Benedict Arnold: the hero who became a traitor

Arnold's fighting record runs from the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 through the failed assault on Quebec, the naval action at Valcour Island and the Ridgefield fight in Connecticut to the two Battles of Saratoga in 1777, where he was wounded in the attack that decided the campaign. After changing sides he led British raids on Virginia and on New London, Connecticut.²

What was Benedict Arnold famous for?

Benedict Arnold is famous for two things: his courage as one of the best American field commanders of the early Revolution, above all at Saratoga in 1777, and his treason in 1780, when he plotted to surrender West Point to the British. In the United States his name became a synonym for traitor.³

Merchant and militia captain

Arnold was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on 14 January 1741, the great-grandson of a Rhode Island governor of the same name. He trained as an apothecary, moved to New Haven after his parents died, and became a merchant whose ships traded with the West Indies and Canada. In 1767 he married Margaret Mansfield, who bore him three sons; she died in June 1775.⁴

By 1774 he was a captain in the New Haven militia. When news of Lexington and Concord arrived in 1775, he marched his company to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and won authority to lead an expedition against Fort Ticonderoga. On the way he met Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, and the two shared command when the fort was taken in May 1775.⁵

What battles did Benedict Arnold fight in?

Arnold shared in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga in 1775, was wounded in the failed attack on Quebec on 31 December 1775, commanded the American fleet at Valcour Island in October 1776, fought the Danbury raiders at Ridgefield in April 1777 and led the decisive attack at Bemis Heights, the second Battle of Saratoga, on 7 October 1777.⁶

In September 1775 he led an expedition up the Kennebec River and across the Maine wilderness toward Quebec, losing men to hunger and sickness on the way. On 31 December he and General Richard Montgomery attacked the city in a blizzard. Montgomery was killed and Arnold was shot in the leg. He kept the city under siege through the winter, and Congress promoted him to brigadier general for his service in Canada.⁷

In the summer of 1776 he built a small fleet on Lake Champlain. In October it met a stronger British flotilla off Valcour Island. Most of the American boats were captured or destroyed in the battle and the retreat that followed, but the British did not push on to Ticonderoga that year.⁸

Early in 1777 Congress promoted five brigadier generals junior to Arnold to major general and left him out. That spring he rallied militia against a British raid on Danbury, Connecticut, fighting at Ridgefield, and was promoted to major general, though he still ranked below the five.⁹

What did Benedict Arnold do at Saratoga?

At Saratoga in 1777 Arnold's division fought at Freeman's Farm on 19 September. After quarreling with General Horatio Gates he was stripped of his command, yet on 7 October he rode onto the field anyway and led the assault that took the Breymann Redoubt. His left leg was shattered, and Burgoyne surrendered ten days later.¹⁰

Gates left Arnold out of his report to Congress on Freeman's Farm, and after a heated argument removed him from command. On 7 October Arnold joined the attack without orders; he was hit in the leg already wounded at Quebec as his horse went down. This time Gates's report praised him, and Congress restored his seniority. He spent months recovering and walked with a limp for the rest of his life.¹¹

Why did Benedict Arnold betray America?

Arnold resented being passed over for promotion and credit, faced misconduct charges as military commander of Philadelphia, fell deep into debt and married into a family with Loyalist ties. The Library of Congress also names greed and his opposition to the French alliance of 1778. The National Park Service notes that his reasons are still a matter of speculation.¹²

Unable to ride, he took command of Philadelphia on 19 June 1778, after the British left the city. On 8 April 1779 he married Peggy Shippen, from a wealthy Philadelphia family suspected of Loyalist sympathies. In February 1779 Joseph Reed, president of Pennsylvania's Executive Council, brought misconduct charges against him. Congress cleared him of most and passed the rest to a court-martial, which recommended that Washington reprimand him, and Washington did.¹³

In May 1779, a month after the wedding, Arnold sent his first offer of service to the British commander in New York, General Sir Henry Clinton. His later letters to Major John André, Clinton's adjutant general and intelligence chief, used code and invisible ink. According to the American Battlefield Trust, the British did not make the first approach.¹⁴

Why is Benedict Arnold considered a traitor?

Arnold is considered a traitor because, while commanding the fortress of West Point on the Hudson River in 1780, he secretly agreed to surrender it to the British in return for money and a British commission. The plot collapsed when his contact, Major John André, was captured carrying papers on West Point.¹⁵

Washington gave Arnold the West Point command in early August 1780. After midnight on 22 September Arnold met André near Haverstraw. Forced to return to New York by land in civilian clothes, André was stopped by American militiamen near Tarrytown on 23 September, and the West Point papers were found in his boot. Warned on 25 September, Arnold escaped down the Hudson to the British warship Vulture before George Washington reached his headquarters.¹⁶

A board of American officers found André guilty of spying, and he was hanged at Tappan, New York, on 2 October 1780.¹⁷

How much was Benedict Arnold paid?

The agreed price was £20,000 if West Point fell, according to the Library of Congress and the American Battlefield Trust. Because the plot failed, he received less: the Encyclopedia of the American Revolution records £6,315 in compensation for lost property. He also became a British brigadier general with a pension.¹⁸

Historian Stephen Brumwell, as summarized by Frank McLynn, describes the terms Clinton accepted after long haggling: £20,000 for success and a guaranteed floor of £6,000 if the plot miscarried. The British also gave Arnold command of a corps of Loyalists and deserters.¹⁹

What happened to Benedict Arnold after his treason?

Arnold served the British as a brigadier general for the rest of the war. He led a raid into Virginia from December 1780 to July 1781 and, in September 1781, a raid on New London, Connecticut. After the British surrender at Yorktown he moved to England, where his ventures as a merchant had mixed success.²⁰

In Virginia his force captured Richmond. On 6 September 1781 his troops attacked New London and, across the Thames River, Fort Griswold on Groton Heights, held by militia under Colonel William Ledyard: about 150 men by one Connecticut account, 165 by the state parks agency. Ledyard was killed, and American accounts say British troops killed men who were trying to surrender.²¹

How did Benedict Arnold die?

Benedict Arnold died in London on 14 June 1801, at the age of 60. He had lived in Britain since the end of the war, trying his hand as a merchant with mixed success. Many British officers shunned or distrusted him, and in the United States his name had already become a synonym for traitor.²²

How is Benedict Arnold remembered today?

Chiefly as America's most notorious traitor, yet Saratoga honors his part in the victory without naming him. The Boot Monument in Saratoga National Historical Park marks the spot where he was wounded and calls him the most brilliant soldier of the Continental Army, while the Saratoga Monument leaves one of its four niches empty for him.²³

On the 155-foot granite obelisk of the Saratoga Monument, statues of Gates, Philip Schuyler and Daniel Morgan face north, east and west. The southern niche is empty, for Arnold, whose heroism in 1777 was overshadowed by his later treason. For the wider war, see our guide to the greatest battles of the American Revolution.²⁴