Why Benedict Arnold Could Never Recover His Reputation After His Betrayal of American Aspirations

‘God Save Benedict Arnold: The True Story of America’s Most Hated Man’By Jack KellySt. Martin’s Press, 320 pagesBenedict Arnold is the supreme hero/traitor of American history. Americans were in awe of his military exploits in the taking of Fort Ticonderoga, and as the spearhead of General Horatio Gates’s tremendous victory at Saratoga — showing once and for all that Americans were prepared to repel whatever force Britain’s best military leaders could throw at them. General Washington greatly admired the intrepid Arnold, who may have acted as a reminder of his own brash forays in the wilderness against the French. Washington was dismayed that Congress did not award Arnold the promotion he deserved, and did all he could to mollify his prickly subordinate who despised politicians and felt aggrieved at the sacrifice of his prosperous mercantile business as he took on huge debts while serving his new country.Arnold was hardly the only soldier to be upset with Congress. Jack Kelly explains that renowned patriots like John Adams had no idea of how difficult the war had been for military men like Arnold. Adams and his congressional contemporaries were worried about maintaining civilian control of the military. They feared and distrusted aggressive warriors like Arnold.While Congress dithered about military pay and promotion, which vexed Washington as well, Arnold displayed an organizing capacity and a deft employment of military intelligence that surprised the British over and over again. Mr. Kelly sure knows how to write about battles, with an intimacy and energy that are quite thrilling, and that compel admiration for Arnold’s resourcefulness and courage. He did not spare himself in a grueling trek over Maine’s mountains — compared to Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps — to attack Quebec.Mr. Kelly is a novelist who dramatizes scenes, sometimes overwhelming the propriety of biography: “The nervous militiamen gripped their muskets with sweating palms. A bright spring breeze hummed in their ears.” Sweating sounds right, but who knows? Was the breeze really humming? Really?Arnold was such a good leader of men and deserved so much more than a suspicious Congress was willing to award him that it is no wonder he was resentful and, in the end, disgusted with men so far away from battle who questioned his record of expenditure and expected him to account for everything spent in the heat of battle.Although General Washington understood how shabbily Arnold had been treated, he was still astounded when one of his best soldiers sided with the British, declaring that turning traitor was “an unaccountable deprivation of presence of Mind in a Man of the first abilities.”Arnold claimed he had switched sides because Americans had rejected British peace overtures. He had been assured that the British were willing to meet all American demands short of recognizing the country’s independence.Americans were skeptical, and so is Mr. Kelly. He documents how much Arnold worried about and craved money, and how much the British offer of 20,000 pounds for his services counted. Arnold, Mr. Kelly shows, was always at his best during war, when his very life and the lives of his soldiers were in the balance. Off the battlefield, he sulked and nursed his wounds and consorted with Loyalists who wined and dined him at Philadelphia.In short, Arnold, a vain man, had discovered a new, appreciative audience that included a lovely and faithful new wife who bound up his treachery with romance. Mr. Kelly also points out that Arnold was not a thinker, and that the principles of the American Revolution were never of much interest to him. His treason recalls Thomas Paine’s famous salvo in “Common Sense”: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”The public reaction to Arnold’s betrayal of American aspirations was fierce and unremitting — as expected in a new country whose citizens needed to hold on to its heroes and did not expect those heroes to repudiate them.Arnold never recovered his reputation. In England he was treated with considerable distrust by those who could not forgive his powerful assaults on British forces.In the end, Mr. Kelly observes, Arnold’s treachery had no significant impact on the American Revolution — no matter how terrible it seemed at the time. Restlessly moving between England and Canada, he just faded from history, the very definition of a spent force.Mr. Rollyson’s forthcoming book is “Making the American Presidency: How Biographers Shape History.”

Why Benedict Arnold Could Never Recover His Reputation After His Betrayal of American Aspirations

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