Arnold brought complaints against Moses Hazen which led to his court-martial. Afterwards, Hazen leveled counter charges. Arnold also became involved in conflicts with both John Brown and James Easton. Brown in response published a pamphlet that claimed of Arnold, "Money is this man's God, and to get enough of it he would sacrifice his country. After being passed over for promotion to the post of Major General, Arnold tendered his resignation.
George Washington, however, refused to accept the withdrawal. Soon after, Arnold participated in the Battle of Saratoga, where he was again wounded in his left leg, the same leg that had been injured previously. Soon after, Washington appointed Arnold military commander of Philadelphia, where his attempts to profit from his position ran afoul of local officials. In and , Arnold expressed disappointment and pessimism about the prospects of the United States, and evidence mounted that he was conspiring with the British by exchanging sensitive military information for money.
Although cleared of a court-martial, Arnold was rebuked by Washington, who called his conduct "imprudent and improper. Arnold resigned his post in Philadelphia and eventually gained command at West Point where he entered into secret negotiations with the British. He transferred money to British forces and passed on information that would aid the British in capturing West Point, while weakening the fort's defenses and thinning out its supplies.
John Andre , Arnold's British contact, was captured and ultimately executed for his role in the plot. After much argument the two decided to share command; on May 3 they were able to capture the fort with little alarm, as the commander had few guards patrolling the grounds that night.
Arnold's party then proceeded from Fort Ti to Crown Point and captured it much the same. If that wasn't enough, the men then captured Fort George also in the Champlain Valley all by the end of June Arnold's wife died that same month. Although this success was considered a great one, Arnold was, in his opinion, forced from command of these new American posts. This did not hinder his ambition. Though the attempt at adding a "Fourteenth Colony" failed with a desperate attack on Quebec, Arnold was considered by most to have served valiantly as a brilliant tactician and hero after being wounded in the leg during battle.
For this he was promoted to brigadier general. In the summer of Arnold's skills as a strategist were once again called upon as he was placed in charge of a new American Naval Fleet in Lake Champlain.
His orders from Gen. Horatio Gates were to defend the area and attack only if attacked. Upon learning of a British naval force under Guy Carleton settling in the northern end of the lake, Arnold took his fleet and stationed it towards Valcour Island in October.
Several days of battle ensued. Arnold was not able to do much damage to the veteran British fleet. He only saved many of his men after grounding and burning their ships. Yet, in Gates' eyes, he had disobeyed orders by conducting an offensive maneuver. Now at odds with not only his superiors, but with Congress over promotions he did not receive, became Arnold's year to prove himself. The first chance came in August, when Gen. Philip Schuyler ordered him to march west from Albany to prevent a force under British commander Barry St.
Leger from over-whelming the beleaguered troops at Fort Schuyler. He was handsome and charismatic, with black hair, gray eyes and an aquiline nose, and he carried himself with the lissome elegance of a natural athlete. He was born in , a descendant of the Rhode Island equivalent of royalty. By his mids he had had enough success as an apothecary and a seagoing merchant to begin building one of the finest homes in town.
But he remained hypersensitive to any slight, and like many gentlemen of his time he had challenged more than one man to a duel. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, he convinced Dr. As it turned out, others had the same idea, and Arnold was forced to form an uneasy alliance with Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys before the two leaders strode side by side into Ticonderoga. While Allen and his men turned their attention to consuming the British liquor supply, Arnold sailed and rowed to St.
John, at the opposite end of Lake Champlain, where he and a small group of men captured several British military vessels and instantly gave America command of the lake. Abrupt and impatient with anything he deemed superfluous to the matter at hand, Arnold had a fatal tendency to criticize and even ridicule those with whom he disagreed. And yet, if a soldier served with him during one of his more heroic adventures, that soldier was likely to regard him as the most inspiring officer he had ever known.
The American Revolution as it actually unfolded was so troubling and strange that once the struggle was over, a generation did its best to remove all traces of the truth. Although it later became convenient to portray Arnold as a conniving Satan from the start, the truth is more complex and, ultimately, more disturbing.
Without the discovery of his treason in the fall of , the American people might never have been forced to realize that the real threat to their liberties came not from without, but from within. In that first Revolutionary spring of , Arnold learned of the death of his wife, Margaret. Upon returning from Lake Champlain to New Haven, he visited her grave with his three young sons at his side. While lacking the social connections of the Shippens, who were the equivalent of Philadelphia aristocracy, Arnold had had prospects of accumulating a sizable personal fortune.
Having lost once-significant wealth, Arnold embarked on a campaign of secret, and underhanded, schemes to re-establish himself as a prosperous merchant. That end—and those means—were not uncommon among officers of the Continental Army. But in September he did not yet have the money he needed to maintain Peggy in the style to which she was accustomed.
Thumbing his nose at the pious patriots who ruled the city, he purchased an ornate carriage and entertained extravagantly at his new residence, the same grand house the British general William Howe had occupied. But the Reeds had not fit well into the upper echelons of Philadelphia society. But by the end of the year, with the Continental Army run out of New York City and retreating across New Jersey, he had lost faith in his commander. Charles Lee. Assuming the letter related to official business, Washington promptly broke the seal.
He soon discovered that Reed had established his own line of communication with Lee and that the primary topic of their correspondence was the failings of their commander in chief. Washington forwarded the letter to Reed with a note explaining why he had opened it, but otherwise let him twist in the icy emptiness of his withheld wrath. He kept Reed on, but their intimacy had ended. That November, the two wealthy Quakers who had been convicted were hanged.
He quickly made it clear that conservative patriots were the enemy, as were the Continental Congress and the Continental Army. As council president, he insisted that Pennsylvania prevail in any and all disputes with the national government, regardless of what was best for the United States as a whole.
Philadelphia was at the vortex of an increasingly rancorous struggle involving almost all the seminal issues related to creating a functioning democratic republic, issues that would not begin to be resolved until the Constitutional Convention of And it would lead Arnold to doubt the cause to which he had given so much.
By late January , Arnold was preparing to leave the military.
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