Benedict Arnold. A biography/13
CHAPTER XIII.
A TRAITOR'S BARBARITIES.
ARNOLD was now made a brigadier-general in the British army. He thus held rank with honorable men; and he lived to know that by those men he was scorned and detested. Clinton paid over to him, as agreed, six thousand, three hundred and fifteen pounds sterling, as the sum necessary to make up what he had lost by his treachery.
Col. Laurens, the aid-de-camp to Washington, remarked of the fate of André, that "Arnold must undergo a punishment comparatively more severe, in the permanent, increasing torment of a mental hell." But Washington replied that he lacked feeling. "From some traits of his character," said he, "which have lately come to my knowledge, he seems to have been so hackneyed in villany, and so lost to all sense of honor and shame, that, while his faculties will enable him to continue his sordid pursuits, there will be no time for remorse." He also wrote to Governor Reed, of Pennsylvania, "Arnold's conduct is so villanously perfidious, that there are no terms that can describe the baseness of his heart. That overruling Providence which has so often and so remarkably interposed in our favor, never manifested itself more conspicuously than in the timely discovery of his horrid intention to surrender the post and garrison of West Point into the hands of the enemy. The confidence and folly which have marked the subsequent conduct of this man, are of a piece with his villany, and all three are perfect in their kind."
Arnold was nowise satisfied, however, in his new position and among his new friends; and he therefore published an address to the Inhabitants of America, in which he sought to defend his conduct He said he had always considered the Declaration of Independence to be hasty and ill-considered; and he blamed Congress for having plunged the people into a long and expensive war, without first submitting the matter to their vote. And as a final argument, he declared that he could have nothing further to do with a cause which had for an ally such an enemy to Protestantism as France! This was, indeed, "Satan rebuking sin ! "
He likewise published a proclamation, inviting the officers and soldiers of the American army to leave a sinking and unworthy cause, and join the side of the king for true American liberty; and he offered large amounts to such as would desert, with additional pay for whatever they might bring over with them that would be useful in war.
Both the address and the proclamation were treated with supreme contempt. Washington said of the address, "I am at a loss which to admire most, the confidence of Arnold in publishing it, or the folly of the enemy in supposing that a production signed by so infamous a character will have any weight with the people of these States, or any influence upon our officers abroad." No such desertions followed from his proclamation as he expected. It was all nothing more than a trick to make Clinton and the British think him a person of vastly more influence and importance than he was.
Arnold's wife left her husband's former quarters at the Robinson House, and went immediately to her father in Philadelphia. She had at one time resolved to separate from her husband altogether; but she was prevented from doing this by the course pursued by the executive council of Pennsylvania. They thought she was privy to his treachery from the time his mind first conceived the infamous thought; and they therefore told her she must quit the State within fourteen days, and not return as long as the war continued. Her friends tried to influence the council to milder measures, but to no purpose. Her father promised them that she should not write to General Arnold, and she signed a writing to the same purpose; and she further engaged "to receive no letters without showing them to the council, if she was permitted to stay."
But they would hear nothing to it. She was absolutely driven out of Pennsylvania, and forced to rejoin her husband in New York. The people were so incensed at the conduct of Arnold, that they burned him in effigy in almost every town and village. Of course, journeying on to her husband, she could not but be made aware of these transactions; but she never was treated with any disrespect herself on her husband's account. She came into one village just at evening; the inhabitants were making ready to burn him in effigy; a great excitement pervaded the place; but as soon as it, was known that she was among them, they all dispersed to their homes, and refused to add to the poignancy of the wife's sufferings by publicly showing their detestation of the husband's crime. She went from this country along with him, at the close of the war, to England, where her own character, position, and youth helped a little to sustain him in the eyes of the world; and at the expiration of five years, she returned to Philadelphia. But her old friends treated her with so much coldness that she resolved not to trouble them with her presence again. Her death took place during the winter of 1796. There is no evidence in existence that she ever knew of the design of her husband to betray his country, until he confessed all at the moment of his flight. In the latter part of December, and about two months after his treason, Arnold received from Sir Henry Clinton the command of a force of sixteen hundred men, which sailed from New York for the coast of Virginia. The British troops in that quarter had been recently drawn off to aid Cornwallis, who was operating against the Carolinas; and Arnold was despatched to hold the Virginians in check, if they should think of making any movement to unite with General Greene. He established his post at Portsmouth, on Elizabeth River, where he got ready boats of light draught to send up Albemarle Sound and the Chesapeake Bay. Still, Sir Henry Clinton put but little faith in him, and accordingly sent along two other officers with the expedition, with whom Arnold was to consult and advise before taking any step in that region. They experienced rough weather off the coast, and the vessels were separated; but on the 30th of December they all met, with the exception of one ship and three transports, having four hundred men on board, in Hampton Roads; these last arrived five days after, having lost half the cavalry horses, and been obliged to throw many of their heavy guns into the sea. Arnold went straight into the country, and began his career of burning, destroying, plundering and cruelty.
Having thus struck terror into the hearts of the inhabitants, he withdrew again to his post at Portsmouth.
Lafayette and others laid a plan to capture him there, and it came very near being successful. Washington took a deep interest in the plan, and would have been rejoiced to take the traitor alive; but circumstances alone protected him. If he had been captured by the Americans, it was Washington's fixed resolution to have him hanged at once.
While Arnold subsequently held command of the army in Virginia, General Phillips having died there and left it to him, he sent a flag of truce to Lafayette, with a letter. Lafayette received the letter and opened it; but the moment he saw the name of Arnold signed at the bottom, he utterly refused to read it, and told the officer who brought it that he would have no communication whatever with such a villain. Even Lord Cornwallis, who afterwards came to Virginia with his forces, and finally surrendered to the Americans at Yorktown, told Lafayette that as soon as he arrived he sent Arnold down to Portsmouth, for he would never consent to associate with a person of such a character.
An American captain was taken prisoner while Arnold was in Virginia, and the latter asked him what he thought his countrymen would do with him, if he should fall into their hands. "They will cut off the leg which was wounded while you were fighting for the cause of liberty," said he, "and bury it with the honors of war; and the rest of your body they will hang on a gibbet!"
In April, 1781, Arnold returned to New York. During that summer he did nothing. But in September, Clinton despatched him on a ravaging expedition against New London, in Connecticut, but a few miles from the spot on which he was born. There were valuable stores collected in that town, and, being a fine seaport, it was easily approached by the enemy's vessels. He had full license to plunder and destroy; and his conduct showed his true character. All his old resentments he now felt that he had an opportunity to wreak upon his friends and neighbors. Whatever ranklings he felt in his heart, he determined now with a sullen and fiendish malice to gratify.
He marched with a force of about twenty-three hundred men to the extreme eastern end of Long Island, from which point he crossed the Sound and landed at the mouth of the Thames river. There he divided his command into two bodies. New London lies on the west bank of the river, and about three miles from its mouth; and the town is protected by two forts, Fort Trumbull on the west side, and Fort Griswold on the east.
As soon as he made his appearance before the former, the garrison deserted it and fled backwards upon the city; his troops outnumbered what they could bring together before the place, and a resolute defence would have been of no avail. The detachment that he sent over on the east side against Fort Griswold, met with a stout resistance. This fort stood upon quite high ground, and held a commanding position. Col. Ledyard was in command, the brother of the celebrated traveller, John Ledyard. The little garrison made a most determined defence, and killed one officer after another who led on the British over the walls. One of the officers fell at the hands of a negro, who ran him through with a spear. At length, however, a foothold was gained within the works, though the enemy suffered badly before they secured it.
Col. Ledyard ordered the garrison to cease further resistance, and prepared to surrender. Offering his sword by the handle to the advancing British officer, the latter demanded "Who commands this fort, sir?" "I did, sir," answered Ledyard, in a manly voice, "but you do now." Upon which the heartless barbarian seized the sword extended to him, and plunged it through the brave Ledyard's heart. He fell dead at his feet. The vest he wore on that bloody day is still preserved in the Wadsworth Athenaeum, at Hartford, and the rent is to be seen through which his noble spirit was let out to heaven.
After consummating a barbarity like this, the enemy put the entire garrison to the sword, sparing not a single one of them. One hundred and five valiant and true men on that day were enrolled on the list of the immortal names in our country's history. The blood in the fort flowed in streams, and the officers and soldiers were compelled to wade in it. The dead, dying, and wounded Americans were picked up and piled together indiscriminately in a wagon, which was set going from the top of the hill, and rushed on with all speed to the bottom. It struck a tree just before it reached the foot, throwing out some of the dying ones with the shock, and extorting deep groans and piercing shrieks of anguish from lips that even then were almost mute in death. So cruel and barbarous a mode of torture to the persons of helpless captives, was never before recorded among the practices of a civilized nation.
What makes the affair still more terrible to contemplate, the commander to whom the fort was surrendered was a native of American soil; and, like the traitor Arnold himself, the main body of these barbarians in disguise were heartless refugees from the cause of their country.
The names of those whose lives were given as a forfeit to Liberty on that memorable day, are chiselled on a tall granite shaft whose shadow daily falls across the spot where they fell fighting.
Arnold himself marched on New London after capturing Fort Trumbull, and set fire to the town. It is said that he climbed up into the belfry of a steeple, and from that perch looked down, like Nero upon Rome, on the devastation of which he was the author. Families fled on this side and that in wild dismay, unable to save anything from the sudden wreck of their household treasures. The rich became poor in an hour. All were placed upon a common footing, and all became sufferers and destitute alike. Arnold's memory could not have failed, at that hour, to remind him of a similar scene in the village of Danbury, when he was himself spurring on his horse to overtake Tryon, who played the ruthless incendiary there. But what his thoughts must have been, as he contemplated the flames rolling about the roofs of a peaceful population, and many of them, too, known to him from his boyhood up, it is not for us to attempt to tell. He must have felt that he was what Jefferson called him, when he made his destructive incursion into Virginia -- a parricide. The past had no recollections so sweet, that they could avert his inhuman resolution from the pursuit of its own cruel course. His heart was become like stone. A merciless fate was forcing him on.
He withdrew with his forces after this act of barbarism, having had time barely to escape the aroused vengeance of his countrymen; and this was the last appearance he ever made in a public capacity in the country. He remained quiet in New York till the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, which was practically the end of the war. The officers of the British army scorned and detested him, and Sir Henry Clinton saw how unwilling they were to serve near his person; he therefore offered him a passage with his family to England, and in the month of December, 1781, the outcast set sail accordingly. It were better to have even an enemy upon our soil, than the foot of a traitor.
From this time forward, little was known and much less was said about him. He sank gradually out of notice. For twenty years after this he lived, and made an effort to be a man among men; but the load of infamy which he had to carry on his shoulders, was as much as mortal man could bear. There are several anecdotes related of his meanness and duplicity, which came out subsequently; but nothing can add an iota to the weight of the damnation under which he labored already.
While he was in London, the question of negotiating a peace with the United States was talked of; and parliament presented a bill to that effect to the king. Arnold was seen standing near the throne. One of the Lords declared aloud, that "however gracious might be the language he had heard from the throne, his indignation could not but be highly excited at beholding his majesty supported by a traitor!" Another Lord had risen to speak, on another occasion, when he chanced to observe Arnold in the gallery. Instantly he took his seat again, and, pointing with his finger at him, exclaimed in a loud voice, "I will not speak while that man is in the House!"
Some time after the peace, Arnold came over to St Johns, in New Brunswick, and embarked once more in the West India trade. The government aided him, furnishing him with contracts to supply provisions to their troops in Jamaica. He prospered greatly, building ships and sending them out to the West Indies on profitable ventures. His style of living was as ostentatious and extravagant as when he was in command of the city of Philadelphia. The population of St. Johns was made up chiefly of persons who had fled from the United States, and had settled there after the war.
Arnold soon grew as unpopular in that place as he made himself in every other. He had two ware-houses, in which his goods were stored, and while he was gone to England one of them was burned in the night to the ground. Two of his sons slept in the building that night, but could give no explanation of the manner in which the fire was set. Suspicions were soon excited that there was foul play in the case, especially as it was known that the building and goods were insured for a very large amount. A suit with the company grew out of this affair, but Arnold at last recovered his insurance.
Yet the people of St. Johns were not satisfied. They believed him a knave. Eager to express their opinion of the man, therefore, they made an effigy, stuck a label on it that read, "The Traitor", and hung it before the windows of his house. A mob collected around it very rapidly. They grew so tumultuous that an officer was obliged to make his appearance and read the Riot Act to them. This dispersed them for a time, but they soon reassembled, and hung up the effigy for public derision again. The excitement became so intense that the military were finally called out; but the people gratified their feelings by casting the effigy into the flames, before they separated.
Not long after this, it is supposed that he left St. Johns, and went over to England again. There he remained during the rest of his life, occasionally making a voyage on business to the West Indies. He asked for a command in the army when the war between England and France broke out, but the government were obliged to refuse his request, since not a single officer could be found who would serve with him. By high and low he was alike detested. Already he was himself what his name has been ever since, an outcast on the face of the earth. His death took place in London, on the 14th of June, 1801, he having survived his second wife about five years, and learned in a long course of twenty years how hard a thing it is to stem the torrent of the world's scorn and indignation.
It is told that at the approach of death, he asked, as he sat in his chair, to have his old Continental uniform brought out, the same in which he had so bravely fought the battles of his native country. The coat was put upon his shoulders, and he looked around and surveyed his appearance with a strange mingling of emotions. While thus enveloped in the insignia of a glorious and successful Revolution, and no doubt smitten with remorse at the thought of the crimes for which he was answerable, alternately toying with the honored uniform and deploring the depth of infamy into which he had plunged himself, life took its departure, and the soul of the traitor went to another world. His old uniform was his winding sheet. He had lived both to honor and disgrace it.
It was time the end had come.