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 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
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Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088026350 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
By the same Author 
 
 THE TRUE AARON. BURR 
 
 A Biographical Sketch 
 
 i2mo, Cloth, gilt top. With Portraits. 
 Price 50 cents, net 
 
The Real 
 Benedict Arnold 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES BURR TODD 
 
 Author of "The True Aaron Burr," "The Story of the 
 City of New York," etc. 
 
 "Naught extenuate, nor set doiun aught in malice'" 
 'Tell the truth, the •whole truth, and nothing but the truth" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 A. S. BARNES AND COMPANY 
 
 1903 
 
\lh 
 
 ^ / .y 
 o 
 
 Cofyrig^pgoj 
 By a. S. BARsis & Co 
 
 Publish April, 190J 
 Repented May iqo3. 
 
 V 
 
Foreword to the Reader 
 
 " I would give a great deal for a true, unbiased, 
 concise biography of Benedict Arnold," said a 
 bright young clergyman to the writer, " one that 
 would reveal the hidden springs of his action in 
 betraying his country. Do you know, the reasons 
 given in the histories never seemed to me sufficient ; 
 and on the principle of giving the devil his due I 
 have an unpleasant impression that he has not been i 
 fairly treated." To fill the want mentioned by the ; 
 clergyman this book has been written. 
 
 Two biographies of its subject have preceded it 
 — one, by Jared Sparks, long since out of print ; a 
 second, by Isaac N. Arnold, first published in 1879, 
 ostensibly in defence of Arnold, but which, either 
 from deference to family pride, or from its author's 
 prejudice against Aaron Burr, fails to present the 
 one great palliating fact in Arnold's treason — 
 that it was the fascinations, the persuasions long 
 continued, the intrigues with the British, of a wife 
 madly loved, and which, if discovered, he knew 
 
Foreword to the Reader 
 
 would tear her from his arms, that led him to com- 
 mit his monmnental crime. In this little book I 
 have given this at length as the real source and 
 spring of his action. Admitting it, everything 
 becomes clear as noonday : denying it, no adequate 
 *| motives for his conduct can be found. 
 I In writing the work I have for the most part 
 V gone to the original sources for material, and have 
 personally visited most of the scenes described. In 
 the accounts of the march through the wilderness 
 given by those who took part in it many discrep- 
 ancies occur, and these I have endeavored to 
 harmonize as much as possible. 
 
 C. B. T. 
 
 Nbw Yokk, Oct. 30, 1902. 
 
 VI 
 
Contents 
 
 Chapter p^^^, 
 
 I. Birth and Parentage i 
 
 n. Environment g 
 
 in. In New Haven 13 
 
 IV. The March through the Wilderness . 31 
 
 V. The Assault on Quebec 69 
 
 VI. TiCONDEROGA AND THE LaKE 92 
 
 VH. The First Naval Battle on Lake Cham- 
 plain 103 
 
 Vin. Asks for a Settlement of Accounts . . 126 
 
 IX. The Battle of Saratoga 133 
 
 X. The Second Battle of Saratoga . . . 145 
 
 XI. Military Governor of Philadelphia . . 164 
 
 XII. Courtship and Marriage 170 
 
 XTTT. Arnold and the Supreme Executive Coun- 
 cil 183 
 
 XIV. The Traitor 199 
 
 XV. Universally Execrated 214 
 
 XVI. Later Life, and Death 226 
 
 APPENDIX 235 
 
Illustrations 
 
 A PoKTKAiT OF Benedict Arnold .... Frontispiece 
 
 Montresob's Map of the Sources op the 
 Chaudi^re, Penobscot, and Kennebec 
 Rivers Facing page 38 
 
 The St. John's Gate, built in 1693, re- 
 built IN 1867 " "72 
 
 The St. Louis Gate, built in 1693, razed 
 
 1871 " "74 
 
 The Palace Gate, built in 1750, rebuilt 
 
 IN 1831, razed 1871 « "84 
 
 A Map of the Engagement between 
 Valcour I. AND the Western Shore 
 OF Lake Champlain " "104 
 
 A Representation of the Figures ex- 
 hibited AND paraded through THE 
 
 Streets of Philadelphia, on Saturday, 
 
 THE 30th of September, 1780 .... " " 222 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 
 
 THE time was the year 1740, at the 
 very threshold of it : a time that 
 tried men's souls, — of French and 
 Indian wars, wilderness conquering, high en- 
 deavor by sea and land. Never was the 
 strenuous life lived more completely. Across 
 the sea George II. was King of England. 
 Jonathan Law was Governor of his remote 
 colony of Connecticut. The year was but 
 three days old when in an obscure corner of 
 this colony — Norwich, on its extreme east- 
 ern border adjoining the Quaker and Ana- 
 baptist plantation of Rhode Island — the old 
 wives bruited about that a man child was 
 born to Captain Benedict Arnold and his 
 wife Hannah. 
 
 " A lusty babe," they observed, " and hath 
 already begun to do battle for his rights." 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 This boy, following the custom of their family, 
 the parents named Benedict, — the fifth of 
 that name in direct line. 
 
 The Arnolds came of what is called in 
 New England " good stock." Their first 
 ancestor in this country was William Arnold, 
 son of Thomas Arnold of Melcolm Hersey, 
 Cheselbourne, Dorset, England, who was a 
 son of Richard Arnold, Lord of the Manor 
 of Bagbere, Middleton Parish, Dorset, who 
 came to the New World and settled in Rhode 
 Island in 1651. His son Benedict was elected 
 Governor of Rhode Island for several terms. 
 This Governor Arnold had a son, also named 
 Benedict, who was a member of the Rhode 
 Island Assembly in 1695. His son Benedict 
 moved to Norwich in 1730 and married 
 there, November 8, 1733, Hannah, the young 
 and beautiful widow of Absalom King, and 
 daughter of John Waterman and Elizabeth 
 Lathrop. He was bred a cooper, but being 
 of a bold, ambitious, and enterprising turn, 
 soon exchanged that vocation for the more 
 lucrative and commanding one of merchant 
 and sea captain. 
 
 2 
 
Birth and Parentage 
 
 The genius of the town was at that time 
 wholly commercial. Seated at the head of 
 the deep, narrow estuary of the Thames, 
 which, nine miles below, emptying into the 
 Sound, gives New London her unrivalled har- 
 bor, Norwich was admirably situated for com- 
 merce. Behind her lay a back country that 
 had staves, hoop-poles, corn, wheat, rye, but- 
 ter, cheese, ponies, and provisions of all sorts 
 to exchange for sugar, molasses, and rum, 
 which the West Indies produced in abundance, 
 and so according to the course of nature Nor- 
 wich grew into a seaport. A forest of masts 
 rose from the trim, graceful schooners moored 
 at her docks. Along the Thames were the 
 shipyards in which they were built. Portly, 
 linen-clad merchants and shrewd, calculating 
 skippers were familiar figures in her streets. 
 A procession of great freight wagons bore into 
 the interior commodities of the tropics, and 
 brought back in return products of the farms. 
 To one like Benedict Arnold the scene taught 
 its lesson : he too became a merchant, a ship- 
 owner. He went farther : he commanded his 
 own ships and made many prosperous voyages, 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 fairly earning the title of " captain," than 
 which none was more honorable in Norwich 
 in 1741. That he had the confidence of 
 his townsmen is also shown by the offices 
 he held, — selectman, collector, assessor, sur- 
 veyor of the port, etc. His wife, Hannah 
 Waterman, was a worthy helpmeet, being of 
 the purest Puritan stock, and of the straitest 
 sect of the Presbyterians. Their house stood 
 in a home lot of five and one half acres, about 
 midway between the " old town " and Chelsea 
 Society, and must have been a house of some 
 pretensions for its day, since it was sold 
 with the home-lot when the family removed 
 to New Haven, for seven hundred pounds. 
 After Arnold's treason it was noted by the 
 village gossips that a strange fatality at- 
 tended its subsequent owners. The wife of 
 Captain Hugh Ledlie, who bought it of Cap- 
 tain Arnold in 1764, became insane. Deacon 
 William Phillips of Boston, father of Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor Phillips, bought it in 1775, 
 and his family complained of strange noises 
 and supernatural appearances : next, one of 
 the well-known Malbones of Newport pur- 
 
Birth and Parentage 
 
 chased it and died within eighteen months. 
 The house was struck by lightning in Sep- 
 tember, 1800, and its doors and windows 
 shattered : however, it stood until 1853, when 
 it was demolished. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ENVIEONMENT 
 
 IN order to grasp fully the character and 
 limitations of Arnold let us glance 
 briefly at the conditions of the society 
 into which he was born. These were narrow, 
 cramping, rasping, restrictive to a degree. 
 Government was almost purely ecclesiastical: 
 the church was the state and the state was 
 the church ; the latter was also despotic in 
 social matters. To abstain from " going to 
 meeting " on Sunday was to invite social 
 ostracism. Nowhere were the classes more 
 sharply defined, or class privileges more 
 rigidly insisted upon ; and it was an aris- 
 tocracy not of birth or knighthood, but of 
 wealth, the most odious of all. The minister 
 was the great man of the village, and after 
 him the magistrate, or "squire," as he was 
 called. The pews in the church were " dig- 
 
Environment 
 
 nified," — that is, set apart by a committee 
 counting from the pulpit toward the doors, 
 — and assigned, the first in dignity to the 
 member whose tax list was the largest and 
 who had been longest on the membership 
 roll, and so on according to the tax lists, 
 until all were seated. A man must pay 
 tithes to the church, whatever his religious 
 belief, or be sold out. Jew, Papist, Quaker, 
 Anabaptist, Churchman, could live in Bed- 
 lam with more peace and quietness than 
 in one of these communities. The arro- 
 gance of the ruling class was insufferable. 
 " "We must keep down the under-brush," 
 was the slogan of the country squires when, 
 after the Revolution, the commonalty be- 
 gan to insist on being heard in the town 
 meetings. 
 
 With these conditions Arnold at a very 
 early age found himself not in sympathy. 
 He was bold, strong, ardent, proud, sensitive, 
 impulsive, restless, impatient of control, with 
 such an inborn passion for leadership that 
 he must be first or nothing : innumerable 
 were his collisions with the powers above 
 
 7 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 him: fishing, hunting, trapping, skating, 
 coasting, birdnesting, raiding apple orchards, 
 playing truant, he delighted in — as well as 
 in feats of strength and endurance. Going 
 to mill is one of the country boy's perqui- 
 sites: the ride thither through green fields 
 and cool woods, oftener than not on horse- 
 back with the grist thrown across Dobbin's 
 back ; the great pond, with its swimming 
 possibilities, its acres of lilies, its suggestions 
 of pickerel and other huge fish; the low- 
 roofed, weather-beaten mill with its dim 
 interior ; dust-covered bins and hoppers, 
 whirring wheels, and motes floating in the 
 long lanes of sunlight, — are things of peren- 
 nial enjoyment to the boy. Young Benedict, 
 when he went, usually contrived to collect 
 other boys on the way to whom he exhibited 
 himself in feats of daring or recklessness. 
 The favorite one was to cling to the paddles 
 of the great water-wheel and be carried with 
 them into the air and down beneath the 
 water as they turned. He was always a 
 leader in holiday and election-day sports. 
 To build bonfires on the evenings of these 
 
 8 
 
Environment 
 
 days has always been a jealously guarded 
 privilege of city boy and country boy alike ; 
 once Benedict and his brave troops fought 
 a pitched battle with the town constables, 
 who surprised them while stealing away with 
 a quantity of tar barrels to be sacrificed to 
 this patriotic purpose. 
 
 At another time, in one of the French and 
 Indian wars, when the whole town went mad 
 over a victory of the colonials, he with his 
 mates drew a fieldpiece upon the common, 
 tilted it until the muzzle pointed to the sky, 
 poured in a horn full of powder, and dropped 
 a blazing firebrand into its gaping mouth. 
 A sheet of flame followed, but not before 
 the reckless youngster had sprung back, so 
 that little injury followed the dare-devil 
 deed. 
 
 At the age of twelve he was sent to Can- 
 terbury Academy, twelve miles north of Nor- 
 wich, kept by a Mr. Cogswell who had high 
 reputation as a trainer of boys, and where, 
 besides the English branches, he was well 
 grounded in Latin and the higher mathemat- 
 ics. His education was further added to, it 
 
 9 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 is probable, by several trading voyages with, 
 his father, in which he gained that knowledge 
 of seamanship which he afterward used to 
 such advantage, although we have no proof 
 of the fact. 
 
 In 1755 the " Old French War " broke out, 
 and there was enough stir and tumult in the 
 village to delight the soul of a boy of Benedict's 
 parts. The train bands turned out with fan- 
 fare of fife and drum, marched and counter- 
 marched on the village green, and disappeared 
 in the forest on their way to an appointed ren- 
 dezvous j at intervals, as days and months 
 passed, a mounted express would dash into the 
 village with news of battles, or a wounded and 
 crippled soldier would return with thrilling 
 tales of foray and adventure. By 1756 vol- 
 ' unteers were called for, and the boy's martial 
 ardor was so intense that he ran away, 
 threaded the forests and byways to Hartford, 
 where the troops were to rendezvous, and en- 
 listed there. He was easily traced by his 
 mother, however, who had him released and 
 returned home before his martial ardor was 
 at all appeased, whereupon he promptly ran 
 
 10 
 
Environment 
 
 away again and enlisted. This time his wise 
 mother allowed him to have his way. He 
 accompanied the troops on their rough march 
 to Albany and the Lakes, and endured for a 
 time the perils and hardships of wilderness 
 campaigning ; but after a time a great long- 
 ing for home and mother seized him ; it grew 
 so irresistible that one night, firelock in hand ^ \ 
 and a few days' rations of parched corn in his '^^f/IUu^ 
 wallet, hedesfirted. It seems almost incredi- 
 ble that a boy of fifteen could have made his 
 way alone through the howling wilderness be- 
 set by savage and wild beast that then stretched 
 between Lake George and the frontier towns 
 of Connecticut ; but the lad achieved it, and 
 reached home in safety. 
 
 He had previously been apprenticed to the 
 firm of Lathrop Brothers, who owned the 
 largest drug-store in the town. These gen- 
 tlemen were regularly educated physicians, 
 having graduated at Yale College, while 
 Daniel, the elder, had finished his medical 
 studies in London. They were relatives of-f, 
 the lad's mother, and took the greater inter- 
 est in him. He was received into the family 
 
 11 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 of the elder and given every facility for 
 j learning the business, so that when he left 
 them at twenty-one, he was not only well 
 ; versed in drugs, but had some knowledge of 
 medicine and surgery as well. 
 
 \ 
 
 12 
 
CHAPTER ni 
 IN NEW HAVEN 
 
 ARNOLD was not one to remain long an 
 employe, and the moment he became 
 twenty-one he set about looking for a 
 place in which to begin business. His choice 
 fell upon New Haven, then one of the capitals 
 of the colony, and a thriving trading village 
 of some five thousand inhabitants, already 
 dominated by its great university, which had 
 been founded sixty-one years before. But be- 
 fore opening his shop he made several trading 
 voyages to the West Indies as supercargo, and 
 one to London, where he laid in a stock of 
 drugs, books, stationery, etc., for his proposed 
 venture. The death of his father about this 
 time — 1 761^ r- gave him ample capital, and 
 in 1762 we find on the main street of the 
 little city a well-equipped drug-store and book- 
 shop combined, bearing the modest sign, " B. 
 Arnold, Druggist, Bookseller," etc., with the 
 
 13 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 apt motto, "Sibi Totique" (For himself and 
 for all). 
 
 Arnold rapidly acquired prominence, and for 
 the thirteen years that he lived in New Haven 
 was one of its leading citizens. His business 
 was successful from the first, and his super- 
 abundant energy led him into other forms 
 of trade. He became a ship-owner and mer- 
 chant, and did an extensive trade with the 
 West Indies. At times he commanded his 
 own ships, as his father had done before him. 
 He also had a large trade with Canada, now 
 become a British colony, and often visited 
 Quebec to purchase horses and cattle, which 
 he shipped from there to the West Indies, and 
 acquired a knowledge of the country which 
 later did him good service. He was elected a 
 member of the local lodge of Free-Masons and 
 soon attained prominence in it. He was also 
 chosen Captain of the Governor's Foot Guards, 
 composed of the finest young men of the city, 
 and which had an esprit du corps similar to 
 that of the Seventh Regiment of New York 
 or the Twenty-third of Brooklyn in our day. 
 
 Young, handsome, prosperous, a rising man, 
 14 
 
In New Haven 
 
 he was a general favorite in the society of the 
 village, and entered with his accustomed zest 
 into all its frolics and merry-makings. With 
 the ladies he was always a decided favorite. 
 Miss Margaret Mansfield, daughter of Samuel 
 Mansfield, the high sheriff of the county, was 
 a reigning belle in New Haven at that time ; 
 and when the two young people met, a mutual 
 attraction was noted by the observing dowa- 
 gers. The courtship progressed swiftly and 
 smoothly; and on the^2d of February, 1767, 
 they were married and went to housekeeping 
 in " a handsome frame dwelling embosomed 
 in shrubbery " near the shipyard. This mar- 
 riage was a very happy one, rudely sundered 
 by the early death of the wife. Three chil- 
 dren were born to them, — Benedict, born 
 February 14, 1768 ; Richard, born August 22, 
 1769 ; and Henry, born September 19, 1772. 
 
 From the beginning of our difficulties with 
 the mother country, Arnold ardently espoused 
 the cause of the Colonies. When the " Bos- 
 ton Massacre " occurred in March, 1770, he 
 was in the West Indies and wrote from there : 
 " Good God, are the Americans all asleep and^ 
 
 15 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 tamely yielding up their liberties, or are they 
 all turned philosophers, that they do not take 
 immediate vengeance on such miscreants?" 
 When the initial battle of Lexington — April 
 19, 1775 — aroused the country, Arnold was 
 living in his comfortable home in New Haven, 
 a merchant of standing and assured prospects. 
 "I was," he said when later cited before a 
 court-martial at Morristown to defend his 
 honor, "in easy circumstances, and enjoyed 
 a fair prospect of improving them. I was 
 happy in domestic connections and blessed 
 with a rising family which claimed my care 
 and attention." " He was possessor of an 
 elegant house, storehouses, wharves, and ves- 
 sels at New Haven," testified a neighbor, but 
 all these he cheerfully resigned at the call 
 of his imperilled country. He was one of the 
 first in the field. 
 
 The news of Lexington borne by pony ex- 
 presses on relays of horses from Watertown 
 reached New Haven at midday on the 20th of 
 April. In half an hour Arnold had assembled 
 his company on the public square and in a 
 fiery speech assured them he was ready then 
 
 16 
 
In New Haven 
 
 and there to lead them to Boston, and called 
 for volunteers. A majority at once stepped 
 out of the ranks ; joined by some patriotic 
 students, they made a body of sixty men. 
 Their preparations were made that afternoon, 
 and next morning early they were ready to 
 march. 
 
 The selectmen of New Haven, in conjunc- 
 tion with the Town Committee of Safety, had 
 with wise forethought collected a quantity of 
 powder, lead, and flints. Col. David Wooster, 
 who later became general and fell at Eidge- 
 field mortally wounded by a British bullet, 
 was their leader and spokesman. Arnold sent 
 a polite request for enough to supply his 
 men. 
 
 " This is colony property," replied Wooster ; 
 " we cannot give it up without regular orders 
 from those in authority." 
 
 "Regular orders be d^^^^^^d," cried Arnold, 
 " and our friends and neighbors being mowed - 
 down by red coats ! Give us the powder or 
 we will take it." 
 
 The keys were given up under protest, and 
 the men helped themselves. The incident 
 2 17 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 affords a key to Arnold's character. It ex- 
 plains in some measure the disappointments 
 and disasters of his later career. H.e_had„.A^ 
 jatal facility for ma kiii.aLiiinf.mifis. He never 
 stopped to consider whose head he was about 
 to hit, nor the possible consequences of it. 
 In this case Wooster never forgave him the 
 affront. A proud, cold, stern, determined 
 man, a shining example of the " standing 
 order," he resented Arnold's impulsive act as 
 if it were a personal insult, as did his fellows, 
 all men of power and influence in the colony ; 
 so at the threshold of Arnold's career he 
 aroused that unfriendliness at home which 
 had a most disastrous influence on his subse- 
 quent fortunes, and which, reinforced by an 
 even more potent influence, drove him at last 
 into the ranks of his natural and once most 
 fervently hated enemies. No premonition of 
 this came to him, though, as at the head of 
 his troops he cantered gayly over the hills 
 of Connecticut, now mantling with the vivid 
 green of early spring. All were splendidly 
 mounted and richly uniformed, and attracted 
 no little attention as they galloped bravely 
 
 18 
 
In New Haven 
 
 along, heralding their approach with the mel- 
 low notes of the bugle. As a recruiting band, 
 no troop ever met with greater success ; tid- 
 ings of Lexington had been borne on viewless 
 wings to the remotest hamlets, and every- 
 where sturdy yeomen, seizing flint-lock mus- 
 ket or long goose-gun, fell in, — on horseback 
 if they owned a beast, if not, on foot. 
 
 The company was not made up of dare- ^ 
 devils, as one might imagine, as is attested by 
 a pledge they signed before setting out. In 
 it they agreed to conduct themselves inno- 
 cently and inoffensively, to obey all the rules 
 and regulations, to discountenance drunken- 
 ness, gaming, and every vice, and if any man 
 after being admonished by his ofl&cers should 
 prove incorrigible he should be expelled " as / 
 totally unworthy of serving in so great and J 
 glorious a cause." 
 
 As he rode, Arnold's thoughts were busy 
 with a great plan of campaign, — one of many 
 which his remarkable military genius origi- 
 nated, only to see the credit for them ac- 
 corded to others, and largely because from a 
 native defect of character he never could 
 
 19 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 keep a project to himself long enough to 
 execute it, but must impart it to others. On 
 this occasion he met presently, astride his 
 good gray mare, saddle-bags bulging with 
 official documents, the worshipful Samuel H. 
 Parsons, Esq., later Brigadier-General in the 
 Continental army, riding up to Hartford to 
 attend the General Assembly of Connecticut 
 then in session, and of which he was an im- 
 portant member. To him Arnold must needs 
 unbosom himself of his plan. 
 
 The only highway between New York and 
 New England and Canada at that time was 
 by way of Lake Champlain and its outlet, 
 the Sorel River, which empties into the St. 
 Lawrence a short distance east of Montreal. 
 
 As a matter of course, the French during 
 their occupancy of Canada fortified this 
 natural highway. They built a strong fort 
 at the head of Lake George, a tributary of 
 Champlain, and much used by those going to 
 Albany. At Ticonderoga, a peninsula, where 
 Lake Champlain narrows to eighty poles, and 
 where Lake George, approaching to within 
 two and a half miles, sends its outlet into it, 
 
 20 
 
In New Haven 
 
 they built another strong fortress. Ticon- 
 deroga was thirty miles north of Skenes- 
 borongh (now Whitehall), which lay at the 
 head, or extreme southern end of the lake. 
 Fifteen miles north of Ticonderoga was Crown 
 Point, another strong fortification, command- 
 ing the lake, which here narrowed from five 
 hundred rods to one hundred and sixteen. 
 A fourth was St. John's, still farther down 
 the lake. All of these had been captured by 
 the English and provincials under Amherst 
 in 1756. >Arnold in his frequent trips to 
 Canada had often visited them, and knew 
 they were held only by a corporal's guard, — 
 drunken swashbucklers at that, — and told 
 Parsons that a hundred determined men mak- 
 ing a forced march thither before news of the 
 war should reach them could capture the 
 whole chain of forts. 
 
 Parsons rode on, and the troop, resuming its 
 march, swept into its ranks at Brooklyn that 
 grizzled Indian fighter, now turned farmer, 
 Israel Putnam, whom they found plough- 
 ing in his fields. By the time it reached 
 Cambridge, the company had swelled to a 
 
 21 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 little army for fighting qualities excelled by 
 few. 
 
 On arriving at Washington's camp, Arnold 
 lost no time in seeking the Massachusetts 
 Committee of Safety and imparting his plan 
 to them. Dr. Joseph Warren, the martyr 
 of Bunker Hill, was a member of the com- 
 mittee, and warmly advocated the idea; it 
 was adopted with enthusiasm. Arnold was 
 commissioned to command with the rank of 
 colonel and authorized to enroll four hun- 
 dred volunteers, picked men, for the assault. 
 Supplied with money by the Provincial Con- 
 gress of Massachusetts wherewith to purchase 
 horses, powder, lead, flint, and provisions, he 
 set off on horseback for Stockbridge, then 
 the frontier town of Massachusetts, intend- 
 ing to collect his little army in that section, 
 whence a forced march of four or five days 
 would bring him to the forts. Three days' 
 hard riding along the wilderness paths brought 
 him to the pretty little village nestled under 
 its protecting mountains, but on beating up 
 for recruits he found to his surprise that he 
 had been forestalled, — Parsons had not been 
 
 22 
 
In New Haven 
 
 idle in Hartford. A small party had ridden 
 up from Connecticut and met a similar party 
 of Berkshire men under Colonel Easton, and 
 these in turn had joined a larger party of 
 Green Mountain Boys under the famous 
 partisan ranger, Ethan Allen. Burning with 
 patriotism and love of glory, the detachment 
 had pushed forward and was now two or 
 three days in advance. Leaving some officers 
 to raise troops, Arnold spurred on, and over- 
 taking Allen on the 9th of May claimed com- 
 mand. He was, he said, the only officer who 
 had been commissioned by any recognized 
 State authority to capture those posts. He 
 exhibited his commission and instructions, 
 and claimed command by virtue of them. 
 
 Allen might perhaps have yielded, but the 
 hardy Green Mountain Boys would have none 
 of it. " They would fight under their own 
 leader," they said, "or not at all." Arnold 
 was forced to submit ; it was a bitter disap- 
 pointment, but he bore it with a self-restraint 
 and in a spirit of patriotism creditable alike 
 to his head and heart. 
 
 " If he could not fight as leader," he said, 
 23 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 "he would as a private," and he joined the 
 ranks as a volunteer. How on the next day 
 — the 10th of May, 1775 — they came out 
 on the shores of Lake Champlain, seized 
 what few boats could be found, — enough to 
 carry eighty-five men in all, — crossed the 
 lake, and in the gray of the morning entered 
 Ticonderoga by an unguarded sally port, 
 Allen and Arnold side by side, is familiar to 
 every school-boy. Crown Point soon fell to 
 the victorious force. 
 
 Arnold now renewed his demand that he 
 be put in command of the captured fort so 
 as to obey his instructions to send its stores 
 and munitions to Cambridge, where they were 
 greatly needed. Warren also wrote to the 
 Connecticut authorities asking that this might 
 be done, and deprecating any conflict of au- 
 thority, but the Connecticut Committee, which 
 had followed the troops, by written order 
 appointed Allen commander " until further 
 orders from that State or from the Conti- 
 nental Congress." 
 
 Four days after the capture Arnold received 
 a company of fifty men of the levies he had 
 
 24 
 
In New Haven 
 
 ordered raised in Berkshire County, who on 
 the way captured at Skenesborough a schooner 
 from a certain Major Skene, " a dangerous 
 British agent," and brought it with them. 
 
 Supplied now with a fleet and army, 
 Arnold showed his mettle. Arming the men 
 and schooner, he embarked and coasted the 
 lake shore northward to St. John's, which 
 was abundantly supplied with stores and 
 munitions, captured it with a "king's sloop 
 and crew," and returned in triumph to Ticon- 
 deroga, meeting on the return the belated 
 Allen with a force bound on the same errand. 
 These captures seized time by the forelock, 
 for scarcely had St. John's been reduced ere 
 there appeared before it a body of four hun- 
 dred British and Canadians sent to regain 
 control of the lakes. Arnold at once made 
 preparations to resist them. He armed the 
 schooner, the king's sloop, and a number of 
 batteaux he had collected; and his force 
 having been increased to one hundred and 
 fifty men, he held himself able to resist 
 any army the enemy could bring against 
 
 him. 
 
 25 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 At this juncture there arrived at the fort a 
 committee of three members of the Provincial 
 Congress of Massachusetts, delegated by that 
 body to go to Ticonderoga, and inquire into 
 the "spirit, capacity, and conduct of Colonel 
 Arnold, and if they found what had been 
 charged against him to be true, order his 
 immediate return to Massachusetts to give 
 account of the money, military stores, etc., he 
 had received, and which it was alleged he had 
 converted to his own use ; " but even if these 
 charges were found not true, he was ordered 
 to turn over the command to Colonel Hinman, 
 a Connecticut ofl&cer whom that colony was 
 sending forward to take command, — in other 
 words, he was superseded. 
 
 Arnold was thunderstruck. He could 
 scarcely believe the evidence of his senses ; 
 for only a few weeks previously, on the 
 1st of June, this same Provincial Congress 
 had written him expressing its great satis- 
 faction at the "acquisitions" he had made 
 at Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and St. John's, 
 assuring him that they placed the greatest 
 confidence in his " Fidelity, Knowledge, Cour-i 
 
 26 
 
In New Haven 
 
 age, and Good Conduct," and requesting him 
 to continue in command until the colonies of t 
 Connecticut or New York should take on them 
 the garrisoning and maintaining the forts sub- 
 ject to the orders of the Continental Congress. 
 He saw that while he had been fighting in the 
 field his enemies had gained the ear of au- 
 thority at home and"SIIeSnt~with open and 
 repeated calumnies. As before remarked, 
 Arnold's evil fate was a rare facility for 
 making enemies. He was a genius, with all 
 the limitations of genius. He lacked tact 
 and at times common-sense ; he despised the 
 small arts of the courtier, so necessary to him 
 who would succeed in public life. To those 
 with whom he differed he was often haughty, 
 arrogant, and dictatorial. His demanding the ,, 
 keys of General Wooster and the selectmen of 
 New Haven had created a powerful cabal in 
 that city inimical to him. His expedition to 
 the Lakes had embroiled him with the leading 
 men of at least two colonies, while his success 
 had inflamed the usual number of envious 
 Cascas, unable to command hearts' ease whilst 
 they beheld another "greater than them- 
 
 27 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 selves," and intent on reducing him to their 
 level. 
 
 He now expressed his indignation to the 
 Committee without reserve, telling them he 
 had been treated with injustice, ingratitude, 
 and disrespect, resigned his commission, dis- 
 charged the men he had enlisted, and set out 
 for Boston, where he had no difficulty in prov- 
 ing to the satisfaction of the Provincial Con- 
 gress and of Washington that the charges 
 against him were baseless, existing only in 
 the imaginations of his enemies. Washing- 
 ton believed him, and became until his trea- 
 son his steadfast friend. The later eminent 
 Silas Deane, then a member of Congress from 
 Connecticut, wrote from Cambridge, August 
 10, 1775 : " Colonel Arnold has been in my 
 opinion hardly treated by this colony, through 
 some mistake or other. He has deserved 
 much and received little, or less than nothing." 
 Barnabas Deane, writing to his brother Silas, 
 mentioned above, from Ticonderoga on June 
 1, 1775, said : " Colonel Arnold has been 
 greatly abused and misrepresented by design- 
 ing persons, some of whom were from Connect- 
 
 28 
 
In New Haven 
 
 icut. Had it not been for him everything 
 here would have been in the utmost confusion 
 and disorder : people would have been plun- 
 dered of their private property, and no man's 
 person would have been safe that was not of 
 the Green Mountain party. Colonel Arnold 
 has been twice fired at by them, and has had a 
 musket presented at his breast by one of that 
 party, who threatened to fire him through if 
 he refused to comply with their orders, which 
 he very resolutely refused doing, as inconsis- 
 tent with his duty and directly contrary to 
 the opinion of the colonies." 
 
 To add to Arnold's bitterness of spirit, a 
 crushing domestic aflSiction had fallen on him 
 while absent at the camps, — his wife had 
 died on the 19th of June, 1775, at the early 
 age of thirty, leaving three children of tender 
 age motherless. 
 
 Certainly this wronged man might now 
 have left the turmoil of camps, and retiring 
 to New Haven have devoted himself to his 
 children and neglected business, without hia 
 honor or patriotism being questioned ; but so 
 far from this, his fertile brain had already 
 
 29 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 conceived a plan that could it have been 
 carried out would have detached Canada from 
 the mother country, added her to the United 
 States, and shortened by many years the 
 struggle for independence. 
 
 30 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MAECH THROUGH THE WILDERKESS 
 
 THIS plan was in brief to lead a small, 
 quickly moving force into Canada 
 by way of the Maine wilderness, as- 
 cending the Kennebec to Dead River, its head 
 tributary on the west, whence a short carry 
 would take the adventurers over the " divide " 
 to the headwaters of the Chaudiere, which 
 emptied into the St. Lawrence about four 
 miles above Quebec ; descend that stream 
 rapidly and secretly and take Quebec, which 
 Arnold knew to be practically without defend- 
 ers ; then co-operate with the northern army 
 under General Schuyler, which was then on 
 the march to invade Canada. Incidentally the 
 army would endeavor to win over to the 
 American cause the French inhabitants who 
 were known to be averse to British rule, 
 and who, it was believed, would rise to 
 a man at the first decided victory for our 
 
 31 
 
The Heal Benedict Arnold 
 
 arms. When the plan was presented to 
 Washington, his first inquiry was as to its 
 feasibility. In reply, Arnold produced a 
 rough map made by a Colonel Montresor of 
 the British Engineer Service, who, in 1Y60, 
 had ascended the Chaudiere to its source, 
 crossed the "divide" to the headwaters of 
 the Penobscot, descended that stream, crossed 
 over to the Kennebec on his return, and as- 
 cended that river and its principal western 
 branch, the Dead River, whose source is but 
 a few miles from Chaudiere Pond, the foun- 
 tain head of the Chaudiere. In his report 
 of the journey Montresor declared that the 
 route was practicable and the carries easily 
 accomplished by determined men.^ 
 
 Arnold now proposed to embark a force of 
 one thousand picked men in sloops at some 
 small port to escape observation, sail across 
 the Gulf of Maine to the mouth of the Kenne- 
 
 1 This journal is still preserved in the Maine Historical 
 Society's Library. Pierrepont Edwards, a connection of 
 Col. Aaron Burr, was appointed by Connecticut a commis- 
 sioner on Arnold's effects after his treason, and the journal 
 said to have been found among his papers after his death 
 was secured for the Society through the influence of Colonel 
 Burr. 
 
 32 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 bee, and up that stream as far as Gardiner, 
 thirty-eight miles, to which point it was navi- 
 gable for sloops, there build batteaux, load 
 them with the baggage and stores, and con- 
 tinue the voyage in them, following the route 
 before laid out. 
 
 "Washington, after studying the matter 
 closely, consented. The expedition was got 
 ready with great secrecy and the utmost ce- 
 lerity, for September had already come, and 
 the army must thread the wilderness before 
 the Northern winter set in, or the results 
 would be lamentable. Only picked men were 
 selected, — the very flower of the army, — and 
 Arnold's reputation as a fighting man was so 
 high, they were glad to go Under him. It is 
 a little remarkable how many of them later 
 rose to eminence in public life. Aaron Burr, 
 " an amiable youth of twenty," just out of 
 Princeton College, who rose from a sick bed 
 to volunteer, was afterward Vice-President : 
 his classmate and chum, Matthew Ogden, at- 
 tained eminence both as lawyer and in public 
 life. A classmate of both was the Rev. Sam- 
 uel Spring, chaplain of the corps, later a cele- 
 
 3 33 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 brated divine of Newburyport, Mass. Dr. 
 Isaac Senter, the surgeon, became a leading 
 physician in Newburyport, R. I. Private 
 John J. Henry, a lad of sixteen, but a man in 
 endurance and mettle, became an eminent 
 lawyer in Pennsylvania and Judge of the 
 County Courts. Dr. Senter kept a diary, and 
 Judge Henry late in life wrote an account of 
 the expedition, which we shall follow closely 
 in describing it. Capt. Henry Dearborn 
 became general, congressman, and Secretary 
 of War under Jefferson. Capt. Daniel Mor- 
 gan, who commanded the rifle corps, was 
 later the famous partisan ranger of Sara- 
 toga, Virginia, and the Carolinas. The field 
 officers were Lieut.-Col. Christopher Greene 
 of Rhode Island, Col. Roger Enos of Ver- 
 mont, Major Return J. Meigs of Connecti- 
 cut (later an eminent geographer), and Major 
 Timothy Bigelow of Massachusetts. The staff 
 were Adjutant Frebecer, a Dane, Quartermas- 
 ter Hyde, Surgeon Isaac Senter, and Chaplain 
 Samuel Spring. The captains were Henry 
 Dearborn of New Hampshire, Samuel McCobb 
 of Georgetown, William Goodrich, Jonas Hub- 
 
 34 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 bard, and Scott of Massachusetts, Oliver Han- 
 chett of Connecticut, John Topham, Simeon 
 Thayer, Samuel Ward, Oliver Colburn, and 
 Thomas Williams. Morgan commanded the 
 rifle corps, composed of his own Virginia com- 
 pany and two Pennsylvania companies under 
 Hendricks and Smith. There were eleven 
 hundred men in all, eighty-four to a company, 
 rank and file. 
 
 On September 6 orders were given to draft 
 the men, collect provisions, and build two hun- 
 dred batteaux, — the latter at Argy Point, on 
 the Kennebec, two miles below the present 
 flourishing city of Gardiner. The appointed 
 rendezvous was Newburyport, thirty miles 
 north of Boston, a busy little seaport with 
 a good harbor, and a flourishing coasting 
 and West India trade. Here ten — some ac- 
 counts say eleven — " topsail schooners " were 
 collected to transport them. The men left 
 Cambridge on September 11, in several de- 
 tachments to avoid remark, and marched by 
 different routes. Henry, who was with the 
 riflemen, says they reached Newburyport next 
 day. Several days were spent there getting 
 
 35 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 the baggage and stores aboard, a patrol of 
 small boats being kept out meantime, to give 
 timely notice of a British fleet reported as 
 hovering on the coast. 
 
 Arnold did not leave Cambridge until 
 the 15th, and reached his army the same 
 night. He bore detailed written instruc- 
 tions from Washington and an "address" 
 to the inhabitants of Canada urging them to 
 rise, free themselves from the British yoke, 
 and ally themselves with the United Colo- 
 nies. " Let no man desert his habitation," it 
 concluded ; " let no one flee as before an 
 enemy. The cause of America and of liberty 
 is the cause of every virtuous American citizen, 
 whatever may be his religion or his descent. 
 Come, then, ye generous citizens, range your- 
 selves under the standard of General Liberty, 
 against which all the force and artifice of 
 tyranny will never be able to prevail." 
 
 These handbills had been printed by hun- 
 dreds on the little hand-presses of Boston, 
 and were to be sown broadcast when the 
 army reached Canada. Arnold's instructions 
 were to press forward over the route selected 
 
 36 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 with all the secrecy and despatch possible, 
 to attack and carry Quebec by surprise if 
 practicable, and then co-operate with Mont- 
 gomery, whose objective was Montreal, in the 
 further reduction of the country. The utmost 
 care to placate and reassure the inhabitants 
 was to be taken. They were to be paid liber- 
 ally for everything had of them and for all 
 services performed ; their religion was to be 
 respected ; in all things it was to be made 
 clear to them that the army came not as 
 invaders, but as brethren and liberators. 
 
 The fleet sailed at ten on the morning of 
 the 19th, but did not get to sea until the 
 afternoon, because of one vessel running 
 aground on a shoal in leaving the harbor. 
 It is one hundred and fifty miles across the 
 Gulf of Maine to the mouth of the Kennebec. 
 Before noon of the next day the fleet, though 
 separated by a storm on the way over, was 
 safely within the noble river. The summer 
 voyager of to-day in his sail up its winding 
 course passes on its banks a constant succes- 
 sion of field and forest, elegant villas, hotels, 
 and populous towns, with all the evidences of 
 
 37 
 
The Heal Benedict Arnold 
 
 wealth and civilization ; he meets fleets of 
 small steamers, launches, sail-boats, skiffs, 
 canoes, laden with merry tourists ; farther 
 up the river he will pass rafts and flotillas of 
 spruce and poplar logs destined to be ground 
 into paper pulp. At Gardiner he must ex- 
 change the large, ocean-going steamer which 
 has brought him from Boston for a little 
 stern-wheel river boat, which alone is able to 
 thread the shallow channel some twenty-two 
 miles further to Augusta, Maine's thriving 
 and beautiful capital, where navigation ends. 
 But in 1775 the river flowed through an 
 almost unbroken wilderness quite to its 
 mouth. There was a village at Gardiner, a 
 hamlet at Fort Western, opposite the present 
 Augusta, another at Fort Halifax, now the 
 busy city of Waterville, where the railroad 
 to Bangor leaves the Kennebec Valley, but 
 the general aspect of the river was that of 
 savagery and solitude. The fleet stood up 
 the river that night as " far as the tide 
 would allow," and on the 23d arrived at 
 Fort Western, the head of navigation, where 
 the batteaux had been collected. 
 
 38 
 
H 
 
 
 ffet '"'' 1HHHMHMP 
 
 , 
 
 P^antf 1 \ 1. ^^^^^^^^r^_ 
 
 
 W^y.:'/,t/ /U,/ ,f <yi ///r ^-_ 
 
 
 W' Kl\l k-i - ' 
 
 
 wit, '' " - -"'" '' *" 
 
 
 W '^ / 
 
 
 W' - / 
 
 
 S:" - V - g^ 
 
 
 
 
 1 "$:^^->^ 
 
 ": "':'■. 
 
 
 ■ ■^ '1-- 
 
 -*' 
 
 ■•■■■'-■■■'■>•■, s - 
 
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 ■■■--- - ■ .- ■ 
 
 ■■' • ■ • ' v: 
 
 ^ -, ■ 
 
 * ..,^;. ^ . 
 
 
 '' 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 t'. 
 
 % 
 
 ■'■■ ... 
 
 
 :'■ -- 
 
 1 
 
 
 i 
 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 Arnold, writing from Point aux Trembles, 
 near Quebec, to a friend on November 27, 
 gives an interesting resume of the progress 
 of the expedition from this point as follows : 
 " 21st reached Fort Western. 25th to 29th 
 sent off one division each day with forty-five 
 days' provisions. From the 29th to Oct. 8 
 the whole detachment were daily up to their 
 waists in water, hauling up the batteaux 
 against rapid streams to Norridgewock, fifty 
 miles from Fort "Western. From the 9th to 
 the 16th not a minute was lost in gaining 
 the Dead River, fifty miles. From the 16th 
 to the 27th ascended the Dead Eiver to Lake 
 Megan tic or Chaudiere Pond, eighty-three 
 miles. On the 28th I embarked (there) with 
 seventeen men in five batteaux resolved to 
 proceed to the French inhabitants and send 
 back provisions to the detachment, who were 
 nearly out and must inevitably suffer without 
 a supply. At ten we had passed the lake, 
 thirteen miles long, and entered the Chau- 
 diere, which we descended about twenty 
 miles in two hours, — amazing rocky, rapid, 
 and dangerous, — when we had the misf or- 
 
 39 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 tune of oversetting and staving three bat- 
 teaux, and lost all the baggage, provisions, 
 etc., and with great difficulty saved the men. 
 This disaster, though unfortunate at first 
 view, we must think a very happy circum- 
 stance on the whole, and a kind interposition 
 of Providence ; for had we proceeded one half- 
 mile farther we must have gone over a pro- 
 digious fall which we were not apprised of, 
 and all inevitably perished. Here I divided 
 the little provisions left and proceeded on 
 with two batteaux and five men with all 
 possible expedition, and on the 30th at night 
 arrived at the first inhabitants, upwards of 
 eighty miles from the Lake (Chaudiere), 
 where I was kindly received. The next 
 morning early I sent off a supply of fresh 
 provisions to the detachment by the Cana- 
 dians and savages, about forty of the latter 
 having joined me. By the 8th the whole 
 arrived except two or three sick left behind. 
 The 10th I reached Point Levi, seventy-five 
 miles from Sartigan, the first inhabitants, 
 and waited until the 13th for the rear to 
 come up J employed the carpenters in making 
 
 40 
 
The" March Through the Wilderness 
 
 ladders and in collecting canoes, those on 
 Point Levi being destroyed to prevent our 
 crossing ; having collected about thirty we 
 embarked at nine p. m. and at four A. m. had 
 carried over, at six times, five hundred men 
 without being discovered. Thus in about 
 eight weeks we completed a march of near 
 six hundred miles not to be paralleled in 
 history, the men having with the greatest 
 fortitude and perseverance hauled their bat- 
 teaux up rapid streams, being obliged to wade 
 almost the whole way, nearly one hundred 
 and eighty miles, carried them on their 
 shoulders near forty miles over hills, swamps 
 and bogs almost impenetrable, and to their 
 knees in mire, being often obliged to cross 
 the rivers three or four times with the bag- 
 gage, short of provisions, part of the detach- 
 ment disheartened and gone back, famine 
 staring us in the face, an enemy's country 
 and uncertainty ahead. 
 
 " The night we crossed the St. Lawrence 
 we found it impossible to get our ladders 
 over, and the enemy being apprised of our 
 coming, we found it impracticable to attack 
 
 41 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 them without too great risk ; we therefore 
 invested the town and cut off their communi- 
 cation with the country. We continued in 
 this situation until the 20th, having often 
 attempted to draw the enemy out in vain. 
 On a strict inquiry into our ammunition, 
 we found many of our cartridges (which to 
 appearance were good) unserviceable, and not 
 ten rounds each for the men, who were also 
 almost naked, barefooted, and much fatigued ; 
 and as the garrison was daily increasing and 
 nearly double our numbers, we thought it 
 prudent to retire to this place, and await the 
 arrival of General Montgomery, with artil- 
 lery, clothing, etc., who to our great joy has 
 this morning joined us with about three 
 hundred men." 
 
 In one important object, the surprise of the 
 enemy, the expedition failed. Let us turn 
 now to the annalists and learn why it failed, 
 and also glean some interesting details of this 
 Spartan march. It ^iust_be_admittfiii jthat 
 Arnold^s disposition of his men was excellent, 
 miile the army lay at Fort Western trans- 
 ferring stores to the batteaux, calking the 
 
 42 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 seams in the latter (which being made of un- 
 seasoned lumber shrank daily so that new 
 seams opened almost as fast as the old were 
 stopped), and in general girding up its loins 
 for the coming struggle, he selected nine men, 
 young, supple, strong, sternly ambitious and 
 patriotic, and sent them into the trackless 
 wilderness to blaze a path for the army along 
 the route — so obscurely defined by Montresor. 
 Lieutenant Steele commanded it; the others 
 were Jesse Wheeler, George Merchant, and 
 James Clifton, of Morgan's riflemen, Robert 
 Cunningham, Thomas Boyd, John Tidd, and 
 John McKonkey, of Smith's Pennsylvania 
 riflemen, and John Joseph Henry, a lad of 
 sixteen, afterward judge, but so strong that, as 
 he tells us, he could clap a canoe on his back 
 and run a hundred yards across a carry with 
 it, without stopping for breath. Two guides 
 were provided : Nehemiah Getchel, " a very 
 respectable man," and John Home, an Irish- 
 man, who "had lived so long in that frosty 
 clime that his hair and beard had become 
 frosted also." 
 
 A day or two behind this party marched 
 43 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 Morgan and his riflemen, " an excellent body 
 of men, rude, hardy, and fearless, formed by 
 nature to be the stamina of an army, fit for 
 tough, tight work." Every man was clad in 
 dark ash-colored hunting-shirt, leggings, and 
 moccasins, with home-knit woollen stockings 
 and stout shoes in reserve, and each carried 
 his favorite weapon, "a rifle-barrelled gun," 
 sighted to pick off a squirrel from a hickory 
 limb at one hundred yards, a tomahawk, and 
 scalping-knife, the latter a handy tool that 
 could be used to skin a moose, slit a trout, 
 or whittle shavings for the camp-fire, as 
 well as lift the hair of an enemy. At their 
 head strode Morgan, the Indian fighter and 
 ranger, "a large, strong-bodied personage, 
 whose appearance gave the idea history has 
 left us of Belisarius. His manners were of 
 the severest cast." 
 
 Morgan's orders were to proceed to the 
 " Great Carrying Place " and prepare a road 
 for the army. The next day the second 
 division embarked — led by Colonel Greene, 
 and comprising three companies of musket- 
 men. These were more jaunty than the rifle- 
 
 44 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 men in their roundabout woollen jackets, 
 hunting-shirts, buckskin breeches, moccasins, 
 hats with a feather stuck in them, and home- 
 knit woollen stockings and stout shoes carried 
 for an emergency. A day after them Colonel 
 Enos set out with four companies and forty- 
 five days' provisions, making a fourth division. 
 The latter was more encumbered with pro- 
 visions than the other divisions, but had the 
 advantage of the well-trodden path of preced- 
 ing battalions. 
 
 The whole force being now under way let 
 us return and follow the fortunes of Steele's 
 party, the pioneers. His canoe bore five men 
 and their baggage ; the other, six. A barrel of 
 pork, a bag of meal, and two hundred-weight 
 of biscuit were distributed among them. 
 Leaving Fort "Western on September 23 they 
 reached Fort Halifax, opposite the present 
 city of Waterville the same evening, and, 
 accommodations being somewhat limited at 
 the fort, were glad to accept the hospitality of 
 a well-to-do settler, one Squire Harrison, 
 whose large frame-dwelling stood about half 
 
 a mile from the fort. 
 
 45 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 At that time every spring the salmon 
 churned their way up the river by millions 
 and were caught plentifully by the fishermen 
 at the Fort, who were quite willing to ex- 
 change a barrel of smoked salmon — to the 
 inlanders a great luxury — for a barrel of 
 salt pork. 
 
 Embarking next morning they soon reached 
 Skowhegan Falls, five miles east of the pres- 
 ent Norridgewock, and there made their 
 first carry. On leaving this point they 
 plunged into the great northern wilderness, 
 Norridgewock being the outpost. The sombre 
 forest as they entered it seemed the chosen 
 home of solitude and death. Under its lofty 
 canopy of pines and spruces lay acres upon 
 acres of dreary swamps covered with ghostly, 
 grayish white moss, or quaking bog, natural 
 meadows clothed in coarse grass and rushes, 
 often breast-high, mighty rock-ribbed moun- 
 tains, lonely lakes with low, marshy shores, 
 sluggish streams choked with fallen trees, or 
 changing without warning into rushing tor- 
 rents beset with jagged rocks and walled in 
 by stern, frowning precipices. Here roamed 
 
 46 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 the panther, bear, lynx, wolf, moose, and 
 catamount. Over it brooded a stillness, terri- 
 fying in itself, broken only by the roar of the 
 "waterfall, the sigh of the wind, or the crash 
 of some mighty monarch of the forest as it 
 fell to years of mouldering and decay. Here 
 death was to be found in its most abhorrent 
 forms — from the treacherous Indian, the wild 
 beast, the falling tree, from flood, hunger, 
 cold, disease, and that strange panic which 
 often deprives of their wits the hopelessly 
 lost. Nevertheless the pathfinders plunged 
 bravely and even cheerily into it. On the 
 28th, after several small carries, they arrived 
 at the " great carry " of twelve miles, from 
 the Kennebec across to its main western 
 tributary, the Dead River. 
 
 This stream joined the main river some 
 twenty miles above the " carry," but so wind- 
 ing was it that to ascend to its mouth and 
 thence up it to the point where the great 
 carry struck it involved a journey variously 
 estimated at from sixty to one hundred miles. 
 To save this detour, the Indians had from 
 time immemorial packed their canoes across 
 
 47 
 
The Heal Benedict Arnold 
 
 this " cut off " which was shortened somewhat 
 by three lakes in succession, about a mile 
 apart. 
 
 Steele's men had much trouble in finding 
 the trail, which the Indians hid as much as 
 possible, wishing to keep strangers out of 
 their country. At last they found it, and 
 blazed the way to the first pond that night 
 by slashing the trees with their tomahawks. 
 On this lake they stored half their pro- 
 visions against their return, and left James 
 Clifton, the oldest man of the party, who in 
 their rapid pace had begun to lag, and John 
 McKonkey, the Pennsylvanian, to guard 
 them, charging them to make camp on the 
 south side of the lake, to keep themselves 
 hidden, and to use every precaution against 
 being discovered by the savages. Steele ex- 
 pected to be back in eight or ten days, and 
 with the remaining nine men pushed on, 
 reaching the Dead Eiver in two days more ; a 
 deep, dark, sullen-looking stream they found 
 it, with no perceptible current and about two 
 hundred and fifty yards wide. The country 
 around this river was the home of the moose. 
 
 48 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 " Here," wrote Henry, " the moose deer reigns 
 master of the forest " and " monarch of the 
 glen." By their camp-fires on the Dead 
 Kiver, he further records, they saw these 
 " stately deer " pass in droves of fifteen or 
 twenty, walking behind one another; but no 
 man dared fire at them for fear of Indians. 
 Once, near Natanis' cabin, they came upon a 
 herd of four or five up to their knees in water, 
 feeding on the red willow, their favorite 
 food; on these they fired, being sorely in 
 need of meat, but got none of them. When 
 at sound of the rifles the bull moose threw up 
 their heads, " the tips of their horns seemed 
 to me to stand eighteen feet from the ground." 
 One day on a point they saw a gray wolf 
 sitting on his haunches, and fired at him, 
 but he disappeared like a ghost in the forest. 
 Near by, a moose — a young one of about 
 three hundred pounds' weight — was swim- 
 ming across the river; this they shot and 
 found its ears and flanks badly torn, pre- 
 sumably by the wolf. Henry records a curi- 
 ous story of the moose told him by Captain 
 Harrison at Fort Halifax. He said that 
 4 49 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 when he first came to the country, twenty 
 years before, the red deer were very plentiful 
 with an occasional elk, but no moose ; by and 
 by the moose came, and the deer disappeared. 
 
 On September 30, while they were making 
 the great carry, the first snow fell and ice 
 formed. Winter, their most dreaded enemy, 
 was stealing down from his northern fast- 
 nesses. On October 2 they launched their 
 canoes on the Dead River, and that night 
 reached the foot of the first rapid, which to 
 them seemed very much alive. Here the 
 party put themselves on short rations, and 
 as a fire would betray them to the Indians, 
 resolved henceforth to eat their pork raw, 
 and to eat but twice a day, morning and 
 evening. "Unacquainted with the distance 
 we had to go," writes Henry, " without map 
 or chart, yet resolved to accomplish our orders 
 at the hazard of our lives, a half a biscuit 
 and half an inch square of raw pork was 
 our evening meal." 
 
 October 3, after pulling the canoes up the 
 rapid, they " found good water the rest of the 
 day, and camped at night at the foot of a fall 
 
 50 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 of four feet." The next day also " there was 
 good water and plenty of trout and chub." 
 Toward evening of this day they approached 
 the wigwam of Natanis, last of the Norridge- 
 wock Indians, whom Arnold had ordered them 
 to kill or capture, as he was thought to be in 
 the pay of the British. Secretly they sur- 
 rounded the house, knocked at the door, and 
 found it empty ; the bird had flown. As 
 later events proved, however, Natanis favored 
 the Americans, and later joined the expedition 
 with forty St. Francis Indians. His cabin 
 stood half-way between the first American 
 and Canadian settlements, so that their peril- 
 ous journey was half accomplished. Heart- 
 ened by this the adventurers pushed on with 
 renewed vigor. Several miles above, on the 
 bank of a large stream that entered from 
 the north, they found a stake firmly fixed in 
 the earth, with a roll of birch-bark stuck in a 
 cleft at the top, which contained an accurate 
 map of the streams above, which aided them 
 greatly. This also was the work of Natanis, 
 who had discovered them on their first ap- 
 proach to his country, and took this way of 
 
 51 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 assisting them. By and by they reached the 
 large lake in which the Dead River had its 
 source. On the west rose the high, rocky, 
 mountainous ridge which formed the water- 
 shed between the St. Lawrence and the rivers 
 of Maine. On the other side, five miles dis- 
 tant, was the pond out of which flowed the new- 
 born Chaudi^re. This ridge was the abode of 
 desolation. The trees grew dwarfish, vegeta- 
 tion became scant, they saw no game except 
 the little pine squirrel and a small bird of the 
 sparrow family; stumbling through a gloomy 
 defile strewn with huge boulders they came 
 down into the valley on the other side, and to 
 a little stream which they thought must flow 
 into Chaudiere Pond. A huge pine, forty feet 
 without a branch, stood on its banks. 
 
 " Who will climb it ? " asked Steele, " and 
 discover the pond and the stream coursing 
 from it." Cunningham, a mountain giant, in 
 ''almost the twinkling of an eye climbed 
 the tree. He discerned fully the meandering 
 course of the river as upon a map, and even 
 descried Lake Chaudiere at the distance of 
 fourteen or fifteen miles." 
 
 52 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 Their mission was accomplished ; they had 
 discovered the Chaudifere and blazed a path 
 to it ; now the problem was to retrace their 
 steps, footsore and short of rations as they 
 were, and gladden the heart of the main army 
 with the news. At once, without waiting for 
 felicitations, they began the toilsome return to 
 the canoes on Dead Eiver, walking in Indian 
 file and carefully covering their trail, that the 
 keen eye of their savage foe, with whom their 
 imagination peopled the forest, might not dis- 
 cover it ; indeed the only bit of humor in this 
 grim march is the care taken to conceal their 
 presence from a supposed enemy who was 
 aware of it before they left Fort Western. 
 
 That night they were overtaken by a fierce 
 storm and crawled into the shelter of the 
 friendly evergreen thickets, and " slept not- 
 withstanding the pelting of the storm." On 
 the 9th Henry, rummaging his pockets, found 
 " a solitary biscuit and an inch of pork," — 
 all the food he had ; nor were the remainder 
 of the party much better off. That day they 
 shot a small duck called a diver, and around 
 the camp-fire at night anxiously debated how 
 
 53 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 best to utilize it and the remaining pittance 
 of food. They decided to boil the diver — 
 which is the toughest and oiliest as well as 
 smallest of the species — in their camp-kettle, 
 each man throwing in his remaining pieces of 
 pork, marked by a skewer run through it, 
 bearing his own private mark. The broth, 
 they agreed, should serve them for supper, 
 the pork for breakfast, and the duck should 
 be divided and reserved for contingencies. 
 Their appetites "were ravenous as wolves," 
 but only the broth was eaten that night. 
 Next morning they were astir at the earliest 
 dawn, and ate their pork, after which Steele 
 divided the duck after a manner favored of 
 backwoodsmen from time immemorial. One 
 of the men turning his back Steele asked, 
 "■ Whose shall this be ? " the duck having 
 previously been divided into ten parts, the 
 number of the party ; as the man indicated, it 
 was divided. Henry's share, he tells us, " was 
 one of the thighs." That day they saw off 
 to the eastward a great smoke, and hailed it 
 as a camp-fire of Morgan's men ; but what was 
 their disappointment on coming up to find it 
 
 54 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 was one of their own fires, that had been 
 smouldering in the peat all this time and 
 had burned a large hole in it, amply advertis- 
 ing their presence to the enemy. That night 
 they went supperless to bed. Nor had they 
 anything for breakfast : no game was to be 
 seen ; no fish could be caught. As they hur- 
 ried on down stream with the recklessness of 
 desperate men, in some rapids a sunken tree 
 suddenly appeared with two prongs uplifted 
 above the surface. There was just room be- 
 tween them for a canoe to pass. Getchel, 
 the guide, was steering the first boat, which 
 also bore Steele, the commander. Like race- 
 horses the canoes bore down on the obstruc- 
 tion. Getchel held his to the inch and 
 passed through safely, but the rear boat 
 swerved a trifle, struck her port quarter, and 
 in a twinkling was ripped from stem to stern. 
 By springing to starboard the men were able 
 to keep the gash above water until the craft 
 could be beached on a sand-bar. Then a 
 council of war was held. Getchel called for 
 birch-bark, pitch, and thread. They had 
 none, but great birches rose all around with 
 
 55 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 bark like rolls of parchment hanging from 
 their hoary trunks ; this was stripped off. 
 From the pines they scraped the exuded tur- 
 pentine which had hardened in the sun ; the 
 roots of the cedar yielded thread ; but there 
 was no oil to change the turpentine into 
 pitch. Turning their wallets inside out the 
 men found some crumbs of pork fat, which 
 the guide mixed with turpentine and made a 
 very good article of pitch indeed, and with 
 these materials soon had the canoe as good as 
 new. But misfortunes never come singly. 
 As they went to launch the canoes, which had 
 been drawn up on the beach, Sergeant Boyd 
 raised the uninjured one by the bow to push 
 it into the water, and broke it in twain in 
 the middle. This seemed the last straw. 
 They were one hundred miles from any suc- 
 cor, without provisions and famishing ; and 
 now their canoe, their sole dependence, seemed 
 wrecked beyond hope of repairing. Getchel, 
 however, rose to the occasion. Procuring 
 more materials he repaired this boat, and af- 
 ter two hours the party were able to resume 
 their journey. 
 
 56 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 All that day they saw no game, " neither 
 moose, bear, nor wolf ; " but after sunset, Hen- 
 ry's canoe ha-ving lagged behind from exhaus- 
 tion, its occupants were suddenly startled by 
 a rifle shot ahead, and rowing up with a 
 burst of speed found that Lieutenant Steele 
 had shot a moose. At once the guide cut off 
 the nose and one of the huge ears, and broil- 
 ing them at a camp-fire hastily built, the 
 men enjoyed a feast only to be appreciated 
 by those who have gone hungry for three 
 days. They were without salt or bread, how- 
 ever, and eating so much fresh meat made 
 them seriously ill. 
 
 Next morning Steele and two men hurried 
 forward to meet and guide the advancing 
 army, while the remaining seven stayed be- 
 hind to jerk the meat, thus rendering it 
 more portable. Steele met the riflemen next 
 day at the third pond on the Great Carry, 
 who told them that McKonkey and Clifton, 
 overcome by the terribleness of the wilderness, 
 had deserted their post and joined the main 
 army. The first they met was a body of 
 pioneers building a corduroy road over a 
 
 67 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 quagmire, and then the three companies, with 
 Morgan at their head, " his leggings black 
 with mud, and his bare thighs above them 
 roughly handled by briars and bushes." 
 
 We now return to follow the fortunes of 
 the four parties whom we left setting out 
 from Fort Western in four detachments a 
 day apart. Arnold remained behind until 
 the last detachment was afloat and then, be- 
 lieving it a leader's province to lead, he took 
 a light birch canoe propelled by Indians, and 
 pressing forward swiftly passed all the de- 
 tachments in turn until at Skowhegan Falls 
 he reached Morgan in advance. Here the 
 first portage of two hundred and fifty paces 
 was encountered. With Colonel Greene and 
 Major Bigelow of the second division, marched 
 Dr. Isaac Senter, the surgeon, Aaron Burr, 
 '''and other gentlemen." When they came 
 to rapids, notes Senter in his diary, the men 
 would spring out waist-band deep in the icy 
 flood ; some would seize the painters, others 
 push at the stern, and thus propel the craft 
 into smoother waters. The batteaux, un- 
 wieldy, box-like flat-boats, square at both 
 
 58 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 ends, had been made of green lumber, which 
 shrinking caused them to leak like sieves, 
 wetting the flour and biscuit and spoiling 
 half of them ; stopping to calk the batteaux 
 delayed them as much as the frequent por- 
 tages. Arrived at one of the latter the bat- 
 teaux would be hauled up, the stores unloaded, 
 and with the batteaux be carried on men's 
 shoulders around the falls. A fat ox was 
 driven as far as Dead River, swimming the 
 rivers and being driven round the swamps 
 and bogs, there butchered, and each man 
 " received a pound of fresh meat as he 
 passed ; " — they had been for twelve days 
 on salt meat. Arnold passed and repassed 
 in his swift boat heartening the men. " He 
 had specie, a good pilot in a British canoe, 
 hands sufficient to carry over quickly," but 
 was mostly with the advanced party under 
 Morgan. "A direful howling wilderness," 
 the good doctor notes, "not describable." 
 
 Through this wilderness the army may 
 be imagined as toiling along the route blazed 
 by the pathfinders through the whole month 
 of October. The fall rains came, turning the 
 
 59 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 streams into rushing torrents up which they 
 pulled the boats by the bushes along the 
 banks, drenching them to the skin, wetting 
 the baggage and stores ; once a hurricane tore 
 through the forest, hurling the giant boles 
 about as if they were jack-straws and killing 
 one man. This was followed by snow and 
 sleet and ice. On Dead River, October 13, 
 Arnold, it is said with the concurrence of 
 his officers, performed an act which showed 
 serious lack of judgment, and defeated the 
 main object of the expedition — the surprise 
 of the enemy. He wrote a letter to certain 
 friends of his in Quebec — " to John Marvin, 
 or in his absence Capt. William Gregory, or 
 Mr. John Maynard " — inquiring as to the 
 disposition of the French inhabitants in Que- 
 bec, and enclosing one to General Schuyler, 
 announcing his coming and disclosing his 
 plans. This letter he sent by Emaus, a sup- 
 posed friendly St. Francis Indian, who proved 
 false, as might have been expected, and 
 delivered both to the British commander in 
 Quebec. 
 
 On reaching Dead River, Arnold caused an 
 
 60 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 accurate account of provisions to be taken, 
 and found he had enough to last for twenty- 
 five days ; ten, he felt sure, would bring him 
 to the Chaudiere. As many were sick, he 
 built a block-house hospital near the second 
 pond, where the sick were left. Another had 
 previously been built on the Kennebec. On 
 the night of the 23d, during a fearful storm 
 the Dead River rose nearly ten feet, and in 
 pulling the batteaux up it next day seven of 
 them were capsized and everything they con- 
 tained — provisions, baggage, and some specie 
 — was lost. This was a serious check, as they 
 were in the heart of the wilderness and their 
 larder was getting bare. To retrieve it, Ar- 
 nold at once wrote to Colonel Enos, who was 
 in the rear, to select as many of his best men 
 as he could furnish with fifteen days' pro- 
 visions, and with them hurry forward to join 
 him, sending the rest back. Fifteen days 
 more, he thought, would bring them to the 
 French settlements. " I make no doubt you 
 will join with me in this matter," he added, 
 " as it may be the means of saving the whole 
 detachment, and executing our plan." The 
 
 61 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 sailQe day he wrote to Greene, in command of 
 the second division. " Send back all the sick 
 and proceed on with the best men. Pray 
 hurry as fast as possible." And after, through 
 snow and sleet, the struggling, starving army 
 had surmounted the divide and had come 
 down to the Chaudiere, he wrote again, on the 
 27th, " to Greene, Enos, and the captains in 
 the rear ' ' to make all possible despatch, as a 
 crisis in the fortunes of the expedition had 
 arrived. Yet, in the face of this, Enos with 
 his command deserted his chief and returned 
 to Boston. At the same time Arnold wrote 
 to Washington explaining at length the 
 causes of his slow progress, — the excessive 
 rains, the loss of provisions, the cold and 
 snow, the sickness of the men. 
 
 "I have been deceived," he wrote, ''by 
 ^v^ry account of our route, which is longer 
 and has been attended by a thousand difficul- 
 ties I never apprehended ; but if crowned with 
 success I shall think it but trifling." He 
 added that the expedition was starving, that 
 he found it necessary to himself hurry for- 
 ward to Sartigan (the nearest French settle- 
 
 62 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 ment), purchase provisions, and send them 
 back to the advancing companies. If he 
 found the garrison was not informed of his 
 coming he should attack Quebec as soon as 
 a proper number of men should arrive. 
 
 Two days later, on his way to Sartigan, he 
 wrote another encouraging letter " to the field 
 officers and captains, and to be sent on that 
 all may see it," saying he had just met some 
 scouts who reported the French inhabitants 
 as well affected, and that they would gladly 
 supply provisions ; that he had just met the 
 party under Steele and Church ; that he was 
 pushing forward with all possible speed, 
 and hoped in six days more to send back 
 abundance of provisions ; and exhorted them 
 to keep up good courage, to hasten on 
 with all possible despatch, and if any could 
 spare provisions, to divide with those most 
 needy. 
 
 From Chaudiere down, all attempt to march 
 in company formation seems to have been 
 abandoned, and the men scattered through 
 the woods, hoping the more readily to meet 
 with game. Indeed their condition had be- 
 
 63 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 come most deplorable. Henry wrote : " Oct. 
 
 29 our provisions Avere exhausted. We had 
 no meat of any kind. The flour was divided, 
 and each man had five pints, and it was 
 baked into five cakes under the ashes in the 
 way of Indian bread. We slept on fir 
 branches, and on awakening in the morning 
 and the blanket thrown from my head, what 
 was my surprise to find we had slept under 
 at least four inches of snow." 
 
 Melvin notes in his diary that on October 
 
 30 they came to rapids in the river and a 
 batteau laden with provisions for Captain 
 Groodrich's company was stove, and all its 
 contents lost. They had eaten almost noth- 
 ing for several days, and waded through ice 
 and water, and were still a great way from 
 the inhabitants ; they scattered and each man 
 sought food for himself. October 31 : " Good- 
 rich's company marched three miles, when 
 they were overtaken by Captain Smith, who 
 said Captain Goodrich had left two quarters 
 of a dog for them ; they sent for the meat, 
 but some one had taken it. They then killed 
 another dog, which was eaten to the entrails." 
 
 64 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 The first dog was a large black Newfoundland 
 belonging to Captain Dearborn, a great favor- 
 ite with all, and the idol of its master, but 
 sacrificed to grim necessity. Two women ac- 
 companied the soldiers in their march, cheer- 
 fully sharing their privations, — the wife of 
 Sergeant Greer, and the wife of private 
 Warner. Coming to a pond one day frozen 
 over, they broke the ice with their gun-stocks 
 and waded through it waist deep. Henry 
 noted the endurance of Mrs. Greer, who waded 
 before him to firm ground. 
 
 " Marching on without even the path of 
 the savage to guide us, we found a batteau 
 to take us across, which the providence of 
 Colonel Arnold had stationed there for our 
 accommodation. 
 
 " Thus we proceeded, and coming to a sandy 
 beach of the Chaudiere some men of our com- 
 pany were observed to dart from the file and 
 with nails tear out of the sand roots which 
 they deemed eatable and eat them raw. 
 Powerful men struggled even with blows for 
 these roots, such was the extremity of their 
 hunger. During the day's march (November 2) 
 6 65 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 I sat down on the end of a log absolutely 
 fainting with hunger and fatigue. A party 
 of soldiers were making a broth. They gave 
 me a cup of it." It proved to have been 
 made from Captain Dearborn's dog. 
 
 But the troops ate food more unpalatable 
 than dog's flesh : they first boiled and then 
 broiled on the coals strips from their buck- 
 skin breeches, and made soup from their 
 deer-skin moccasins ; they ate roots and 
 bark ; many died in five minutes after stag- 
 gering from the ranks and sitting down. 
 Melvin records under date of November 1 
 that his company kept together and went 
 twenty-one miles ; ate the last of their pro- 
 visions. November 2 : " Travelled four miles. 
 Shot a small bird and a squirrel. About 
 noon met some Frenchmen with cattle for 
 the army, and meat, in a canoe. Had a 
 small piece of bread and meat given me. 
 This evening arrived at the first French 
 house, where supper was ready for us." 
 The expedition was saved. "When we saw 
 the cattle that Arnold had sent coming up 
 the river," said one, "it was the joyfulest 
 
 66 
 
The March Through the Wilderness 
 
 sight I ever beheld, and some could not 
 refrain from tears." 
 
 On the 8th of November Arnold was able 
 to write to Washington that the detachments 
 had all arrived within two or three days' 
 march except " Colonel Enos' division, which 
 I am surprised to hear are all gone back." 
 
 Stronger language might have been applied 
 to the deserter, who, it is said, not only aban- 
 doned his comrades, but took with him more 
 than his share of the provisions which had 
 been intrusted to him as forming the rear- 
 guard. On his arrival at Cambridge, Wash- 
 ington put him under arrest and had him 
 tried by court-martial, which in the absence 
 of witnesses, and with Enos' plea that his 
 men were nearly all sick, and that his retreat 
 had been decided on by a council of his offi- 
 cers, acquitted him ; but he never regained 
 the confidence of the soldiers, and soon left 
 the army. 
 
 Thus ended this march, certainly one of the 
 most wonderful in history. It was original 
 in conception and execution ; there had been 
 nothing quite like it before and there has been 
 
 67 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 nothing since with the possible exception of 
 Sherman's march to the sea. But Sherman 
 had the resources of a great nation behind 
 him ; he marched through a civilized country 
 of supplies, toward an objective point where 
 powerful allies awaited him. Arnold, on the 
 contrary, had no nation, no organization be- 
 hind him. He marched through a wilderness 
 in the teeth of approaching winter into an ene- 
 my's country, his objective the most strongly 
 fortified post in America. That the expedi- 
 tion came out of the wilderness alive was 
 attributable largely to his forethought, cour- 
 age, patriotism, magnetism, and power over 
 his men, and credit for it was cheerfully 
 accorded him by Washington and his con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 68 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ASSAULT ON QUEBEC 
 
 FOR a week Arnold remained at Sarti- 
 gan reorganizing the " straggling and 
 emaciated troops" as they came in, 
 singly, by squads, and in companies. While 
 here a delegation of about eighty Norridge- 
 wock and St. Francis Indians, through whose 
 hunting grounds the army had passed, came 
 to him, " all finely ornamented with brooches, 
 bracelets, and trinkets," and demanded to 
 know why he had thus invaded their country. 
 Arnold in reply made a long and formal 
 speech, in which he recited the differences 
 between the colonies and the mother country, 
 and concluded : " Now if the Indians, our 
 brethren, will join us, we will be very much 
 obliged to them, and will give them one 
 Portuguese per month, two dollars bounty, 
 and find them their provisions, and the lib- 
 erty to choose their own ofl&cers." The 
 
 69 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 speech, proved very effective, as the whole 
 body joined the provincials and rendered 
 effective service in the subsequent operations. 
 
 The moment all were in and ready Arnold 
 put his Spartan band in motion, for he still 
 had hopes of surprising Quebec. On the 
 way down the valley he scattered liberally 
 the " address ; " but although the habitans 
 were friendly and supplied him with pro- 
 visions — for a consideration — no consider- 
 able body of them enrolled under his standard, 
 and that hope had to be given up. Although 
 the troops were weakened by privation they 
 made the march of seventy-five miles to 
 Quebec in three days, and reached Point Levi, 
 on the St. Lawrence opposite the stronghold, 
 on December 13. 
 
 Let us pause a moment to describe the 
 stronghold which their weary eyes descried 
 rising on its frowning cliffs beyond the broad 
 and swiftly flowing river. Founded by the 
 great French navigator Champlain, in 1608, 
 its fortifications were planned by French 
 engineers accounted the greatest masters of 
 their art then alive. The town was divided 
 
 70 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 into three sections, the upper and lower 
 towns, and the citadel. The lower town 
 was a mass of warehouses, stores, and shan- 
 ties of laborers and the lower orders, covering 
 a few acres of flat land between the base of 
 the cliff and the river, where ships moored 
 to discharge cargo, and where the importing 
 and exporting business of the town was done. 
 Over the lower town hung a nearly perpen- 
 dicular cliff, some three hundred feet high, 
 a mass of black slate carrying quartz crys- 
 tals imbedded in it like plums in a pudding, 
 which, sparkling in the sunlight, gave to the 
 promontory its name — Cape Diamond. The 
 streets of this quarter were winding, narrow, 
 and steep. The broadest and steepest was 
 Mountain Street, which, commencing near the 
 centre of the lower town, climbed the face 
 of the cliff through a narrow passage-way 
 to the upper town, — a passage raked its 
 whole distance by cannon mounted on inter- 
 secting barriers and parallel intrenchments. 
 It was always wet, and in winter slippery 
 with ice. This street afforded the only 
 means of access from the lower to the upper 
 
 71 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 town. A wall, two and three-quarter miles 
 long, defended the upper town from attack 
 by the Plains of Abraham, Avhich lay on the 
 west and north, the precipice of Cape Dia- 
 mond being its defence on the east and south. 
 From the great bastion of Pres de Ville on 
 Cape Diamond the wall ran inland toward 
 the northeast some eighteen hundred yards, 
 and from twenty to thirty feet in height, 
 to meet the inequalities of the ground, and 
 separating the suburbs of St. Louis, St. John, 
 and St. Roque from the upper town, to the 
 Palace Gate, having in this distance four 
 bastions — La Glaciere, St. Louis, St. Ursula, 
 and Potasse — flanking the gateways of St. 
 Louis and St. John. 
 
 From Palace Gate the wall turned sharply 
 to the right, and continued along the face of 
 the cliff overlooking the St. Charles Eiver 
 three hundred yards, where it met an eleva- 
 tion of land which acted as a natural fortifi- 
 cation and completed the line of defence. 
 This great wall was further protected by a 
 deep moat or ditch, and bristled with heavy 
 mortars and cannon which commanded the 
 
 72 
 
The St. John's Gate, Ijiiilt in 1093, rebuilt in 1867. 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 upper and lower towns and all approaches to 
 them. The only access to the citadel was by 
 a winding road leading from the Gate St. 
 Louis, hewn from the solid rock and raked 
 by the guns of the bastions. Before the 
 lower town rode the British frigate " Lizard," 
 Captain Hamilton, of twenty-eight guns, and 
 the sloop of war " Hunter." For garrison, un- 
 der command of Sir Guy Carleton, an able 
 and veteran officer, were : the 84th Regiment 
 of Royal Emigrants, under Colonel Allen Mc- 
 Lean ; British militia, under Major Henry 
 Caldwell; French Canadian militia, under 
 Colonel le Comte Dupre ; and a battalion of 
 seamen commanded by Captain Hamilton 
 of the " Lizard," — all told, between eight 
 and nine hundred men, regulars, militia, and 
 seamen. 
 
 Above the squalor and dirt of the lower 
 town Arnold's men could see the glittering 
 roofs and towering spires of the public build- 
 ings, the charitable and religious houses of 
 the upper town, — the Government House, 
 the Castle St. Louis, Hotel Dieu, Church 
 and Convent of the R^coUets, the Seminary 
 
 73 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 of Quebec, — and many private mansions set 
 in gardens and orchards. 
 
 Arnold had preceded the main body by 
 three days in order to collect boats for pass- 
 ing the river, but found to his dismay that 
 the British had burned or secreted every 
 available craft along the shore for twenty 
 miles. With his accustomed energy he set 
 carpenters to work, and with what they could 
 construct and what they could collect had 
 ready a fleet of about thirty birch-bark canoes 
 when the army arrived. With thesg on the 
 night of the 14:th he succeeded in passing 
 five hundred men to the opposite or Que- 
 bec shore. By daybreak on the morning of 
 the 14th the little army had surmounted 
 the steep, and were drawn up on the Plains 
 of Abraham before the city. 
 
 Sixteen years before, Wolfe, with his Eng- 
 lishmen and provincials, had fallen there at 
 the moment of victory. Then the French 
 held the citadel, and an English army with 
 its New England allies were the invaders. 
 Now the Provincials attacked, and the Eng- 
 lish defended. Of the former, there were 
 
 74 
 
The St. Louis (iatc, l.uilt in 1G93, razed 1871. 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 some six hundred effective men, ragged, 
 worn, footsore, armed witli unserviceable 
 muskets, and with only five rounds of ammu- 
 nition to a man ; yet, adopting the tactics of 
 Wolfe, and hoping that the citizens within 
 might rise, Arnold marched his men up to 
 the walls, cheered, waved his standards, and 
 tried every means to provoke the enemy to a 
 sortie. But Lieutenant-Governor Cramaha 
 and Colonel McLean were too wise to leave 
 the shelter of their walls, standing in mortal 
 dread of the aim of the American riflemen, 
 of whose skill they had often heard ; nor did 
 the citizens make any demonstration except 
 to return the cheers of the " Bostonians." 
 Arnold also sent a messenger with a flag de- 
 manding surrender, but it was fired on, the 
 British commander refusing to hold any parley 
 " with rebels." Hearing of the approach of re- 
 inforcements, and his own ammunition being 
 nearly exhausted, Arnold now moved his 
 army to Point aux Trembles, some twenty 
 miles up the St. Lawrence, a good strategic 
 point for purposes of defence, and intrench- 
 ing, waited for reinforcements under Mont- 
 
 75 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 gomery. The latter had succeeded Schuyler 
 as commander of the Northern army, and had 
 been very successful, having taken Montreal 
 and St. John's. It was vitally necessary to 
 communicate with him quickly, and having 
 no faith in Indians or Canadians after his 
 previous experiences, Arnold called for vol- 
 unteers from the ranks. For a moment no 
 one responded; in truth it was a service 
 one might think twice before engaging in. 
 Eighty miles of wilderness stretched between 
 them and Montreal, infested with wild beasts, 
 and what was worse, scouting parties of In- 
 dians and royalists under orders to intercept 
 any messenger that the American commander 
 might send. Besides, on this No-man's-land 
 Death reigned supreme, hunger in one hand, 
 Arctic cold in the other. Of all that hardy 
 company none volunteered, until at last a 
 stripling stepped forward, one whose place 
 throughout the march had been with the 
 leaders in the van rather than with lag- 
 gards in the rear, — Aaron Burr, "son of 
 the former President of the College of New 
 Jersey." Burning with patriotism and the 
 
 76 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 laudable desire of fame, this " amiable youth," 
 as Henry styles him, had risen from a sick 
 bed in Cambridge, and volunteered as a pri- 
 vate in the ranks, but failing of acceptance 
 because of his physical condition, had joined 
 the expedition as a " gentleman volunteer." 
 
 His conduct through the long march had 
 aroused the admiration of the army. A few 
 days in the woods had restored him to his 
 wonted vigor; his skill in boating, gained 
 while at college, placed him at an early stage 
 of the march in command of a batteau, where 
 he did yeoman service, himself steering and 
 directing the unwieldy craft with unerring 
 skill, while his naturally hardy frame, and 
 abstemious habits acquired while at college, 
 enabled him to bear up under privations that 
 overcame many men of double his weight 
 and inches. Once his boat went over a 
 twenty-foot fall that, hidden by a bend, sud- 
 denly opened before them, and the crew 
 barely escaped with their lives. On several 
 occasions his heroic conduct had come under 
 Arnold's eye, and now, after some hesitation 
 because of his extreme youth, the coramander- 
 
 77 
 
The Heal Benedict Arnold 
 
 in-chief accepted him. While Burr was mak- 
 ing his brief preparations Arnold wrote this 
 letter to Montgomery: 
 
 Point atjx Trembles, 30th Novemter, 1775. 
 
 Dear Sir : This will be handed you by Mr. 
 Burr, a volunteer in the army and son to the 
 former President of New Jersey College. He is a 
 young gentleman of much life and activity, and has 
 acted with much spirit and resolution on our fatigu- 
 ing march. His conduct I make no doubt will be a 
 sufficient recommendation to your favor. 
 
 I am, dear sir, your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 B. Arnold. 
 Brigadier General Montgomery. 
 
 Burr had already formed his plan of cam- 
 paign. Knowing the Catholic clergymen to 
 be averse to British rule, he went direct to a 
 monastery near by and asked to see the father- 
 in-chief ; to him, after feeling his way a few 
 moments, he frankly disclosed his true charac- 
 ter and the object of his mission, and asked 
 his aid. 
 
 Burr at this time was a high-spirited, pure- 
 hearted youth, handsome as a girl, his face 
 glowing with courage and resolution, and the 
 
 78 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 good father was captivated by him at once. 
 " You show great faith in human nature, my 
 son," he said. 
 
 " My heart tells me whom to trust," replied 
 Burr. 
 
 "Well, well. It will be no doubt to the 
 glory of God to aid you." He supplied him 
 with the hat and frock of a priest, with a 
 guide and a letter to the next religious house, 
 and disguised in this manner the emissary 
 was passed quickly and safely along the 
 wilderness paths ; although, as they neared 
 Montgomery's lines, so thick were the enemy's 
 scouts that it was necessary to lie by for two 
 days. But the verbal instructions were safely 
 delivered, and Montgomery at once put his 
 little band in motion to effect a junction with 
 Arnold. So pleased was he with the address 
 and daring of the young messenger that he 
 made him his aide at once. Burr, on his part, 
 conceived a strong attachment for his noble 
 chief, which found expression a few weeks 
 later in his attempt to bear off his body from 
 under the walls of Quebec amid a storm of 
 bullets from the victorious enemy. 
 
 79 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 Montgomery joined Arnold at Point aux 
 Trembles on December 3, with three hun- 
 dred men only, — all that were able to endure 
 the forced march, — but with sufficient cloth- 
 ing, provisions, and ammunition. Of the 
 eleven hundred who had marched from Cam- 
 bridge three months before he found six hun- 
 dred and seventy-five only, but these, he says, 
 were of " a style of discipline much superior 
 to what I have been used to see in this cam- 
 paign." " Arnold's corps," he wrote to 
 Schuyler two days after his arrival, " is an 
 exceedingly fine one, and he himself is active, 
 intelligent, and enterprising." 
 
 The two commanders seem from their let- 
 ters to have been mutually pleased with each 
 other. Montgomery, as the ranking officer, 
 took command, but he was ably and cordially 
 supported by Arnold. The generals found 
 that together they could muster about a 
 thousand men wherewith to storm the strong- 
 est fortress in America, — nine hundred and 
 seventy-five Provincials, raw levies all, two 
 hundred French Canadians which Arnold had 
 raised, and the St. Francis Indians he had 
 
 80 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 gathered in on his march. What was to be 
 done had to be done quickly, for the term of 
 enlistment of many of the men would expire 
 on December 31, and they were anxious to 
 return to their families ; besides, the inclem- 
 ent season rendered rapid action imperative. 
 Montgomery sent a flag to demand the sur- 
 render of the town, but it was fired on as 
 Arnold's had been. Then, probably at the 
 suggestion of Arnold, he wrote an " extrava- 
 gant and menacing letter," which met with 
 the reception that might have been foreseen 
 — General Carleton refused to have "any 
 kind of parley with rebels." 
 
 "Well," said Montgomery, " to the storm- 
 ing we must come at last." 
 
 He called a council of his ofl&cers and the 
 unanimous voice was for an assault. One 
 can but admire their infinite nerve — there 
 in the depths of the wilderness, hundreds of 
 miles from any succor or base of supplies ; 
 there is really nothing quite like it in the 
 history of warfare. The plan of attack was 
 simple : Arnold was to strike on the side of 
 St. Roque; Montgomery simultaneously was 
 6 81 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 to assault the lower town from the river near 
 Cape Diamond, and there were to be two 
 feigned attacks on other quarters. 
 
 The night of December 31 was chosen for 
 the attack. It came with a snowstorm — a 
 favorable condition. At two in^ the morning 
 word was passed and silently the attacking 
 columns formed and moved to the walls. That 
 he might be recognized in the m§lee, each man 
 wore in his hat band a strip of white paper on 
 which some wrote the patriot slogan " Liberty 
 or Death." Montgomery's column marched 
 from the latter's headquarters at Holland 
 House to Wolfe's Cove on the river, thence 
 down stream two miles to the barrier under 
 Cape Diamond. In a few moments the sap- 
 pers and miners had cut away the pickets of 
 the barrier, and the storming party rushed on 
 to the gate, which was defended by a block- 
 house with a battery of two three-pounders 
 and a few soldiers and seamen from the 
 British ships. In the van with Montgomery 
 marched his aides. Burr and McPherson, the 
 former leading a forlorn hope of forty men 
 armed with ladders for scaling the walls. 
 
 82 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 Taken wholly by surprise the guard in the 
 blockhouse showed a disposition to fly, and 
 could Montgomery have pressed on he might 
 have taken the gate and gained the city ; but 
 the main body of his men were a few hundred 
 yards behind, and he paused a moment for 
 them to come up. That moment was fatal. 
 The British officers had time to rally their 
 men " who stood to their guns with lighted 
 linstocks." 
 
 " Men of New York," shouted Montgomery, 
 " follow where your general leads ! Come 
 on, my brave boys, and Quebec is ours.'' 
 
 They sprang forward, but as they came up 
 one field-piece loaded with grape was dis- 
 charged full in their breasts. The noble form 
 of Montgomery plunged forward and lay 
 quivering in the snow, with his aide, McPher- 
 son, and eleven others beside him. Captain 
 Aaron Burr, of all that were in the van, alone 
 remained upright. Seeing their leaders fall, 
 those behind broke and fled. Captain Burr, 
 after vainly attempting to rally his men, 
 seized the body of Montgomery in his arms 
 and bore it several yards through the falling 
 
 83 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 snow with the bullets of the enemy whistling 
 about his ears ; but the latter making a sortie 
 just then, he was obliged to drop it and flee 
 to avoid capture. This gallant act was wit- 
 nessed among others by his college chum, the 
 chaplain. Rev. Samuel Spring, who many 
 years after narrated it ; and although all men- 
 tion of it has been studiously suppressed by 
 the historians, so-called, who have written of 
 the assault, the fact remains and the glory of 
 it; of the comrades of Aaron Burr in this 
 memorable march none could be found to 
 engage in the shameful hue and cry raised 
 against him by revengeful enemies in later 
 life. 
 
 Let us now turn to the northeastern quar- 
 ter of the town, where Arnold himself led a 
 forlorn hope to the attack. The point ap- 
 proached was the Palace Gate, which it was 
 hoped to carry by surprise ; but as the column 
 arrived near it, there fell through the swirl- 
 ing snow-rifts the clangor of bells and roll 
 of drums, showing they were discovered, while 
 a storm of grape and canister tore through 
 their ranks. Bending their heads against 
 
 84 
 
iln: Palice Gate, l.iiilt in 17.50, rebuilt in 1S31, razed 1871. 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 the driving snow and covering their gun- 
 locks with coats to keep their powder dry, 
 the intrepid leader and his men rushed along 
 in single file, followed by Morgan and his 
 riflemen, and by Lamb dragging a single 
 field-piece upon a sled. In the Sault au 
 Matelot they found the first barricade in a 
 narrow street commanded by a battery and 
 by neighboring houses, from which soldiers 
 fired upon them ; here the same casualty be- 
 fell them as had overtaken their fellows. 
 Arnold fell, his leg broken by a musket-ball. 
 He arose and endeavored to press forward 
 cheering on his men, but was unable to stand, 
 and two soldiers bore him to the rear. Day 
 was just breaking. Morgan now took com- 
 mand, led on the attack, ably seconded by 
 Greene, Porterfield, and others, carried the 
 battery, taking its defenders prisoners, rushed 
 on to the second barrier, and endeavored to 
 carry that also; but the garrison had now 
 been reinforced by those relieved by the fail- 
 ure of Montgomery's attack, and the gallant 
 fellows were repulsed leaving Morgan, Meigs, 
 Greene, and many others in the hands of the 
 
 85 
 
The Eeal Benedict Arnold 
 
 enemy. Everybody supposed the British 
 would improve their advantage and attack 
 in turn, when no doubt they could have cap- 
 tured the entire army. Arnold, on his back 
 in bed in the improvised hospital, expected it. 
 Says Dr. Senter in his journal, " We entreated 
 Colonel Arnold for his own safety to be car- 
 ried back into the country where they could 
 not readily find him, but to no purpose. He 
 would neither be removed nor suffer a man 
 from the hospital to retreat. He ordered his 
 pistols loaded, with a sword on his bed, adding 
 he was determined to kill as many as possible 
 if they came into the room. We were now 
 all soldiers ; even the wounded in their beds 
 were ordered a gun by their side, that if they 
 did attack the hospital they might make the 
 most vigorous defence possible. Orders were 
 also sent out into the villages round the city 
 to the captains of the militia to immediately 
 assemble to our assistance." But kind Provi- 
 dence, shall we say, put into the heart of 
 Carleton such distrust of his populace, or 
 such fear of the American rifles, that he for- 
 bore to attack, and the devoted band escaped. 
 
 86 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 Arnold by the death of Montgomery became 
 commander-in-chief, and still had hopes of 
 accomplishing his task. On January 6 he 
 wrote from his sick bed : " I received a 
 wound by a ball through my left leg at the 
 time I had gained the first battery at the 
 lower town, which by loss of blood rendered 
 me very weak. As soon as the main body 
 came up I retired to the hospital, near a mile 
 on foot, being obliged to draw one leg after 
 me, and a great part of the way under the 
 continued fire of the enemy from the walls 
 at no greater distance than fifty yards ; " yet 
 he adds : " I have no thoughts of leaving this 
 proud town until I first enter it in triumph." 
 He maintained a close siege until the first of 
 April, when General David Wooster, whom he 
 had defied at New Haven, and who had been 
 appointed to command the Northern army, 
 arrived and took control. 
 
 Neither Congress nor the country was in- 
 sensible to the services of Arnold during 
 this winter. When news of his gallantry 
 before Quebec reached the former body it 
 unanimously appointed him Brigadier Gen- 
 
 87 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 eral, and by liis countrymen at large his 
 name was joined with those of Montgomery 
 and Wolfe, whose memories are imperishably 
 associated with these sanguinary heights. 
 
 At the time Wooster arrived Arnold had 
 sufficiently recovered from his wound to ride, 
 and the day after received a serious mishap 
 by being thrown from his horse while visit- 
 ing an outpost, which confined him to his 
 bed for some time. When fully recovered 
 he asked for and obtained leave of absence 
 and retired to Montreal ; his reasons for the 
 step he gives .in a letter to General Schuyler 
 dated April 20 : " Had I been able to take 
 any active part I should by no means have 
 left camp, but as General Wooster did not 
 think proper to consult me I am convinced 
 I shall be more useful here than in camp, and 
 he very readily granted me leave of absence." 
 Even into Canada the rancor of his enemies 
 in Connecticut pursued him. 
 
 Practically this ended Arnold's campaign 
 in Canada, — and the general campaign for 
 that matter, since Wooster adopted the 
 Fabian policy and did nothing ; and in June, 
 
 88 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 the British government having reinforced its 
 army in Canada with thirteen thousand men 
 — Irish, English, and Germans — to make its 
 attack on New York and split the- colonies 
 in twain, the American army quitted Canada, 
 Arnold being the last man to leave its shores. 
 Sullivan, who succeeded Thomas, who relieved 
 Wooster of command of the Northern army, 
 retreated first, leaving Arnold to hold Mon- 
 treal, which was the last post given up, and 
 protect his retreat. Arnold held it until the 
 British hosts under Burgoyne were almost in 
 sight, when he retreated rapidly to St. John's, 
 on Lake Champlain, pulling up the bridges 
 behind him, — "a very prudent and judicious 
 retreat, with the enemy close at his heels," 
 wrote Sullivan to Washington on June 19. 
 
 To a certain extent his expedition had 
 proved abortive, but his harshest critic will 
 scarcely dare maintain that it was through 
 his fault. The causes for it are very judi- 
 cially summed up by Chief Justice John 
 Marshall in his Life of Washington: 
 
 " It was a bold and at one time promised 
 to be a successful effort to annex this exten- 
 
 89 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 sive province to the United Colonies. The 
 disposition of the Canadians favored the 
 measure, and had Quebec fallen there is 
 reason to believe the colony would have en- 
 tered cordially into the Union. Had Arnold 
 been able to reach Quebec a few days sooner, 
 or to cross the St. Lawrence on his first ar- 
 rival, or had the gallant Montgomery not 
 fallen in the assault on the 31st of De- 
 cember it is probable the expedition would 
 have been crowned with complete success. 
 But the radical causes of the failure were : 
 the lateness of the season when the troops 
 were assembled, a deficit in the preparation, 
 and still more the shortness of the term for 
 which the men were enlisted." 
 
 He might have added to these causes want 
 of proper support at home. The invading 
 army never was supplied with money, arms, 
 provisions, and munitions of war sufficient 
 for the undertaking. Said Arnold in one 
 of his letters : " We labor under almost as 
 many difficulties as the Israelites did of old 
 — obliged to make brick without straw." 
 In April, 1776, Congress sent three commis- 
 
 90 
 
The Assault on Quebec 
 
 sioners — the venerable Benjamin Franklin, 
 Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and Samuel 
 Chase — to inquire into the condition of the 
 Northern army and its failure to perform 
 the work assigned it. They reported : " The 
 army is in a distressed condition, and is in 
 want of the most necessary articles, — meat, 
 bread, tents, shoes, stockings, shirts, etc. 
 They say they were obliged to seize by force 
 flour to supply the garrison with bread, but 
 men with arms in their hands will not starve 
 when provisions can be obtained by force. 
 Soldiers without pay, without discipline, 
 living from hand to mouth, grumbling for 
 their pay ; and when they get it it will not 
 buy the necessaries of life. Your military 
 chest contains eleven thousand paper dollars, 
 and you are indebted to your soldiers treble 
 that sum, and to the inha,bitants about fif- 
 teen thousand." 
 
 Thus hedged about with difficulties if Ar- 
 nold on one or two occasions exceeded his 
 powers who can blame him ? Military neces- 
 sity knows no law. 
 
 91 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 TICONDEEOGA AND THE LAKE 
 
 LAKE CHAMPLAIN, lying between the 
 y green hill-ranges of Vermont on 
 the east and the wooded peaks of 
 the Adirondacks on the west, clear, blue, 
 islanded, and forest-hung, was, as before re- 
 marked, the natural, and in 1776 the only 
 highway from Canada to New York. Control 
 of it was essential to the British for their 
 proposed plan of invasion which should dis- 
 member the colonies ; it was equally vital for 
 the Americans to retain it, and both parties 
 now began to make preparations for the heady 
 battle which should decide its ownership. 
 After the reverses in Canada, General Horatio 
 Gates was appointed to the command of the 
 Northern army. He was at this time forty- 
 eight years of age, an Englishman, born in 
 Maiden, England, who had been trained in the 
 English army, and owed his influence with 
 Congress chiefly to that fact and to his ser- 
 
 92 
 
Ticonderoga and the Lake 
 
 vices in the French and Indian Wars, he hav- 
 ing been one of the officers saved from the 
 perils of Braddock's defeat by the skill and 
 daring of a young Virginian surveyor, — 
 George Washington. Gates was courtly and 
 suave, an intriguer and wire-puller, the bravest 
 of the brave in drawing-rooms and before 
 congressional committees, but on the field of 
 battle a weakling and poltroon. 
 
 The American army under his direction 
 now retreated to Crown Point, thence by 
 decision of a council of the officers to Ticon- 
 deroga, there to dispute for the supremacy of 
 Champlain. 
 
 Sir Guy Carleton, in command of the Brit- 
 ish forces, quickly advanced to St. John's, at 
 the northern end of the lake, and the struggle 
 was on. The odds were so greatly in favor 
 of the British that for the Americans to dis- 
 pute them seemed the height of folly ; that 
 the latter succeeded so long in holding their 
 foe at bay can but awaken our heartiest ad- 
 miration ; surely such fighting qualities and 
 such staying power were never before exhib- 
 ited by any people. 
 
 93 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 Carleton had everything at command that 
 the practically exhaustless treasury of Great 
 Britain could supply, — ships, seamen, naval 
 stores, munitions of war; the admiralty sent 
 him out at least three war vessels especially 
 adapted to lake service, — one, the " Inflexi- 
 ble," a three-master of twenty twelve-pound- 
 ers, and ten smaller guns. Contractors and 
 shipbuilders were also sent from England, 
 who built at Montreal two hundred batteaux 
 which were transported overland to St. John's. 
 The larger vessels were taken to pieces, 
 carried across, and reconstructed at the same 
 place. For men to man them Carleton had 
 seven hundred picked seamen taken from the 
 British fleets and transports in the St. Law- 
 rence. The Americans, on the other hand, 
 had nothing save a few sloops and flatboats, 
 little money, no ship timber, no naval stores, 
 no skilled shipwrights, no guns, no munitions 
 of war. To add to their fleet they must cut 
 timber in the neighboring forest and shape it 
 into ships. Everything else must come from 
 the Atlantic seaboard over the almost impas- 
 sable roads of the wilderness ; but when the 
 
 94 
 
Ticonderoga and the Lake 
 
 British sailed down the lake, there behind 
 Valcour lay the American fleet to oppose 
 them. It was really one of the most remark- 
 able achievements of the war. One man did 
 it and saved the colonies from invasion that 
 year, giving them breathing space and time 
 to muster their resources for the life-and- 
 death struggle of the succeeding summer. 
 
 To Arnold, Washington, Schuyler, and Gates 
 at this supreme moment instinctively turned. 
 Let us see what he did in this feat of making 
 brick without straw. He was not himself a 
 shipwright ; it is not probable that he could 
 muster a ship carpenter in his whole force 
 who had served a regular apprenticeship. 
 Tools, sails, shrouds, iron-work, guns, muni- 
 tions, must be hauled and boated from Albany 
 with infinite labor ; and then his men must go 
 into the forest, chop down the trees, hew them 
 to the proper shape and length, and put them 
 together in the semblance of ships. The 
 latter were crude creations no doubt, but two 
 weeks before the British sailed in their pride, 
 Arnold had to oppose them three schooners, 
 two sloops, three galleys, and eight gunboats. 
 
 95 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 He was appointed, besought, implored to 
 command the fleet his genius had created. 
 This, although he had never before manoeu- 
 vred a fleet, and for captains and seamen 
 must depend largely on landsmen ; for gun- 
 ners, on men who had never seen artillery. 
 The signals, manoeuvres, and evolutions of a 
 fleet he must first learn himself, and then 
 teach his men. Surprise was expressed by 
 his fellow-ofl&cers at his relinquishing com- 
 mand of the right wing to accept that of the 
 fleet, but there lay the path of duty, there 
 his country greatly needed him, and there 
 was to be fighting under fearful odds, with 
 consequent glory. 
 
 While engaged in these herculean efforts 
 he must needs turn about and defend himself 
 from a fire in the rear. One of the bitterest 
 enemies he had made was Lieutenant-Colonel 
 John Brown, who had formed one of the 
 Connecticut contingent which had marched 
 against Ticonderoga in 1775 under Colonel 
 Easton. Their unfriendliness began with the 
 clash of authority as to who should command 
 at that time. After the assault on Quebec 
 
 96 
 
Ticonderoga and the Lake 
 
 Arnold wrote a letter to Congress charging 
 that Brown had been "publicly impeached 
 with plundering the officers' baggage taken 
 at Sorel," that it was the topic of public con- 
 versation at Montreal, and protesting against 
 that officer's promotion until the matter should 
 be cleared up. Brown characterized this 
 charge as " false, scandalous, and malicious," 
 and demanded a court of inquiry, which was 
 denied. He applied to General Wooster on 
 his arriving to take command, and was again 
 refused ; he made the same complaint to the 
 Committee of Congress, and met with the 
 same rebuff ; to General Schuyler, with a like 
 result. 
 
 Wooster, at least, was no friend to Arnold, 
 and if there had been no ground for Arnold's 
 charge, it is certain that Brown's request 
 would have been granted. However this 
 may be, it was not long after the army's re- 
 treat ere General Arnold became aware that 
 many scandalous stories concerning him 
 were being circulated, covering many years 
 of time and a wide range of scene, all ema- 
 nating from one source — Colonel Brown. 
 7 97 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 These culminated early in December, 1776, 
 by the latter's filing thirteen formal charges 
 against Arnold, beginning with the affair at 
 Ticonderoga in 1775, and continuing through 
 his subsequent career at Cambridge and in 
 Canada. These charges were contained in a 
 letter to General Gates, couched in violent 
 and heated terms, asking for the summary 
 arrest and trial of the accused officer. The 
 charges were as a rule trivial and puerile ; 
 the most important related to his seizure of 
 certain goods from the merchants of Montreal 
 while he was in command of that post, and 
 holding it in the face of the enemy, a short 
 time before the retreat. Arnold's first men- 
 tion of the affair is in a letter to the Com- 
 mittee of Congress, dated June 2, in which 
 he writes : " I am making every possible 
 preparation to secure our retreat. I have 
 secured six tons of lead, ball, shot, and mer- 
 chandise. The inhabitants I have not yet 
 taken hold of ; I intend to begin to-morrow. 
 Everything is in the greatest confusion. 
 Not one contractor, commissary, or quarter- 
 master. I am obliged to do,the duty of all." 
 
 98 
 
Ticonderoga and the Lake 
 
 Four days later lie wrote to Schuyler : " I 
 have received your instructions respecting 
 tlie Tories and their effects ; most of the former 
 have absconded — great part of the latter is 
 secured. I have sent to St. John's a quantity 
 of goods for the use of the army, some bought, 
 some seized." The goods were sent, in care 
 of Major Scott, to Chamblay with orders to 
 deliver them to Colonel Hazen, the officer in 
 command there. Hazen refused to receive 
 them ; the goods lay unguarded for several 
 days, and some of the packages were broken 
 open and rifled. Arnold reported these facts 
 to both Generals Schuyler and Sullivan, and 
 asked that Hazen be court-martialled for diso- 
 bedience of orders. A court-martial was ac- 
 cordingly ordered, but when it sat, it refused 
 to hear the testimony of Major Scott, Arnold's 
 principal witness. Arnold indignantly pro- 
 tested against the refusal as "unprecedented 
 and unjust." The court refused to enter the 
 protest, because it appeared to them " illegal, 
 illiberal, and ungentlemanlike." It also di- 
 rected its President to demand satisfaction, 
 which he did, in the following language: 
 
 99 
 
The Heal Benedict Arnold 
 
 "Sir: As you have evidently called in 
 question, not only the honor, but the justice 
 of this court, by the illiberal protest you 
 exhibited, the court have directed me — and 
 as President of this court, I deem it my duty 
 — to inform you that you have drawn upon 
 yourself their just resentment, and that noth- 
 ing but an open acknowledgment of your er- 
 ror will be considered as satisfactory." As 
 every officer of this model court was far infe- 
 rior in rank to Arnold, the impudence of this 
 demand is refreshing. The latter replied 
 promptly : " The very extraordinary vote of 
 the court, and directions given to the Presi- 
 dent, and his still more extraordinary demand, 
 are in my opinion, ungenteel, and indecent 
 reflections on a superior officer, which the na- 
 ture and words of my protest will by no 
 means justify; nor was it designed as you 
 have construed it. I am not very conversant 
 with courts-martial, but this I may venture 
 to say : they are composed of men not infalli- 
 ble ; even you may have erred. Congress 
 will judge between us, to whom I will desire 
 the General to transmit the proceedings of 
 100 
 
Ticonderoga and the Lake 
 
 this court." He concluded by assuring them 
 that when the war was over they should have 
 all the satisfaction their nice sense of honor 
 might require, but declining to grant their re- 
 quest. The court sent the papers to Gates, 
 demanding the arrest of Arnold. In reply. 
 Gates dissolved the court, and sent the papers 
 to Congress, with a letter which contained 
 the following comment : " Seeing and know- 
 ing all the circumstances, I am convinced if 
 there was fault on one side, there was too 
 much acrimony on the other. I was obliged 
 to act dictatorially, and dissolve the court- 
 martial the instant they demanded General 
 Arnold to be put under arrest. The United 
 States must not be deprived of that excellent 
 ofl&cer's services at this important moment." 
 
 The incident is noteworthy as showing the 
 rancor of the enemies by whom Arnold was 
 surrounded at this time, and incidentally the 
 discipline prevailing in the army of invasion. 
 Gates' letter also shows that he entertained a 
 much higher opinion of Arnold at this time 
 than he did a few months later, when he de- 
 prived him of command on the eve of the 
 101 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 most important battle of the war. As to the 
 charges, Arnold's letters show them to have 
 been false, and a subsequent Committee of 
 Congress, after an exhaustive investigation, 
 reported them groundless. 
 
 102 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE FIEST NAVAL BATTLE ON LAKE 
 CHAMPLAIN 
 
 EARLY on the morning of the llth of 
 October, 1776, the guard boats of 
 the American fleet reported the Brit- 
 ish ships in the offing, evidently advancing 
 to attack. One look convinced Arnold that 
 the hour of struggle for command of the lake 
 had arrived. He had chosen his position 
 with consummate skill. Fifty miles down 
 the lake from Crown Point lay Valcour 
 Island, trapezium-shaped, in the widest part 
 of the lake but so near its western shore 
 that only a narrow channel intervened; so 
 that to one ascending the lake it might 
 easily be mistaken for an out-jutting promon- 
 tory. In 1776 it was densely wooded, as 
 were the adjacent shores of the mainland. 
 Across this narrow channel, between island 
 and main, Arnold moored his ships, each 
 flank protected by the shore. His fleet com- 
 103 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 prised three schooners and a sloop, armed 
 with four and six pounders ; eight gunboats, 
 armed with nine and twelve pounders ; and 
 three galleys, carrying three or four eighteen- 
 pounders each, — in all seventy guns. 
 
 The British fleet was commanded by Cap- 
 tain Pringle, a gallant officer of the British 
 navy; but Carleton was himself on board, 
 with the chief officers of his army, so that 
 his men fought under the eye of their com- 
 mander. Seven hundred picked seamen 
 manned the ships. The latter were far su- 
 perior to the American fleet both in number 
 and weight of metal. They comprised the 
 "Inflexible," before described, two schooners, 
 — the "Lady Mary" and the "Carleton," — 
 a floating battery, the "Thunderer," and over 
 two hundred flat-boats and transports, with 
 a combined armament of ninety-three guns, 
 some of heavy calibre. From its position 
 the American fleet was wholly hidden from 
 the view of an enemy ascending the lake, 
 and in choosing it, it was no doubt Arnold's 
 intention to let the enemy pass and then 
 assail him in the rear, taking him by sur- 
 104 
 

 D tTv;ctN 
 
 V f\LCOUR I &TI-,'E: W£ST^}fl/V SHORE ( L.CHAMPLPiIti) 
 
 J*/-.,';" 
 
 
 
 Reproduced from " Harper's Jlaffazine," b\ 
 permission of Harper & ]?ros. 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain 
 
 prise J he may have shrewdly reasoned also 
 that raw militia would be apt to fight better 
 with the enemy between them and their only 
 line of retreat. 
 
 Proudly before a stiff northwester the 
 British bore down the lake looking for their 
 prey ; few thought the Americans would dare 
 to fight. " The rascals won't give us a 
 chance to burn powder," said Pringle on the 
 quarter-deck of the " Inflexible." " Wait and 
 see," replied Carleton grimly, having had a 
 taste of Arnold's mettle at Quebec. As the 
 British passed the southwestern corner of 
 the island they became visible to the Ameri- 
 can fleet, and Arnold saw that the smaller 
 vessels had drawn ahead beyond the protec- 
 tion of the heavier ones. The opportunity 
 was too good a one to be lost. He at once 
 dashed out after them in his flagship, the 
 "Royal Savage," followed by the galleys but 
 leaving his line unbroken. The enemy closed 
 in on him, however, quicker than he had an- 
 ticipated, and he attempted to regain his 
 line. To do this it was necessary to beat, 
 and in coming round with her inexperienced 
 105 
 
The Meal Benedict Arnold 
 
 crew the "Royal Savage" ran aground and 
 had to be abandoned, Arnold transferring his 
 flag to the " Congress." 
 
 The British having started their quarry 
 now ranged their ships in a parallel line three 
 hundred and fifty yards distant from the 
 Americans, and at half-past the meridian the 
 battle was on in earnest. Previously Carle- 
 ton had landed one thousand men and sta- 
 tioned them along both shores to pick up 
 such men as should escape to land after he 
 had blown their makeshift craft out of water, 
 while a select corps of Indian sharp-shooters 
 were ordered into the tallest trees on either 
 bank to pick off the Americans as they 
 fought, — a ruse that availed him little, how- 
 ever, from its having been foreseen by the 
 wary Arnold, who protected his men by fas- 
 cines fixed to the vessel's sides. Arnold 
 anchored the " Congress " in the centre of 
 his line, and with his men stood like a rock 
 against the repeated assaults of the foe, who 
 again and again attempted to break his line, 
 but in vain. More than once the enemy's 
 leading vessels fell to the rear to repair 
 
 106 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain 
 
 damages, and when night brought the san- 
 guinary action to a close his line was fully 
 six hundred yards distant. Nor had the 
 Americans escaped injury. The " Congress " 
 and the " Washington " were the most seri- 
 ously injured. The former had been hulled 
 twelve times, had received seven shots be- 
 tween wind and water, her mainmast was 
 nearly severed in two places, and her rigging 
 cut to pieces. The captain and master of 
 the " "Washington " were wounded and her 
 first lieutenant killed, and the vessel herself 
 nearly as badly shattered as the " Congress." 
 The " Philadelphia " had been pierced below 
 the water line so many times that she sank 
 an hour after the engagement. The "New 
 York" lost every officer except her captain. 
 A marvellous gift Arnold had of inspiring 
 every man under him with his own desperate 
 valor. Of his little force of five hundred 
 men, eighty had been killed and wounded. 
 All through the heady fight, Arnold is said 
 to have pointed his guns himself, having no 
 gunners he could trust. " Never mind," said 
 Pringle as the British withdrew, having 
 107 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 wholly failed to break the American line. 
 " We have winged the bird, and will pick 
 him up in the morning; he cannot escape 
 us." So it seemed in all human probability, 
 for the British lay between the crippled 
 Americans and their base at Ticonderoga; 
 and so it would have been with almost any 
 other leader. After nightfall, Arnold called a 
 council of war on board the " Congress," which 
 decided to retreat. Several plans for evading 
 the enemy were discussed. " There is but 
 one way, gentlemen," said Arnold, " and that 
 is to run the gantlet of the British line. 
 The place to strike is where the enemy is n't 
 looking for you." The night favored his de- 
 sign. It was misty, and the wind came out 
 of the north — a fair wind. The foe, never 
 dreaming of such temerity, kept no unusual 
 watch, and silently as ghosts, with every lan- 
 tern out except a stern light as a guide for the 
 following ship, the whole fleet stole by the slum- 
 bering Englishmen, Arnold in the "Congress" 
 bringing up the rear, and bore away up the 
 lake as fast as the freshening breeze would 
 waft them. They were so crippled, however, 
 108 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Ghamplain 
 
 — some waterlogged, some deficient in spars 
 and rigging, — that they made slow progress, 
 and many were the anxious glances cast be- 
 hind, as the sun rose over the bold and 
 wooded eastern shores. When Schuyler's 
 island, some twelve miles down the lake, was 
 reached, the water had so increased that it 
 was found necessary to stop, pump out the 
 ships, and repair damages. Here Arnold sent 
 off an express to Gates, informing him of the 
 retreat, and adding that as soon as they 
 could stop the leaks, they would press on to 
 Crown Point. " We have great reason to 
 return our hearty and humble thanks to Al- 
 mighty God, for preserving and delivering 
 so many of us from our more than savage 
 enemies," he added. 
 
 It was found that two of the gondolas were 
 so badly injured that they had to be sunk ; 
 with the rest of the fleet Arnold moved on, 
 but the wind which had before been fair, now 
 failed, and then sprang up from the south, 
 hindering their advance. Sweeps were got 
 out, but added very little to their progress. 
 So the night passed. Next morning, when 
 109 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 the rising sun dissipated the fog-banks, they 
 saw away to the north the whole British 
 fleet bearing down on them. Pringle had 
 found it necessary to spend a day in repairs, 
 but was now in excellent fighting trim, and 
 confident of victory. What he said on find- 
 ing that his bird had flown, on the morning of 
 the 12th, has not come down to us. 
 
 Arnold saw that he must fight again, or 
 submit to the ignominy of capture. The 
 " Congress " and the " Washington," with two 
 or three galleys, were still in the rear ; these 
 turned at bay like a wounded lioness in de- 
 fence of her young, while the rest of the fleet 
 was commanded to make all haste for the 
 desired port. The British were soon upon 
 them, and after a few broadsides, Colonel 
 Waterbury, of the "Washington," ingloriously 
 struck his colors, whereupon the enemy 
 turned his whole attention on the " Congress " 
 and the galleys. The " Inflexible," of eighteen 
 twelve-pounders, and a schooner of fourteen 
 six-pounders, ranged themselves under her 
 stern, another of twelve sixes on her broad- 
 side, and the three poured their concentrated 
 110 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain 
 
 fire of round shot and grape into her; but 
 f Arnold knew that the safety of his fleet de- 
 pended on his holding the enemy at bay, and 
 for four strenuous hours he kept up the un- 
 equal fight, the British momentarily expect- 
 ing to see his starry flag descend, and in 
 every chasm and uplift of the volleying 
 smoke, still seeing it floating at his mast- 
 head. Gradually other hostile vessels came 
 up and surrounded him, until seven were 
 pouring in their broadsides. Under this fire 
 the " Congress " became a wreck, not a whole 
 plank in her, her masts, rigging, and sails torn 
 to fragments ; but still her gallant commander 
 refused to surrender. The vessels had gradu- 
 ally worked near shore, and he now contrived to 
 get the " Congress," and gunboats into a small 
 creek, and ordering the marines to leap over- 
 board, and wade ashore with their small arms, 
 he set fire to the vessel, the marines meantime 
 keeping off the small boats of the British, which 
 were at once lowered when the object of the 
 Americans became apparent. When the fire 
 was well kindled, the cry was, "All over- 
 board ! " and commander and crew escaped 
 . Ill 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 safely to shore. But here their troubles were 
 by Bo means over, for many miles of tangled 
 wilderness intervened between tliem and safety, 
 and Carleton had at command savage allies, 
 keen as hounds on the forest trail, and eager 
 for scalps; these allies were, indeed, set on, 
 but Arnold and his men eluded them, and 
 arrived safely at Ticonderoga, where they 
 rejoiced to hear of the escape of their 
 comrades. 
 
 Of the many gallant sea-fights in history, — 
 Trafalgar, Abonkir, Flamborough Head, New 
 Orleans, Hampton Roads, Manila, Santiago, — 
 none show such desperate valor under fearful 
 odds, such patriotism, self-sacrifice, high sense 
 of duty, as this. Arnold's instructions were 
 to hold the enemy in check, " to act with such 
 cool, determined valor " as would cause him 
 to repent of his temerity ; and nobly did he 
 fulfil his trust.-' Yet Valcour has never been 
 
 ^ General James Wilkinson, -whose account of the battle 
 ■was had from Sergeant of Marines Gushing (later brigadier 
 general), -who served on Arnold's flagship (which account 
 -we have largely followed), charges that Arnold exceeded his 
 instructions in venturing so far down the lake, and that his 
 chief motive was by a desperate fight to win personal glory. 
 112 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain 
 
 celebrated in song ; there is no mention of it 
 in the school books, although Perry's victory 
 
 The following are Gates' official instructions, dated August 
 7, 1776 : 
 
 " Upon your arrival at Crown Point you wiU proceed with 
 the fleet of the United States under your command down 
 Lake Champlain to the narrow pass of the lake made by 
 Isle aux Tetes and the opposite shore. You will station the 
 fleet in the best manner to maintain possession of those passes 
 according as your judgment shall determine, cautiously 
 avoiding to place the vessels in a manner which might un- 
 necessarily expose them to the enemy's heavy artiUery from 
 the shore. 
 
 " You will most religiously observe that it is my positive 
 order that you do not command the fleet to sail below the 
 pass of the Isle aus Tetes above mentioned, incessantly 
 reflecting that the preventing the enemy's invasion of our 
 country is the ultimate end of the important command with 
 which you are now intrusted. It is a defensive war we are 
 carrying on, therefore no wanton risk or unnecessary display 
 of the power of the fleet is at any time to influence your con- 
 duct. Should the enemy come up the lake and attempt to 
 force their way through the pass you are stationed to defend, 
 in that case you will act with such cool, determined valor as 
 will give them reason to repent their temerity. 
 
 " But if, contrary to my hope and expectation, their fleet 
 should have so increased as to force an entrance within the 
 upper part of the lake, then, after you shall have discovered 
 the insufficiency of every effort to retard their progress, you 
 will, in the best manner you can, retire with your squadron 
 to Ticonderoga. Every vessel in the fleet being furnished 
 with a batteau, you will have it in your power to keep out 
 scout boats at night, and occasionally to annoy the enemy's 
 small craft. In the daytime your boats wiU act when oppor- 
 8 113 
 
The Eeal Benedict Arnold 
 
 on Lake Erie is a household word ; so greatly 
 may one infamous act obscure a whole life- 
 time of noble deeds. At the time the whole 
 country rang with his praises ; no officer 
 probably had a greater following among the 
 rank and file of the army ; all desired to fol- 
 low where he led, as was shown the following 
 autumn at a most critical instant in his 
 country's history. Gates in sending Arnold's 
 report of the battle to Schuyler wrote : " It 
 has pleased Providence to preserve General 
 Arnold. Few men ever met with so many 
 hair-breadth escapes in so short a time ; " and 
 on the 14th of October, in General Orders 
 published to the army, he returned " thanks 
 
 tunity offers, under cover of the cannon of the fleet. As the 
 most Honorable the Congress of the United States rests a 
 great dependence on your cautious and prudent conduct in 
 the management of the fleet, you ■will on no account detach 
 yourself from it upon the lesser service above mentioned. 
 A resolute but judicious defence of the northern entrance 
 into this side of the country is the momentous part which is 
 committed to your courage and abilities. I doubt not that 
 you will secure it from further invasion. " 
 
 After some general details he concludes : " It only re- 
 mains for me to recommend you to the protection of that 
 Power upon whose mercy we place our hopes of freedom 
 here, and happiness hereafter." 
 114 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain 
 
 to General Arnold, and the officers, seamen, 
 and marines of the fleet for the gallant de- 
 fence they made against the great superiority 
 of the enemy's force." Washington, Franklin, 
 Schuyler, Trumbull — all the purest patriots 
 of the Revolution — at this time loved, re- 
 spected, and trusted him. 
 
 Carleton did not attack Ticonderoga. The 
 lateness of the season, the strength of the 
 fortress, and the taste of the fighting qualities 
 of the Continentals gained at Valcour were 
 no doubt the real reasons, although the first- 
 named was the one publicly given out. 
 
 The campaign being over, Arnold in Decem- 
 ber set out to visit his children, who were 
 being tenderly cared for by his sister Hannah 
 in New Haven, but on his way made a detour 
 to visit his beloved commander-in-chief, — 
 then in winter quarters on the banks of the 
 Delaware. 
 
 The British were at this time threatening 
 a descent on the coast of New England, 
 and Washington sent our hero with General 
 Spencer to Rhode Island to assist General 
 Heath in rallying the militia to its defence. 
 115 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 In Rhode Island and in Boston he spent the 
 winter of 1776-77, drilling the raw troops he 
 had raised, and begging in frequent letters to 
 "Washington that he might be allowed to lead 
 them against the enemy, who had occupied 
 Newport ; but Washington refused on the 
 ground that his force was insufficient for any 
 promise of success. 
 
 During this winter an event occurred which 
 no doubt had an important bearing on Ar- 
 nold's future career. Congress, it was known, 
 would appoint five new major-generals for 
 the army. (^ Arnold and the country expected 
 that he would be one, both from his public 
 services and his priority of rank ; but when 
 the election was announced on the 19th of 
 February, 1777, it was found that Arnold 
 had been passed over in favor of Stirling, 
 Mifflin, St. Clair, Stephen, and Lincoln, 
 all his juniors in rank, and one, Lincoln, 
 taken from the militia.] We now know it 
 to have been due to the intrigues of the 
 New England men in part; and in part to 
 that powerful cabal just now gathering head, 
 which was aimed at Washington and Schuy- 
 116 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Ghamplain 
 
 ler, and skilfully manipulated by Charles 
 Lee, Gates, and a few other officers of equal 
 calibre. Arnold was justly indignant, but 
 bore himself with dignity and composure. 
 Washington was astounded ; he feared he 
 would lose one of his ablest fighting generals, 
 and they were none too plentiful at most. 
 
 " I am at a loss to know," he wrote Arnold, 
 " whether you have had a preceding appoint- 
 ment, as the newspapers announce, or whether 
 you have been omitted through some mistake. 
 Should the latter be the case I beg you will 
 not take any hasty steps, but allow proper 
 time for recollection, which I flatter myself 
 will remedy any error that may have been 
 made ; my endeavors to that end shall not 
 be wanting." 
 
 Arnold wrote in reply : " I am greatly 
 obliged to your Excellency for interesting 
 yourself so much in my behalf in respect to 
 my appointment, which I have had no ad- 
 vice of and know not by what means it was 
 announced in the newspapers. I believe none 
 but the printer has a mistake to rectify. 
 Congress undoubtedly have a right of pro- 
 117 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 moting those whom, from their abilities and 
 their long and arduous service, they deem 
 most deserving. Their promoting junior offi- 
 cers to the rank of major-generals I view- 
 as a very civil way of requesting my resig- 
 nation, as unqualified for the office I hold. 
 My commission was conferred unsolicited, 
 and received with pleasure only as a means 
 of serving my country. With equal pleasure 
 I resign it when I can no longer serve my 
 country with honor. The person who, void 
 of the nice feelings of honor, will tamely 
 condescend to give up his right and retain 
 a commission at the expense of his reputation, 
 I hold as a disgrace to the army and un- 
 worthy of the glorious cause in which we 
 are engaged. When I entered the service 
 of my country my character was unim- 
 peached. I have sacrificed my interest, ease, 
 and happiness in her cause ; it is rather a 
 misfortune than a fault that my exertions 
 have not been crowned with success. \[ I am 
 conscious of the rectitude of my intentions. 
 In justice, therefore, to my own character, and 
 for the satisfaction of my friends, I must re- 
 118 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain 
 
 quest a court of inquiry into my conduct : 
 yet every personal injury shall be buried in 
 my zeal for the safety and happiness of my 
 country, in whose cause I have repeatedly 
 fought and bled, and am ready at all times 
 to risk my life. I shall certainly avoid any 
 hasty steps (in consequence of the appoint- 
 ments which have taken place) that may 
 tend to the injury of my country." ^ 
 
 These are not the words of a man who 
 in a fit of pique at slight or calumny could 
 betray an important trust confided to him 
 by his country. Washington wrote to his 
 friend, Eichard Henry Lee, then a member 
 of Congress from Virginia, inquiring as to 
 the cause of Arnold's non-appointment, who 
 replied that each State claimed the right of 
 naming general officers, according to the 
 quota furnished by each. General Greene 
 also made inquiry and learned that as Con- 
 necticut had already two major-generals, it 
 was her full share and she could not expect 
 more. On this principle, residence, and not 
 merit or service, would place officers in com- 
 mand. "I confess this is a strange mode 
 119 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 of reasoning, but it may serve to show you 
 that the promotion which was due to your 
 seniority was not overlooked for want of 
 merit in you," wrote Washington in a letter 
 in which he endeavored to disarm the just 
 resentment of his subordinate and keep him 
 in the army, and which served its purpose — 
 Arnold did not resign. 
 
 The opportunity to show that his wrongs 
 would not deter him from taking up arms 
 in his country's defence very soon came. 
 In April, 1777, he left Providence for Phila- 
 delphia, and stopped en route to visit his 
 sister and children in New Haven. While he 
 was there the whole country side was aroused 
 by news that Try on, the former royal gover- 
 nor of' New York, had landed at Westport, 
 some twenty-seven miles west of New Haven, 
 with a large force, evidently with the inten- 
 tion of attacking Danbury, twenty-four miles 
 in the interior, where Governor Trumbull, 
 of Connecticut, had stored large supplies for 
 the army. Arnold was on his horse in an in- 
 stant, and spurring away to meet the few 
 hundred continentals and militia that his old 
 120 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain 
 
 foe, General Wooster, then in command of 
 the district, had at once called to arms. 
 He joined Generals Wooster and Silliman at 
 Reading, eight miles from Danbury, next 
 day, and local tradition says swore like the 
 army in Flanders on learning that the British 
 were then encamped in Danbury, having 
 burned the stores and pretty much all the 
 town. In a heavy northeast rain storm the 
 little army of six hundred men, mostly mi- 
 litia, pressed on to Bethel, within three miles 
 of the foe, and there bivouacked. That night 
 Tryon heard of the gathering of the clans, 
 and early on the morning of the 27th started 
 to retreat to his ships, which had been ordered 
 to meet him at Norwalk, taking a circuitous 
 route through Ridgefield on the west. When 
 the patriot generals at Bethel heard of this 
 they at once formed a plan to capture, or at 
 least harass the invaders, whose force ex- 
 ceeded theirs nearly four to one. General 
 Wooster, it was agreed, should follow the 
 enemy in their rear and harass them where- 
 ever possible, while Arnold and Silliman with 
 the main body of troops should make a forced 
 121 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 march, across country, reach Ridgefield in 
 advance of the enemy, intrench and give 
 battle, thus enabling Wooster to come up 
 and assail their rear. This plan was carried 
 out admirably, except that Wooster struck 
 the British before they had reached Ridge- 
 field and in the sharp action that ensued 
 was himself mortally wounded and his com- 
 mand scattered, thus enabling the enemy to 
 give his undivided attention to Arnold. The 
 delay, however, enabled the Continentals to 
 reach the then pretty little village in time 
 to throw a slight barricade of carts and 
 wagons, felled trees, earth and stone across 
 the highway along which the British were 
 retreating. Ridgefield, now the summer 
 home of wealth and fashion, was then a 
 quiet country town, with its one wide main 
 street shaded by noble elms and maples after 
 the fashion of New England villages. Just 
 without the town was a spot where the road 
 narrowed, with a house and barn on one side 
 and a ledge of rocks on the other; here 
 Arnold threw up his breastworks and post- 
 ing his men behind them, waited. His 
 122 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Champlain 
 
 ability as a fighting general was well known 
 to the Connecticut farmers, and in his hur- 
 ried march across country they had joined 
 his standard in such numbers that he could 
 muster five hundred men, indifferently armed 
 and equipped, and raw recruits, it is true, but 
 men fighting for their homes and firesides. 
 Tryon had nearly two thousand men, mostly 
 regulars, picked men of the British army, 
 with several field-pieces, and led by some 
 of the ablest officers in the British service, 
 General Agnew among them. But Arnold 
 fought best under fearful odds ; it seemed to 
 exhilarate him and induce a frenzy bordering 
 on madness. So now when the British ap- 
 peared, marching in solid column down the 
 pike, no thought of retreat entered his head ; 
 and here again his wonderful power over 
 men asserted itself, for of all those raw 
 levies not one at the critical instant deserted 
 his standard. Tryon no doubt thought the 
 opposing force larger than it really was, for 
 he halted, opened a brisk fire with his field- 
 pieces, and sent out flanking parties both to 
 left and right, to turn the American flanks 
 123 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 and gain their rear. Arnold returned the 
 British fire with spirit, and for some time 
 held his position against the whole British 
 force ; then a flanking party under Agnew 
 appeared on the summit of the ledge of 
 rocks above his head, and seeing that the 
 position was untenable he ordered every man 
 to save himself, and turned his horse to re- 
 treat. But a whole platoon of Agnew's in- 
 fantry came running down the rocks and 
 fired point-blank at him when not more than 
 thirty yards distant. His horse fell with 
 nine balls through him, but Arnold, strange 
 to say, escaped unscathed ; his spurs, however, 
 became entangled in his stirrups, and he was 
 unable to rise ; seeing which a soldier rushed 
 at him with lowered bayonet shouting, " Sur- 
 render ! you are my prisoner." 
 
 " Not yet," replied Arnold, and drawing a 
 pistol from his holster he killed the man on 
 the spot ; then with a supreme effort freed 
 himself, and leaping to his feet escaped into 
 a neighboring swamp pursued by a shower of 
 balls and again escaping unhurt. The Brit- 
 ish soon after encamped, but Arnold kept his 
 124 
 
First Naval Battle on Lake Ghamplain 
 
 saddle all that night, rallying his men and 
 posting them so as to cut off the British next 
 day. A hard struggle the latter had of it 
 next morning in regaining their ships, for the 
 farmers swarmed on every side like hornets 
 and opened fire on them from rock, tree, and 
 bush as well as from houses and barns ; many 
 a British officer and soldier bit the dust, and 
 the whole force would probably have been 
 captured had not Sir William Erskine landed 
 a force of marines from the fleet and sent them 
 to the relief of their beleaguered comrades. 
 In this battle Arnold had a second horse shot 
 under him, while a bullet passed through the 
 collar of his coat. 
 
 When the last sail of the enemy fleet 
 had disappeared he continued his interrupted 
 journey to Philadelphia, where fresh trials 
 and responsibilities awaited him. 
 
 125 
 
CHAPTER Vm 
 
 ASKS FOR A SETTLEMENT OF ACCOUNTS 
 
 A ENOLD'S gallant conduct at Ridgefield 
 /-\ overbore the influence of his enemies, 
 and the long delayed appointment of 
 major-general was made ; but the adverse 
 influence was sufficient to prevent full justice 
 being done : he was not restored to the 
 seniority of rank justly due him, but was still 
 outranked by the five major-generals who 
 had been promoted over his head. Congress 
 also voted " That the Quarter-Master General 
 be directed to procure a horse and present the 
 same, properly caparisoned, to Major-General 
 Arnold in the name of this Congress, as a 
 token of their approbation of his gallant con- 
 duct in the action against the enemy in their 
 late enterprise to Danbury, in which General 
 Arnold had one horse killed and another 
 wounded." 
 
 Immediately on arriving in Philadelphia 
 he addressed a letter to Congress, calling 
 126 
 
Asks for a Settlement of Accounts 
 
 attention to the charges of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Brown and others, and urging that a full in- 
 vestigation of his conduct from his first tak- 
 ing up arms might be made. " I am publicly 
 impeached," he very justly said, " of a cata- 
 logue of crimes which, if true, ought to sub- 
 ject me to disgrace, infamy, and the just 
 resentment of my countrymen ; " and he asked 
 that a searching investigation be made, " that 
 justice might be done to the innocent and 
 injured." He enclosed a letter from Wash- 
 ington to the President of Congress asking 
 that Arnold might have " an opportunity of 
 vindicating himself and his innocence." " It 
 is needless to say anything of this gentleman's 
 military character," added the Commander-in- 
 chief. " It is universally known that he has 
 always distinguished himself as a judicious, 
 brave officer, of great activity, enterprise, and 
 perseverance." 
 
 Arnold's letter was referred to the Board 
 of War, which reported, on the 23d of May, 
 that it had conferred with General Arnold on 
 the charges of Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, had 
 had all the original orders, letters, and papers 
 127 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 before it, had examined them, aud had 
 questioned Mr. Carroll, one of the former 
 Committee of Congress to Canada, now a 
 member of the Board of War, which "have 
 given entire satisfaction to this Board con- 
 cerning the General's character and conduct, 
 so cruelly and groundlessly aspersed in the 
 publication." Congress resolved " That the 
 said report be confirmed." 
 
 This matter out of the way, Arnold next 
 asked that his accounts might be audited 
 and he granted a release. These were quite 
 voluminous, beginning with the expedition to 
 Quebec, and continuing to the battle of Val- 
 cour Island. A committee of investigation 
 was accordingly appointed, and wrestled with 
 the mass of documents for some months. 
 This committee found in the accounts some 
 items that seemed to give color to the charges 
 of Arnold's enemies of peculation and fraud, 
 but when one considers the character of his 
 service, how the purchases were made, and the 
 nature of the man, it is only charitable to 
 suppose him perfectly honest and honorable 
 in the matter. 
 
 128 
 
Asks for a Settlement of Accounts. 
 
 Arnold was generous, humane, and sympa- 
 thetic almost to a fault. He had almost un- 
 limited credit in Canada, where he was well 
 known before the war, and when he saw his 
 soldiers hungry, ragged, sick, he used his 
 credit, after his money had gone, to supply 
 their necessities. In some cases he may 
 have been extravagant. He himself repeat- 
 edly declared that he had spent a handsome 
 private fortune in the service of his country. 
 Whatever may have been their reasons, the 
 committee held back their report. In the 
 meantime Arnold was appointed to the com- 
 mand of the force which had been collected 
 near Philadelphia to watch the movements of 
 Howe, who was suspected of a design on the 
 latter place. On his way back from the East, 
 Washington had offered Arnold command of 
 the Hudson, — one of the most honorable ap- 
 pointments in the army ; but he had de- 
 clined it, in order to attend to his affairs 
 before Congress. The present duty he dis- 
 charged with his usual fidelity, and when 
 Howe retired toward New York again re- 
 turned to Philadelphia, to urge on Congress 
 9 129 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 restoration to his rank and settlement of his 
 accounts. Neither was granted, and at last 
 he wrote that body tendering his resignation, 
 but declaring that he was driven to it by a 
 sense of the great injustice done him. He was 
 still an ardent lover of his country, he wrote, 
 and willing to take up arms in her defence ; 
 "but," he added, " honor _js,.a_,sa£nfii5e_no 
 man ought^jto. make ; as I received, so I wish 
 to transmit_it to, posterity." 
 
 The very same day Congress received a 
 letter from Washington, saying that a large 
 British army, under General Burgoyne, was 
 advancing from Canada down Lake Cham- 
 plain, evidently to carry out the plan of 
 campaign of the preceding year, which had 
 been temporarily abandoned on the approach 
 of winter. It was now seen that Howe's 
 advance was only a feint — the true theatre 
 of war was to be the broken country lying 
 between Lake Champlain and Albany. 
 
 In this letter Washington earnestly asked 
 that Arnold be sent to take command in that 
 quarter. 
 
 "He is active, judicious, and brave," he 
 130 
 
Asks for -a Settlement of Accounts 
 
 wrote, " and an officer in whom the militia 
 will repose great confidence. Besides this, 
 he is well acquainted with that country, and 
 with the routes and most important passes 
 and defiles in it. I do not think he can ren- 
 der more signal services, or be more usefully 
 employed at this time, than in this way." 
 
 One can imagine the expression on the 
 faces of Arnold's enemies in Congress, on re- 
 ceipt of this letter ; but knowing the feeling 
 in that body against him, Washington fol- 
 lowed this letter, two days later, with another 
 even more imperative. Referring to his for- 
 mer request that Arnold be appointed, he 
 continued : " Being more and more convinced 
 of the important advantages that will result 
 from his presence and conduct, I have thought 
 it my duty to repeat my wishes on the sub- 
 ject, and ask that he may, without a moment's 
 loss of time, set out from Philadelphia for 
 that purpose." 
 
 What Congress would have done in the 
 
 matter must be left to conjecture. Arnold 
 
 himself relieved them of the dilemma, by 
 
 volunteering for service at the North. The 
 
 131 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 letters of his chief aroused the better nature 
 in him, while the prospect of another bout 
 with the British on his old camping ground 
 aroused all his martial ardor. He knew that 
 St. Clair, his former junior, who had been 
 promoted over him, was in command of the 
 Northern army, and to relieve all embarrass- 
 ment, he decided to volunteer, leaving to 
 Congress to take up the question of his resig- 
 nation, when the service was over. 
 
 " He would do his duty faithfully in the 
 rank he then held," he wrote, "and trust 
 to the justice of his claims for a future 
 reparation." 
 
 Again one is tempted to ask, " Was this the 
 man to betray his country in a fit of pique at 
 the neglect and injustice of Congress, or for a 
 few hundred pounds of British gold ? " Yet to 
 these two causes alone have historians attrib- 
 uted Arnold's later infamous treason. 
 
 132 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SARATOGA 
 
 CRESSY places Saratoga among the 
 fifteen decisive battles of the world. 
 It was the Gettysburg of the Revolu- 
 tion. One general won it : Benedict Arnold. 
 The English plan of campaign was excel- 
 lent, one may say perfect, theoretically. 
 General John Burgoyne, a veteran of the 
 wars in Portugal, and esteemed the ablest 
 general in the British service, was sent out 
 to take command, relieving Sir Guy Carleton. 
 He was given a magnificent army of veter- 
 ans — grenadiers, infantry and artillery, with 
 four thousand German troops, hired at so 
 much per head, and under command of Baron 
 Riedesel, a brave and experienced officer. 
 He had as assistants Major-General Phillips 
 and General Eraser, both considered among 
 the ablest in the service, and besides the reg- 
 ulars, useful as scouts and light infantry, a 
 133 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 considerable body of Indians and Canadians, 
 thoroughly acquainted with the country; in 
 all, a body of about ten thousand men. 
 With this army he was to move by the old 
 familiar route of Lake Champlain, to Albany 
 or its vicinity, where he was to be joined by 
 a second army of regulars, loyalists, and Indi- 
 ans, which was to disembark at Oswego on 
 Lake Ontario, cross over to the head waters 
 of the Mohawk, descend that stream, and form 
 a junction with Burgoyne where it enters 
 the Hudson, a few miles above Albany. The 
 combined force was then to descend that noble 
 river, scattering the American forces on the 
 way, and effect a junction with Clinton, who 
 was to ascend it from New York. It was a 
 very promising scheme, and but for one man 
 would no doubt have succeeded. 
 
 By the 2d of July Burgoyne's army had 
 arrived in the vicinity of Ticonderoga. In 
 that historic fortress, and in another recently 
 erected across the lake opposite, St. Clair and 
 his army were posted to dispute his passage. 
 The lake there was very narrow, and, being 
 commanded by the guns of both forts, it was 
 
 134 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 believed no enemy could pass. But by some 
 fatality the American engineers had failed to 
 see that two neighboring eminences, called 
 Sugar Loaf Hill and Mt. Hope, commanded 
 both forts, and had failed to fortify them : 
 the British engineers at once noticed this 
 omission, and on the night of the 4th made 
 a road to the summit of Sugar Loaf, and ere 
 day dawned, had a battery in position there, 
 which could throw round shot and shell into 
 Ticonderoga with ease. Of course, after that, 
 there was nothing for St. Clair to do but 
 retreat, which he did with alacrity, to Fort 
 Edward, in the valley of the Hudson, some 
 twenty miles above Saratoga, the British 
 pursuing, but held in check at Hubberton 
 by the brave partisans of Warner and 
 Francis. 
 
 It was this near approach of Burgoyne 
 which led Washington to urge Congress to 
 send forward Arnold, and which at last led 
 that stiff-necked body to consent to his going. 
 Arnold, on his way North, reached Washing- 
 ton's headquarters on the Hudson on July 
 16, and received full verbal instructions 
 135 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 from his chief, the two going over the whole 
 ground, and Arnold being fully informed as to 
 the wishes and opinions of the commander-in- 
 chief, which he was to communicate to Schuy- 
 ler and St. Clair on meeting them. The 
 same day, Washington wrote to Schuyler that 
 "Arnold, although he conceives himself, if 
 his promotion had been regular, as superior 
 in command to General St. Clair, yet he gen- 
 erously upon this occasion lays aside his 
 claim, and will create no dispute, should the 
 good of the service require him to act in 
 concert." 
 
 On the same day he issued a letter to the 
 " Brigadier-Generals of Militia in the western 
 parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut," 
 which showed anew his appreciation. " Gen- 
 eral Arnold," he wrote, " who is so well 
 known to you all, goes up at my request, to 
 take command of the militia in particular, 
 and I have no doubt but that you will, under 
 his conduct and direction, repel an enemy 
 from your borders who has brought savages 
 with the avowed intent of adding murder to 
 desolation." 
 
 136 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 A few days later Arnold reached the camp 
 of Schuyler at Fort Edward, the latter having 
 assumed command after St. Clair's inglorious 
 retreat, and was at once given command of a 
 division. Burgoyne continued to advance, and 
 gradually pushed Schuyler down the Hudson 
 to Stillwater, ahout four miles east of the 
 present Saratoga, where the American gen- 
 eral had decided to make a stand. 
 
 While lying here a letter was brought to 
 Arnold stating that the matter of his rank 
 had been brought before Congress, and that 
 on an aye and nay vote — the first, it is said, 
 ever cast in that body — his request for a 
 restoration to rank had been denied. It was 
 a cruelly unjust and shameful act. Again 
 calumny and personal enmity had triumphed 
 over honest merit, as they have done so often 
 in the history of mankind, and as they will 
 continue to do. Arnold was deeply indig- 
 nant, and again asked permission of Schuyler 
 to resign, but was persuaded by that pure- 
 minded patriot to wait until the crisis now 
 rapidly approaching was over. "No public 
 or private injury or insult," he wrote Gates, 
 137 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 " shall prevail on me to forsake the cause of 
 my injured and oppressed country, until I see 
 peace and liberty restored to her, or nobly die 
 in the attempt." 
 
 While lying at Stillwater intelligence was 
 brought Schuyler that St. Leger's invading 
 column had reached and invested Fort Stan- 
 wix (later Schuyler) in the valley of the Mo- 
 hawk, on the present site of the city of Rome. 
 
 The messenger brought an earnest and 
 pathetic letter from Peter Gansevoort, the 
 brave and determined officer in command of 
 the fort, setting forth the horrors of Indian 
 warfare that would overtake the valley if the 
 enemy should carry the fort, and imploring 
 succor. Schuyler was for sending a relieving 
 column at once but on calling a council of his 
 officers all save Arnold declared against it. 
 It would weaken the army, they said, al-' 
 ready smaller than the force confronting it. 
 Schuyler is said to have felt their opposition 
 deeply. He walked the floor a few moments 
 puffing his clay pipe furiously, then, crushing 
 the pipe into fragments as he brought his 
 jaws together in decision, he said : " Gentle- 
 138 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 men, I shall take the responsibility. Fort 
 Stanwix and the Mohawk valley shall be 
 saved. Where is the brigadier who will 
 command the relief ? I shall beat up for 
 volunteers to-morrow." 
 
 Not one stepped forward, — whereupon 
 Arnold, although a major-general and second 
 in command, volunteered, thus relieving 
 his juniors of any embarrassment. Schuyler 
 accepted his offer with the greatest satisfac- 
 tion. Next morning when the drums beat 
 for volunteers eight hundred men stepped 
 out of the ranks, for dearly the rough-and- 
 ready frontiersmen loved a fighting general. 
 
 It was not the custom of Arnold in con- 
 ducting a military expedition to let the grass 
 grow under his feet. On the 20th of August 
 he was at Fort Dayton on the German Flats, 
 and called a Council of his officers to decide 
 whether to go on or not, as the enemy's force 
 exceeded theirs two to one. The Council de- 
 cided that it would be imprudent and putting 
 too much to the hazard to go forward until 
 the army was reinforced. Arnold, after wait- 
 ing two days for reinforcements to come in, 
 139 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 " which they did in great numbers," deter- 
 mined to push on and risk a battle rather 
 than " see the garrison fall a sacrifice." 
 
 But first he decided to employ a stratagem 
 to force the enemy to retreat, which reads like 
 a chapter of " Leather Stocking." His scouts 
 had brought in a half-witted Dutchman 
 named Hon Yost Cuyler, who with one Lieu- 
 tenant Butler, a Tory, was caught at a public 
 meeting within the American lines, in which 
 Butler was making a speech urging the people 
 to join the British cause. Both were promptly 
 tried by court-martial and sentenced to be 
 hanged as spies. The mother of Hon Yost 
 came to Arnold to intercede for his life. 
 Arnold knew that Hon Yost was well known 
 to the Mohawk Indians, who regarded him 
 with that superstitious awe with which the 
 red man invests the insane and idiotic, as 
 one stricken by Manitou. He now told Hon 
 Yost and his mother that he would spare the 
 former's life if he would hasten to the camp 
 of St. Leger and by false and exaggerated 
 statements of his (Arnold's) forces and prox- 
 imity induce the Indians and Tories to decamp. 
 
 140 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 Simultaneously a friendly Oneida Indian was 
 to enter the camp and support Hon Yost 
 in his statements. Yost, who had a fair de- 
 gree of cunning and shrewdness mixed with 
 his madness, was only too glad to escape the 
 noose so easily, and at once disappeared in 
 the forest, his coat having first been shot full 
 of holes to give color to his story that he had 
 escaped from the rebels while on his way to 
 be hanged as a spy. 
 
 St. Leger's Indians had become restless 
 and discontented ; they had been promised 
 plenty of scalps and unlimited plunder ; in- 
 stead they had had plenty of fighting only. 
 The battle with Herkimer at Oriskany had 
 sadly decimated their ranks, and the news 
 that another fighting general with a large 
 force was near at hand disquieted them 
 greatly; in fact, when Hon Yost reached 
 the camp they were holding a council to 
 consult their Manitou in the matter. Pale, 
 breathless, eyes staring in terror, garments 
 rent by the enemy's bullets, the mysterious 
 one, the smitten of Manitou, burst into their 
 
 presence. 
 
 141 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 "It was true," he declared, "the terrible 
 Bostonians, led by their heap fighting chief, 
 were at their doors, and in numbers like 
 the leaves of the forest. They had taken 
 him, he was being led to the gallows, when 
 he escaped and hurried to warn his red 
 brothers at once." At the same time the 
 Oneida entered the camp on a different side 
 and spread similar tidings. The news drove 
 like wildfire ; the effect was startling. One 
 of those inexplicable panics that sometimes 
 seize men whose nerves have become un- 
 strung by long exposure to danger, fell upon 
 the camp. The Indians first fled, disappear- 
 ing like ghosts in the forest depths, then the 
 Canadians, and after them the regulars in 
 wild, unreasoning flight, throwing away arms, 
 knapsacks, blankets, everything that could 
 retard their progress. The siege of Fort 
 Stanwix had been raised by a half-witted 
 Dutchman and the terror inspired by the 
 name of Benedict Arnold. 
 
 All the artillery, tents, baggage, wagons, 
 etc., fell into the hands of the Americans. 
 Better than all, the strong right arm of the 
 142 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 invading force liad been lopped off at a blow. 
 Henceforth Burgoyne must depend on his 
 army alone. 
 
 Arnold returned in triumph to his camp 
 at Stillwater, only to find that the intriguing 
 Gates had succeeded the patriotic Schuyler, 
 and was now in command of the Northern 
 army. With Gates he had hitherto been 
 on friendly terms, but now he was to experi- 
 ence a change/ior his successful relief of Fort 
 Schuyler (or Fort Stanwix, as it was then 
 called) had so enhanced his reputation with 
 the army and throughout the country that 
 the envious Gates saw in him a rival to be 
 dreaded and destroyed. W 
 
 All fear of St. Leger being removed, the 
 American army could now devote its sole 
 attention to Burgoyne, and that brave com- 
 mander soon gave it work to do. On his 
 return Arnold found that the left wing, his 
 division, was stationed at Loudon's Ferry, 
 on the south bank of the Mohawk, about 
 five miles above its junction with the Hudson. 
 Gates was about to select a position where 
 he could throw his army across Burgoyne's 
 143 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 path and give him battle, and intrusted the 
 task to Arnold. The latter, with the aid of 
 Kosciusko, the Polish engineer, selected a 
 long range of hills on the west bank of the 
 Hudson, known as Bemis' Heights, about four 
 miles east of Saratoga, which with other hills 
 farther west and flat ground extending from 
 the base of Bemis' Heights to the river bank 
 Kosciusko proceeded to fortify. Here Gates' 
 whole army was massed — its right under 
 the immediate command of Gates himself 
 resting on the river and extending across 
 the flats to Bemis' Heights ; the centre, un- 
 der Learned, comprising his brigades of New 
 York and Massachusetts troops, holding Bemis' 
 Heights, and the left, commanded by Arnold, 
 holding the detached hills still farther west, 
 about three quarters of a mile from the 
 Hudson, and composed of Poor's brigade, 
 the Connecticut militia, Dearborn's infantry, 
 and Morgan's famous riflemen. 
 
 By September 18 Burgoyne had moved 
 
 down within two miles of the Americans and 
 
 taken position, and a battle was imminent. 
 
 The British line began at the river, extended 
 
 144 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 across the flat, over the range of hills which 
 was a continuation of the Bemis' Heights 
 range, and about half a mile farther west 
 to the isolated hills opposite Arnold's po- 
 sition. His left rested on the river and was 
 supported by a heavy train of artillery. His 
 centre and right wing were intrenched on 
 the hills and were commanded by Burgoyne 
 in person. They were composed largely of 
 the German troops. His front and flanks 
 were covered by the Indians, Canadians, and 
 loyalists. 
 
 Burgoyne quickly formed his line of bat- 
 tle. For the attack on the American line he 
 divided his force into three columns, which 
 were to move simultaneously half a mile 
 apart, — the right wing under Brigadier- 
 General Fraser, the centre commanded by 
 himself, the left wing under Major-Generals 
 Phillips and Riedesel. Fraser had the Brit- 
 ish Light Infantry, the Grenadiers, and the 
 24th Eegiment, supported by Colonel Brey- 
 man's German Riflemen. The centre com- 
 prised the 20th, the 21st, and the &2d 
 regiments; the left wing, the artillery and 
 10 145 
 
The Beat Benedict Arnold 
 
 the German corps under Riedesel. The left 
 was ordered to move along the bank of the 
 Hudson, Burgoyne took another road half a 
 mile inland, while Fraser was to deflect to 
 the right, and take the Quaker Springs Koad 
 which ran about a mile from the Hudson and 
 parallel to its course. The two last-named 
 columns were to unite in front of the Ameri- 
 can line and strike the American left by sur- 
 prise. The country, now one of the finest 
 farming districts of the Empire State, was 
 then covered with heavy forests, dark and 
 gloomy, where twilight reigned even at mid- 
 day, and it was arranged to give intelligence 
 of the movements of the columns by signal 
 guns : when the centre and right wing had 
 effected a junction three guns were to be 
 fired as a signal for a general assault along 
 the whole line. 
 
 The three columns got under way at ten 
 o'clock on the morning of the 19th. It was 
 a bright, clear day and bracing air, with a 
 hoar frost still sparkling on the leaves un- 
 touched by the sun. The Americans were 
 not to be taken unawares, as the British very 
 
 146 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 soon found. They had stationed scouts in 
 the tallest trees on the heights, who quickly 
 caught the stir and bustle in the British 
 camp — the rattle of small arms, the gleam 
 of brilliant red uniforms, the rumble of heavy 
 artillery — and hurried with news of it to 
 their superiors. Arnold, keenly alert, wished 
 to attack the columns while on the march 
 and off their guard, as he believed they could 
 easily be thrown into confusion, but Gates 
 would give no orders and showed no dispo- 
 sition to fight. His officers were ready, Ar- 
 nold begged, stormed, and entreated, but still 
 he could get no orders. At length Gates 
 consented to let Dearborn's infantry and 
 Morgan's riflemen go in. They soon met 
 the skirmish line of loyalists and Indians 
 and scattered them like chaff, but when they 
 struck the redcoats of Fraser and Burgoyne 
 they rebounded and sought cover in the 
 woods. For a moment Morgan feared his 
 famous corps was " ruined," but on sounding 
 loudly his shrill woodsman whistle — known 
 by his partisans as the " turkey call " — they 
 rallied about him, and Dearborn's regiments 
 147 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 coming up at the critical instant the battle 
 raged with renewed fury. As soon as it 
 became apparent that the conflict was to 
 be general, Arnold took command of his 
 division and led it during the day. This 
 fact has been denied by Bancroft, on the 
 sole authority of the later infamous James 
 Wilkinson, who was adjutant to Gates on 
 this day, but is too well established by testi- 
 mony of eye-witnesses to admit of cavil. 
 
 His first object was to get into the gap 
 between Fraser and Burgoyne, and taking the 
 former on the flank detach him from the cen- 
 tre, but Fraser was too good a soldier to be 
 caught in that way, and presenting a solid 
 front a most desperate and sanguinary hand- 
 to-hand fight was waged in and about a little 
 clearing in the forest, known as Freeman's 
 Farm. For some hours Arnold's one division 
 held both Burgoyne's and Fraser's columns at 
 bay — yes, and at times drove them back ; for 
 again and again Morgan's riflemen captured 
 the British guns, but could not turn them 
 on the enemy because they had no linstocks 
 and the fleeing artillerists were always careful 
 148 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 to take theirs with them. Again and again 
 Arnold sent for reinforcements, which were 
 refused, Gates saying he must protect his 
 camp. Had he been properly supported he 
 would no doubt have won a decisive victory 
 on that day. Phillips, out on the river road, 
 hearing the crash and roar in the woods, and 
 surmising — good soldier that he was — what 
 had occurred, hurried Brey man's riflemen and 
 the grenadiers to the support of the sorely 
 beset centre and right. These fresh troops 
 turned the day just when the victory seemed 
 within the grasp of the Americans. Although 
 the battle raged with the utmost fury until 
 night put a stop to it, neither side could claim 
 a victory. The patriots withdrew into their 
 intrenchments, and the British bivouacked on 
 the field. 
 
 "But for Arnold on that eventful day," 
 remarks Lossing, " Burgoyne would doubtless 
 have marched into Albany at the autumnal 
 equinox a victor." The British officers de- 
 clared it the most skilfully directed and 
 hardest-fought battle they had engaged in in 
 America. Arnold was the only major-gen- 
 149 
 
The Eeal Benedict Arnold 
 
 eral on the field, and the honor of it belonged 
 to him. But in the despatches of the com- 
 mander-in-chief announcing the battle neither 
 his name nor that of his gallant division was 
 mentioned. Arnold took offence at this, 
 justly, and in a letter to Gates declared : 
 " On the nineteenth, when advice was received 
 that the enemy was approaching, I took the 
 liberty to give it as my opinion that we ought 
 to march out and attack them. You desired 
 me to send in Colonel Morgan and the light 
 infantry, and support them ; I obeyed your 
 orders, and before the action was over I found 
 it necessary to send out the whole of my 
 division to support the attack. No other 
 troops were engaged that day except Colonel 
 Marshall's regiment." 
 
 This statement was made in the face of the 
 whole army only a few days after the battle 
 and was never questioned ; if not true is it 
 not certain that it would have provoked a 
 thousand indignant denials ? 
 
 Gates, having found that he had a subordi- 
 nate who would win battles in spite of him, 
 determined to get rid of him at any cost; 
 150 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 hence his ignoring him and his command in 
 the despatches to Congress ; hence the studied 
 coldness and even disrespect with which he 
 treated him personally. Arnold would have 
 resigned, but the voice of the army was raised 
 in protest. All the general officers — except 
 Lincoln — united in a round robin begging 
 him not to leave the army at that critical 
 time. The gallant Colonel Henry B. Living- 
 ston, a former aide to General Schuyler, in a 
 letter to the latter dated four days after the 
 battle, gives a detailed and authoritative 
 account of the quarrel between the two men. 
 
 " I am much distressed at General Arnold's 
 determination to retire from the army at this 
 important crisis. His presence was never 
 more necessary. He is the life and soul of 
 the troops. Believe me, sir, to him is due 
 the honor of our late victory : whatever share 
 his superiors may claim, they are entitled to 
 none. He enjoys the confidence and affec- 
 tion of his officers and soldiers. They would 
 to a man, follow him to conquest or death. 
 His departure would dishearten them to such 
 a degree as to render them of little service. 
 151 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 The difference between him and Mr. G. 
 [Gates] has risen to too great a height to admit 
 of compromise. I have for some time past 
 observed the great coolness, and, in many in- 
 stances, even disrespect with which General 
 Arnold has been treated at Headquarters. 
 His proposals have been rejected with marks 
 of indignity. His orders have been fre- 
 quently countermanded, and himself set in a 
 ridiculous light, by those of the commander- 
 in-chief. His remonstrances on those occa- 
 sions have been termed presumptuous. In 
 short, he has pocketed many insults for the 
 sake of his country, which a man of less 
 pride would have resented. The repeated in- 
 dignities he received at length roused his 
 spirit and determination again to remonstrate. 
 He waited upon Mr. Gates in person last 
 evening. Matters were altercated in a high 
 strain. Both were warm — the latter rather 
 passionate, and very assuming. Toward the 
 end of the debate Mr. G. told Arnold he did 
 not know of his being a major-general. He 
 had sent in his resignation to Congress. He 
 had never given him the command of any 
 
 152 
 
The Battle of Saratoga 
 
 division of the army. General Lincoln would 
 be here in a day or two, and that then he 
 should have no occasion for him, and would 
 give him a pass to Philadelphia whenever he 
 chose. 
 
 " Arnold's spirit could not brook this usage. 
 He returned to his quarters, represented 
 what had passed in a letter to Mr. G., and re- 
 quested his permission to go to Philadelphia. 
 This morning, in compliance to his letter, he 
 received a permit, by way of a letter, directed 
 to Mr. Hancock. He sent this back, and re- 
 quested one in proper form, which was com- 
 plied with. To-morrow he will set out for 
 Albany." 
 
 At the request of the general oflficers, and 
 out of regard for country, he consented to re- 
 main, as we have seen. The foregoing facts 
 throw a flood of light on Arnold's conduct in 
 the second battle, to which we now turn. 
 
 153 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SECOND BATTLE OF SARATOGA 
 
 AFTER the 19th of September, the posi- 
 tion of Burgoyne's army became criti- 
 cal. St. Leger, his right arm, had 
 been destroyed ; the Continentals were closing 
 in on his rear, cutting off his communication 
 with his base, and capturing his supplies and 
 their convoys. Before him was an army, su- 
 perior in numbers, and flushed with the pride 
 of victory. Many and anxious counsels were 
 held by the British officers in these early 
 days of October; whether to retreat or to 
 fight was the question. Riedesel advised a 
 retreat to Fort Edward, the gallant Eraser 
 was ready to fight, Phillips advised a detour, 
 a rapid march, and a falling upon the Ameri- 
 can left. Meantime reinforcements were 
 flocking to the Americans, and the situation 
 each day was becoming more serious. At 
 length it was decided to make a reconnaia- 
 154 
 
The Second Battle of Saratoga 
 
 sance in force on the morning of October 7, 
 and if there was a probability of success, bring 
 on a battle. Accordingly at ten o'clock Bur- 
 goyne led in person a picked body of fifteen 
 hundred troops to high ground, three fourths 
 of a mile west of the American position, and 
 formed line of battle behind a dense forest. 
 He had previously sent five hundred Indians 
 and provincials by a circuitous route to gain 
 the American rear, and there attack, while he 
 assailed them on front and flank. The British 
 advance was quickly discovered, and news of 
 it brought to Gates. He sent his adjutant- 
 general, Wilkinson, to learn what it meant. 
 Wilkinson reported that in his opinion they 
 proposed to offer battle. 
 
 " What is the nature of the ground ? " 
 asked Gates; "and what is your opinion?" 
 
 " Their front is open ; their flank rests on 
 woods under cover of which they might be 
 attacked. Their right is skirted by a height ; 
 I would indulge them." 
 
 " Well, then, order on Morgan to begin the 
 game." 
 
 Morgan at his own request was allowed to 
 
 155 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 lead his men to a ridge on the enemy's right, 
 where he waked him up with a galling fire. 
 At the same time Poor and Learned with their 
 brigades made a spirited attack on his left. 
 The Indians and provincials had previously 
 attacked the rear and had been driven back. 
 
 The British line at the moment of attack 
 was as follows : Fraser, with five hundred 
 picked men on the right, a little in advance, 
 with orders to attack the Americans in flank 
 when the Indians struck their rear ; the 
 Germans under Eiedesel, and the British 
 under Phillips in the centre ; the grenadiers 
 under Major Ackland, and the artillery under 
 Major Williams on the left ; with the light 
 infantry under the Earl of Balcarras on the 
 extreme left. 
 
 The American plan was for Morgan to 
 attack the British right the moment the guns 
 of Poor and Learned announced that they 
 had struck the left. This occurred at half- 
 past two. Steadily the New York and New 
 Hampshire men marched up the slopes of the 
 knoll where the grenadiers and artillery were 
 stationed, with orders to withhold their fire 
 156 
 
The Second Battle of Saratoga 
 
 until after the enemy had delivered his. The 
 British fired high, as was inevitable in aiming 
 dovrn hill ; grape, canister, and musket-balls 
 crashed through the trees over the heads 
 of the on-rushing Continentals. They re- 
 turned the fire and were up and over the 
 crest in an instant, capturing the guns at the 
 point of the bayonet, only to have them 
 retaken the next instant, by the rallying 
 British. One field-piece was thus taken and 
 retaken four times. At length Colonel Cilley, 
 who led his regiment in person, leaped upon 
 the piece and waving his sword dedicated it 
 to the patriot cause, then springing down he 
 whirled it round and discharged it against 
 the rallying enemy, — for to-day the Ameri- 
 cans had provided themselves with linstocks. 
 With their leader, Major Ackland, severely 
 wounded, their chief of artillery, Major 
 Williams, a prisoner, and their guns in the 
 hands of the foe, the British — what was left 
 of them — now broke and fled. The summit 
 of the knoll is said by eye-witnesses to have 
 been a veritable slaughter house. Eighteen 
 dead grenadiers lay upon the ground, and many 
 157 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 more wounded ones — among them three offi- 
 cers — were propped against the trees. Sim- 
 ultaneously with Poor's attack, Morgan had 
 poured down from his hilltop and struck 
 Fraser with such force that the latter's men 
 wavered despite their gallant leader's efforts to 
 hold them to their work; at the same moment 
 Dearborn, with two New England regiments, 
 came up and poured in so deadly a fire that 
 the column broke and fell back on its sup- 
 ports, — Riedesel's Germans of the centre. 
 These Morgan took on the flank, while Dear- 
 born assaulted their front, but they held their 
 ground sturdily. Meantime Fraser, having 
 rallied his troops and seeing the Germans so 
 sorely beset, now came to their aid with the 
 24th Regiment. Mounted on a large gray 
 horse, dressed in the full uniform of his rank, 
 spurring his charger here and there, inspiring 
 wavering regiments with his own sublime 
 courage, reforming the lines bent and broken 
 by the galling fire or impetuous charges of 
 the Americans, he was the most conspicuous 
 figure on that field of death. 
 
 It was at this moment that Benedict Arnold 
 158 
 
The Second Battle of Saratoga 
 
 broke like a whirlwind upon the scene. De- 
 prived of command, he had chafed all day in 
 his tent like a caged lion. At last when the 
 tremendous roar told that the battle had be- 
 come general he could bear it no longer, and 
 exclaiming that no power on earth should 
 keep him in his tent that day, he sprang 
 upon his great black thoroughbred and fol- 
 lowed by his aides rushed like a madman 
 into the battle, placing himself at the head 
 of Learned's brigade, — part of his former 
 command, — which greeted him with cheers. 
 Gates sent an aide to order him back, " lest 
 he do something rash," but Arnold's horse 
 was the faster, and he escaped his pursuer. 
 Arnold's quick eye at once saw that Eraser 
 was the animating spirit of the British, and 
 calling Morgan he said, "That officer upon 
 the gray horse is himself a host and must 
 be disposed of." Morgan nodded, called his 
 best sharp-shooter, Timothy Murphy, and five 
 others, and pointing out the officer told them 
 to secrete themselves in a clump of bushes 
 and do their duty. A moment later a bullet 
 cut the crupper of Eraser's horse j another 
 159 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 lifted the mane between its ears. Noticing 
 this an aide remarked that the riflemen were 
 making a target of him and suggested that 
 he retire. "My duty forbids me to fly," 
 replied Fraser, and the next moment fell 
 mortally wounded. Meantime Arnold had 
 led his men against the British centre, brand- 
 ishing his broadsword and urging them on 
 with cheers and animating words. The Ger- 
 mans stood their ground bravely and repulsed 
 the first assault, but when Arnold, galloping 
 up and down the line, shouting and waving 
 his sword, had rallied his men and led them 
 a second time to the assault the enemy broke 
 and fled in terror. They had never seen any- 
 thing like this madman, whom no bullets 
 could kill, and no repulses daunt. The battle 
 now became continuous along the whole line, 
 the most conspicuous actor in it being Arnold. 
 His black horse leaped and thundered from 
 one end of the line to the other. Here oc- 
 curred perhaps the first and only instance 
 of a volunteer general taking regiments, 
 brigades, and divisions from their lawful 
 commanders, and himself leading them to 
 160 
 
The Second Battle of Saratoga 
 
 the assault ; but Arnold did this many times. \ 
 He seemed ubiquitous and invulnerable. With 't 
 a part of the brigades of Patterson and Glover 
 he assaulted the British intrenchments on the 
 left, held by the light infantry under the Earl 
 of Balcarras, and drove them from the out- 
 works, but was not able to carry the main line 
 of intrenchments. Leaving them he dashed 
 rapidly to the extreme right exposed to a 
 cross fire from both armies, and looking for a 
 vulnerable point, when he met Learned's 
 brigade advancing to assault the British line 
 at an opening in the abatis between Balcarras' 
 command and the Germans of the right wing 
 under Breyman. The Canadians and loyal- 
 ists had been set to defend this and made 
 a brave resistance, but were overpowered, 
 leaving the German flank exposed. Leaving 
 Learned to assault the German flank and 
 front, Arnold now dashed to the left and 
 ordered Wesson's and Livingston's regiments 
 and Morgan's corps to make a general assault 
 all along the line, and returned in time to 
 lead Colonel Brooks' regiment in person 
 against the German works. At their head 
 
 II 161 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 he rode his horse into a sally port. The Ger- 
 mans, who had had a taste of his mettle before 
 and believed him in league with the Evil One, 
 fled in dismay, delivering their fire as they 
 fled, which killed Arnold's horse under him ; 
 at the same instant a wounded soldier within 
 the works propping himself up shot Arnold 
 in the same leg which had been wounded at 
 Quebec. 
 
 These works formed the key to the British 
 position. With them in the enemy's hands 
 there was nothing to do but retreat, which 
 the English now did with some confusion; 
 Burgoyne's capitulation at Saratoga on Octo- 
 ber 17 was the logical conclusion of the 
 battle. 
 
 The candid reader who has followed the 
 story of this campaign will have no difficulty 
 in placing the credit for his defeat where it 
 belongs. Neither Gates, nor his second in 
 command, Lincoln, was on the field during 
 the conflict. At its height an aide, dash- 
 ing up to headquarters for instructions, found 
 the commander-in-chief discussing the merits 
 of the Revolution with Sir Francis Clarke, 
 162 
 
The Second Battle of Saratoga 
 
 who had been taken prisoner. As Arnold 
 lay on the ground in the moment of victory 
 Major Armstrong, Gates' aide, succeeded in 
 overtaking him and in delivering the long 
 delayed order to return to the camp. 
 
 The admiration of the army for Arnold 
 was now so intense that Gates was forced to 
 mention his name in his despatches to Con- 
 gress, and that body was at last coerced by 
 the power of public opinion into restoring 
 to him his rank. Other than this it does not 
 appear that he received any honor or emolu- 
 ment for his prodigious services, which under 
 a monarchy would have brought him a coro- 
 net and decorations, to say the least. 
 
 163 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MILITARY GOVERNOR OF PHILADELPHIA 
 
 ARNOLD was carried on a litter from 
 the field of honor to Albany, where 
 he remained unable to leave his bed 
 through the autumn and most of the winter 
 of 1777-8. He had received a compound 
 fracture of the left leg, which the surgeons 
 at first thought would necessitate an amputa- 
 tion, but to that Arnold refused to submit. 
 By early spring, however, he was able to be 
 moved, and proceeded by slow stages to his 
 home in New Haven meeting with ovations 
 on his way ; for, although Congress had given 
 the credit of the great victory to the tent- 
 keeping Gates, the common people were not 
 to be misled as to who was the real winner 
 of the battle. Many a soldier who was in 
 it had returned to his fireside, and told there 
 the thrilling story of the fight j others had 
 164 
 
Military Governor of Philadelphia 
 
 written ; and the dwellers in the hamlets were 
 perhaps better informed than some members 
 of Congress as to the true state of affairs. 
 Thereafter and until his infamous crime 
 blotted out his honest fame there was no 
 name so potent as a ralljdng cry with the 
 rank and file as that of Benedict Arnold. 
 His townsmen of New Haven received him 
 with acclaim ; a deputation comprising the 
 ofl&cers of the army that chanced to be in 
 the city, or were stationed there, the militia, 
 the cadet company, and a number of the most 
 respectable citizens went out to meet and 
 welcome him, while a salute of thirteen guns 
 announced his arrival in the city. While 
 here his soldierly heart was still more grati- 
 fied by receiving this letter from his com- 
 mander-in-chief : 
 
 Valley Foege, 7 May, 1778. 
 Dear Sib : — A gentleman in Prance having very 
 obligingly sent me three sets of epaulettes and 
 sword-knots, two of which professedly to be dis- 
 posed of to any friends I should choose, I take the 
 liberty of presenting them to you and General 
 Lincoln, as a testimony of my sincere regard and 
 approbation of your conduct. I have been in- 
 165 
 
The Meal Benedict Arnold 
 
 formed by a brigade major of General Hunting- 
 ton's of your intention of repairing to camp 
 shortly ; but notwithstanding my wish to see you, 
 I must beg that you will run no hazard by coming 
 out too soon. 
 
 I am sincerely and affectionately 
 
 Your obedient, etc., 
 
 George Washington. 
 
 On the 20th of January previous, on send- 
 ing him the long delayed, antedated commis- 
 sion, forced from a reluctant Congress by 
 popular clamor, Washington had expressed 
 the kindest sentiments as to his health and 
 well-being, and added : " As soon as your 
 situation will permit, I request that you will 
 repair to this army, it being my earnest 
 wish to have your services the ensuing 
 campaign." 
 
 While in New Haven, Arnold learned to 
 his surprise, that the children of his lamented 
 friend. General Joseph Warren, who fell at 
 Bunker Hill, one of the first martyrs of the 
 Eevolution, had been unprovided for by the 
 State, and sent five hundred dollars by Gover- 
 nor Hancock, for their relief, to Miss Mercy 
 ScoUay, the lady who had them in charge, 
 166 
 
Military Governor of Philadelphia 
 
 saying he would use his influence with Con- 
 gress to provide for them suitably. " If they 
 decline it," he added, " I make no doubt of a 
 handsome collection by private subscription. 
 At all events, I will provide for them in a 
 manner suitable to their birth, and the grate- 
 ful sentiments I shall ever feel for the memory 
 of my friend." 
 
 Arnold did apply to Congress, but owing 
 to the opposition of the Massachusetts mem- 
 bers, as he charged, it was not until 1780 
 that that body approved a resolution allow- 
 ing for the support of the children the half 
 pay of a major-general, from the date of 
 their father's death until the youngest should 
 come of age. 
 
 Meantime, Arnold contributed from time 
 to time to their support, but toward the last 
 was obliged to curtail his benefactions be- 
 cause his own funds were becoming ex- 
 hausted. On August 3, 1780, he wrote Miss 
 Scollay : " It has not been want of incli- 
 nation, but want of ability, which has pre- 
 vented my remitting you the balance for 
 the expense of the children. The Public are 
 167 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 indebted to me for a considerable sum which 
 I advanced for them in Canada, and for four 
 years' pay, which I cannot obtain." Toward 
 the end of May, Arnold reported to Wash- 
 ington at Valley Forge, and as his wound 
 unfitted him for active duty, the commander- 
 in-chief decided to appoint him military gov- 
 ernor of Philadelphia as soon as the British 
 should evacuate it, which event was daily 
 expected. 
 
 No more unfit appointment could have 
 been made, for Arnold's qualities were those 
 best calculated for the battle-field. He lacked 
 the tact, the poise, the suavity, the diplomacy 
 required in one who was to administer the 
 affairs of a captured city, one, too^ in which 
 the chief law-making bodies of the nation, 
 and of an important state, were to meet. 
 
 In Philadelphia occurred the most impor- 
 tant event of his life : here the fates had de- 
 creed he should meet, and come under the 
 spell of one who should lead him into such 
 paths of shame, sorrow, treachery, infamy, 
 remorse, and misery as man never trod be- 
 fore ; for if Arnold had never married a second 
 168 
 
Military Governor of Philadelphia 
 
 time, there would never have been an Arnold 
 the traitor. It might be more gallant, more 
 soothing to family pride, to suppress this 
 fact, as former historians and biographers 
 have done, but in justice to Arnold, it should 
 be stated; besides, the enlightened Ameri- 
 can public of to-day insists on knowing the 
 truths of history, and the whole truth. Par- 
 tisanship, prejudice, bigotry, family pride, 
 after a century and a quarter, lose their po- 
 tency, and we are now able to see men and 
 things as they really were. 
 
 169 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 COUETSHIP AITD MAEEIAGE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA in 1778 was the capi- 
 tal and metropolis of the infant na- 
 tion. It was the seat even then of 
 a polite and cultivated society, and boasted 
 many old families of wealth, culture, and 
 social distinction. These were nearly all 
 English, and of Quaker or Anglican church 
 origin or affiliations. The Quakers were 
 neutral in the pending contest, as their creed 
 commanded ; those of the Church of England 
 almost without exception were king's men. 
 
 When the British army, under Sir William 
 Howe, marched in and took possession — 
 September 26, 1777 — Philadelphia was noted 
 for the beauty of her women ; a fact the 
 young British officers were not slow in dis- 
 covering. The most noted of these, the 
 belles of the city, were the three daughters 
 of Edward Shippen, a lawyer, a member of 
 170 
 
Courtship and Marriage 
 
 one of the first families, but whose fortune 
 as he himself tells us had been quite seri- 
 ously impaired by the extravagance of his 
 fashionable daughters. As was natural, the 
 houses of these Tory families were thrown 
 open to the ofl&cers, and the winter was 
 marked by a round of social gayeties not 
 at all conducive to military discipline, and 
 which provoked scathing diatribes from Whig 
 journals at home. The leader in all these 
 festivities was Major John Andr^, a poet, 
 a wit, a scholar, and courtier, as well as a 
 brave and chivalrous soldier. One of the 
 first functions was the famous Mischianza 
 in honor of Sir William Howe, and which 
 was a water carnival, a tournament, a 
 masque, a comedy, and a ball all in one. 
 It was so named — Andre, the author of it, 
 tells us — because " it consisted of a variety 
 of afEairs." ("A piece of tom-foolery," a 
 disgusted old British major called it ; a senti- 
 ment hugely relished at home.) On the 
 appointed day a fleet of flat-boats escorting 
 a galley in which were seated Sir William 
 Howe and his principal officers, moved down 
 171 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 the Delaware to Walnut Grove, the estate 
 of Joseph Wharton, one of the former great 
 men of the city, now deceased ; a fine old 
 country seat it was, with wide lawns shaded 
 by venerable trees sloping down to the banks 
 of the river. This the young ofl&cers had 
 taken possession of for the day, had pro- 
 vided lists for the tournament, a great and 
 elaborately decorated banqueting hall, a ball- 
 room and other accessories. 
 
 Twelve knights and twelve squires ap- 
 peared in the tournament, which held first 
 place on the programme. They were equally 
 divided into two parties, of six knights 
 and six squires each, — the one called the 
 " Knights of the Burning Mountain," the 
 other " the Knights of the Blended Rose," 
 and each knight and squire had selected the 
 lady of his choice for whose favor he would 
 do battle in the lists. 
 
 Of the twenty-four young ladies thus se- 
 lected, all but one were natives of Philadel- 
 phia. They were all clad in the fashion of 
 the age of chivalry, while the knights were 
 armed with lance and broadsword and rode 
 172 
 
Courtship and Marriage 
 
 in mail. When all were seated a herald ad- 
 vanced amid a flourish of trumpets and pro- 
 claimed that the ladies of the Knights of the 
 Blended Rose excelled in virtue, beauty, wit, 
 and every accomplishment those of the whole 
 world ; in proof of which their knights were 
 ready to do battle with any challenger ac- 
 cording to the rules of ancient chivalry. 
 This challenge was accepted by the herald 
 of the Knights of the Burning Mountain, 
 who declared that their ladies were superior 
 to any in the universe. Both parties were 
 superbly mounted, those of the Burning 
 Mountain on black horses, those of the 
 Blended Eose on gray, and now met in full 
 career shivering their lances on each other's 
 shields, though it is pleasant to record that 
 nobody was hurt. On the second onset the 
 contestants, having shattered their lances, 
 drew pistol and fired them, to the no small 
 terror of the fair ladies. At the third bout 
 Lord Cathcart, chief of the Blended Rose, and 
 Captain Watson, chief of the Burning Moun- 
 tain, met as champions for their respective 
 parties, and prodigies of valor would no doubt 
 
 173 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 have been witnessed had not Major Grayson, 
 as marshal of the field, stepped in at the criti- 
 cal moment, and declared that the ladies of 
 both parties were fully satisfied with the 
 proofs of love and feats of valor shown by 
 their knights, and commanded them as they 
 prized their future favors to desist. This 
 ended the tournament ; afterwards there was 
 dancing, then a magnificent banquet, and 
 after that dancing again until the wee small 
 hours. 
 
 The three daughters of Edward Shippen — 
 Miss S. Shippen, Miss M. Shippen, and Miss 
 Peggy Shippen — were in the party, and the 
 most admired and sought after of all. Tow- 
 ard its end the gallant knights were called 
 to real war, as was later the case at Waterloo; 
 for the ragged Continentals, who during this 
 winter were starving at Valley Forge, hearing 
 of the party, made a descent upon the lines 
 and were only driven off after a general 
 alarm had been sounded. 
 
 These social amenities were practised all 
 winter, the British officers having little else 
 to do in the forced inaction of winter quarters. 
 174 
 
Courtship and Marriage 
 
 The three lovely Misses Shippen were the 
 belles of the season, and the frequent toast 
 of the officers ; of the three, the youngest, 
 Miss Peggy Shippen, was the favorite. She 
 was at this time about eighteen years of age, 
 very beautiful and graceful, with a magnetism 
 of person and charm of manner that attracted 
 every one who came near her. The fascinat- 
 ing Andre and she soon became very good 
 friends indeed. There is still preserved in 
 the family a pen-and-ink sketch of her as 
 arrayed for* the Mischianza, drawn by him, 
 and not a few of his warmest sonnets this 
 winter were addressed to her. 
 
 The winter and spring passed, and as sum- 
 mer came the fortunes of war compelled the 
 British to evacuate the city; they marched 
 out on the 18th of June, 1778, and the next 
 day the Americans took possession, with 
 Arnold as military governor. It was not 
 long before he [met Miss Peggy Shippen and 
 fell violently in love with her, exhibiting a 
 marked trait in his character which biogra- 
 phers and historians have not discovered, but 
 which proved a potent factor in his subse- 
 175 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 quent downfall. Like most men of great in- 
 tellectual force and physical vigor, he was 
 amorous as Tennyson's Prince. A pretty 
 face, a graceful form never ceased to thrill 
 him. During the life of his first wife he 
 had been a devoted husband and father. In 
 the years of his widowerhood he had had at 
 least one affair with a Boston belle, — " the 
 heavenly Miss Deblois," he styles her in a 
 letter to a mutual friend ; now he paid the 
 most ardent and devoted court to this young 
 and glowing Philadelphia beauty. His pas- 
 sion is shown in a letter he wrote her barely 
 three months after they had first met : 
 
 Dear Madam : — Twenty times have I taken up 
 my pen to write to you, and as often has my trem- 
 bling hand refused to obey the dictates of my heart 
 — a heart which, though calm and serene amid the 
 clashing of arms and all the din and horrors of war, 
 trembles with diffidence and the fear of giving 
 offence when it attempts to address you on a sub- 
 ject so important to its happiness. 
 
 Dear madam, your charms have lighted up a 
 flame in my bosom which can never be extin- 
 guished ; your heavenly image is too deeply im- 
 pressed ever to be effaced. 
 
 My passion is not founded on personal charms 
 176 
 
Courtship and Marriage 
 
 only ; that sweetness of disposition and goodness 
 of heart, that sentiment and sensibility which so 
 strongly mark the character of the lovely Miss P. 
 Shippen, renders her amiable beyond expression, 
 and win ever retain the heart she has once capti- 
 vated. On you alone my happiness depends, and 
 will you doom me to languish in despair ? Shall I 
 expect no return to the most sincere, ardent, and 
 disinterested passion ? Do you feel no pity in your 
 gentle bosom for the man who would die to make 
 you happy ? May I presume to hope it is not im- 
 possible I may make a favorable impression on 
 your heart ? Friendship and esteem you acknowl- 
 edge. Dear Peggy, suffer that heavenly bosom, 
 which cannot know itself the cause of pain without 
 a sympathetic pang, to expand with a sensation 
 more soft, more tender than friendship. A union 
 of hearts is undoubtedly necessary to happiness, 
 but give me leave to observe that true and perma- 
 nent happiness is seldom the effect of an alliance 
 founded on a romantic passion, where fancy governs 
 more than judgment. Friendship and esteem 
 founded on the merit of the object, is the most 
 certain basis to build a lasting happiness upon ; 
 and when there is a tender and ardent passion on 
 one side, and friendship and esteem on the other, 
 the heart (unlike yours) must be callous to every 
 tender sentiment, if the taper of sentiment, love, is 
 not lighted up at the flame. 
 
 I am sensible your prudence and the affection 
 12 177 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 you bear your amiable and tender parents forbids 
 your giving encouragement to the addresses of any 
 one without their approbation. Pardon me, dear 
 madame, for disclosing a passion I could no longer 
 confine in my tortured bosom. I have presumed 
 to write to your Papa, and have requested his 
 sanction to my addresses. Suffer me to hope for 
 your approbation. Consider before you doom me 
 to misery, which I have not deserved but by loving 
 you too extravagantly. Consult your own happi- 
 ness, and if incompatible, forget there is so unhappy 
 a wretch ; for may I perish if I would give you one 
 moment's inquietude to purchase the greatest possi- 
 ble felicity to myself. Whatever my fate may be, 
 my most ardent wish is for your happiness, and my 
 latest breath will be to implore the blessing of 
 heaven on the idol and only wish of my soul. 
 
 Adieu, dear Madame, and believe me unalterably 
 your sincere admirer and devoted humble servant, 
 
 B. Arnold. 
 
 The reader can imagine the influence a 
 wife would exert on a man thus constituted. 
 Whether to the Tory maiden, as she pondered 
 over this missive, there came visions of a 
 young, handsome, gay, dashing, gallant Brit- 
 ish major, who had drawn her portrait, ad- 
 dressed sonnets to her, and whispered soft 
 nothings in her ear, no one may say, but she 
 178 
 
Courtship and Marriage 
 
 determined to accept this impetuous suitor, 
 eighteen years her senior. She was socially 
 ambitious; that, and a marked passion for 
 display were her chief characteristics, and as 
 the wife of a major-general in the army, and 
 military governor of the city, she would at- 
 tain a social prestige and leadership far 
 above anything she had before dreamed of. 
 It is not probable that she was very much in 
 love with her husband ever; a member of 
 the Shippen family is said to have had much 
 to do with making the match, perhaps with 
 the hope of winning over the ablest major- 
 general in the rebel army, who was known 
 to have suffered galling indignities from a 
 Congress of irreconcilable factions, and from 
 intriguing generals in the field. 
 
 In his letter to the lady's father, asking 
 for her hand, Arnold wrote, " My fortune is 
 not large, though sufficient (not to depend 
 upon my expectations) to make us both 
 happy. I neither expect nor wish one with 
 Miss Shippen. My public character is well 
 known; my private one is, I hope, irre- 
 proachable. Our difference in political sen- 
 179 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 timents will, I hope, be no bar to my 
 happiness." 
 
 There seems to have been no parental op- 
 position, although the reverse has been stated. 
 Letters from both Edward Shippen and his 
 father make it plain that the match was re- 
 garded with complacency. 
 
 The fair one, so hardly pressed, consented, 
 and preparations were made for the wedding. 
 On March 22, 1779, Arnold bought the fine 
 old country seat, still standing in Fairmount 
 Park, called Mount Pleasant, and settled it 
 on his wife and children, they to have posses- 
 sion after his death. Two weeks later, the 
 wedding occurred in the fine old mansion of 
 the Shippens, on Fourth Street. 
 
 Mount Pleasant became the summer home 
 of the newly wedded pair. Their town house 
 was the old Penn Mansion, which had been 
 built by Governor Richard Penn, grandson of 
 William Penn, occupied by Sir William Howe 
 as his headquarters, during the British occu- 
 pancy, and which had been taken possession 
 of by Arnold when he assumed command. 
 Later, Washington occupied it while Presi- 
 180 
 
Courtship and Marriage 
 
 dent, from which circumstance it was called 
 "the Washington mansion." In both, Ar- 
 nold lived in a style of extravagance and os- 
 tentation far beyond his means, and most 
 imprudent in an officer of a poor and devoted 
 country struggling for its rights. He kept a 
 coach and four, with lackeys to care for, and 
 accompany it. He gave frequent and grand 
 dinners, to members of Congress, to officers 
 of the army, visiting foreign celebrities, and 
 to the elite of the city, friends of his wife ; 
 but it was observed by the envious that the 
 major portion of his guests were from the 
 fashionable contingent, which was Tory to a 
 degree. As Arnold before his marriage had 
 lived quietly and in true republican simplic- 
 ity, we are justified, doubtless, in attributing 
 this extravagance to the influence of his wife. 
 However this may be, it was the beginning 
 of his downfall. Heretofore no whisper of 
 disloyalty had been breathed against him. 
 Now the thousand tongues of rumor were set 
 in motion. " He had married a Tory wife ; 
 his table companions and his bosom friends 
 were to be found among the enemies of his 
 181 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 country. He was living at the rate of five 
 thousand pounds a year; where did he get 
 the money? Was his wife, the toast and 
 lauded favorite of the British officers, selling 
 information to the enemy ? " So the gossip 
 ran, sowing seeds of distrust and suspicion. 
 
 182 
 
CHAPTER Xm 
 
 AENOLD AlTD THE SUPEEME EXECUTIVE 
 COUNCIL 
 
 THE Supreme Executive Council of 
 Pennsylvania, created by the Consti- 
 tution of 1776, was charged with ex- 
 ecuting the laws of that great State. It was 
 composed in 1778 of a President, General 
 Joseph Eeed, and thirteen members, one from 
 each of the twelve counties and one from the 
 city of Philadelphia, — gentlemen of an ego- 
 tism almost sublime, who, sleeping or waking, 
 never lost sight of the fact that they repre- 
 sented the great State of Pennsylvania. It 
 was in the order of things that such men 
 should quickly come into collision with the 
 brusque, tactless military governor who repre- 
 sented the national government. Arnold was 
 perhaps responsible in some degree for the 
 bitter quarrel that followed, but the conduct 
 of the Council was most reprehensible. The 
 183 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 grounds of the difficulty between them, as 
 contained in charges preferred by that body, 
 were : First, that the spring before Arnold 
 had permitted a vessel belonging to Tories to 
 come into the port without the knowledge of 
 the State authorities or of the Commander- 
 in-chief. Second, that on taking possession 
 he had shut up shops and stores, preventing 
 the public from purchasing, while he had 
 made considerable purchases for his own ben- 
 efit, " as was believed." Third, in imposing 
 menial offices upon the militia when called 
 iato service. Fourth, in a dispute over the 
 capture of a prize brought in by a State pri- 
 vateer, Arnold had purchased the suit at a 
 low and inadequate price. Fifth, that he had 
 devoted the wagons of the State to transport- 
 ing the private property of Tories. Sixth, 
 that he had given a pass to an imworthy per- 
 son to go within the enemy's lines, although 
 Congress had given the executive power of 
 each State exclusive right to do this. Sev- 
 enth, when the Council had requested an 
 explanation from General Arnold in relation 
 to the fifth charge they had been met with an 
 
 184 
 
Arnold and the Supreme Council 
 
 indecent and disrespectful refusal of any satis- 
 faction whatever. Eighth, cold and neglectful 
 treatment of the patriot authorities, both civil 
 and military, with an entirely dififerent line of 
 conduct toward the adherents of the king. 
 
 The above is we believe a fair though 
 greatly condensed statement of the eight 
 charges preferred by the Council. While no 
 one can question its right and even duty to 
 make them, one must question its action in 
 making them public before the accused officer 
 had had an opportunity to see, much less an- 
 swer them. It sent out printed copies of the 
 charges to the newspapers of Maryland and 
 Pennsylvania and throughout the country gen- 
 erally, while a circular prepared and signed 
 by Joseph Keed was sent to the governors of 
 the several States, enclosing the charges and 
 asking that they be communicated to the Gen- 
 eral Assembly of each State. This looked 
 more like persecution from private animosity 
 than regard for the public interest. Again, 
 they were presented just after Arnold had left 
 the city, when it was not likely that he would 
 soon become cognizant of them. Indeed he 
 185 
 
The Heal Benedict Arnold 
 
 had no knowledge of them until one of the 
 printed circulars fell into his hands in the 
 camp of Washington. He at once asked for 
 a court-martial to inquire into his conduct. 
 His letter and the charges of the Council were 
 referred by Congress to the same committee 
 which had made a report wholly exculpating 
 Arnold. But now, through the influence of 
 the Council, Congress refused to accept that 
 report, but referred the whole matter to a 
 joint committee composed of its own members 
 and those of the Supreme Executive Council. 
 This committee reported several resolutions 
 intended to placate Pennsylvania, and recom- 
 mended that the first, second, third, and fifth 
 charges be referred to a court-martial to be 
 appointed by Washington. 
 
 Arnold was naturally indignant at this, but 
 in a letter addressed to Congress, wrote that 
 if they had been induced to take such action 
 for the public good, to avoid a breach with 
 Pennsylvania, however hard the case might 
 be, he would suffer with pleasure until a 
 court-martial could have an opportunity of 
 doing him justice by acquitting him of these 
 186 
 
Arnold and the Supreme Council 
 
 charges a second time. At the same time he 
 wrote to Washington, asking for a speedy- 
 trial. The latter called a court for the 1st 
 of May, but the Council complained that 
 they could not get their proof ready on such 
 short notice, and asked until the 1st of June, 
 which Washington granted. 
 
 " The President and Council have had three 
 months to produce the evidence," Arnold perti- 
 nently wrote, and he entreated that the court 
 might sit immediately. Washington replied 
 that he had every desire to gratify him, but 
 that the pointed representations of the State 
 as to the production of witnesses left him no 
 choice. When the 1st of June arrived, the 
 position of the enemy was so menacing that 
 no time could be spared for a court-martial ; 
 and it was not until the 19th of December, 
 1779, that it was convened at Morristown, 
 where the patriot army had gone into winter 
 quarters. The court was composed of Maj.- 
 Gen. Robert Howe of North Carolina, Presi- 
 dent, Brigadier-Grenerals Knox, Maxwell, and 
 Gest, and eight colonels, — as fair a tri- 
 bunal as Washington could select. 
 187 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 Before this court General Arnold appeared 
 in person as his own counsel, an historic person 
 in a most dramatic situation; let us sketch 
 him. He was thirty-nine years old, though his 
 scarred and weather-beaten face made him ap- 
 pear older. He was clad in the buff and blue 
 uniform of a major-general of the Continen- 
 tal army. He leaned upon a cane as he 
 talked, for the leg broken below the knee at 
 Quebec, and above the knee at Saratoga, was 
 still unhealed. On his shoulders were the 
 epaulets, and about his waist the sword-knots, 
 which Washington had presented him as the 
 bravest of his generals. After presenting his 
 evidence, he addressed the court at great 
 length, and with a convincing earnestness 
 which should have given him — what he 
 unquestionably deserved — an unconditional 
 acquittal. 
 
 " When one is charged with practices which 
 his soul abhors," said he, "and which con- 
 scious innocence tells him he has never com- 
 mitted, an honest indignation will draw from 
 him expressions in his own favor which on 
 other occasions might be ascribed to an osten- 
 188 
 
Arnold and the Supreme Council 
 
 tatious turn of mind. The part which I have 
 acted in the American cause has been ac- 
 knowledged, by our friends and by our ene- 
 mies, to have been far from an indifferent one. 
 My time, my fortune, and my person have 
 been devoted to my country in this war ; and 
 if the sentiments of those who are supreme ia 
 the United States in civil and military affairs 
 are allowed to have any weight, my time, my 
 fortune, and my person have not been devoted 
 in vain. You will indulge me, gentlemen, 
 whUe I lay before you some honorable testi- 
 monies which Congress and the commander- 
 in-chief of the armies of the United States 
 have been pleased to give of my conduct. 
 The place where I now stand justifies me in 
 producing them." He then read several of the 
 commendatory letters from Washington, which 
 we have published, and also the resolution of 
 Congress presenting him with a horse, in return 
 for the one shot under him at Ridgefield, and 
 the resolution of thanks for his services in the 
 capture of Burgoyne, and asked if it seemed 
 probable that after winning all these golden 
 opinions from the most eminent, he should in a 
 189 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 moment engage in a line of conduct " equally 
 imwortliy of a patriot and a soldier." He re- 
 called the long period that had intervened be- 
 tween the charges and the trial, caused by his 
 persecutors, and expressed the most confident 
 hope of being able to demonstrate to them and 
 to the world that the charges were " false, mali- 
 cious, and scandalous." He then took up one 
 by one the whole eight charges of the Council, 
 and explained and refuted them all in the 
 most plain and convincing manner. In re- 
 gard to the charge that he had privately 
 made purchases of goods for his own benefit, 
 he said : 
 
 " If this is true I stand confessed in the 
 presence of this Honorable Court the vilest of 
 men; I stand stigmatized with indelible dis- 
 grace, the disgrace of having abused an 
 appointment of high trust and importance to 
 accomplish the meanest and most unworthy 
 purposes ; the blood I have spent in defence 
 of my country will be insufficient to obliterate 
 the stain. But if this part of the case is void 
 of truth, if it has not even the semblance of 
 truth, what shall I say of my accusers ? What 
 190 
 
Arnold and the Supreme Council 
 
 epithets will characterize their conduct the 
 sentence of this Honorable Court will soon de- 
 termine. . . . Who allege and believe this 
 accusation ? None, I trust, but the President 
 and Council of Pennsylvania ; because I trust 
 none else would allege and believe anything 
 tending to ruin a character without sufficient 
 evidence. Where is the evidence of this ac- 
 cusation ? I call upon my accusers to produce 
 it ; I call upon them to produce it imder the 
 pain of being held forth to the world and to 
 posterity, upon the proceedings of this court, 
 as public defamers and murderers of reputa- 
 tion. . . . On the honor of a gentleman and 
 a soldier I declare to gentlemen and soldiers 
 it is false. ... If I made considerable pur- 
 chases, considerable sales must have been 
 made to me by some persons in Philadelphia. 
 Why are not these persons produced ? Have 
 my prosecutors so little power and influence 
 in that city as to be unable to furnish evidence 
 of the truth ? . . . This insinuation comes, in 
 my opinion, with an ill grace from the State 
 of Pennsylvania, in whose more immediate de- 
 fence I sacrificed my feelings as a soldier when 
 191 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 I conceived them incompatible with the duties 
 of a citizen and the welfare of the State. By 
 a resolution of Congress I found myself super- 
 seded (in consequence of a new mode of ap- 
 pointment of general officers) by several who 
 were my juniors in service. Those who 
 know the feelings of an officer (whose utmost 
 ambition is the good opinion of his country) 
 must judge what my feelings were at this 
 apparent mark of neglect. I repaired to the 
 city of Philadelphia in the month of May, 
 1777, in order either to attain a restoration of 
 my rank, or a permission to resign my com- 
 mission. During this interval the van of 
 General Howe's army advanced by a rapid 
 march to Somerset Court House, with a view, 
 as was then generally supposed, to penetrate to 
 the city of Philadelphia. Notwithstanding I 
 had been superseded and my feelings as an 
 officer wounded, yet, on finding the State was 
 in imminent danger from the designs of the 
 enemy, I sacrificed those feelings and with 
 alacrity put myself at the head of the militia 
 who were collected to oppose the enemy, de- 
 termined to exert myself for the benefit of the 
 192 
 
Arnold and the Supreme Council 
 
 public, althougli I conceived myself iajured by 
 their representatives. How far the good 
 countenance of the mUitia under my command 
 operated in deterring General Howe from 
 marching to the city of Philadelphia, I will not 
 pretend to say ; certain it is he altered his 
 route. What returns I have met with from 
 the State of Pennsylvania, I leave to them- 
 selves to judge in the cool hour of reflection 
 . . . which must sooner or later arise." 
 
 In regard to the last charge, ia which he 
 was accused of showing scant courtesy to the 
 friends of America and a great deal to her 
 enemies, he said that he was not sensible of 
 having neglected any in the civil line or in 
 the army, and appealed to the candor of Con- 
 gress and the army in proof of his statement. 
 " With respect to attention to those of an 
 opposite character, I have paid none but such 
 as, in my situation, was justifiable on the 
 principles of common humanity and pohte- 
 ness. The President and Council of Pennsyl- 
 vania will pardon me if I cannot divest myself 
 of humanity, merely out of complaisance to 
 them. It is enough for me, Mr. President, to. 
 13 193 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 contend with men in tlie field ; I have not yet 
 learned to carry on a warfare against women, 
 or to consider every man as disaffected to our 
 glorious cause who, from an opposition in sen- 
 timent to those in power ia the State of Penn- 
 sylvania may by the clamor of party be 
 styled a Tory. , . . On this occasion I think 
 I may be allowed to say without vanity that 
 my conduct from the earliest period of the war 
 to the present time has been steady and imi- 
 form. . . . The impartial public will judge 
 of my services, and whether the returns that I 
 have met with are not tinctured with the 
 basest ingratitude. Conscious of my own in- 
 nocence, and of the unworthy methods taken 
 to injure me, I can with boldness say to my 
 persecutors in general, and to the chief of 
 them in particular, that in the hour of danger, 
 when the affairs of America wore a gloomy 
 aspect, when our illustrious general was re- 
 treating through New Jersey with a handful 
 of men, I did not propose to my associates 
 basely to quit the general and sacrifice the 
 cause of my country to my personal safety by 
 going over to the enemy and making my 
 194 
 
Arnold and the Supreme Council 
 
 peace. I can say I never basked in the sun- 
 shine of my general's favor and courted him 
 to his face, when I was at the same time treat- 
 ing him with the greatest abuse, and vilifying 
 his character when absent. This is more than 
 a ruling member of the Council of the State 
 of Pennsylvania can say, as it is alleged and 
 believed." 
 
 On January 22, the Judge Advocate re- 
 plied to Arnold, produced the evidence in 
 support of the charges, and rested. On the 
 26th the court handed in its findings. It was 
 a curious document ; any unbiased person can 
 see the effort made to please both parties 
 regardless of right or justice. On the first 
 charge they decided that his action was ille- 
 gal. On the second, that his action in clos- 
 ing the shops was justified by the resolution 
 of Congress and the instructions of Washing- 
 ton ; as to his having made purchases for his 
 own benefit they were " clearly of opinion that 
 it is unsupported, and they do fully acquit 
 General Arnold." They also acquitted on the 
 third charge. On the fourth they were of 
 opinion that Arnold, in employing the public 
 
 195 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 wagons, had no intention of defrauding the 
 public, nor of injuring or impeding the public 
 service ; but considering the delicacy attend- 
 ing the high station in which he acted, and 
 that requests from him might operate as com- 
 mands, the court were of opinion the request 
 was imprudent and improper, and therefore 
 ought not to have been made. For this it 
 sentenced him to receive a reprimand from the 
 commander-in-chief. The reprimand seems 
 to have been a sop thrown to the President 
 and Council of Pennsylvania. In its general 
 tenor the finding acquitted Arnold of all in- 
 tentional wrong, of all private benefit from 
 his public station. The court found that he 
 had been imprudent in several instances, 
 which was no doubt the case, but this was not 
 so grave a fault as to call for a public 
 reprimand. 
 
 On the fifth charge relating to the prize 
 sloop " Active " Arnold showed that she had 
 been originally taken by privateersmen from 
 Connecticut, his native State, who applied to 
 him for aid in securing their rights as against 
 the State of Pennsylvania, which he did, ad- 
 196 
 
Arnold and the Supreme Council 
 
 vancing them money, and to secure himself 
 taking an interest in their claim. The justice 
 of this claim was later proved by its being 
 allowed them by unanimous vote in the Court 
 of Appeals. 
 
 Arnold had expected an acquittal from the 
 court-martial, and the verdict simply as- 
 tounded him. It was the last straw ; hence- 
 forth his progress toward the pit of infamy 
 which had been long preparing for him was 
 rapid. 
 
 Washington never probably had a more dis- 
 tasteful duty to perform than in reprimanding 
 his favorite and most gallant officer, many 
 of whose troubles were due to his steadfast 
 allegiance to himself. His reprimand was a 
 model of kindness and courtesy in its way. 
 
 " Our profession," he said, " is the chastest of 
 all ; even the shadow of a fault tarnishes the 
 lustre of our finest achievements. The least 
 inadvertence may rob us of the public favor so 
 hard to be acquired. I reprimand you for 
 having forgotten that in proportion as you 
 have rendered yourself formidable to our ene- 
 mies you should have been guarded and tem- 
 197 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 perate in your deportment towards your fellow- 
 citizens ! Exhibit anew those noble qualities 
 which have placed you on the list of our most 
 valued commanders. I will myself furnish 
 you, as far as it may be in my power, with op- 
 portunities of regaining the esteem of your 
 country." 
 
 As considerate as it could be made, but 
 one can easily imagine how galling to one so 
 proud and sensitive as Arnold. 
 
 198 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE TEAITOR 
 
 GENERAL ARNOLD had resigned his 
 position as Governor of Philadelphia 
 on learning of the favorable report of 
 the committee of Congress. While in com- 
 mand of the city the petty persecutions and 
 calumnies to which he was subjected became 
 so annoying that he formed the design of 
 retiring from the army, of securing a large 
 tract of land in the western part of New 
 York, and there dwell in retirement and 
 dignity on his estate, as he had witnessed in 
 the case of his old friend, General Schuyler, 
 and other wealthy landholders of New York. 
 He was on his way to New York in further- 
 ance of this affair when, stopping at "Washing- 
 ton's camp on the Raritan, the circular of 
 President Reed and the Council fell into his 
 hands, and he hastened back to defend him- 
 self, the enterprise being relinquished. If he 
 199 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 had now taken it up again how different on 
 the page of history would have been his story. 
 True to his promise, Washington, early in 
 August, 1780, gave him command of West 
 Point, then the most important military posi- 
 tion in his gift. It is probable that Arnold, 
 through his wife, had been before this in trea- 
 sonable correspondence with Sir Henry Clin- 
 ton, then in command of New York. It is at 
 least certain that his wife had continued a 
 correspondence with her admirers among the 
 British officers, particularly with Andre, and 
 that much valuable information to them was 
 received through this source. Peggy Shippen 
 was a Tory when Arnold married her; she 
 always remained a Tory at heart ; her family 
 and friends were sympathizers with the Brit- 
 ish cause. Her ardent admirers, the young 
 British officers, were now cooped up with 
 Clinton in New York; what more natural 
 than that communications should pass between 
 them. Arnold, as we have seen, was passion- 
 ately devoted to her, and she had added to 
 her influence over him by bearing him, in the 
 first year of their wedded life, a son. While 
 200 
 
The Traitor 
 
 other influences were no doubt brought to 
 bear, she was the most potent factor used by a 
 crafty enemy to induce him to yield up his 
 post. Can any one beheve for a moment that, 
 if Arnold had been married to a patriotic wife 
 whose family and friends were adherents of 
 the patriot cause, and who would have refused 
 to follow him into the British camp, his trea- 
 son would have been consummated? It is 
 most unreasonable so to suppose. 
 
 Should her husband accept the overtures of 
 Clinton, she might hope for a peerage at least 
 in return. This was lure enough for so am- 
 bitious a woman as Peggy Shippen is known 
 to have been. What arguments she used, 
 supplied in part no doubt by her friends in 
 Philadelphia and by the British officers, we 
 can readUy imagine. The American cause 
 was doomed : rent by faction, crippled by 
 want of funds, the patriots must soon give up 
 the hopeless contest. By yielding, Arnold 
 might aspire to be made the ambassador who 
 should offer the olive branch to the returning 
 prodigals, having rendered efl&cient service on 
 both sides. What glory that would be ! On 
 201 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 the other hand she recounted his wrongs : 
 Could he remain and dwell in a country that 
 after such unparalleled services as he had 
 performed could put an indelible stigma upon 
 him? Could he remain and face his trium- 
 phant enemies with this stain resting on him ? 
 
 Arnold yielded. He agreed to give up the 
 post he had been set to defend, to betray his 
 country, to destroy with base treachery the 
 confidence reposed in him by his commander- 
 in-chief. He went to his own place; but 
 does no blame attach to those who by calumny, 
 by ingratitude, by relentless persecution, placed 
 him in a position where these arguments could 
 be used with more telling effect ? 
 
 The negotiations — begun by Andr^ and 
 Mrs. Arnold, and continued by the principals 
 — at last reached a point where a personal 
 meeting was necessary. On September 20 
 Andr^, now holding the commission of Ad- 
 jutant-General in the British army, went on 
 board the British sloop-of-war " Vulture," 
 which bore him up the Hudson to a place 
 about six miles below Stony Point, where she 
 came to anchor; the next night, the 21st, 
 202 
 
The Traitor 
 
 Andr^ was rowed ashore and met Arnold at 
 midnight in a secluded place, where full details 
 for delivering up the fortress were considered. 
 Day broke before the business was fully con- 
 cluded, and Andr6 was persuaded to accom- 
 pany Arnold to the house of Joshua Hett 
 Smith, some two miles below Stony Point, 
 where they breakfasted and then perfected 
 the details. Meantime the presence of the 
 " Vulture " had been noticed by the patriots, 
 and Colonel Livingston, who commanded in 
 that quarter, ordered up some field-pieces 
 and by a few volleys forced her to drop down 
 the river. When Andre was ready to regain 
 his ship she was out of sight, and Arnold 
 gave him a horse and a pass through the 
 American lines, in case he should not be able 
 to reach the " Vulture." He could not board 
 her and started to return by land. How he 
 was intercepted by the three partisans, John 
 Paulding, Isaac van Wort, and David Williams, 
 taken and hiing'as a spy at Tappan, is familiar 
 to every schoolboy. He was permitted to 
 send word to Arnold, however, apprising him 
 
 of his capture. 
 
 203 
 
The Heal Benedict Arnold 
 
 On this very same morning, two days 
 before he was expected, Washington and his 
 staff had come riding down into the defiles 
 of the Hudson, returning from a conference 
 with the French officers at Hartford. His 
 object was to inspect the defences at West 
 Point, and he had sent word to Arnold 
 that he would breakfast with him. As 
 they approached Arnold's headquarters in 
 the Robinson House, Washington turned to 
 visit the defences on the east side of the 
 river. The gallant Lafayette, who formed 
 one of the party, remonstrated, saying that 
 Mrs. Arnold would be waiting breakfast for 
 them. 
 
 " Ah, Marquis," rejoined Washington, " you 
 young men are all in love with Mrs. Arnold. 
 I see you would be with her as soon as pos- 
 sible ; ride you and breakfast with her, and 
 tell her not to wait for me, as I must inspect 
 the redoubts on this side the river." Knox 
 and Lafayette, however, remained with Wash- 
 ington, but Alexander Hamilton, then a mem- 
 ber of the general's staff, with others of his 
 suite bore the message to Arnold. 
 
 204 
 
The Traitor 
 
 He was astounded. Washington had ar- 
 rived two days sooner than he was expected, 
 and this was the very day on which the post 
 was to be delivered up. He had arranged 
 with Clinton to so scatter the garrison among 
 the defiles and passes of the mountains that 
 a strong British force ascending the river 
 could easily capture it. On the heels of this, 
 and while they were at breakfast, came the 
 messenger with word from Andr^ that he was 
 a prisoner and his papers in the enemy's 
 hands. Here again Arnold exhibited that 
 wonderful nerve which had borne him through 
 so many crises. Without a tremor or change 
 of countenance he rose, excused himself, 
 ordered a horse, and going to Mrs. Arnold's 
 room sent for her. 
 
 "The whole plot is discovered, Andr^ a 
 prisoner," he said. " I must fly instantly." 
 
 The news just when her long-cherished plans 
 seemed on the eve of fruition overcame the 
 poor woman, and she fell in a swoon, which 
 on her recovering was succeeded by convul- 
 sions. Eeturning again to the breakfast- 
 room Arnold asked his guests to excuse him, 
 205 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 as some of the details for the reception of 
 Washington had not been carried out, sprang 
 on his horse and dashed down a steep hill — 
 still known as Arnold's path — to the land- 
 ing, where his six-oared barge was moored. 
 Entering it he ordered the oarsmen to row 
 out into the middle of the river, then down 
 stream, and as their oars smote the water he 
 drew his pistols and seating himself in the 
 prow directed the course of the boat. When 
 off Verplanck's Point they sighted the " Vul- 
 ture," and ordering the men to row with all 
 speed for her, and raising a white handker- 
 chief as a flag of truce, he reached the schooner 
 and was safe. 
 
 " Whom can we trust now ? " said Wash- 
 ington, when news of the defection of his 
 bravest ofl&cer was brought to him. 
 
 Arnold's first thought after reaching the 
 sloop was for the safety of his wife ; know- 
 ing her guilt, and fearing it might be dis- 
 covered, he sat down and wrote a letter to 
 Washington, imploring him to protect Mrs. 
 Arnold "from every insult and injury that a 
 mistaken vengeance of my country may ex- 
 206 
 
The Traitor 
 
 pose her to ; " adding, " she is as good and as 
 innocent as an angel, and is incapable of do- 
 ing wrong." He begged that she might be 
 allowed to go to her friends in Philadelphia, 
 or to come to him, as she chose. He also 
 exculpated the gentlemen of his military 
 family. Colonel Varick and Major Franks. 
 
 As we have the lady's own confession of 
 her guilt, and that she had been acting a 
 part, Hamilton's highly rhetorical letter to 
 his fiancee, Miss Schuyler, describing her con- 
 duct after Arnold's flight, awakens other sen- 
 sations than those of pity. On his return 
 from pursuing Arnold, he says, " I saw an 
 amiable woman frantic with distress for the 
 loss of a husband she tenderly loved, a traitor 
 to his country and his fame, a disgrace to his 
 connections ; it was the most affecting scene 
 I was ever witness to. She for a consider- 
 able time entirely lost herself. The General 
 went up to see her, and she upbraided him 
 with being in a plot to murder her child. 
 One moment she raved, another she melted 
 into tears. Sometimes she pressed her infant 
 to her bosom, and lamented its fate occa- 
 207 
 
The Eeal Benedict Arnold 
 
 sioned by the imprudence of its father, in a 
 manner that would have pierced insensibility 
 itself. All the sweetness of beauty, all the 
 loveliness of innocence, all the tenderness of 
 a wife, and all the fondness of a mother, 
 showed themselves in her appearance and 
 conduct. We have every reason to believe 
 that she was entirely unacquainted with the 
 plan, and that the first knowledge of it was 
 when Arnold went to tell her he must banish 
 himself from his country, and from her for- 
 ever. She instantly fell into a convulsion, 
 and he left her in that situation. 
 
 " This morning she is more composed. I 
 paid her a visit, and endeavored to soothe her 
 by every method in my power, though you 
 may imagine she is not easily to be consoled. 
 Added to her other distresses, she is very ap- 
 prehensive the resentment of her country will 
 fall upon her (who is only unfortunate) for 
 the guilt of her husband. 
 
 " I have tried to persuade her that her fears 
 are ill-founded, but she will not be convinced. 
 She received us in bed, with every circum- 
 stance that would interest our sympathy, and 
 208 
 
The Traitor 
 
 her sufferings were so eloquent that I wished 
 myself her brother to have a right to become 
 her defender." 
 
 All of which goes to prove the lady a most 
 consummate actress as well as the most fascin- 
 ating beauty of her day. Most of the histo- 
 rians who have treated of this topic have fol- 
 lowed Hamilton's version. That it was false, 
 we have conclusive proof, aside from inherent 
 probability, — the circumstantial evidence al- 
 ready given. Mrs. Arnold, no doubt to dis- 
 arm suspicion, elected to go to her father in 
 Philadelphia, and Washington gave her a safe 
 conduct thither, and detailed Major Pranks 
 as her escort. On her way, she spent a night 
 at Paramus, in New Jersey, with an old and 
 intimate friend, Mrs. Theodosia Prevost, wid- 
 ow of Colonel Mark Prevost, of the British 
 army, and daughter of Theodosius Bartow, 
 a lawyer of Shrewsbury, New Jersey. This 
 estimable lady was engaged to marry Colonel 
 Aaron Burr at the time ; indeed, Parton says 
 the latter was present when the interview 
 we are to describe took place. Our account 
 of it is taken from the "Memoirs of Aaron 
 14 209 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 Burr," by Matthew L. Davis, Vol. I. page 
 219. ,,..^.0 v.u.t 
 
 " On her arrival at Paramus the frantic 
 scenes of West Point were renewed, and con- 
 tinued so long as strangers were present. 
 Mrs. Prevost was known as the widow of a 
 British officer and connected with the royal- 
 ists ; in her, therefore, Mrs. Arnold could 
 confide. As soon as they were left alone 
 Mrs. Arnold became tranquillized and assured 
 Mrs. Prevost that she was heartily sick of 
 the theatricals she was exhibiting. She 
 stated that she had corresponded with the 
 British commander, that she was disgusted 
 with the American cause and with those who 
 had the management of public affairs, and 
 that through great persuasion and unceasing 
 perseverance she had ultimately brought the 
 General into an arrangement to surrender 
 West Point to the British. Mrs. Arnold was 
 a gay, accomplished, artful, and extravagant 
 woman. There is no doubt, therefore, that 
 for the purpose of acquiring the means of 
 gratifying an inordinate vanity she con- 
 tributed greatly to the utter ruin of her 
 210 
 
The Traitor 
 
 husband, and thus doomed to everlasting 
 infamy and disgrace all the fame he had 
 acquired as a gallant soldier at the sacrifice 
 of his blood. Mrs. Prevost subsequently be- 
 came the wife of Colonel Burr, and repeated 
 to him this confession of Mrs. Arnold." 
 
 This confession has all the ear-marks of 
 truth. Until both Colonel Burr and his wife 
 can be impeached — and both of them were 
 the soul of honor — it must be accepted as 
 true. The Shippen family have sought to 
 break the force of it by publishing long after, 
 a " tradition " current in their family that 
 Colonel Burr, who they say was visiting Mrs. 
 Prevost at the time, on Mrs. Arnold's setting 
 out next morning offered to accompany her, 
 as his escort might be useful to her in the 
 disturbed state of public feeling, and that on 
 the way he sought to seduce her, and being 
 repulsed reported this confession in revenge. 
 
 Of the thousands of silly calumnies cir- 
 culated against Aaron Burr, this is perhaps 
 the most puerile and foolish. Let us consider 
 it a moment. Colonel Burr in his infancy, 
 on the death of father and mother, was placed 
 211 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 for a year or more with a member of the 
 Shippen family, for whom he always retained 
 the warm regard of a child for its foster 
 parent. He and the lady in question had 
 been friends from childhood ; yet we are asked 
 to believe that he deliberately left the side of 
 the lovely and accomplished woman to whom 
 he was engaged to be married, to attempt the 
 virtue of his old playmate, with the certainty 
 that if he failed it would be reported to his 
 fiancee at once. Besides, this confession was 
 not made public by Colonel Burr until long 
 after the death of all the parties concerned ; 
 whereas if revenge had been the motive it 
 would have been published at once. No, 
 Colonel Burr left the paper to be published 
 as an act of justice toward his old com- 
 mander, Benedict Arnold, whom he always 
 held to have been quite as much sinned 
 against as sinning. 
 
 Davis gives as corroborative proof the fact 
 that when news of Arnold's appointment 
 reached Philadelphia Mrs. Arnold was dining 
 at the house of Colonel Robert Morris, who 
 had himself been an applicant for the com.- 
 212 
 
The Traitor 
 
 mand of West Point, and that on hearing the 
 news she was so afEected as to become hys- 
 terical. They remarked that the station was 
 superior to the one he then held, but this pro- 
 duced no effect. Afterward Colonel Morris' 
 family believed she was privy to, if not the 
 negotiator for, the surrender of West Point. 
 The Council of Pennsylvania seem to have 
 had no doubt of her guilt, for on October 29 
 they passed a resolution that the "said Mar- 
 garet Arnold depart this State within fourteen 
 days from the date hereof, and that she do 
 not return again during the continuance of 
 the present war." 
 
 313 
 
CHAPTEK XV 
 UNIVERSALLY EXECRATED 
 
 WE of 1900 are more familiar with 
 treason, perhaps, than were the 
 patriots of 1780, — although they, 
 from the British point of view, were all 
 traitors, — and can scarcely realize the flood 
 of abuse, contempt, obloquy, and hatred 
 poured upon the devoted head of Benedict 
 Arnold when his attempted treason became 
 generally known ; and this was no whit allayed 
 when, on reaching New York, he issued an 
 address to the American People, in which he 
 attempted to justify his course and urged 
 them to follow his example. The document 
 was feeble, obscure, and unconvincing, — a 
 sad falling-off in both vigor and style from 
 Arnold's defence before the court-martial at 
 Morristown, but as it is the only explana- 
 tion of his conduct given by him it is here 
 inserted in full. 
 
 314 
 
Universally Execrated 
 
 TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA 
 
 I should forfeit even in my own opinion the 
 place I have so long held in yours if I could be in- 
 different to your approbation, and silent as to the 
 motives that have induced me to join the King's 
 Arms. A very few words shall suffice on a subject 
 so personal, for to the thousands who suffer under 
 the tyranny of the usurpers in the revolted prov- 
 inces, as well as to the great multitude who have 
 long wished for its subversion, this instance of my 
 conduct can want no vindication ; as to that class 
 of men who are criminally protracting the war for 
 sinister views at the expense of the public interest, 
 I prefer their enmity to their applause. 
 
 I am only therefore concerned in this Address to 
 explain myself to such of my countrymen as want 
 abilities or opportunities to detect the artifices by 
 which they are duped. Having fought by your side 
 when the love of country animated our arms, I shall 
 expect from your justice and candor what your de- 
 ceivers, with more art and less honesty, will find it 
 inconsistent with their views to admit. 
 
 When I quitted domestic happiness for the perils 
 of the field I conceived the rights of my country in 
 danger, and that duty and honor called me to her 
 defence. A redress of grievances was my only ob- 
 ject and aim ; however, I acquiesced in a step which 
 I thought precipitate — the Declaration of Indepen- 
 215 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 dence. To justify it, many plausible reasons were 
 urged which could no longer exist when Great 
 Britain, with the open arms of a parent, offered to 
 embrace us as children, and grant the wished-for re- 
 dress ; and now that her worst enemies are within 
 her own bosom I should change my principles if I 
 conspired with their designs. Yourselves being the 
 judges, was the war the less just because fellow- 
 subjects were considered our foes ? You have felt 
 the torture in which we raised our arms against a 
 brother — God incline the guilty protractors of 
 these unnatural dissensions to resign their ambi- 
 tion and cease from their delusions in compassion 
 to kindred blood. 
 
 I anticipate your question, Was not the war a 
 defensive one until the French joined in the combi- 
 nation ? I answer that I thought so. You will 
 add, Was it not afterwards necessary until the 
 separation of the British Empire was complete? 
 By no means. In contending for the welfare of 
 my country I am free to declare my opinion that, 
 this end attained, all strife should cease. I la- 
 mented therefore the impolicy, tyranny, and injus- 
 tice which, with a sovereign contempt of the people 
 of America, studiously neglected to take their col- 
 lective sentiments on the British proposals of 
 peace, and to negotiate under a suspension of arms 
 for an adjustment of differences, as a dangerous 
 sacrifice of the great interests of this country to the 
 partial views of a Proud, Ancient, and Crafty foe. 
 216 
 
Universally Execrated 
 
 I had my suspicions of some imperfections in 
 our councils on Proposals prior to the Parliamen- 
 tary Commission of 1778, but having then less to 
 do in the cabinet than in the field (I will not pro- 
 nounce peremptorily as some may, and perhaps 
 justly, that Congress have veiled them from the 
 public eye), I continued to be guided in the negli- 
 gent confidence of a soldier ; but the whole saw, 
 and all Americans confessed, that the overtures of 
 the Second Commission exceeded our wishes and 
 expectations. If there was any suspicion of the 
 national liberality it arose from its excess. 
 
 Do any believe we were at that time entangled 
 by an alliance with France ? Unfortunate decep- 
 tion, and thus they have been duped by a virtuous 
 credulity in the incautious moments of intemperate 
 passion to give up their fidelity, to give up their 
 native country with both the will and the power to 
 protect us, and aiming at the destruction of both 
 the mother country and the provinces. In the 
 name of Common-Sense, for I pretend to no casuis- 
 try, did the pretended Treaty with the Court of 
 Versailles amount to more than an overture to 
 America? Certainly not, because no authority 
 had been given by the People to conclude it, nor to 
 this very hour have they authorized its ratifica- 
 tion — the Articles of Ratification remain still 
 unsigned. 
 
 In the firm persuasion, therefore, that the private 
 judgment of any individual citizen of this country 
 217 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 is as free from all conventional restraints since as 
 before the insidious offers of Prance, I preferred 
 those from Great Britain, thinking it infinitely 
 wiser and safer to cast my confidence upon her jus- 
 tice and generosity, than to trust a monarchy too 
 feeble to establish your independency, so perilous 
 to her distant dominions, the enemy of the Protes- 
 tant faith, and fraudulently avowing an affection 
 for the liberties of mankind, while she holds her 
 native sons in vassalage and chains. 
 
 I affect no disguise, therefore ; I frankly declare 
 that in these Principles I had determined to retain 
 my arms and command for an opportunity to sur- 
 render them to Great Britain, and in concerting 
 the measures for a purpose in my opinion as grate- 
 ful as it would have been beneficial to my country. 
 I was only solicitous to accomplish an event of 
 decisive importance, and to prevent as much as 
 possible, in the execution of it, the effusion of 
 blood. 
 
 With the highest satisfaction I bear testimony 
 to my old fellow-soldiers and citizens, that I find 
 solid ground to rely upon the Clemency of our 
 Sovereign, and abundant conviction that it is the 
 generous intention of Great Britain, not only to 
 leave the rights and privileges of the colonies un- 
 impaired, together with their perpetual exemption 
 from taxation, but to superadd such further bene- 
 fits as may consist with the common prosperity of 
 the Empire ; in short, I fought for much less than 
 218 
 
Universally Execrated 
 
 the parent country is as willing to grant to her 
 colonies as they can be to receive and enjoy. 
 
 Some may think I continued in the struggle of 
 those unhappy days too long, and others that I 
 quitted it too soon. To the first I reply that I did 
 not see it with their eyes, nor perhaps had so favora- 
 ble a position to look from, and that to one common 
 master I am willing to stand or fall. In behalf of 
 the candid among the latter, some of whom I be- 
 lieve serve blindly but honestly in the ranks I have 
 left, I pray God to give them all the lights requi- 
 site to their own safety before it is too late. And 
 with respect to that kind of ceusurers whose en- 
 mity to me originates in their hatred to those prin- 
 ciples by which I am now led to devote my life to 
 the reunion of the British Empire, as the best and 
 only means to dry up the streams of misery that 
 have deluged this country, they may be assured 
 that, conscious of the rectitude of my intentions, I 
 shall treat their malice and calumnies with con- 
 tempt and neglect. 
 
 Benedict Arnold. 
 
 New York, October 7, 1780. 
 
 On the 20th he issued a proclamation to 
 the officers and soldiers of the Continental 
 army, in which he sought to seduce from 
 their allegiance his old comrades-in-arms by 
 offering to all who would join the King's 
 219 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 forces, rank, bounties, and other emoluments. 
 Clinton, he said, had authorized him to raise 
 a corps of cavalry and infantry, and he should 
 take great satisfaction to advance therein men 
 whose valor he had witnessed and whose 
 principles were favorable to a union with 
 Britain and true American liberty. Few 
 were seduced by his promises ; he did raise 
 a corps, but it was composed mostly of 
 loyalists. 
 
 Instead his name became a bjrw^ord, a 
 hissing and reproach. The tidings of his 
 defection circulated slowly in comparison 
 with the present rapidity of news transmis- 
 sion. The Commercial Gazette and Universal 
 Intelligencer of New London, Conn., printed 
 its first account of the affair in its issue of 
 October 6, 1780: 
 
 "About the time of his [Washington's] 
 arrival, a most horrid plot was discovered, 
 the infamous General Arnold at the head of 
 it, who, it is supposed, has been corrupted 
 by the influence of British gold, having 
 agreed to deliver up the fortress at West 
 Point." And in its issue of October 17; 
 220 
 
Universally Execrated 
 
 " Thursday the 2d of November will be ob- 
 served in New York as a public thanks- 
 giving to Almighty God for his remarkable 
 deliverance in the discovery of the Horrid 
 Conspiracy for the delivering up of West 
 Point." 
 
 The same issue had an " Epitaph " : " In 
 memory of the fugitive shade of Benedict 
 Arnold, once a major-general in the armies 
 of the United States of America, who with 
 incredible fatigue, unparalleled sufferings, and 
 all the obstinacy of perseverance, pushed his 
 way to the gallows, from which his tor- 
 mented spirit fled, on a day too black to 
 be mentioned, into a state of disappoint- 
 ment, want, chagrin, and despair, where the 
 ghosts of a thousand murdered oaths cease 
 not to harrow up his conscience, and the 
 Genius of his betrayed countrj'^ dashes with 
 irresistible Force and in quick succession, 
 huge masses of solid gold full in his face with 
 one hand, while with the other she points him 
 to a gallows at West Point where hangs poor 
 Andr^. In this situation while he catches in 
 vain at the gold, his poor little, fickle, furious, 
 231 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 dastard, distracted shade, which once bore 
 the name of a sou' 
 for British ridicule. 
 
 the name of a soul, stands an eternal butt 
 
 ALAS, POOE AENOLD. 
 
 May all who walk in his footsteps do that 
 service for their country which he did before 
 and at the time he eloped from life, and then 
 share his present fate ! " 
 
 In many of the larger towns his effigy 
 was burned after being dragged through the 
 streets amid a rain of missiles and torrent of 
 abuse. The following account of the proceed- 
 ings in Philadelphia is copied from the Penn- 
 sylvania Packet or General Advertiser of that 
 city, and appeared in its issue of October 3, 
 1780: 
 
 " A stage was raised on the body of a cart, 
 on which was an effigy of General Arnold 
 sitting : this was dressed in regimentals and 
 had two faces emblematical of his traitorous 
 conduct. A mask was in his left hand, and a 
 letter from Beelzebub telling him he had done 
 all the mischief he could do and now he must 
 go hang himself. At the back of the General 
 
 222 
 
Universally Execrated 
 
 was a figure of the Devil, dressed in black 
 robes shaking a purse of money at the Gen- 
 eral's left ear, and in his right hand a pitch- 
 fork ready to drive him into hell as a reward 
 for the numerous crimes his lust for gold had 
 made him commit. In front of the stage and 
 before General Arnold was placed a large 
 lanthorn of transparent paper with the con- 
 sequences of his crimes there delineated, i. e. 
 on one part General Arnold on his knees 
 before the devil, who is pulling him into the 
 flames, a label in the General's mouth with 
 these words. ' My dear sir : I have served 
 you faithfully ; ' to which the devil replies, 
 'I will reward you.' On another side two 
 figures hanging, inscribed ' the Traitor's 
 Reward,' and underneath, ' The Adjutant 
 General of the British Army and Joe Smith. 
 The first hanged as a spy, and the last 
 as a traitor to his country.' On the front 
 of the lanthorn this inscription in big let- 
 ters : 'Major General Benedict Arnold, late 
 Commander of the Fortress of the West 
 Point. The crime of this man is High 
 Treason. He has deserted the important 
 223 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 post of West Point committed to his care 
 by Washington and gone to the British. 
 The treachery of this ungrateful General 
 is held up to public view for the exposition 
 of his Infamy. The Effigy of this Ingrate 
 is therefore hanged (for want of his body) 
 as a traitor to his native country and a 
 Betrayer of the Laws of Honor.' 
 
 "The Procession began about four o'clock 
 — several Gentlemen on horseback, A line 
 of Continental officers. Sundry Gentlemen in 
 Line : a guard of City Infantry. Before the 
 cart, drums and fifes playing the Rogue's 
 March, Guards on each side. A numerous 
 concourse of people attended the procession, 
 who, after expressing their abhorrence of 
 Treason and the Traitor, committed him to 
 the flames and left both the effigy and the 
 Original to sink into the ashes of Oblivion." 
 
 Lampoons and doggerel verses issued in 
 a flood. Thomas Paine, then clerk of the 
 General Assembly of Pennsylvania published 
 a " Crisis Extraordinary," in which he flayed 
 the unfortunate Arnold unmercifully. Several 
 plans to kidnap him at his quarters and bring 
 224 
 
Universally Execrated 
 
 him within the American lines for condign 
 punishment were formed. One might have 
 succeeded had not Arnold changed his quar- 
 ters the day before the attempt was to have 
 been made. 
 
 15 225 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 LATER LIFE, AND DEATH 
 
 ARNOLD'S warlike exploits after Ms 
 change of flags were neither creditable 
 to him nor productive of benefit to his 
 new masters. Some two months after his de- 
 fection he was given command of a predatory 
 expedition of about fifteen hundred men 
 launched against the Old Dominion as a pun- 
 ishment for her activity in resisting the King. 
 Hitherto she had escaped serious injury. The 
 expedition sailed up the James, burning the 
 tobacco warehouses, foundries, and magazines 
 along the banks, and at last captured Rich- 
 mond, which was nearly all burned; after 
 which it returned to Hampton Roads and went 
 into winter quarters at Portsmouth, opposite 
 the present city of Norfolk. Thither Wa.sh- 
 ington sent a strong ' force of French and 
 Continentals to capture Arnold, but he, on 
 
 226 
 
Later Life, and Death 
 
 Marcli 26, 1781, received a large reinforce- 
 ment from New York under General Phillips' 
 — the same who had fought against him 
 at Saratoga. Phillips outranking him, took 
 command, and in June Arnold returned to 
 New York, thus escaping the mortification 
 of a defeat with Cornwallis at Yorktown. 
 While he was in Virginia, Jefferson, then 
 governor, offered a reward of five thou- 
 sand guineas for his capture. Here too the 
 oft told colloquy between him and a Con- 
 tinental captain who had been taken prisoner 
 occurred. 
 
 "What would be my fate if taken?" 
 Arnold asked. 
 
 " They would cut off that shortened leg of 
 yours wounded at Quebec and at Saratoga," 
 replied the captain, " and bury it with all the 
 honors of war, then hang the rest of you on a 
 gibbet." 
 
 In September of the same year he was sent 
 to destroy stores that had been collected at 
 New London, on the Thames, about ten miles 
 below Norwich, his birthplace. The town 
 was burned. Fort Griswold, which defended 
 227 
 
The Beal Benedict Arnold 
 
 it, carried by assault, and almost the entire 
 garrison barbarously murdered after surren- 
 dering. Arnold claimed that he was not re- 
 sponsible for this massacre, having been on the 
 other side of the river when it occurred, but 
 as he was in command the patriots held him 
 accountable, and the affair added greatly to 
 the horror and detestation in which he was 
 held. 
 
 Barely had he returned to New York when 
 news came of the surrender at Torktown of 
 Comwallis and his ten thousand men, and all 
 knew that the war must soon end in the inde- 
 pendence of the colonies. This must have 
 been a serious blow to Arnold, for with the 
 success of the American arms his name would 
 always remain infamous among his compa- 
 triots. In the December following, partly to 
 escape this odium, partly from fear of the 
 kidnapper and the assassin, he sailed for Eng- 
 land with his family ,"which had been increased 
 by the birth of a second son, August 27, 
 1781. His ostensible mission was to confer 
 with the British ministers on the conduct of 
 the war. 
 
 228 
 
Later Life, and Death 
 
 The reader can easily imagine his emotions 
 as he watched the coast line drop below the 
 waves, — his native land, for which he had 
 bravely fought and bled, in which he would 
 have henceforth no part nor lot, which he was 
 destined never again to visit, at least not 
 openly. There was a volume of tragedy in 
 it, of an intensity never pictured on the 
 mimic stage. 
 
 It must be admitted that England repaid 
 Arnold well for his treason, that is, if mate- 
 rial good can repay a man for loss of honor 
 and self-respect. " He was received with 
 open arms by the king, caressed by the min- 
 isters, and all imaginable attention showed 
 him by all people on that side of the ques- 
 tion," we are told, and was presented at court, 
 by Sir Walter Stirling. £6,315 were voted 
 him in return for his property in America, 
 which the " rebels " summarily confiscated, 
 while Mrs. Arnold, a little later, was voted a 
 pension of £500 per annum, and each of her 
 children £100. 
 
 Arnold's life in England and Canada was 
 not one to be desired. The influence of the 
 
 229 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 Whig party — whose members were his bitter 
 enemies — was sufficient to keep him out of 
 the army, and after a while he returned to 
 his old. vocation of a merchant, in which he 
 was quite successful, having business thrown 
 in his way by the government. From 1787 
 to 1791, he and his family were in St. John's, 
 New Brunswick, where Arnold conducted a 
 profitable trade with the West Indies. In 
 1791, all returned to England, and took up 
 their residence in London, which continued 
 thereafter to be their home, though Arnold 
 was often absent on trading voyages to the 
 West Indies. Twice during these voyages, — 
 England being at war with Prance at the time, 
 — he was taken prisoner by French vessels 
 of war, but contrived to escape to the British 
 fleet with valuable information. For these 
 and other services, the King, in 1798, granted 
 him 13,400 acres of land in Canada. During 
 the war with France, all his military ardor 
 aroused, Arnold made repeated attempts to 
 secure a command, which, however, was re- 
 fused him. This, with the indignities and 
 insults which he continually received from 
 230 
 
Later Life, and Death 
 
 the friends of America, joined to remorse 
 and to certain pecuniary losses and em- 
 barrassments, brouglit on a nervous disease 
 from which, after long suffering, he died, 
 June 14, 1801, at his house in London, aged 
 sixty years. 
 
 As death drew near, it is said his mind 
 wandered, and he was again in America, 
 fighting his battles with Washington and his 
 old comrades in arms. In a lucid interval he 
 asked that his Continental uniform of a ma- 
 jor-general, in which he had escaped to the 
 " Vulture," and which he had ever cherished, 
 might be brought and put on him, with the 
 epaulets and sword-knots which "Washington 
 had given him as bravest of the brave. 
 
 " Let me die in my old American uniform," 
 he said, " the uniform in which I fought my 
 battles. God forgive me," he added, "for 
 ever putting on any other." 
 
 His wife died in London, August 24, 
 1804, aged forty-four years. Arnold never 
 revisited his native country, so far as known, 
 though he may have done so in disguise, 
 when residing in New Brunswick. His wife 
 231 
 
The Real Benedict Arnold 
 
 again visited her father and friends in Phil- 
 adelphia, some years after the war, but her 
 part in her husband's treason was so well 
 known by the patriots that she was treated 
 with the utmost coldness and soon returned 
 to England. 
 
 Arnold's sons by the second wife, all of 
 whom remained in England, came to honor. 
 The eldest, Edward Shippen, born in Phila- 
 delphia, March 19, 1780, received a military 
 education at the hands of the British Govern- 
 ment, was appointed a lieutenant in the Sixth 
 Bengal Cavalry, and rose to be paymaster. 
 He died at Dingapoor, Bengal, December 17, 
 1813. James Robertson, the second son, born 
 in New York, August 27, 1781, entered the 
 corps of Royal Engineers in 1798, and after 
 a service of nearly half a century, attaining 
 the rank of lieutenant-general, died Decem- 
 ber 27, 1854, without issue, in London, Eng- 
 land. George, the third son, born in New 
 Brunswick, September 5, 1787, died in India, 
 November 1, 1828, holding the rank of lieu- 
 tenant-colonel in the Second Bengal Cavalry, 
 William Fitch, born in London, June 25, 1794, 
 232 
 
Later Life, and Death 
 
 became a> captain in the Nineteenth Royal 
 Lancers. Sophia Matilda, the only daugh- 
 ter, was bom in London, July 28, 1785, 
 and married Captain Pownall Phipps, later 
 lieutenant-colonel in the British army. 
 
 233 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 LIST OF AUTHOEITIES CONSULTED 
 
 Sparks' Life of Benedict Arnold 
 
 Arnold's Life of Benedict Arnold 
 
 Calkins' History of Norwich, Conn. 
 
 Atwater's History of New Haven, Conn. 
 
 Maine Historical Society's Collections 
 
 Pennsylvania Historical Society's Collections 
 
 Pennsylvania Archives 
 
 American Archives 
 
 Documentary History of New York 
 
 Stone's Campaign of General John Burgoyne 
 
 Marshall's History of the United States 
 
 Irving's Life of Washington 
 
 Sargent's Life of Andr^ 
 
 Bancroft's History of the United States 
 
 Watson's Annals of Philadelphia 
 
 Watson's Historic Mansions of Philadelphia 
 
 Davis' Life of Aaron Burr 
 
 Parton's Life of Aaron Burr 
 
 Fiske's The American Revolution 
 
 Wilkinson's Memoirs 
 
 Codman's Arnold's Expedition to Quebec 
 
 Arnold's Journal 
 
 Henry's Journal 
 
 Melvin's Journal 
 
 Meigs' Journal 
 
 Senter's Journal 
 
 235 
 
'< A JUDICIOUS BIOGRAPHY." 
 
 THE TRUE AARON BURR 
 
 A BiograpKical Sketch 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES BURR TODD 
 
 I zmo Cloth gilt top. With Portraits. Price 50 cts. net. Postage 4 cts. 
 
 "A spirited and interesting 
 defence." 
 
 The Outlook. 
 
 " Mr. Todd's little book re- 
 veals many facts of in- 
 terest." 
 
 Cleveland World. 
 
 " Exceedingly interesting and 
 
 well worth reading from a 
 
 historical point of view." 
 
 Portland Express. 
 
 " Excellently done. Judicious 
 without being fulsome, 
 critical without being 
 rabid." 
 
 Pittsburg Chronicle. 
 
 A ARON BURR is to- 
 day by far the most 
 mysterious, interesting, 
 and attractive character in 
 American history. Mr. 
 Todd's little book pre- 
 sents in terse, vigorous 
 Anglo-Saxon a better pic- 
 ture of the real man than 
 has been given in volumes 
 of labored biography. 
 
 ••• A copy of "The True 
 Aaron Burr will be sent 
 ■postpaid to any address on 
 receipt of ^^ cents. 
 
AN ATTRACTIVE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 TWO 
 ON THEIR TRAVELS 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. ARCHIBALD R. COLQUHOUN 
 
 Crown 8vo. Cloth, gilt top. Profusely illustrated with pen and 
 
 ink sketches and 8 full page colored plates. 
 
 Price, ^2.50 net. Postage, 15 cents. 
 
 ' Spontaneous humor bubbles up irre- 
 prcssibly in Mrs. Colquohoun*3 
 delightful record." 
 
 Providence yournal. 
 
 " Her charming pen-pictures, and 
 fresh, original style bid fair to 
 make her as well known as her 
 distinguished husband." 
 
 Book Buyer, 
 
 ** Most delightful company is the 
 author who plainly has the faculty 
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 untravelled public." 
 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 ' It is well worth reading. These 
 pictures of Ceylon, Malaysia, 
 Borneo, the Philippines, China, 
 and Siberia are different from 
 those which any other traveller 
 has yet given. ' * 
 
 Tke Outlook. 
 
 T' 
 
 ^HE "TWO" are Arch- 
 ibald R. Colquhoun and 
 his newly wedded wife on a 
 honeymoon trip " Out to the 
 East," charmingly described 
 by the bride, who has illustra- 
 ted the book with one hundred 
 bright, humorous and effective 
 pen and ink sketches, and im- 
 pressionist views in color. 
 With a light conversational 
 style, Mrs. Colquohoun hits 
 off the comical traits of every- 
 thing she saw. Some of the 
 freshest sketches have to do 
 with the Philippine Islands 
 under American rule. 
 
 .'.A copy of Two on Their 
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 address postpaid on receitt 
 of $2.65. 
 
A WORLD'S SHRINE 
 
 BY 
 
 VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON 
 
 Author of "A Lily of the Arno." 
 
 Bliutrated i2ino. Cloth, gilt top, 278 pp. 
 
 Price ;gi.20 net, postage 10 cents. 
 
 " The author has eviiently studied with 
 affection the scenes which engage 
 her pen.** 
 
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 " A description of the remarkable 
 beauties of the little Italian Lalce 
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 review of their history and an ac- 
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 St. Louis Globe Democrat. 
 
 " A beautiful historical study of this 
 famous Italian spot, the birth place 
 of Pliny the younger, the thread 
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 brilliant descriptive writing with 
 which the narrative abounds." 
 
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 country will find a fresh 
 interest in the definition of Como 
 as A World's Shrine. In the 
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 to mid-summer south wind, the 
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 Manzone's Promessi Sposi. The 
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 on boats testify to the national 
 attachment for this dreamy 
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 The book is a fresh study of 
 Lake Como, as the birthplace of 
 Pliny, the younger. 
 
 •,' A copy of A World! s 
 Shrine will be sent postpaid 
 to any address on receipt of 
 $1.30. 
 
"A REMARKABLE BOOK." 
 
 HIDDEN MANNA 
 
 A Romance of Morocco 
 
 BY 
 
 A. J. DAWSON 
 
 Author of " African Night's Entertainments" etc. 
 
 izmo. Cloth. 332 Pages. J 1. 50. 
 
 " Reminds one of the Arabian 
 Nights." 
 
 Milwaukee Sentinel. 
 
 ' A rigorous and picturesque 
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 Phila. North American. 
 
 " Unique and deserving ot the 
 highest praise for its con- 
 ception and execution." 
 Louisville Courier-Journal. 
 
 " A most extraordinary booli. 
 The intimate knowledge 
 behind its pages is aston- 
 ishing. ' ' 
 
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 ' I ''HIS book is unique 
 of its kind, because 
 it represents places 
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 and newspaper correspon- 
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 of the author warrants The 
 Outlook in saying, " Mr. 
 Dawson does for Morocco 
 what Kipling did for India." 
 
 .*. A copy of Hidden Manna 
 will he sent postpaid to any 
 address on receipt of $1.50. 
 
A NOVEL FOR MEN AND WOMEN 
 
 ONE'S WOMENKIND 
 
 BY 
 LOUIS ZANGWILL 
 
 Author of " A Drama in Dutch," etc. 
 
 izmo. Cloth. 390 pages. Price, ^1.50. 
 
 " Powerful, dramatic, subtle 
 and fascinating." 
 
 Rochester Democrat. 
 
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 plot." 
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 " The idea of this book has 
 the great merit of being 
 new." 
 N. T. Mail and Express. 
 
 " Its quiet trend is occasionally 
 ruffled by intense dramatic 
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 Detroit Tribune. 
 
 A NOVEL that will 
 -^^ help women to 
 understand men 
 by teaching women 
 how men fail to under- 
 stand them. One's 
 womenkind — to all 
 these man has relations, 
 always subtle and indi- 
 vidual, and always dra- 
 matic. Mr. Zangwill 
 has chosen this theme 
 for his powerful story 
 of English Society. 
 
 .•. A copy of One's Women- 
 kind will be sent postpaid 
 to any address on receipt 
 of $T.SO. 
 
"A FRIEND, PHILOSOPHER AND GUIDES 
 
 HOME THOUGHTS 
 
 First Series 
 
 By «C" 
 
 (Mrs. James Farley Cox) 
 
 izmo. Cloth, gilt top. 320 pages. Price, ^1.20 »f/. Postage, loc. 
 
 ' A book which every mother, wife 
 and daughter in the land should 
 read.** 
 
 The Book Buyer. 
 
 "A lively fancy and charming des- 
 criptive talent, with sparkling 
 humor cropping out here and there, 
 enlighten the pages.** 
 
 Chicago E'vening Post, 
 
 " No greater tribute can be paid to a 
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 ** Home Thoughts ** deserves this 
 tribute." 
 
 iVew Tork Evening Sun, 
 
 ' We can imagine no better moral 
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 TF you have not read " Home 
 Thoughts " you have miss- 
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 First Series, will be sent 
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 HOME THOUGHTS 
 
 Second Series 
 By "C" 
 
 (Mrs. James Farley Cox) 
 
 izmo. Cloth, gilt top. 340 pages. ?r\ce, $1.20 net. Postage, 10c. 
 
 " Should find a place among the pres- 
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 Congregationalist. 
 
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PLANTATION FOLK LORE. 
 
 MAMMY'S 
 REMINISCENCES 
 
 By MRS. MARTHA S. GIELOW 
 
 OF ALABAMA 
 
 l2ino. Illuminated cloth. Illustrated with pictures drawn from 
 life by Mrs. Clara Weaver Parrish. iz8 pages. Price, |i.oo. 
 
 
 
 •' A delightful series of planta- 
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 ' Daddy ' and ' Mammy ' 
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 Mrs. Gielow's pages." 
 
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 happy simple nature." 
 
 St. Paul Globe. 
 
 " It is well that some one 
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 * Mammy ' should perpet- 
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 give thanks that in these 
 « Reminiscences ' we may 
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 our youth." 
 
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 npHIS book is a collec- 
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 character sketches that 
 give correct and natural 
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 "Mammy" and "Daddy," 
 the devoted foster parents 
 to the children of the 
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 postpaid to any address on 
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PLANTATION LIFE 
 
 BAYOU TRISTE 
 
 A Story of LoMisiatna. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPHINE HAMILTON NICHOLLS 
 
 i2mo. Cloth, gilt top. 236 pages. Illustrated. |i.So. 
 
 The Illustrations are set in tinted border designs of 
 fine artistic effect. 
 
 ' A rarely good story.** 
 
 Pituhurgh Chronklt Telegraph. 
 
 *' The Bimplictty and genuine human 
 
 nature which pervade every page 
 
 will charm the most blaze reader. ' * 
 
 Boston Transcript. 
 
 ' ' Min Nicholli underttandi the negro 
 dialect and renders it perfectly. 
 The book ia charming and 
 delightful." 
 
 Charleston Ne'ws and Observer. 
 
 ««The charm of Bayou Trisle depends 
 upon fi-eshness of material, sym- 
 pathetic delineation of the quaint 
 and simple southern negro, a del- 
 icacy and distinction of style, and 
 the delightful humor that spices 
 the toothsome mixture of planta- 
 tion incident and love episode." 
 
 Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 A MOST entertaining 
 story wherein the 
 good feeling existing 
 between the plantation 
 negro and his old master's 
 children and grandchildren 
 is interestingly portrayed. 
 The time of the narra- 
 tive is since the war, and 
 deals with the fortunes of 
 the young master of the 
 broken-down old 
 and of his sister, 
 grave and gay by 
 the love story of both 
 young people being skill- 
 fully interwoven with the 
 humorous narrative of 
 Louisiana plantation life. 
 
 home. 
 It is 
 
 turns. 
 
 ••. A Copy of Bayou Tristewill 
 will be sent postpaid to any 
 address on receipt of ^i.^o. 
 
"A TA'fy/i LOI^/i //)YL." 
 
 THE LOVE STORY OF 
 ABNER STONE 
 
 By EDWIN CARLILE LITSEY 
 
 i2mo. Gilt top. 170 pages. Price, gi.zo /?^/. Postage, ^c. 
 
 *' A charming Jove story ttraJght hum 
 the heart. * • 
 
 Savannah Nr-wi. 
 
 ** Ai »we€t and ^iMkt a 5tory aa has 
 
 come Ofir way for a lon^ tifdr." 
 
 CharlfU'in Ncwi and (I'lunrr . 
 
 ** Not gince Allen'* Kr.ntud-y Cardinal 
 
 iidvi i TK'dA a uiOTf. \j'-/dnf'ifui fair." 
 
 7. f;. W, in lmprr.%u'jnx. 
 
 *' Th*; f}r^rT{> of thr falT I", 'w^ h':^\\ 
 f'-.'-.i'in'/ ff/T ri;jhjr'-, JN aUrcAf-hrrio 
 'jNaJify, arK) fhat tou'-h of hir.al- 
 hift v/h]f.\i yjyf.% I'lfn unfailing 
 roTfisir.";. " 
 
 ** To «ay that '7 hr ■^ut}i(/T'k '\nvy\\,U'/f. 
 power* are of tl,f, L/;^t' doca i?cant 
 justice t/> thf; pur': ll^ht^, t}ji^ 
 'Iri^rny %h^f\';-i :Ar. l^]t%r:-/ impart* 
 to hi? K^n^'j'.lcy 'u^.riKTy/' 
 //. '/". 7im^!j ''.alurday P,C'oir-w. 
 
 A most charming story 
 of love and nature. 
 The author, a Kentuck- 
 ian, has caught the true 
 spirit of nature, and 
 weaves into his beautiful 
 descriptionrs a Jove story 
 so pure, ';<> beautiful, so in- 
 tense, that one instinctive- 
 ly says: " This is a man's 
 life story." The scene is 
 laid in the Blue Grass 
 region, while the volume 
 is the perfection of the 
 printer's art. 
 
 •." y/ copy of The Love 
 Story of /Ihner Stone will 
 be sent postpaid to any ad- 
 dress on receipt of $i.2fj.