Arnold thirsts for revenge upon Congress
It was too late, however. The damage was done. Arnold had long felt persecuted and insulted. He had already dallied with temptation, and the poison was now working in his veins. His sense of public duty was utterly distorted by the keener sense of his private injuries. We may imagine him brooding over some memorable incidents in the careers of Monk, of the great Montrose and the greater Marlborough, until he persuaded himself that to change sides in a civil war was not so heinous a crime after all. Especially the example of Monk, which had already led Charles Lee to disgrace, seems to have riveted the attention of Arnold, although only the most shallow scrutiny could discover any resemblance between what the great English general had done and what Arnold purposed to do. There was not a more scrupulously honourable soldier in his day than George Monk. Arnold’s thoughts may have run somewhat as follows. He would not become an ordinary deserter, a villain on a small scale. He would not sell himself cheaply to the devil; but he would play as signal a part in his new career as he had played in the old one. He would overwhelm this blundering Congress, and triumphantly carry the country back to its old allegiance. To play such a part, however, would require the blackest treachery. Fancy George Monk, “honest old George,” asking for the command of a fortress in order to betray it to the enemy!
BENEDICT ARNOLD’S HOUSE AT PHILADELPHIA
When once Arnold had committed himself to this evil course, his story becomes a sickening one, lacking no element of horror, whether in its foul beginnings or in its wretched end. To play his new part properly, he must obtain an important command, and the place which obviously suggested itself was West Point.
Significance of West Point
Since Burgoyne’s overthrow, Washington had built a chain of strong fortresses there, for he did not intend that the possession of the Hudson river should ever again be put in question, so far as fortifications could go. Could this cardinal position be delivered up to Clinton, the prize would be worth tenfold the recent triumphs at Charleston and Camden. It would be giving the British what Burgoyne had tried in vain to get; and now it was the hero of Saratoga who plotted to undo his own good work at the dictates of perverted ambition and unhallowed revenge.
Arnold put in command of West Point, July, 1780
To get possession of this stronghold, it was necessary to take advantage of the confidence with which his great commander had always honoured him. From Washington, in July, 1780, Arnold sought the command of West Point, alleging that his wounded leg still kept him unfit for service in the field; and Washington immediately put him in charge of this all-important post, thus giving him the strongest proof of unabated confidence and esteem which it was in his power to give; and among all the dark shades in Arnold’s treason, perhaps none seems darker than this personal treachery toward the man who had always trusted and defended him. What must the traitor’s feelings have been when he read the affectionate letters which Schuyler wrote him at this very time? In better days he had shown much generosity of nature. Can it be that this is the same man who on the field of Saratoga saved the life of the poor soldier who in honest fight had shot him and broken his leg? Such are the strange contrasts that we sometimes see in characters that are governed by impulse, and not by principle. Their virtue may be real enough while it lasts, but it does not weather the storm; and when once wrecked, the very same emotional nature by which alone it was supported often prompts to deeds of incredible wickedness.
JOSHUA SMITH’S HOUSE, ON TREASON HILL
After taking command of West Point, the correspondence with André, carefully couched in such terms as to make it seem to refer to some commercial enterprise, was briskly kept up; and hints were let drop which convinced Sir Henry Clinton that the writer was Arnold, and the betrayal of the highland stronghold his purpose. Troops were accordingly embarked on the Hudson, and the flotilla was put in command of Admiral Rodney, who had looked in at New York on his way to the West Indies. To disguise the purpose of the embarkation, a rumour was industriously circulated that a force was to be sent southward to the Chesapeake.
Secret interview between Arnold and André, Sept. 22
To arrange some important details of the affair it seemed desirable that the two correspondents “Gustavus” and “John Anderson,” should meet, and talk over matters which could not safely be committed to paper. On the 18th of September, Washington, accompanied by Lafayette and Hamilton, set out for Hartford, for an interview with Rochambeau; and advantage was taken of his absence to arrange a meeting between the plotters. On the 20th André was taken up the river on the Vulture, sloop-of-war, and on the night of the 21st Arnold sent out a boat which brought him ashore about four miles below Stony Point. There in a thicket of fir-trees, under the veil of blackest midnight, the scheme was matured; but as gray dawn came on before all the details had been arranged, the boatmen became alarmed, and refused to take André back to the ship, and he was accordingly persuaded, though against his will, to accompany Arnold within the American lines. The two conspirators walked up the bank a couple of miles to the house of one Joshua Smith, a man of doubtful allegiance, who does not seem to have understood the nature and extent of the plot, or to have known who Arnold’s visitor was. It was thought that they might spend the day discussing the enterprise, and when it should have grown dark André could be rowed back to the Vulture.
LINKS OF WEST POINT CHAIN
SCENE OF ARNOLD’S TREASON, 1780
The plot for surrendering West Point
But now a quite unforeseen accident occurred. Colonel Livingston, commanding the works on the opposite side of the river, was provoked by the sight of a British ship standing so near; and he opened such a lively fire upon the Vulture that she was obliged to withdraw from the scene. As the conspirators were waiting in Smith’s house for breakfast to be served, they heard the booming of the guns, and André, rushing to the window, beheld with dismay the ship on whose presence so much depended dropping out of sight down the stream. On second thoughts, however, it was clear that she would not go far, as her commander had orders not to return to New York without André, and it was still thought that he might regain her. After breakfast he went to an upper chamber with Arnold, and several hours were spent in perfecting their plans. Immediately upon André’s return to New York, the force under Clinton and Rodney was to ascend the river. To obstruct the approach of a hostile flotilla, a massive chain lay stretched across the river, guarded by water batteries. Under pretence of repairs, one link was to be taken out for a few days, and supplied by a rope which a slight blow would tear away. The approach of the British was to be announced by a concerted system of signals, and the American forces were to be so distributed that they could be surrounded and captured in detail, until at the proper moment Arnold, taking advantage of the apparent defeat, was to surrender the works, with all the troops – 3,000 in number – under his command. It was not unreasonably supposed that such a catastrophe, coming on the heels of Charleston and Camden and general bankruptcy, would put a stop to the war and lead to negotiations, in which Arnold, in view of such decisive service, might hope to play a leading part.
André takes compromising documents
When André set out on this perilous undertaking, Sir Henry Clinton specially warned him not to adopt any disguise or to carry any papers which might compromise his safety. But André disregarded the advice, and took from Arnold six papers, all but one of them in the traitor’s own handwriting, containing descriptions of the fortresses and information as to the disposition of the troops. Much risk might have been avoided by putting this information into cipher, or into a memorandum which would have been meaningless save to the parties concerned. But André may perhaps have doubted Arnold’s fidelity, and feared lest under a false pretence of treason he might be drawing the British away into a snare. The documents which he took, being in Arnold’s handwriting and unmistakable in their purport, were such as to put him in Clinton’s power, and compel him, for the sake of his own safety, to perform his part of the contract. André intended, before getting into the boat, to tie up these papers in a bundle loaded with a stone, to be dropped into the water in case of a sudden challenge; but in the mean time he put them where they could not so easily be got rid of, between his stockings and the soles of his feet. Arnold furnished the requisite passes for Smith and André to go either by boat or by land, and, having thus apparently provided for all contingencies, took leave before noon, and returned in his barge to his headquarters, ten miles up the stream. As evening approached, Smith, who seems to have been a man of unsteady nerves, refused to take André out to the Vulture.
and is reluctantly persuaded to return to New York by land, Sept. 22
He had been alarmed by the firing in the morning, and feared there would be more risk in trying to reach the ship than in travelling down to the British lines by land, and he promised to ride all night with André if he would go that way. The young officer reluctantly consented, and partially disguised himself in some of Smith’s clothes. At sundown the two crossed the river at King’s Ferry, and pursued their journey on horseback toward White Plains.
FACSIMILE OF ARNOLD’S PASS TO ANDRÉ
The roads infested by robbers
The roads east of the Hudson, between the British and the American lines, were at this time infested by robbers, who committed their depredations under pretence of keeping up a partisan warfare. There were two sets of these scapegraces, – the “Cowboys,” or cattle-thieves, and the “Skinners,” who took everything they could find. These epithets, however, referred to the political complexion they chose to assume, rather than to any difference in their evil practices. The Skinners professed to be Whigs, and the Cowboys called themselves Tories; but in point of fact the two parties were alike political enemies to any farmer or wayfarer whose unprotected situation offered a prospect of booty; and though murder was not often committed, nobody’s property was safe. It was a striking instance of the demoralization wrought in a highly civilized part of the country through its having so long continued to be the actual seat of war. Rumours that the Cowboys were out in force made Smith afraid to continue the journey by night, and the impatient André was thus obliged to stop at a farmhouse with his timid companion. Rising before dawn, they kept on until they reached the Croton river, which marked the upper boundary of the neutral ground between the British and the American lines. Smith’s instructions had been, in case of adopting the land route, not to leave his charge before reaching White Plains; but he now became uneasy to return, and André, who was beginning to consider himself out of danger, was perhaps not unwilling to part with a comrade who annoyed him by his loquacious and inquisitive disposition. So Smith made his way back to headquarters, and informed Arnold that he had escorted “Mr. Anderson” within a few miles of the British lines, which he must doubtless by this time have reached in safety.
FACSIMILE OF ONE OF THE PAPERS FOUND IN ANDRÉ’S STOCKINGS
Arrest of André, Sept. 23
Meanwhile, André, left to himself, struck into the road which led through Tarrytown, expecting to meet no worse enemies than Cowboys, who would either respect a British officer, or, if bent on plunder, might be satisfied by his money and watch. But it happened that morning that a party of seven young men had come out to intercept some Cowboys who were expected up the road; and about nine o’clock, as André was approaching the creek above Tarrytown, a short distance from the far-famed Sleepy Hollow, he was suddenly confronted by three of this party, who sprang from the bushes and, with levelled muskets, ordered him to halt. These men had let several persons, with whose faces they were familiar, pass unquestioned; and if Smith, who was known to almost every one in that neighbourhood, had been with André, they too would doubtless have been allowed to pass. André was stopped because he was a stranger. One of these men happened to have on the coat of a Hessian soldier. Held by the belief that they must be Cowboys, or members of what was sometimes euphemistically termed the “lower party,” André expressed a hope that such was the case; and on being assured that it was so, his caution deserted him, and, with that sudden sense of relief which is apt to come after unwonted and prolonged constraint, he avowed himself a British officer, travelling on business of great importance. To his dismay, he now learned his mistake. John Paulding, the man in the Hessian coat, informed him that they were Americans, and ordered him to dismount. When he now showed them Arnold’s pass they disregarded it, and insisted upon searching him, until presently the six papers were discovered where he had hidden them. “By God, he is a spy!” exclaimed Paulding, as he looked over the papers. Threats and promises were of no avail. The young men, who were not to be bought or cajoled, took their prisoner twelve miles up the river, and delivered him into the hands of Colonel John Jameson, a Virginian officer, who commanded a cavalry outpost at North Castle. When Jameson looked over the papers, they seemed to him very extraordinary documents to be travelling toward New York in the stockings of a stranger who could give no satisfactory account of himself.
Colonel Jameson’s perplexity
But so far from his suspecting Arnold of any complicity in the matter, he could think of nothing better than to send the prisoner straightway to Arnold himself, together with a brief letter in which he related what had happened. To the honest Jameson it seemed that this must be some foul ruse of the enemy, some device for stirring up suspicion in the camp, – something, at any rate, which could not too quickly be brought to his general’s notice. But the documents themselves he prudently sent by an express-rider to Washington, accompanying them with a similar letter of explanation. André, in charge of a military guard, had already proceeded some distance toward West Point when Jameson’s second in command, Major Benjamin Tallmadge, came in from some errand on which he had been engaged. On hearing what had happened, Tallmadge suspected that all was not right with Arnold, and insisted that André and the letter should be recalled. After a hurried discussion, Jameson sent out a party which brought André back; but he still thought it his duty to inform Arnold, and so the letter which saved the traitor’s life was allowed to proceed on its way.
BEVERLY ROBINSON’S HOUSE
Washington returns from Hartford sooner than expected
Now, if Washington had returned from Hartford by the route which it was supposed he would take, through Danbury and Peekskill, Arnold would not even thus have been saved. For some reason Washington returned two or three days sooner than had been expected; and, moreover, he chose a more northerly route, through Farmington and Litchfield, so that the messenger failed to meet him. It was on the evening of Saturday, the 23d, that Jameson’s two letters started. On Sunday afternoon Washington arrived at Fishkill, eighteen miles above West Point, and was just starting down the river road when he met Luzerne, the French minister, who was on his way to consult with Rochambeau. Wishing to have a talk with this gentleman, Washington turned back to the nearest inn, where they sat down to supper and chatted, all unconsciously, with the very Joshua Smith from whom André had parted at the Croton river on the morning of the day before. Word was sent to Arnold to expect the commander-in-chief and his suite to breakfast the next morning, and before daybreak of Monday they were galloping down the wooded road. As they approached the confiscated country house of the loyalist Beverly Robinson, where Arnold had his headquarters, opposite West Point, Washington turned his horse down toward the river, whereat Lafayette reminded him that they were late already, and ought not to keep Mrs. Arnold waiting. “Ah, marquis,” said Washington, laughing, “I know you young men are all in love with Mrs. Arnold: go and get your breakfast, and tell her not to wait for me.” Lafayette did not adopt the suggestion. He accompanied Washington and Knox while they rode down to examine some redoubts. Hamilton and the rest of the party kept on to the house, and sat down to breakfast in its cheerful wainscoted dining-room, with Arnold and his wife and several of his officers.
STAIRCASE IN ROBINSON’S HOUSE
Flight of Arnold, Sept. 25
As they sat at table, a courier entered, and handed to Arnold the letter in which Colonel Jameson informed him that one John Anderson had been taken with compromising documents in his possession, which had been forwarded to the commander-in-chief. With astonishing presence of mind, Arnold folded the letter and put it in his pocket, finished the remark which had been on his lips when the courier entered, and then, rising, said that he was suddenly called across the river to West Point, but would return to meet Washington without delay; and he ordered his barge to be manned. None of the officers observed anything unusual in his manner, but the quick eye of his wife detected something wrong, and as he left the room she excused herself and hurried after him. Going up to their bedroom, he told her that he was a ruined man and must fly for his life; and as she screamed and fainted in his arms, he laid her upon the bed, called in the maid to attend her, stooped to kiss his baby boy who was sleeping in the cradle, rushed down to the yard, leaped on a horse that was standing there, and galloped down a by-path to his barge. It had promptly occurred to his quick mind that the Vulture would still be waiting for André some miles down stream, and he told the oarsmen to row him thither without delay, as he must get back soon to meet Washington. A brisk row of eighteen miles brought them to the Vulture, whose commander was still wondering why André did not come back. From the cabin of the Vulture Arnold sent a letter to Washington, assuring him of Mrs. Arnold’s innocence, and begging that she might be allowed to return to her family in Philadelphia, or come to her husband, as she might choose. Then the ill-omened ship weighed anchor, and reached New York next morning.
MRS. BENEDICT ARNOLD AND CHILD
Discovery of the treasonable plot
Meanwhile, about noonday Washington came in for his breakfast, and, hearing that Arnold had crossed the river to West Point, soon hurried off to meet him there, followed by all his suite except Hamilton. As they were ferried across, no salute of cannon greeted them, and on landing they learned with astonishment that Arnold had not been there that morning; but no one as yet had a glimmer of suspicion. When they returned to Robinson’s house, about two o’clock, they found Hamilton walking up and down before the door in great excitement. Jameson’s courier had arrived, with the letters for Washington, which Hamilton had just opened and read. The commander and his aide went into the house, and together examined the papers, which, taken in connection with the traitor’s flight, but too plainly told the story. From Mrs. Arnold, who was in hysterics, Washington could learn nothing. He privately sent Hamilton and another aide in pursuit of the fugitive; and coming out to meet Lafayette and Knox, his voice choking and tears rolling down his cheeks, he exclaimed, “Arnold is a traitor, and has fled to the British! Whom can we trust now?” In a moment, however, he had regained his wonted composure. It was no time for giving way to emotion. It was as yet impossible to tell how far the scheme might have extended. Even now the enemy’s fleet might be ascending the river (as but for André’s capture it doubtless would have been doing that day), and an attack might be made before the morrow. Riding anxiously about the works, Washington soon detected the treacherous arrangements that had been made, and by seven in the evening he had done much to correct them and to make ready for an attack. As he was taking supper in the room which Arnold had so hastily quitted in the morning, the traitor’s letter from the Vulture was handed him. “Go to Mrs. Arnold,” said he quietly to one of his officers, “and tell her that though my duty required no means should be neglected to arrest General Arnold, I have great pleasure in acquainting her that he is now safe on board a British vessel.”
André taken to Tappan, Sept. 28
But while the principal criminal was safe it was far otherwise with the agent who had been employed in this perilous business. On Sunday, from his room in Jameson’s quarters, André had written a letter to Washington, pathetic in its frank simplicity, declaring his position in the British army, and telling his story without any attempt at evasion. From the first there could be no doubt as to the nature of his case, yet André for the moment did not fully comprehend it. On Thursday, the 28th, he was taken across the river to Tappan, where the main army was encamped. His escort, Major Tallmadge, was a graduate of Yale College and a classmate of Nathan Hale, whom General Howe had hanged as a spy four years before. Tallmadge had begun to feel a warm interest in André, and as they rode their horses side by side into Tappan, when his prisoner asked how his case would probably be regarded, Tallmadge’s countenance fell, and it was not until the question had been twice repeated that he replied by a gentle allusion to the fate of his lamented classmate. “But surely,” said poor André, “you do not consider his case and mine alike!” “They are precisely similar,” answered Tallmadge gravely, “and similar will be your fate.”
André’s trial and sentence, Sept. 29
Next day a military commission of fourteen generals was assembled, with Greene presiding, to sit in judgment on the unfortunate young officer. “It is impossible to save him,” said the kindly Steuben, who was one of the judges. “Would to God the wretch who has drawn him to his death might be made to suffer in his stead!” The opinion of the court was unanimous that André had acted as a spy, and incurred the penalty of death. Washington allowed a brief respite, that Sir Henry Clinton’s views might be considered. The British commander, in his sore distress over the danger of his young friend, could find no better grounds to allege in his defence than that he had, presumably, gone ashore under a flag of truce, and that when taken he certainly was travelling under the protection of a pass which Arnold, in the ordinary exercise of his authority, had a right to grant. But clearly these safeguards were vitiated by the treasonable purpose of the commander who granted them, and in availing himself of them André, who was privy to this treasonable purpose, took his life in his hands as completely as any ordinary spy would do. André himself had already candidly admitted before the court “that it was impossible for him to suppose that he came ashore under the sanction of a flag;” and Washington struck to the root of the matter, as he invariably did, in his letter to Clinton, where he said that André “was employed in the execution of measures very foreign to the objects of flags of truce, and such as they were never meant to authorize or countenance in the most distant degree.” The argument was conclusive, but it was not strange that the British general should have been slow to admit its force. He begged that the question might be submitted to an impartial committee, consisting of Knyphausen from the one army and Rochambeau from the other; but as no question had arisen which the military commission was not thoroughly competent to decide, Washington very properly refused to permit such an unusual proceeding. Lastly, Clinton asked that André might be exchanged for Christopher Gadsden, who had been taken in the capture of Charleston, and was then imprisoned at St. Augustine. At the same time, a letter from Arnold to Washington, with characteristic want of tact, hinting at retaliation upon the persons of sundry South Carolinian prisoners, was received with silent contempt.
Captain Ogden’s message, Sept. 30
There was a general feeling in the American army that if Arnold himself could be surrendered to justice, it might perhaps be well to set free the less guilty victim by an act of executive clemency; and Greene gave expression to this feeling in an interview with Lieutenant-General Robertson, whom Clinton sent up on Sunday, the 1st of October, to plead for André’s life. No such suggestion could be made in the form of an official proposal. Under no circumstances could Clinton be expected to betray the man from whose crime he had sought to profit, and who had now thrown himself upon him for protection. Nevertheless, in a roundabout way the suggestion was made. On Saturday, Captain Ogden, with an escort of twenty-five men and a flag of truce, was sent down to Paulus Hook with letters for Clinton, and he contrived to whisper to the commandant there that if in any way Arnold might be suffered to slip into the hands of the Americans André would be set free. It was Lafayette who had authorized Ogden to offer the suggestion, and so, apparently Washington must have connived at it; but Clinton of course refused to entertain the idea for a moment.[35] The conference between Greene and Robertson led to nothing.
Execution of André, Oct. 2
A petition from André, in which he begged to be shot rather than hanged, was duly considered and rejected; and, accordingly, on Monday, the 2d of October, the ninth day after his capture by the yeomen at Tarrytown, the adjutant-general of the British army was led to the gallows. His remains were buried near the spot where he suffered, but in 1821 they were disinterred and removed to Westminster Abbey.
FACSIMILE OF SKETCH OF ANDRÉ BY HIMSELF
The fate of this gallant young officer has always called forth tender commiseration, due partly to his high position and his engaging personal qualities, but chiefly, no doubt, to the fact that, while he suffered the penalty of the law, the chief conspirator escaped. One does not easily get rid of a vague sense of injustice in this, but the injustice was not of man’s contriving. But for the remarkable series of accidents – if it be philosophical to call them so – resulting in André’s capture, the treason would very likely have been successful, and the cause of American independence might have been for the moment ruined. But for an equally remarkable series of accidents Arnold would not have received warning in time to escape. If both had been captured, both would probably have been hanged. Certainly both alike had incurred the penalty of death. It was not the fault of Washington or of the military commission that the chief offender went unpunished, and in no wise was André made a scapegoat for Arnold.
Lord Stanhope’s unconscious impudence
It is right that we should feel pity for the fate of André; but it is unfortunate that pity should be permitted to cloud the judgment of the historian, as in the case of Lord Stanhope, who stands almost alone among competent writers in impugning the justice of André’s sentence. One remark of Lord Stanhope’s I am tempted to quote, as an amusing instance of that certain air of “condescension” which James Russell Lowell once observed in our British cousins. He seeks to throw discredit upon the military commission by gravely assuming that the American generals must, of course, have been ignorant men, “who had probably never so much as heard the names of Vattel or Puffendorf,” and, accordingly, “could be no fit judges on any nice or doubtful point” of military law. Now, of the twelve American generals who sat in judgment on André, at least seven were men of excellent education. Two of them had taken degrees at Harvard, and two at English universities. Greene, the president, a self-educated man, who used, in leisure moments, to read Latin poets by the light of his camp-fire, had paid especial attention to military law, and had carefully read and copiously annotated his copy of Vattel. The judgment of these twelve men agreed with that of the two educated Europeans, Steuben and Lafayette, who sat with them on the commission; and, moreover, no nice or intricate questions were raised.
There is no reason in the world why André should have been spared
It was natural enough that André’s friends should make the most of the fact that when captured he was travelling under a pass granted by the commander of West Point; but to ask the court to accept such a plea was not introducing any nice or doubtful question; it was simply contending that “the wilful abuse of a privilege is entitled to the same respect as its legitimate exercise.” Accordingly, historians on both sides of the Atlantic have generally admitted the justice of Andre’s sentence, though sometimes its rigorous execution has been censured as an act of unnecessary severity. Yet if we withdraw our attention for a moment from the irrelevant fact that the British adjutant-general was an amiable and interesting young man, and concentrate it upon the essential fact that he had come within our lines to aid a treacherous commander in betraying his post, we cannot fail to see that there is no principle of military policy upon which ordinary spies are rigorously put to death which does not apply with redoubled force to the case of André. Moreover, while it is an undoubted fact that military morality permits, and sometimes applauds, such enterprises as that in which André lost his life, I cannot but feel that the flavour of treachery which clings about it must somewhat weaken the sympathy we should otherwise freely accord; and I find myself agreeing with the British historian, Mr. Massey, when he doubts “whether services of this character entitle his memory to the honours of Westminster Abbey.”