Washington: A Life (74 page)

As Washington and Rochambeau commenced their talks, it quickly grew apparent that the likelihood of a combined military operation that year was remote. Even though Rochambeau paid lip service to Washington’s eternal plan to regain New York, he insisted on first having clear naval superiority and awaiting reinforcements from France. On their second day, the two men drew up an appeal for additional men, money, and ships from France. Although Washington and Rochambeau established instant rapport, their meeting yielded no immediate tangible results. Rochambeau’s affirmation of Washington’s preeminence in the partnership didn’t mislead the American general for a second. As Washington admitted ruefully to Lafayette, “My command of the French troops stands upon a very limited scale.”
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At the close of the meeting, the Count de Dumas rode with Washington to a nearby town and beheld the worshipful feelings of the populace toward Washington.

If Washington had hoped that French and Spanish support would tip the balance of the war, the inconclusive meeting with Rochambeau left him despondent. French naval superiority hadn’t yet materialized, and Washington had grown weary of this interminable conflict with its American lethargy and congressional ineptitude. Writing to John Cadwalader, he noted plaintively how the year began with a “favorable complexion” and seemed pregnant with wonderful events, but such optimism had been exposed as a delusion. The Continental Army had no money, no munitions, and soon would have no men. “I hoped,” he wrote, “but hoped in vain, that a prospect was displaying which w[oul]d enable me to fix a period to my military pursuits and restore me to domestic life … but alas! these prospects, flattering as they were, have prov[e]d delusory and I see nothing before us but accumulating distress.”
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Since the Battle of Monmouth, Washington had soldiered on for more than two years without a major battle, and Lafayette told him of impatience at Versailles with his supposed passivity. Washington replied that this inactivity was involuntary: “It is impossible, my dear Marquis, to desire more ardently than I do to terminate the campaign by some happy stroke, but we must consult our means rather than our wishes.”
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IF WASHINGTON THOUGHT his upcoming meeting at West Point with Benedict Arnold would revive his drooping spirits, he was proved wrong. In many ways, Arnold had been a battlefield commander after his own heart, a fearless daredevil who liked to race about the field on horseback, spurring on his men. Even George Germain lauded Arnold as “the most enterprising and dangerous” of the American generals.
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Like Washington, he had many horses shot from under him and “exposed himself to a fault,” as one soldier said.
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In an officer corps with the usual quota of shirkers, braggarts, and mediocrities, Washington valued Arnold’s derring-do and keen taste for combat, and he treated this touchy man with untiring respect. In fact, Arnold was one of the few generals who seemed not to arouse Washington’s competitive urges or suspicions.

Impetuous and overbearing, Benedict Arnold was a short man with a powerful, compact body. His penetrating eyes, aquiline nose, dusky complexion, and thick, unruly hair lent him a dashing but restless air. Growing up in a well-to-do Connecticut family, he had been a bright, mischievous boy with an incurably alcoholic father. His father’s drinking led to bankruptcy when Benedict was fourteen, a traumatic event that overshadowed his childhood. The boy was apprenticed to a relative who worked as a pharmacist, and then his mother died when he was eighteen. The deep shame and poverty of his childhood produced an energetic, headstrong young man who was obsessed with status and money. After opening a pharmacy in New Haven, Arnold diversified into trading, became a sea captain, and engaged in lucrative mercantile activities. Commercial success did not cool his temperament. He was pugnacious, often resorted to duels, and was litigious when libeled. In the early stages of the Revolution, he drifted into radical politics, starting as a captain in the Connecticut militia, then rising through the ranks.

Arnold’s early wartime exploits made him a legendary figure. After leading the impossible trek through the Maine woods in the failed mission against Quebec, he constructed a fleet on Lake Champlain and bade defiance to a superior British force. Most notably, he turned in such a fabled performance at Saratoga that General Burgoyne gave Arnold, not Gates, the laurels for the American victory. When Arnold took a musket ball in the leg at Saratoga, the doctors wanted to amputate the maimed limb, but he scoffed at this as “damned nonsense” and refused to muddle on as a single-legged cripple.
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This left him with one leg two inches shorter than the other, giving him a pronounced limp and forcing him to rely on crutches for a prolonged period. If Arnold was a blustery character who browbeat subordinates, his heroism and war wounds encouraged people to make allowances for him.

The quarrelsome Arnold never forgot the slight he suffered in February 1777 when Congress passed him over in naming five new major generals, all brigadiers junior to him. Even after Washington helped him to become a major general, Arnold still chafed over having lost seniority to these five men, and his bitterness curdled into settled malice. He wasn’t about to be placated by anyone. When he visited Washington at Valley Forge, his injured leg, in which slivers of shattered bone were embedded, was in such dreadful shape that two soldiers had to prop him up. Washington sympathized with Arnold’s plight, naming him military commandant of Philadelphia after the British evacuated in June 1778. During his time in Philadelphia, Arnold set up a fine household and courted the rich, fetching eighteen-year-old Peggy Shippen, who was half his age, and they wed the following year. Peggy was trailed by rumors of having fraternized with British officers during their occupation of Philadelphia. For his part, Arnold was shadowed by allegations that he had exploited his position as commandant to enrich himself. To clear his name, Arnold demanded a court-martial, which found him guilty of two relatively minor counts of misconduct, then let him off with a mild reprimand.

The whole episode lengthened Arnold’s extensive litany of grievances and convinced him that a conspiracy existed against him. As he told Washington, “Having made every sacrifice of fortune and blood and become a cripple in the service of my country, I little expected to meet the ungrateful returns I have received from my countrymen.”
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He believed that Washington, during the court-martial, had withheld the unconditional support he merited, by maintaining a studious neutrality. Afterward, Washington pledged to Arnold that he would give him “opportunities of regaining the esteem of your country.”
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Unbeknownst to Washington, Arnold had by now established contact with Major John André, adjutant general of the British Army, and was prepared to assist Sir Henry Clinton in a secret plan to seize West Point. Peggy Arnold, having befriended André during the British occupation, was a full-fledged confederate of the plot. Heavily in debt, the mercenary Arnold brokered a rich deal for his treachery, charging the British six thousand pounds sterling and a commission in the British Army for delivering West Point into their hands.

In June 1780 West Point took on added importance. Washington feared that Clinton might return from Charleston with a hundred vessels and aim a deadly blow at the fortress. His worries were only compounded in July when Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot appeared in New York Harbor with sixty or seventy more ships. Washington swore he would do everything in his power to shore up West Point and other defensive posts along the Hudson River. At about this time Arnold rode up to Washington on the bluff at Stony Point and asked if he had “thought of anything for him.” When Washington offered him a “post of honor,” commanding the “light troops,” Arnold blushed and grew flustered. “His countenance changed and he appeared to be quite fallen,” Washington remembered, “and instead of thanking me or expressing any pleasure at the appointment, never opened his mouth.”
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When Washington met Arnold at his headquarters, his limp was unaccountably accentuated. Arnold had already impressed upon Washington’s aide Tench Tilghman that he could no longer ride horses for long or undertake active commands and indicated his desire for the sedentary post at West Point. “It then appeared somewhat strange to me that a man of Arnold’s known activity and enterprise should be desirous of taking so inactive a part,” Washington later reflected. “I, however, thought no more of the matter.”
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Submitting to Arnold’s importunate wishes, Washington announced on August 3, 1780, that “Major General Arnold will take command of the garrison at West Point.”
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That September, not realizing that Arnold was in league with the enemy, Washington enjoined him to improve West Point’s defenses. Arnold pretended to embark on a whirl of improvements at the fortress, while continually weakening them. He made it seem as if hundreds of men were hard at work when mere dozens were enlisted. When Washington alerted Arnold that he would pass through the Hudson Valley on the way to Hartford—“I want to make my journey a secret,” Washington stressed—Arnold relayed this letter to his British accomplices, listing places Washington would spend the night.
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Had the letter not been delayed, Washington might well have been taken by the British.

While Washington was returning from Hartford, Major André, traveling under the pseudonym of John Anderson, slipped behind American lines to collect intelligence from Arnold, who handed him papers outlining West Point’s troop strength and artillery, along with the minutes of a September 6 war council sent to him by Washington. André tucked these tightly folded papers into his boot for safekeeping. Arnold also gave him a letter designed to smooth his way past sentries, which read: “Permit Mr. John Anderson to pass the guards to the White Plains, or below, if he choose. He being on public business by my direction.”
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While returning to the British man-of-war
Vulture,
anchored in the Hudson, André was detained in Westchester County on September 23 by three American militiamen, who stripped him and unearthed the explosive documents. In vain, he tried to bribe his way to freedom. That André was elegantly dressed in mufti, outfitted in a purple coat trimmed with gold lace and a beaver hat, became damning evidence in the trial against him. Unaware of the significance of the documents found on him, Lieutenant Colonel John Jameson conveyed them to Washington with the following note: “Inclos[e]d you’ll receive a parcel of papers taken from a certain John Anderson, who has a pass signed by General Arnold.” André had asked to retain the papers, Jameson continued, but “I thought it more proper your Excellency should see them.”
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Two days later, not yet having seen this letter, Washington awoke at dawn in Fish-kill, New York, and set off with a long train of aides (including Lafayette) and guards to breakfast with Benedict and Peggy Arnold. The couple occupied a roomy mansion on the east bank of the Hudson River, the former residence of Washington’s friend Beverley Robinson, who had raised a Loyalist regiment. En route to the house, which stood two miles below West Point, Washington made a detour to inspect several defensive positions along the river, occasioning banter from his young aides. Lafayette reproached Washington playfully, saying how the young men awaited their breakfast with the ravishing Peggy Arnold. Washington knew the coquettish charm she exerted over his men—he had known her for many years—and said gaily to his aides, “Ah, I know you young men are all in love with Mrs. Arnold … You may go and take your breakfast with her and tell her not to wait for me.”
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Two aides, Samuel Shaw and James McHenry, went ahead with the message that the large party of guests had been delayed but would shortly arrive for breakfast.

For Washington, it was a surreal day of curious absences, missed hints, and odd anomalies that he did not piece together into a picture of outright treason. That he found nothing suspicious in Arnold’s behavior for so many hours showed his implicit trust in him. When Washington dismounted at the Robinson house at ten-thirty A.M., one of Arnold’s aides, Major David Franks, explained that his boss had been summoned to West Point on an urgent call and that Peggy Arnold lay abed upstairs. After a more solitary breakfast than anticipated, Washington boarded an awning-shaded barge, which ferried him across the Hudson to West Point, where he expected to be saluted by his host. But Arnold did not show up, and everyone professed ignorance of his whereabouts. The mystery only deepened as Washington scrutinized West Point’s defenses and was shocked by their decrepit state, which showed none of the strenuous attention promised by Arnold. “The impropriety of his conduct, when he knew I was to be there, struck me very forcibly,” Washington later said. “I had not the least idea of the real cause.”
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Late in the afternoon a puzzled Washington was rowed back to the Robinson house. There was still no sign of Benedict, and Peggy Arnold remained incommunicado upstairs. As Washington rested in his room before dinner, Hamilton tapped on his door and laid before him a sheaf of papers, including the letter from Colonel Jameson. To his inexpressible horror, Washington set eyes on the war council minutes he had sent to Arnold, along with confidential information about West Point. Washington was thunderstruck. “Arnold has betrayed us!” he exclaimed. “Whom can we trust now?”
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As he gave way to strong feelings, he struggled to get a grip on his emotions. From his reaction it is clear that he was innocent enough, or trusting enough, to find Arnold’s treachery almost inconceivable. The supreme betrayal had come not from Horatio Gates or Charles Lee or others long suspected of disloyalty, but from a man whom he had trusted, admired, and assisted. Despite a healthy dose of cynicism about most people, Washington had missed all the warning signs with Benedict Arnold.