07/13/2017 All this talk in the news lately about treason has got me thinking about Benedict Arnold. I think most people know the name and associate him with treason, but don't know much about him. I think most people think the crime of treason is so odious that it's hard to believe anyone would engage in it. But as unthinkable as it is, it has happened before and I suspect it will happen again. In the early 1990s, I was on a business trip with a guy from work to Montreal, Canada for a trade show and then down to Albany, NY to see a customer. When we were driving down the freeway I noticed a sign for Saratoga Springs and mentioned that there was a famous Revolutionary War battlefield there and could we stop for an hour or so and see it - since we're right there anyway - which we did. While there I ran across a book in the gift shop/book store that my Dad had recommended to me a long time before entitled: "The Secret History of the American Revolution: An Account of the Conspiracies of Benedict Arnold and Numerous Others Drawn from the Secret Service Papers of the British Headquarters in North America Now for the First Time Examined and Made Public", Carl Van Doren (1941) Evidently, the British had a 150 year rule about releasing really secret stuff and it had run out regarding the American Revolution and a whole bunch of secret papers, mainly from General Sir Henry Clinton the overall British commander in the colonies, were opened to scholars. The book portrays the colonies as a snake pit of spies and traitors and crooks and double dealers. It's really surprising what was really going on. For example, if you remember the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The British had been tipped off that the Americans had munitions stored at Concord and sent a detachment of soldiers up to confiscate them. Enter Paul Revere and his famous midnight ride, the "Minutemen" and the "shot heard round the world" (because it was famous - not because it was loud :-) that started the American Revolution. Anyway, it turns out it was a man named Benjamin Church, who sold us out to the British. He was a confidant of some of the top rebel leaders and was secretly writing letters about them (for pay) to Thomas Gage, the British Commander in Chief at the time. He was later discovered but there was no specific law against sending such secret letters. He was held in jail for a while but eventually just kicked out of the country. The full extent of his treason wasn't discovered until the release of these papers. His motive seems to have been strictly for money. Anyway, most of the book is about Benedict Arnold. To me there were three main battles in the American Revolution; Saratoga, Trenton and Yorktown. The Hudson River in New York state forms a natural "highway" up to Lake Champlain. This is a natural invasion route to either invade down from Canada or up into Canada. The British sent a substantial army down the Hudson under "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne and they ran into an American army under General Horatio Gates at Saratoga. The battle didn't go well at first but General Benedict Arnold rallied the troops and won the day capturing the entire British force. This was important because it helped Benjamin Franklin in Paris convince the French that the Americans could defeat a professionally trained European army and so they should help us with arms and cash and stuff. I think most people have probably never heard of Saratoga because it had nothing to do with George Washington. After the war there was quite a "cult" of Washington making him not just the "father of the country" but America's "super dad". If he didn't do it - it wasn't important - and he didn't do Saratoga. After all, who's Horatio Gates anyhow? We like to think of Washington as a military genius, but actually he lost more battles than he won. The battle of Trenton was mainly important because it ended a long losing streak he was having. Washington attacked a group of Hessian/German mercenaries on the day after Christmas in a surprise attack. Remember the painting of "Washington Crossing the Delaware"? That was this. Interestingly that painting was done by a German artist and the original was destroyed in Germany by an American bombing raid during WWII. By Yorktown, the French were heavy into helping us. The French fleet showed up and fought the "Battle of the Virginia Capes", the largest naval battle in the history of the world up to that time, to drive off the British fleet from resupplying Cornwallis at Yorktown. Washington, then, with the help of some 5,500 French troops managed to put Cornwallis in an untenable position forcing his surrender. That effectively marked the end to the Revolution. I always say, that if it wasn't for French help during the Revolution, we'd all be speaking English right now :-) Getting back to Arnold, he was wounded at Saratoga, shot in the leg and he later noted that had he been killed he would have been remembered as a great American patriot. There's a statue of a boot somebody put up at Saratoga, sarcastically honoring his patriotic leg. I remembered this from a picture I saw in my 5th grade American history school book and I looked for it when I was there. Later Arnold was the military commander at Philadelphia and as such was already taking bribes and selling us out. The British navy was blockading the east coast and was a long way from their supply bases. Some confederates of Arnold's would take a ship, load it up with supplies, and with Arnold's written permission, try to "run the blockade". Actually, they just sailed out and were "captured". The British took the supplies, paid them their money and then released them to go back for more. A real scam from which Arnold was getting his cut. Later, Arnold was transferred to West Point, where the Military Academy is today. Then it was a fort on the Hudson River at a strategic choke point that could control the flow of the river (of shipping - not the water :-) Control of the Hudson would also cut off the New England colonies from the rest. Anyway, Arnold negotiated with the British in a plot to surrender it to them. A British Major Andre crossed the lines in plain clothes and got a literal boot full of maps and papers on troop strength, deployments, etc., from Arnold and was returning when stopped and searched by an American sentry. They discovered the secret info and reported it up to Washington. When Arnold heard about the capture he knew the jig was up and took off. The British asked Washington to treat Andre as a normal P.O.W. as his part in all this was so minor. Washington offered to exchange Andre for Arnold which the British refused, so Washington hanged him. It was considered rather odious even at the time since Andre was such a minor figure. Part of Arnold's deal was to be made a British general, which he was and he even lead British troops against the Americans in Virginia. There is no question this beloved patriot, one of Washington's favorite generals, was a first class traitor. The secret papers just filled in a lot of details about the true extent of it and just how bad it really was. Three favorite Bible verses come to mind: "What was, will be again, what has been done, will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun!" - Ecclesiastes 1:9 and "... test everything and hold on to what is good and shun every form of evil." I Thessalonians 5:21-22 and "The love of money is the root of all evils ..." I Timothy 5:10 Boot Monument From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Monument "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burgoyne#Saratoga_campaign Horatio Gates From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Gates Battles of Saratoga From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Saratoga Paul Revere’s Ride Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 - 1882 https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/paul-reveres-ride Benedict Arnold From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Arnold