or Margaret Arnold in this correspondence. Indeed, there is no actual evidence that this plan was ever put in place or that Arnold’s wife was aware of his conspiracy.27 One of Arnold’s letters to Stansbury has a postscript with Margaret’s compliments, but she had met Stansbury. André did write one letter directly to Peggy. It referred to materials for clothing he might get for her.28 Historian Carl Van Doren insists “she could not miss his zeal to be further employed or misunderstand what he meant,” and characterizes her response to André “as prim a note as was ever written by a conspirator.”29 Apparently even a “prim” note could not dissuade Van Doren from his insistence that she was involved in the conspiracy. In her note Peggy thanked André for his offer to supply millinery materials but noted that Major Giles “was so obliging as to promise to procure what trifles Mrs. Arnold wanted in the millinery way.” In fact, a busy young wife in charge of a household with her sister-in-law and Arnold’s two young sons, soon expecting her first child, she seems to have been unaware of how far her husband’s discontent had led him.
The risks of betraying the cause were considerable for Arnold. Unless his own efforts helped the British succeed—and at that point in the war it looked like they would win—he stood to lose all his property, while his family would be in considerable danger and forced to flee. His enemies would feel triumphant that their suspicions were vindicated. Even now he could still pull back, provided no evidence of his approach to the enemy became known. In this desperate gamble he was not likely to take his beloved young wife into his confidence. It was far too dangerous for her. He certainly would not ask her advice, priding himself on making his own decisions. Nor would he involve his closest aides, Major Franks and Colonel Varick, who might betray his confidence. He would have to bear the risks alone. It was actually the safest course.
Arnold began to send intelligence about the Continental Army’s conditions and plans. He had been asked to seize congressional papers but replied that this was impossible and anyway, “Their contents can be known from a member of Congress.” Obviously the British had an active informer in that body and Arnold knew it. When he asked what Clinton’s campaign plans were he was rebuffed. André wrote that Clinton “cannot reveal his intentions as to the present campaign nor can he find the necessity of such a discovery or that the want of a proper degree of confidence is to be inferred from his not making it.”30
The British kept Arnold at arm’s length. His secret correspondence with them continued during the summer while he awaited the convening of his court-martial. In June André pointed out that general information was helpful but “the most brilliant and effectual blow finally to complete the overthrow of the present abominable power would be the destruction of the Army,” and “This may be effected by a grand stroke or by successive severe blows.”31 He had suggestions: the taking of a considerable seaport and defeating the troops assigned to the defense of the province. Could Arnold obtain command of Carolina? Perhaps he might arrange for British troops to surprise and ambush a large body of troops, or intercept a fleet to or from France. Arnold might see to the burning of barracks or the spiking of all the guns of a fort or field artillery. But for what he labels “a general project,” André recommended anything on the west side of the Hudson. Could Monk command one of Washington’s advance troops and allow them to be surprised, leaving Washington vulnerable to attack, while at the same time the British could seize the Congress? To affect these, Arnold was instructed to “Join the Army, accept a command, be surprised and be cut off.”32
All this was a betrayal of his military skills, and terribly risky. And while the British expected so much from him they were always vague about what reward he might expect. In July he sent a request through Stansbury for a financial guarantee, whatever the result of his efforts might be. Along with his request in earnest of his good faith, Arnold sent specifics about the state of Washington’s army and campaign plans and information about the French fleet.33 He then tried to return to the army, but first the court-martial had to take place. Two days after receiving André’s letter, he wrote Washington asking that the court-martial be expedited, and informing him that he was able to walk “with ease” and hoped soon to be able to ride. He was ready to rejoin the army.34 The trial had to come first, however, and with the campaign season underway there would be further postponements. In a letter from Mr. Andrews, André, to Monk that month, Andrews is again vague about financial rewards as he requests a plan of West Point, information about vessels on the Hudson and other very specific questions about American military arrangements and ports.35 Andrews then suggests Arnold assume a command and arrange a face-to-face meeting: “I am convinced a conversation of a few minutes would satisfy you entirely and I trust would give us equal cause to be pleased.” He then urges Arnold to undertake more than spying. “Let us not lose time or contract our views which on our part have become sanguine from the excessive strain of your overtures,” André insists, “and which we cannot think you would on your side confine to general intelligence whilst so much greater things may be done and advantages in proportion as much greater can be reaped.” But Arnold was not ready to risk so much without more specific assurance of the reward. He might, after all, be abandoned by the British after arranging for an American defeat, or be discovered by them and hanged as a traitor.
It was in October, while still awaiting his trial, that Arnold had rushed to the aid of the Philadelphia moderates, including his brother-in-law barricaded in the home of James Wilson, a well-respected patriot, as they withstood the violent, armed assault from Reed’s partisans.
The second and final point in Arnold’s decision to adhere to the British cause came when the long-awaited court-martial failed to vindicate him, instead ordering Washington to write him a letter of censure. The final decision was up to Congress. The Pennsylvania council, having gotten their way, suddenly expressed concern for his feelings and asked Congress “to dispense with that part of the sentence which imposes a public censure, and may most affect the feelings of a brave and gallant officer.”36 Although the court-martial had failed to find Arnold guilty of any intentional wrong, Congress insisted that he receive a public censure. Despite Washington’s attempt to be as gentle as possible in the formal letter of censure and the personal letter that accompanied it, it was too late. Personal letters did not obscure the humiliation of public disgrace. Arnold’s feelings seem to have been in turmoil. Although his efforts focused on helping to bring about a great British victory and gaining the reward for having arranged it, he was still frantically seeking alternatives to avoid following through on the suggested treason.
Even after the court-martial’s verdict on January 26 it wasn’t until February 12 that Congress approved the court verdict, another blow. Congress then took its time letting Washington know its decision. In the meantime Arnold had no commission and no steady income. This was especially difficult as Peggy’s baby was due in March and he was already in debt. Now desperate, Arnold appealed once more to Congress to settle his financial accounts. Congress delegated the matter to a five-member committee which, in due course, declared the task “impracticable with that accuracy and attention which the nature of them demand,” and recommended the issue be dealt with by the Board of Treasury. Arnold protested to no effect. Again he tried to get involved in privateering with a navy command, writing Washington on March 6 that the Admiralty was considering him for a command.37 His surgeons, he added, “are of opinion it will not be prudent for me to take a command in the Army for some time to come.” He had proposed a plan to the Admiralty for commanding a naval expedition that would need three or four hundred men from the army to act as marines, if Washington agreed to spare them. Arnold wrote again two weeks later when Washington had not replied. Peggy had given birth to a little son the day before. They named him Edward after her father and grandfather. Arnold reminded Washington of the condition of his wounded leg.38 “My surgeons flatter me that a voyage to sea and bathing frequently in salt water will be of great service to strengthening my leg and relaxing the muscles, which are greatly contracted and thereby rendering it more useful.”
Even as André was pressing him to take a post in the army, Arnold was feverishly exhausting other expedients to use his skills and support his family while still serving his country. The naval expedition would not have helped the British. It certainly could not interfere in a meaningful way with a French fleet.
During this desperate time Arnold, writing his old friend from Connecticut Silas Deane, poured out his grief and despair.39 “I believe you will be equally surprised with me, when the court-martial having fully acquitted me of the charge of employing public wagons, or defrauding the public, or of injuring or impeding the public service. Yet in their next sentence say, ‘As requests from him might operate as commands, I ought to receive a reprimand.’ Not for doing wrong, but because I might have done wrong; or rather, because evil might follow the good that I did!” He then mentions his proposal to the Admiralty about leading an expedition. Should that fall through he proposed going to Boston with the intention to take command of a private ship.
Deane was especially sympathetic as he had gotten into a serious and humiliating row with Congress himself while working diligently as their secret diplomat in France.40 He had been sent as an undercover agent to Paris early in 1776 to obtain French assistance. He managed to recruit various French soldiers including Lafayette on the promise of commissions and, more importantly, obtained essential military equipment for the Continental Army.41 The equipment was purchased on credit, so Deane had ships carrying the armaments to America return with cargos to help pay for the weapons. Congress was unable to pay. He and the other American agents wrangled with each other, and he became thoroughly exasperated with the machinations of Congress, their representatives, and the French court. Deane wrote Jonathan Williams, a merchant and patriot, a letter whose sentiments echoed Arnold’s: “It is too much for men to spend the prime of their lives in vexation and anxiety for nothing but to be found fault with and blamed.”42 While the French praised Deane, William Lee, who had also been in Paris, accused Deane of double-dealing. Shortly afterward, Congress recalled him. Lee also accused Franklin and others, and while Lee was much scorned in European courts as a devious individual, Congress treated him as a credible witness. The delegates embarked on a lengthy and contentious inquiry into Deane’s financial arrangements, creating splits between Adams-Lee and friends of Franklin, Morris, and Deane. The miserable episode caused Lafayette to complain, “There are open dissensions in Congress, parties who hate one another as much as the common enemy.”43 Deane had not brought his financial papers with him from France, and had to rely on his reputation. A tie vote in Congress about detaining Deane permitted him to return to Europe in 1780 as a private, and thoroughly embittered, citizen. John Adams had been lobbying for Deane’s diplomatic post and was his replacement. Not surprisingly Deane lost confidence in the Revolution.
The day after Arnold wrote Deane of his plans for a naval expedition the Admiralty Board wrote Washington that they had abandoned Arnold’s plan. Washington informed Arnold that, in any event, he could not easily spare the men for Arnold’s expedition and hoped he would return to the field.44 If Arnold needed to take a leave of absence first and go to sea for his health, permission would be needed from Congress, although Washington would not object. Then on April 6 Washington sent his required censure to Arnold.
One of the so-called services the British suggested to Arnold was to help them conquer a major port, and asked if he could get the command of Charleston, South Carolina. They had attempted to conquer Charleston in 1776 but the palmetto-log walls of Fort Sullivan absorbed their cannon balls like a sponge while the Americans fired back at the British warships with impressive accuracy. In short, the attempt was a fiasco. In late March 1780 an angry and desperate Arnold sent Clinton key details about Charleston. General Clinton then led a more powerful siege of the city. Congress had suggested to Charleston’s leaders that in the emergency they arm their slaves. They flatly refused. General Lincoln and his army planned to abandon the city before it became encircled but the State leaders insisted they remain. In due course the British cut off their line of retreat. With no relief in sight, on May 12 Lincoln and his army of five thousand Continentals and militia surrendered. It was a great British triumph and a serious blow for the Americans but Arnold received no particular benefit. Perhaps General Clinton thought the satisfaction of having been helpful would be all he needed.
There was more bad news as Arnold’s other options continued to collapse. On April 27 the Board of Treasury reported that Arnold owed Congress one thousand pounds. He protested to Congress, asked how he might appeal, and when they might hear his appeal. They replied he must “state in writing any objections he may have to the report of the Board of treasury on his accounts.”45 All alternatives to betrayal now seemed exhausted, except for simply retiring from the service in debt and disgrace.
If he were to do the great service he promised the British, Arnold now decided that the ideal command for him, given his infirmities and need to have a strategic location to surrender, was West Point, with its commanding location on the Hudson River. Washington considered it the “Key to the Continent.”46 West Point was the main fortification on the Hudson at its northern point. It stood on a plain that towered over the Hudson at an unusually narrow stretch of the river where the Hudson made two right-angle bends, first west and then north. Ships had to slow down to negotiate the turns, making them especially vulnerable. Congress recognized the strategic importance of this spot, and after years of dithering, sent a young Polish engineer, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, to take charge of strengthening the fortifications there. Kosciuszko spent more than two years completing the task. By the spring of 1778 the Americans had managed to stretch a seventeen-hundred-foot-long iron chain across the river there. The chain itself was impressive. Each of its 1,200 links weighed between 90 and 120 pounds. It was attached to a series of logs that kept it at the right depth to cripple enemy ships attempting passage. Ironically Fort Arnold, named for Arnold, had been built at the end of the West Point plain. West Point’s defenses were the latest in military technology. Three concentric circles with batteries of cannon protected the fort at West Point from a land attack. A separate fortification, Fort Putnam, protected Fort Arnold, and was protected itself by a redoubt overlooking it. To the south, West Point was protected by another series of forts protected by another series of redoubts. More redoubts were constructed across the river. The Hudson was regarded by the British as the crucial link between the New England and mid-Atlantic states, and formed the all-important water route to Canada. It was, as the Indians dubbed it, “the Great Warpath.” Arnold himself had fought on that warpath time after time.
Arnold now began a campaign to get command of West Point. He met with his old patron, Philip Schuyler, a delegate to Congress from New York, to lay out the reasons why he was the ideal person to command the fortress. He also wrote to all the other delegates in Congress from New York with the same arguments. When he hadn’t heard from Schuyler for some time, and afraid some other officer might get the post, on May 25 he sent another letter. He explained that he had only requested a leave of absence for the summer due to his health, thinking it would be a “very inactive campaign and that my services would be of little consequence.”47 The situation turned out quite differently, however, and although still in pain he wished “to render my country every service in my power” and asked Schuyler to speak to Washington on his behalf. Schuyler did meet with Washington recommending Arnold for the command at West Point. An earlier meeting between Washington and Schuyler had been inconclusive, but this time reading Arnold’s second letter to Schuyler, Washington seemed prepared to approve Arnold for the post. Schuyler wrote Arnold that Washington spoke of your “abilities,” “your sufferings,” “the well-earned claims you have on your country.” Washington had not yet made all the decisions for the coming campaign but it seemed to Schuyler that Arnold would be given an important command or station in the field.48
Arnold’s correspondence sending important military information to the British was proving exasperating. Although they benefited there was great risk for him but no benefit. The British were refusing to be specific about what they were prepared to do for him and to date had done nothing, despite the information he had sent them. He wrote on July 7 explaining Washington’s plan to wait for the French fleet to arrive at Newport, Rhode Island, before beginning his campaign and providing many particulars about American plans and strength. Having received no answer he wrote again on July 11 asking for a personal conference, clearly annoyed. “A mutual confidence between us is wanting, the persons we have employed have deceived us, or we have been unfortunate in our negotiation, in which on both sides we are deeply interested. If the first, then it is here that our correspondence ought to end. If the latter, a stricter attention and proper regard to the interests of both parties may remedy the misfortune.”49 Since the British had obstinately refused to be specific about payment, Arnold was specific, although cloaking the demands as business dealings, not so far from the truth. “My stock in trade is 10,000 pounds sterling, with near an equal sum of outstanding debts, an equal sum I expect will be put into stock and the profits arising be equally divided.” He noted that he had “advanced several sums already, and risked still greater without any profit. It is now become necessary for me to know the risk I run in case of a loss.” He asked that the bearer be given one thousand guineas, “on receipt of which I will transmit to you their full value.” He supplied a great deal of information about West Point’s vulnerabilities and suggested if Clinton set his troops on shore some three miles south of the fort he would find “a good road to bring up heavy cannon.”50 The plans of West Point, however, were to be paid for. No more vague promises.
Sure he would get the command of the fort, he wrote André again the very next day complaining he had received no answer to his previous letter or any verbal communication.51 He again asked for an appointment. He added that the “mass of the people are heartily tired of the war and wish to be on their former footing.” They expect great progress from the current campaign and if the British persevere, “the contest will soon be at an end. . . . The present struggles are like the pangs of a dying man, violent but of a short duration.” He repeated his request for the sums he mentioned in his earlier letter. On July 13 André finally replied.52 He asked for more information about West Point fortifications and that Arnold suggest a plan for taking it that will ward off any suspicion from himself. As for a meeting, perhaps Arnold might visit Elizabethtown or another place near British lines under a flag of truce. The letter never addressed Arnold’s request about payment. Clearly the British were playing Arnold for all the information they could get from the high-powered spy but were not willing to provide any reward or even a specific response to his request. His patience was at an end.
On July 15 Arnold had had enough of this game and wrote André that the matter be settled “previous to cooperating.”53 Since he might lose all his American property he asks that Clinton secure his property to him, “valued at ten thousand pounds sterling, to be paid to me or my heirs in case of loss, and as soon as that shall happen. A hundred pounds per annum to be secured to me for life, in lieu of the pay and emoluments I give up, for my services as they shall deserve.” He added that if he pointed out how Clinton could “possess himself of West Point, the garrison, stores, etc. twenty thousand pounds sterling I think will be a cheap purchase for an object of so much importance.” Arnold insisted that at present one thousand pounds be paid to his “agent,” adding, “I expect a full and explicit answer.” He planned to leave for the army on July 20. He then wrote Congress reminding them they owed him four years’ pay and asking for four months advance to purchase horses and equipment to enable him to take the field, which they did.54
The British finally agreed to Arnold’s terms. In return for the plans of West Point and assistance in taking it and the surrender of the garrison, he was promised twenty thousand pounds sterling and a general’s commission in the British army. André was clear though: Arnold “must not suppose that in case of detection or failure that your efforts being known you would be left a victim, but services done are the terms on which we promise rewards.”55 If Arnold’s plans failed he would be rescued, but without the requested funds or military commission. André would meet him personally somewhere near West Point. Arnold set off for the Hudson Highlands.
But the best laid plans were about to go awry. Washington and Arnold met near Stony Point where the commander, busy supervising his army as it crossed the river, informed Arnold with pleasure that he was “to command the left wing, the post of honor.” Arnold’s shocked reaction was not what Washington expected. Later at headquarters Arnold pleaded with the commander’s chief of staff that his leg was not fit enough for him to take the field, all the time pacing up and down on the injured limb. Washington agreed to think further about the assignment but his orders on August 1 confirmed his decision to have Arnold in the field. Peggy, in Philadelphia dining with Robert Morris when she was told of her husband’s new assignment, was greatly upset. Did that mean she knew of his plot to surrender West Point? Probably not. A field command was far more strenuous and dangerous than garrison duty and her husband was still not physically sound.56
Washington was changing his mind about attacking Manhattan. Clinton was changing his campaign plans as well. Washington had hoped to lure him out of the city but instead he was returning his troops to New York, having failed to trap the French fleet at Newport. Since Washington was unwilling to attack in that case, he brought his army back across the Hudson, writing Arnold on August 3, “you are to proceed to West Point and take the command of that post and its dependencies.”57 Relieved, Arnold set out riding north to take charge of the “Key to the Continent.”