General Benedict Arnold

[Bear]

General Benedict Arnold(1741-1801)

I was wondering what you would do if you were in General Benedict Arnold's position in 1780. Would all the disrespect turn you.

thanks,

barry

These are some of the major reasons for his switch.

In 1775 Arnold would join Ethan Allen and capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British. Allen would leave Arnold out of his report to Congress and claim the victory for himself. This would be the first blow to Arnold's honor.

In 1777 Arnold would join Horatio Gates and win a crucial victory over the British at Saratoga. Arnold would take charge on the field and win the day for the Americans while receiving a serious wound to the leg. Again Arnold would be left out of the report made to Congress by Gates. This would be the second blow to Arnold's honor.

In 1778 the British evacuated Philadelphia and George Washington put Arnold in military charge of the city. The Governor of Pennsylvania wanted civilian politicians to run the city and demanded that Washington remove Arnold or Pennsylvania would end all aid to the army. The Governor charged Arnold in 1779 with various corruption charges and Washington's hands were tied. Arnold ask that the charges be brought immediately up for court martial but this was denied by Washington. This would be Arnold's the third blow to Arnold's honor.

Arnold demanded a court martial to clear the charges, writing to Washington in May 1779, "Having become a cripple in the service of my country, I little expected to meet ungrateful returns".

In 1780 Arnold would be fighting for the British.

[Guest Rick Research]

Cousin Ben (anyone whose name was Benedict Arnold the Vth in his generation already had a weird family, ehhem) was a vainglorious, fractious fellow, as were most of the non-professionals vying for military command status.

Actually, he did NOT "take charge" at Saratoga. He'd been relieved of his command but dashed out ahead of Ebenezer Learned's brigade in what was probably an attempt at noble suicide, getting him the wound the stone with a nameless leg commemorates there. Arnold never made it to the Breymann Redoubt, carried at bayonet point by Old Eb's brigade. THEY turned the tide. If only Arnold had died then, there would have been monuments to him, because he WAS immensely popular with his troops, if not his peers/rivals. (A Noble Fallen Hero is always easier to take than a constantly prickly suitor for preferment.)

Always always always niggling and nagging away at him was his high society, married beneath her station wife the openly Tory former Miss Shippen.

And when Ben turned, he TURNED. He set loose hounds of war along the Connecticut coast in personal reprisal raids whose victims--including one of my West Haven ancestors--he had hunted down for death or worse for purely family scores he could now settle with lethal force rather than insults. He didn't simply betray his country-- he betrayed his own family.

So not a nice fellow. Never a nice fellow.

If he hadn't been promoted beyond his amateur abilities in that first flush of making anybody with a publicity coup a "General," none of this would have happened. Captain Arnold? Who'd ever have heard of HIM? Like the loyal patriot bookseller Knox, Arnold had no more "claim" to military stature than most of his erstwhile rebel comrades. They badgered for advancement, whined about slights, and shamelessly put themselves forward too

without turning traitor.

That again is down to his wife.

[Bear]

I think Arnold received 20,000 pounds along with his new British rank. He must of thought he needed to earn some of it by raiding Connecticut. I'm not sure how much Miss Shippen pushed for the change but she did arrange the meeting with the British Major Andr?. I just can't see Arnold taking advice from his much younger wife. It was Andr? an d his feeling of being betrayed by the American command that convinced Arnold to switch.

The averge American soldier got screwed daily and most stayed with the army. They didn't run off and join the British.

General Arnold's story has to be one of the saddest during the American Revolution.

How about General Charles Lee. He had one heck of a military career(not during the revolution), but was he also a traitor.

Wiki Photo of Shippen

[cartoonman]

Quakers were still the dominant political and social force in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. We Quakers maintain the same pacifist testament today that they did during that war. Here's another take on the situation with regards to Mr. Arnold:

Benedict Arnold was the commander of the American troops that occupied the city after the departure of the enemy. This post Arnold held for nine months, and during that period conducted himself in a manner so arbitrary that the council of Pennsylvania charged him with misconduct, and demanded a trial by court-martial. He was tried, and sentenced to be reprimanded by the commander-in-chief, who showed as much leniency as possible in the discharge of this unpleasant duty. Throughout his trial Arnold professed himself devotedly attached to his country ; yet he had for some months been carrying on a treasonable correspondence with the enemy.

Just to stirs things up a bit...

--_Quaker Cartoonist

[cartoonman]

Arnold also dated, then married Margaret Shippen, a noted Philadelphian (Quaker) socialite and Tory, who later purportedly put her dear Benedict up to switching sides...

[Bear]

Hello Cartoonman,

I imagine that the upper class Philadelphians were loyalist when the British were in charge, and then turned patriot when the Americans came to power.

Governor Joseph Reed wanted to get all the benefits that Arnold was receiving from his military position. This is nothing new and it was going on all over the colonies, and still happens today. The one in charge gets to make the deals/money. Arnold wanted a quick trial but Washington left him in limbo due to the threat by Reed to stop supplying the Continental Army. The charges were hanging over Arnold like a dark cloud that just wouldn't go away.

Miss Shippen arranged the meeting with the British Major John Andr?. The major would hang for his convincing ways.

thanks,

barry

wiki photo of Andr? being hanged

[Ulsterman]

Personally I think Benedict was hard done by, screwed by the New England plutocrats. If I'd been him I'd have done the same thing-and laid waste to the coast of Maine while I was at it, so they could keep it as a chunk of New Brunswick. Kinder English heads prevailed though.

My Great-great-great-great Grandfather was shot, tomahawked and scalped and chopped into pieces while scouting for Arnold at Saratoga before the redoubts. He was the senior KIA casualty at the battle. Oddly enough, the Indians did the same to his father and his son.

His bits and pieces were put into an Indian basket and canoed down the Hudson after the battle was over and interred in the family plot in Hoosac.

[cartoonman]

Great story, Ulsterman! My family avoided the whole affair: father's family was practicing serfdom in Ukraine and Poland at the time; my mother's family was busy avoiding trouble in France. In fact, re serving one's country, I have family records back to 1632 from that part of the family, and no one died during any of France's wars (no smart-aleck answers, gentlemen...) That said, my grandfather spent most of WWI on the front in Belgium, and was awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre, French Croix de Guerre (3 stars) and the Legion d'Honneur... He re-upped in '39 (as a liason officer), and was released from the BEF on the beaches at Dunkirk... and spent the rest of the war in Occupied France...For some reason, he never picked up his WWII service medals after that... :unsure:

[Guest Rick Research]

Nobody was more hard done by than the ordinary troops, who volunteered or were drafted, often gone for years, while the eternal regulators taxed their farms out from under them and issued worthless land grants as "pay" which virtually all of them had to turn in for pennies on the dollar to meet post-war tax men more voracuious than faraway Royal bean counters had ever been.

Other than Shay's Rebellion, they simply ENDURED, because that is what people always did until the invention of Reality TV.

It was a generation of instant amateur leaders who came from nowhere with no experience. Think of Washington, who aside from being tall and looking good in gold braid had a "military career" which consisted of the most catastrophic defeat of the French & Indian War.

Then, as now, far too many instant elites immediately assumed a sort of divinely-pre-ordained sort of entitled attitude about their Sacred Persons which

then as now

they didn't even waste time thinking belonged to the hoi polloi.

Then as now, traitors always justified themselves as the TRUE "patriots" and somehow the common denominator of it always being Somebody Else's Fault runs as straight as an arrow across the centuries to disguise bad character and corrupt morals.

[cartoonman]

Is it bad form to chuckle at the Club Staff "Secretariat," when he gets wound up?!

---Club Plebe

Edited July 8, 2009 by cartoonman

[Guest Rick Research]

Cousins then, cousins now. :speechless1:

[cartoonman]

Oh, but No, no......... I defer to He-Who-Is-Clearly-The-Master!

---Rank Beginner

[Guest Rick Research]

Odd how families turn out:

Samuel Lathrop Sr (ca 1623-1700) and Elizabeth Scudder (1625- 168X) produced

2nd great grandson Benedict Arnold V (1741-1801)

4th great grandson General/President Ulysses S Grant (1822-1885)

4th great grandson SCUS Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr (1841-1935)

4th great grandson cereal pioneer Charles William Post (1854-1914)

6th great grandson Czech politician Jan Masaryk (1886-1948)

6th great grandson Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1888-1959)

6th great grandson C.I.A. Director Allen Welsh Dulles (1893-1969)

7th great grandson President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

7th great grandson almost President Thomas E. Dewey (1902-1971)

7th great grandson "containment" creator George Frost Kennan (1904-2004)

8th great grandson actor Clinton Eastwood Jr (1930- )

10th great grandson MOI

And that's just from the one "Ur-couple." back or forwards in the Lathrops and Scudders and there are many more peculiar combinations. The Dulles boys share Sam Junior and Liz as ancestors THREE times (and in two different generations) and that "Blondie" guy has them TWICE just from that one marriage. (Small towns in Connecticut )

And we all turned out normal, so there can't be any recessive Bad Genes on OUR lines. HAD to have been the Former Miss Shippen.