“They will not give me a chance to die a soldier’s death.”
—Benedict Arnold, when his offer to serve the British
in war against France was rejected.
And what of Benedict Arnold, hero of the American Revolution, now in the British camp? Five days after André’s execution Arnold wrote a letter “To the inhabitants of America” in an attempt to explain his behavior and plead for reconciliation with the Mother Country.1 He refers to loyalists and other Americans suffering under “that class of men who are criminally prolonging the war from sinister views, at the expense of the public interest.” He reminded his fellow countrymen how he had fought for the defense of his country and to remedy her grievances, reluctantly agreeing to independence. But now that the country’s “worst enemies are in her own bosom,” he adds, “I should change my principles, if I conspired with their designs.” The people of America, he pointed out, should have been asked whether to accept the latest British proposals “to negotiate under a suspension of arms, for an adjustment of differences.” No authority had been given by the American people to conclude the alliance with France, “the Articles of Confederation remain still unsigned.”2 He preferred the offers from Britain to those from France, “the enemy of the Protestant faith . . . fraudulently avowing an affection for the liberties of mankind, while she holds her native sons in subservience and chains. . . . I fought for much less than the parent country is as willing to grant to her colonies, as they can be to receive or enjoy.” He prays for the safety of Americans in arms but is ready to devote his life to the reunion of the British Empire to spare his country misery. “As for the critics whose hostility to me originates in their hatred to the principles, by which I am now led to devote my life . . . they may be assured that, conscious of the integrity of my intentions, I shall treat their malice and accusations with contempt and neglect.”3
Although raising interesting points Arnold’s letter failed to still the uproar over his actions or rehabilitate his reputation. On October 20 he followed the letter to his fellow Americans with a “proclamation” to “the officers and soldiers of the Continental Army who have the real interest of their Country at heart, and who are determined to be no longer the tool and dupes of Congress or of France.”4 Arnold wrote that he was authorized by General Clinton to offer them positions in the British army commensurate with those they then held. Certainly there were sufficient reasons for dismay and discontent among the army troops. The following year Washington would have to cope with two serious mutinies. But Arnold’s offer was stillborn. The mutineers wanted better treatment in the American army or threatened to go home. They did not threaten to join the British army.
Arnold’s hope for reconciliation with Britain was shared by many Americans, at least initially, including the leaders of the Revolution. Independence was not an easy or welcome choice and made slowly. Just days before the battle at Lexington and Concord Benjamin Franklin admitted that he had traveled “almost from one end of the continent to the other, and kept a variety of company, eating, drinking, and conversing with them freely, and never, the least expression of a wish for a separation, or a hint that such a thing would be advantageous to America.”5 John Jay concurred: “It has always been, and still is my opinion and belief, that our country was prompted and impelled to independence by necessity, and not by choice.” Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, admitted that even after war began the possibility of separation from Great Britain “was contemplated with affliction by all.”6 Jefferson’s coauthor John Adams confessed, “there was not a moment during the Revolution when I would not have given everything I possessed for a restoration to the state of things before the contest began, provided we could have had a sufficient security for its continuation.”7 But Britain’s efforts at appeasing the colonists came too late and Arnold’s plea fell on deaf ears. It was one thing, after all, to deplore the separation, and another to betray the cause of independence.
Arnold had lost the esteem of his countrymen but never really gained that of his new allies. Most British leaders and many of their troops never fully trusted or respected Arnold. His arrival in New York on September 25 was linked to general mourning at John André’s fate and the failure of his plot. For the professional soldiers, Arnold’s betrayal of his own cause made any benefit they received from his renowned military skill too dearly bought. Johann Döhla, a Hessian soldier, noted in his diary on October 6 that at the evening tattoo General von Knyphausen informed his regiment that Major General Benedict Arnold, “who had deserted from the Americans, had been named a brigadier colonel of an English regiment,” adding, “on the other hand, the loss of the brave and good Major John André was lamented.”8 After recording the details of André’s capture, trial, and hanging he observed again that André’s death “was mourned by the entire army.” Hessian Captain Johann Ewald concurred. As the British army settled into its winter quarters on Long Island Ewald wrote, “it seemed as if all courage was gone with Major André’s death.”9
To make amends for the failure of his plot and for André’s death Arnold was anxious to prove himself useful to the British cause. Two months after arriving in New York he was given command of a force of 1,600 men serving under General Cornwallis bound for Virginia.10 Arnold’s two major missions for the British army would force him to campaign in the two states that were the greatest test of his new allegiance, George Washington’s Virginia and Arnold’s own home state of Connecticut.
Some of his new troops were more disgusted at his betrayal of the American cause than happy to have his military expertise. Captain Ewald, who served on Arnold’s Virginia campaign, wrote in his journal of his loathing of Arnold, objecting to many of Arnold’s military decisions even when they proved successful.11 His depiction of Arnold’s background reeks of class bias. He writes that Arnold having once declared himself bankrupt “in an unlawful way . . . engaged in horse trading in the West Indies,” and was “one of the most fiery and zealous of rebels,” a description correct only in that Arnold did, among other things, buy and sell horses. But that was bad enough. Horse traders were considered a disreputable lot. Ewald concedes Arnold “could be very polite and agreeable, especially at table, but if one stayed too long in his company, then the apothecary and horse trader showed through the general.”12 Arnold’s plot to betray West Point was characterized by Ewald as a “cunning trick on his countrymen” that “brought the good André to grief.”13 He conceded that Arnold’s “dishonest undertaking . . . had it succeeded, could have actually turned the war more favorably for England.” “Nevertheless,” Ewald felt it could not be justified:
for surely self gain alone had guided him, and not remorse for having taken the other side. If he really felt in his conscience that he had done wrong in siding against his mother country, he should have sheathed his sword and served no more, and then made known in writing his opinions with his reasons. This would have gained more proselytes than his shameful enterprise, which every man of honor and fine feelings—whether he be friend or foe of the common cause—must loathe.
In contrast to Ewald’s own willingness to pay with his life for England’s success, he regards Arnold as “so detestable to me that I had to use every effort not to let him perceive, or even feel, the indignation of my soul.”14 Doubtless others among Arnold’s troops, particularly the officers, were sorry to be serving him.
At noon on December 20 Arnold and his troops set sail for Virginia. His instructions were to attack enemy magazines, distribute proclamations to the inhabitants, and arm the well-affected. Colonel Simcoe, leader of the rangers, and Colonel Dundas were privately instructed to take command should Arnold be killed or incapacitated.15 Their little fleet, on leaving New York, was struck by a fierce gale that scattered their vessels but they managed to rendezvous at Cape Henry in Chesapeake Bay. From there Arnold led his men up the James River, at one point sending Ewald with a group of troops to attack, and if possible, capture American forces seen on the banks. Ewald complained in his journal that he had no time to protest the order fearing if he did Arnold “on his false principles, would hold me for insubordination or cowardice,” but adding rather smugly, “I risked nothing. If it had turned out unsuccessfully, the failure would have fallen on him, since the attack took place under his eyes.” In fact Ewald and the British soldiers succeeded in driving off the Americans. Arnold then came ashore, praised the bravery of the men, “and expressed heartfelt thanks for my good will” Ewald wrote.16
Wherever Arnold and his troops went, his past dogged him. Washington and Thomas Jefferson, then governor of Virginia, put bounties on Arnold’s head. Jefferson offered five thousand guineas for his capture.17 In early January when American militia were sighted, Arnold sent an officer with a white flag asking for their surrender.18 Ewald writes that the American officer asked whether the English officer had been sent by the traitor Arnold because he “would not and could not give up to a traitor. If he were to get hold of Arnold he would hang him up by the heels, according to the orders of Congress.” Arnold’s men plundered plantations they passed as they moved swiftly into Virginia. The government of the state was alarmed and ill-prepared. When Clinton captured Charleston in May of 1780 Virginia lost most of its Continental Line along with their commander, Brigadier General William Woodford, who was taken to New York where he died. A month earlier the Virginia government had taken the precaution of moving from Williamsburg to Richmond with their new governor, Thomas Jefferson. But Jefferson felt there was little to fear, and failed to strengthen the state’s defenses. Arnold and his men, therefore, met with little opposition.
Ewald describes their army’s actions as resembling “those of the freebooters, who sometimes at sea, sometimes ashore, ravaged and laid waste everything.”19 In a series of rapid marches they besieged Richmond. After Jefferson refused the offer to surrender to spare the tobacco warehouses, when the British captured the city they put the warehouses to the torch, the smell of burning tobacco pervading the area. The Virginia assembly fled once again, this time to Charlottesville, where Jefferson took shelter in his home at nearby Monticello. Warned that British cavalry were on the way he sent his family off but stayed behind to collect his papers. The British were already on the streets of Charlottesville when he finally fled, galloping into the woods, just barely escaping.
Despite all the handsome rewards for capturing Arnold and efforts to stop his campaign, he managed to evade them as he and his men moved into their winter camp at Portsmouth. In accordance with Arnold’s instructions a large assembly of citizens was convoked and urged to take an oath of allegiance to England. Ewald estimated that the more than four hundred persons present, all over twenty-two years old, “gladly swallowed the oath after they were earnestly assured that the King was firmly resolved to protect them continually as loyal subjects during the war with a strong corps.”20 Further, Arnold promised them that he would “constantly sacrifice his blood and his life for them.” But it was that British promise of constant protection that worried would-be loyalists. British armies tended to depart when their campaign objectives demanded, leaving supporters to fend for themselves. On this occasion, Ewald reports, the wealthiest residents were “entertained at the expense of the good King.” He added scornfully, “all our pretended loyalist friends whose hearts Arnold thought he had won, were in high spirits.” In a private conversation that evening with the “richest resident of the area,” Ewald asked him why he didn’t raise a battalion for the defense of the neighborhood.21 It was a conversation that gets to the crux of the problem for the British cause. The loyalist answered:
I must first see if it is true that your people really intend to remain with us. You have already been in this area twice. General Leslie gave me the same assurances in the past autumn, and where is he now? In Carolina! Who knows where you will be this autumn? And should the French unite with the Americans, everything would certainly be lost to you here. What would we loyally disposed subjects have then? Nothing but misfortune from the Opposition Party, if you leave us again.”22
Ewald was disgusted:
How can you be called friends of the King if you won’t venture anything for the right cause? Look at your Opposition Party: they abandon wife, child, house, and home, and let us lay waste to everything. They fight without shoes and clothing with all passion, suffer hunger, and gladly endure all the hardships of war. But you loyalists won’t do anything! You only want to be protected, to live in peace in your houses. We are supposed to break our bones for you in place of yours, to accomplish your purpose. We attempt everything, and sacrifice our own blood for your assumed cause.23
As if to prove Ewald’s point, not long afterward he was shot in the knee.
But the loyalist’s fears were justified. American armies began converging in the region and by fall the British would suffer a devastating defeat in Virginia. Before that, however, in June of 1781 Arnold returned to New York. That August Peggy gave birth to their second son who they named James Robertson after the royal governor of New York.
In early September, just days after their baby’s birth, Arnold was selected to command an expedition into Connecticut, his home state. This was the most difficult test of his commitment to the British cause and it was to be his last campaign. He was chosen because he was familiar with the area, and under the circumstances could not refuse. His mission was to attack New London and destroy the large quantities of materials stored there. The town and depot were defended by two forts, Fort Trumbull and Fort Griswold. Arnold’s men arrived in a fleet of some thirty vessels and managed to capture the lightly defended Fort Trumbull with little loss of life. But the story was very different at Fort Griswold, where the garrison refused to surrender. It was eventually overrun by Arnold’s men with a great loss of life, particularly on the patriot side, and has been reckoned one of the most tragic events of the entire war.24 Most of the prosperous town of New London, not far from Arnold’s hometown of Norwich, was burned with widespread devastation, and a massacre took place at the fort. Outraged Americans laid the tragedy for both at Arnold’s door.
While Arnold did not order or approve the chaotic killing that occurred when his men overran Fort Griswold—he was on the other side of the river when it occurred—as the commander he might, perhaps ought, to have been able to prevent it.25 In his report to Clinton afterward Arnold explained that he had been informed there were only twenty or thirty men in Fort Griswold and its residents were on board ships or busy saving their property.26 Afraid the enemy ships would escape if Fort Griswold were not captured promptly, Arnold ordered his troops to make an immediate attack. They would assault the well-situated fort on three sides. Looking from a vantage point down on the fort after dispatching his orders however, Arnold discovered that the fort was far better defended than he was led to believe and the men who escaped from Fort Trumbull were reinforcing Fort Griswold. He immediately sent instructions to countermand his order to attack, but it was too late.
Before they attacked, as custom demanded the British had sent a flag to offer the garrison the chance to surrender, threatening, Rufus Avery remembered, that “if they had to take the fort by storm they should put martial law in force, that is whom they did not kill with balls should be put to death with sword and bayonet.”27 They sent the demand twice. The garrison commander, Colonel William Ledyard, twice rejected the offer to surrender to spare the garrison, responding: “We shall not surrender let the consequences be what they may.” The assault began. The fighting was fierce as British troops and loyalists assaulted under heavy fire. On their fourth attempt they charged with fixed bayonets and were met by the defenders wielding long spears. There were great losses on both sides. The British suffered eighty-five men killed, including two of the officers leading the assault and sixty men wounded, most mortally. Arnold reckoned the American loss “very considerable.”28 Some eighty-eight Americans were found dead and another seventy were taken prisoner. After conquering the fort Arnold’s men burned the American ships in the harbor at New London along with the warehouses and wharfs. Unfortunately, as Arnold explained in his report to General Clinton afterward, one of the ships contained a large quantity of powder “unknown to us.” It exploded. A change of wind set New London ablaze “notwithstanding every effort to prevent it,” and parts of the city were “unfortunately destroyed.” He failed to mention however, that other buildings and private homes were methodically set ablaze while he narrowly missed being shot when fired at by a furious woman. Clinton would not have objected to the burning of the homes of rebels. That had been a British practice beginning with the battle at Lexington and Concord. But Clinton was convinced that Arnold “took every precaution in his power to prevent the destruction of the Town, which is a misfortune which gives him much concern.” Arnold commended the valor of his men to Clinton.
Details of the attack, albeit third hand, in the memoirs of General Heath, the American officer commanding part of the Continental Army in New York State, are more damning. Heath refers to a letter of General Jonathan Trumbull charging the British soldiers with behaving “in a wanton and barbarous manner.”29 According to Trumbull, when the American commanding officer, Colonel Ledyard, ordered a ceasefire and surrendered by carefully handing his sword, reversed, to the commanding British officer, “the officer immediately plunged it in the Colonel’s body, on which several soldiers bayoneted him.” At that point an American officer standing near Colonel Ledyard “instantly stabbed the British officer who had stabbed the Colonel, on which the British indiscriminately bayoneted a great number of Americans.” Arnold’s soldiers, he wrote, then went on a rampage, their weapons piled against walls as they ransacked the fort for booty.
A close reading of the events from American Rufus Avery’s firsthand account provides a different scenario, one more in keeping with the military chaos that surrounded the seizure of the fort. The fighting had been fierce and deadly. Hot shot had been poured down on the attackers who then repelled the British bayonet assault with spears. An author highly critical of Arnold writes that Ledyard gave the order to surrender “just as the gate was forced and hundreds of British soldiers mad with anger and pain surged inside.”30 Ledyard walked forward to hand over his sword when someone to the side of him stabbed him with a bayonet.31 At that point there was chaos. The Americans charged the British who, wild from the vicious fight to enter the fort, struck back with frenzy. A drum roll finally brought the British soldiers to order and the killing stopped.32
Reflecting on the British behavior, General Heath offers a military man’s more sympathetic rationale for the vicious actions of Arnold’s men, which is supported by a military history expert on that era and is worth quoting at length. Heath writes:
It is not meant to exculpate or to aggravate the conduct of the enemy on this occasion—but two things are to be remembered: first, that in almost all cases the slaughter does but begin when the vanquished give way, and it has been said, that if this was fully considered, troops would never turn their back, if it were possible to face the enemy, secondly, in all attacks by assault, the assailants, between the feelings of danger on the one hand, and resolution to overcome it on the other, have their minds worked up almost to a point of fury and madness, which those who are assailed, from confidence in their works, do not feel; and that consequently when a place is carried, and the assailed submit, the assailants cannot instantaneously curb their fury to reason, and in this interval, many are slain in a way which a cool bystander would call wanton and barbarous, and even the perpetrators themselves when their rage subsided, would condemn; but while the human passions remain as they now are, there is scarcely a remedy.33
Few Connecticut residents were so understanding, and Arnold’s reputation in his home state sank even lower, if that were possible. His two expeditions for the British army, however, were military successes and he managed to survive despite the sharpshooters keen to get a handsome reward for capturing or killing him. The Connecticut campaign would be Arnold’s last for the British military.
On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis and his army of some ten thousand men surrendered at Yorktown. It would be the final major battle of the war. Two months later Arnold, Peggy, and their two little sons sailed across the Atlantic into exile in England. He would never see his native land again. General Cornwallis was a fellow passenger. Hannah didn’t want to follow them into exile. She would spend her later years living with Arnold’s sons Richard and Henry, who she had done so much to raise. Arnold was still hoping in vain that there might be some reconciliation between Britain and America.
Arnold was well treated by the King and government ministers, was presented at Court and received compensation for his losses in America, and the Crown gave him large grants of land in Canada. Peggy was awarded a pension of £500 a year, and each of her children received £100 annually.34 But Arnold was never able to gain either the military commissions or business success he sought. His lovely young wife, the belle of Philadelphia, remained by his side enduring a painful separation from her home and family. She and Arnold had two more sons and a daughter. All their sons followed their father into the military.
It was a sad exile for Arnold and Peggy, misplaced Americans, relics of an unpopular and unsuccessful war. They were spurned by old friends. Even Silas Deane, Arnold’s Connecticut friend living in exile in London refused to meet him publicly, although they continued to meet privately. The Arnolds were hissed at when they attended the theater.35 Since the liberal party in Britain condemned Arnold’s behavior at West Point, he had to rely on only one party for commissions.
Yet flashes of the Arnold pride and temper survived, including one characteristic duel. Arnold learned that Lord Lauderdale had “cast some reflections” on his political character in the House of Lords.36 Lauderdale, Peggy wrote her father, “is violent in the opposition . . . the only man in the House of Lords who voted against an address of thanks to the King, upon a late proclamation.” Attacking the Duke of Richmond on the question of reform in Parliament, Lauderdale was reported to have said that “he did not know any instance of Political Apostacy equal to the Duke of Richmond’s, except General Arnold’s.” Arnold demanded an apology for this attack on his character. Lauderdale then denied having made the statement and gave what Peggy referred to as “a kind of apology.” Arnold was not satisfied and drew up one he would accept but his lordship refused to sign. Arrangements were made for a duel.
It was to take place at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning. Peggy wrote, “what I suffered for near a week is not to be described; the suppression of my feelings, lest I should unman the General, almost at last proved too much for me; and for some hours, my reason was despaired of. I was confined to my bed for some days after.” Lord Hawke, a friend of Arnold’s, was his second, Charles Fox the second for Lauderdale. The men were both to fire at the same time. Arnold fired but missed. Lauderdale refused to fire. Arnold stood calmly urging him to do so. Lauderdale admitted he had “no enmity to General Arnold” but nevertheless refused to apologize and said Arnold might fire again if he chose. This Arnold would not do, nor would he leave the field without either an apology or Lauderdale firing again. A consultation took place. Arnold insisted he would not leave without satisfaction. That being the case, Lauderdale apologized to the satisfaction of Arnold and the seconds. So all ended well. As Peggy wrote, “It has been highly gratifying to find the General’s conduct so much applauded, which it has been universally, and particularly by a number of the first characters in the Kingdom, who have called upon him in consequence of it.”
In 1787 Arnold and Peggy spent time in St. John’s, Canada, where he launched a mercantile business and sailed, as in years past, on his own ship to the West Indies. His sons Richard and Henry joined him and the business flourished for a time. During one of his trips back to England, however, the warehouse in which his goods were stored caught fire and his son Henry, who was sleeping on the premises, was badly burned. While Arnold was away on voyages Peggy spent anxious periods alone among strangers. At one point Arnold was captured in the West Indies by the French and put aboard a French prison ship.37 He managed to escape at night by climbing down the side of the ship. Using several planks as a raft he was able to reach a small boat and found his way to the English and safety.
In 1787 Peggy arranged to visit her father and family in Philadelphia one more time. While her family was delighted to see her, many of her old friends shunned her and she was saddened by their behavior. She returned to England, especially enjoying spending the summers there. The Arnolds finally moved back to Britain in 1791 and settled in London.
When war broke out between France and Britain in 1798 Arnold wrote to the Duke of York pleading to serve in the military. He laid before the government a plan to capture the Spanish possessions in the West Indies.38 He desperately wanted to serve in the West Indies, an area he knew well from his seafaring years. The government rejected the plan. Worst still for Arnold, he wasn’t wanted. After yet another rejection at the war office he told Peggy, “They will not give me a chance to seek a soldier’s death.”39
He was more melancholy after this rejection. His family remained close and loving, and he devoted much time and effort to securing the future of his sons. His will bequeathed his Canadian property to his older sons, Richard and Henry, left an annuity for Hannah, with the remainder of the estate, such as it was, going to his “beloved wife and her heirs.”40 Sadly, there were many children, many debts, and only a modest estate. Peggy would have a very difficult time managing and would live in reduced circumstances.41 But apart from Arnold’s family concerns the grave personal disappointments and insults were hard to bear for one so proud. At sixty his strong body grew weak; he was unable to sleep. Since he was deep in debt he worried constantly about the future welfare of his family in England and North America.42
Near the end he became delirious. There is a family legend that in one of his clearer intervals as he lay dying he asked for his uniform, the uniform of a Major General of the Continental Army. He was wearing that uniform when he fled from West Point to the Vulture and had carefully preserved it. “Bring me, I beg you, the epaulettes and sword-knots which Washington gave me; let me die in my old American uniform, the uniform in which I fought my battles. God forgive me for ever putting on any other.” But uniform or not, he was not to get the soldier’s death he longed for. At half past six on the morning of June 14, 1801, tormented with despair and regret, Benedict Arnold died.43