Arnold, Benedict

After independence, the United States participated in hostilities, distinguished heroism and courage; under his command, rebel forces seized several key forts and rescued the young republic. After the battle of Saratoga , the key moment of the uprising, he was promoted to general . Despite these achievements, political opponents of Arnold accused him of corruption. Caught in a difficult financial situation, disappointed in the policies of the young republic and in relation to him, Arnold decided to betray everyone. In exchange for the rank of general and 20,000 pounds in July 1780, he tried to surrender the fort West Point to the British. His plan was revealed, the rebels intercepted his letter, but he managed to avoid punishment.

In 1782, after serving in the British, he settled in London , and later went into business in Canada .

He returned to England in 1791, died in London on June 14, 1801.

Benedict Arnold early took part in public activities. At the age of 14, he joined the colonial army, which took part in the French-Indian War of 1754–1763. But the attractiveness of the soldier’s life quickly faded, he deserted, and only a young age saved him from the tribunal.

At 21, Arnold owned a pharmacy and bookstore in New Haven , and soon began to invest in sugar trading with the West Indies. In 1767, he married Margaret Mansfield, who for five years bore him three sons.

When rumors reached the battle of Lexington , Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775, the first battle of the War of Independence, Arnold was the captain of the reserve of the Connecticut Territorial Guard. Without losing a minute, he enlisted in the service and he was made a colonel.

Ten days later, volunteer units reached the Boston area . Arnold proposed to take the British fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain by storm. Teaming up with Itan Allen , Arnold took the fort on May 10, seizing the guns they needed.

When Arnold disagreed with Allen about the command, and the state of Massachusetts did not refund the money he spent on this campaign from his own pocket, Arnold returned home in July. In his absence, his wife died.

Despite personal grief and disappointment in the authorities, in August Arnold returned to Massachusetts, where he was introduced to the new commander-in-chief, George Washington . The latter enthusiastically took his bold proposal to strike at the loyal British crown Canada.

While a small army, passing Lake Champlain, captured Montreal and began to move down the St. Lawrence River, Arnold led his people through the swamps and forests of the state of Maine to Quebec . On December 31, both of these armies under the command of Richard Montgomery went to storm Quebec , but were thrown back, losing almost half of the personnel. Montgomery was killed and Arnold was wounded in the leg. With the remaining forces, Arnold continued the siege of the city until May 1776, but when the British received reinforcements, he considered it prudent to withdraw his troops.

Having become a brigadier general by that time, Arnold built a fleet of small ships that blocked the October offensive of the British in the Lake Champlain area. The British strategy was to cut off New England from the mid-Atlantic and southern states and then crush the uprising in pieces. Thus, the merit of Arnold is that he twice contributed to the preservation of colonial unity.

Not everyone in the military leadership shared the high appreciation given to Arnold Washington, and in February 1777 he was not promoted to major general, but was given this title to five more junior officers. Only the personal request of the commander in chief kept Arnold from retiring.

In the spring, Arnold repulsed the British invasion of Connecticut, for which he was belatedly promoted to major general. However, ex officio, he did not become the chief of the five officers who had previously been promoted to generals, which poisoned the proud Arnold with all the joy of the award.

But this blow to pride was a trifle compared to what followed it. The Continental Congress launched an investigation into how Arnold handled finances during the Canadian campaign of 1775–1776. He could not account for 55,000 of the 66,671 dollars allocated for this expedition, explaining that he did not have a treasurer who would conduct "such a multitude of calculations." In his defense, Arnold said that in practice, in order to pay soldiers, he often used his personal funds. July 11, 1777, he filed a resignation from the army. On the same day, Congress received a letter from Washington in which the commander-in-chief wrote that in order to suppress the new attempt of the British under the command of Burgoyne to split the colonies, he needed an “active, courageous officer”. That man was undoubtedly Benedict Arnold.

Arnold took his resignation and joined the army of Horatio Gates , having managed to share the success at Saratoga in October. As a reward for his role in victory, Congress restored his seniority in office. After he was wounded in the same leg as two years before Quebec, Arnold went home for treatment.

By May 1778, Arnold recovered and was able to join the army of Washington in Valley Forge, and the following month, when the British left Philadelphia, he was appointed military commander of the future American capital. He bought a luxurious house, started a few servants, and began driving around in an elegant carriage, allowing himself the pleasure that could not be obtained on his officer’s salary.

In the middle of the summer, he met Peggy Shippen, 18, a young man. She enjoyed the British occupation and was furious when she was not allowed to attend a farewell ball in honor of General Howe. She was particularly lacking in a young handsome officer, captain John Andre, who wrote poetry, drew well and accompanied her to numerous parties. However, by November she began to pay attention to the courtship of Arnold. Despite the twenty-year age difference, on April 8, 1779, Arnold and Peggy Shippen got married.

But clouds were gathering over Arnold's head. In February, the Pennsylvania Council filed serious charges of abuse of office against him. Among them was the charge that Arnold had given illegal permission to unload the captured Copper Nancy, and requisitioned 12 army vans to transport his cargo to Philadelphia, receiving half of the income from this dubious transaction. On May 5, excited Arnold wrote to Washington: “If Your Excellency considers me a criminal, for God's sake, let me be tried immediately and, if I am found guilty, executed. I do not want indulgence; I only ask for justice. ” He demanded that his case be considered by a military tribunal.

However, the military tribunal delivered its verdict only on January 26, 1780: Arnold was convicted on two of the eight counts of the prosecution and was subject to punishment in the form of censure by the commander in chief. Washington's reprimand was very low key. He recognized the issuance of the permit as “extremely reprehensible” and the use of vans as “unreasonable”.

A few days after he wrote his passionate letter to Washington - and long before the tribunal decided - Arnold entered into secret correspondence with the British. He negotiated the price of his betrayal with John Andre, who was now a major and served in New York as adjutant to the British commander in chief, Sir Henry Clinton .

Many years later, Arnold tried to explain that in this conflict he had good reasons for going to the other side. These are doubts about the ability of Americans to achieve independence, and objections to what he considered the tyranny of Congress, and outrage at the alliance with France.

Historians, on the other hand, add more personal and less disinterested motives: hurt pride, secret feelings of resentment at repeated accusations of abuse of official position and the need for money that would allow him to live on a big foot.

In one of his first letters to Andre — encrypted and sent through intermediaries — Arnold made clear that he was awaiting payment. An amount of £ 10,000 was mentioned. Information about the movement of American troops and the deployment of the French fleet, which Arnold sent that summer, turned out to be not what the British needed. “We need to get an exact West Point plan,” wrote Andre to Arnold at the end of July.

The American fortress on the west bank of the Hudson River , located 80 kilometers north of New York , was a major obstacle to the advance of the British up the river to Lake Champlain and Canada. The British still have not left hope to cut off New England from other rebel colonies.

In August, after considerable lobbying, Arnold managed to convince Washington to appoint him commander of West Point. By the end of the month, he received a letter from Andre, who offered him £ 20,000, if he surrendered the fort to the English along with 3,000 people who defended him, artillery and warehouses.

Somewhere between midnight and one o'clock in the morning of September 22, Arnold and Andre met on the banks of the Hudson River about halfway between West Point and New York. At dawn, they were about to part - their business was completed. But the British ship, the Grif, which was waiting for Andre, came under fire from American guns, and Andre was forced to return to New York by land. Arnold gave him a pass in the name of Mr. John Anderson.

Changing his military uniform to a civilian dress and waiting for darkness, Andre went to New York in a roundabout way that evening. Documents written by Arnold were hidden in his stockings. On Saturday morning, Andre was stopped by three self-styled guardsmen who helped the insurgents by robbing the sympathizers of the British. Frustrated that Andre had so little money with him, they forced him to undress and thus found the documents.

On Monday morning, at breakfast, Arnold received a letter in which it was reported that a certain John Anderson had been detained, during which he had a pass with the signature of Arnold and documents describing the defenses of West Point. Papers sent to Washington. Arnold swiftly leaped from the table, ordered the horse to be saddled, and quickly rode away. On the Hudson, he jumped on a barge and ordered the captain to go downstream to the “Grif.” Arriving at Arnold's house half an hour after the traitor had fled, Washington sadly asked one of his adjutants: “Who can you believe now?”

John Andre was tried as a spy, found guilty, and on 2 October 1780 he was hanged. In the request to replace the hanging with the shooting, as it should be the officer, he was denied.

As for Arnold, for him the short-term gain was followed by years of frustration. Arriving in New York, the defector received much less than he expected to receive for the surrender of West Point, but nevertheless a very impressive amount for those times - about $ 55,000.

Clinton quickly made him a brigadier general of peripheral troops and sent a marauding expedition to the state of Virginia, where Governor Thomas Jefferson appointed a reward of 5,000 pounds for his capture. In September 1781, he again besmirched his reputation when, at the head of a raid against his former neighbors, he set fire to the city of New London. Two months after Cornwallis was defeated at Yorktown, which put an end to the War of Independence, Arnold and his whole family sailed to England.

In the remaining 20 years of his life, he had to learn that the British despised him for treachery no less than the Americans. Three times Arnold offered his services to Great Britain during the Napoleonic wars - and his proposal was rejected three times. Arnold complained to his wife that he was not allowed to die with the death of a soldier. Although he was granted considerable land in Canada, after his death in London on June 14, 1801, he left a debt of 5,000 pounds.

In the cinema

• The film "Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor" (in the Russian box office is named "On the field of honor"). In the role of Benedict Arnold - Aidan Quinn .
• The series "Murder, She Wrote" (in the Russian box office " She wrote the murder ") season 4 episode 18 "Benedict Arnold Slipped Here"
• The series "Sleepy Hollow" (" Sleepy Hollow ") season 2 series 3 "Root of All Evil". Arnold appears in the memoirs of the main character of the series. The betrayal of the general is explained by the fact that 30 pieces of silver paid to Judas fell into his hands. In the role of Benedict Arnold - Scott Poitress.
• The series "Turn" (in Russian hire " Turn ") Appears from the second season. In the role of Benedict Arnold - Ovain Yomen
• The series " Out of Time " 1 season 10 series. In the role of Benedict Arnold - Curtis Caravaggio.

In computer games

• Appears as an antagonist in Assassin's Creed III .

In music

• The famous rapper Ice Cube is associated with Benedict Arnold on the Message to BA track from the NWA album Efil4Zaggin , which he left. The track begins: "Message to Benedict Arnold."