WEBVTT - How Did Benedict Arnold Become So Infamous? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.840 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff, Lauren 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:12.520 bobebam here. One of the oddest monuments in America is 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.800 the Boot Monument in Saratoga National Park in New York, 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.159 which commemorates, but does not name, a soldier on the 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.280 American side of the Revolution who was wounded and nearly 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:24.560 lost his leg as he led troops in the defeat 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:27.240 of the British and the Battle of Saratoga in October 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.680 of seventeen seventy seven. But this isn't a Boot of 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.920 the Unknown Soldier kind of situation. The hero's name was 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:39.919 left off of the monument for a reason. Benedict Arnold, 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.760 despite his bravery on the battlefield, eventually switched sides and 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:48.000 became the most infamous trader in American history. After trying 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:51.120 and failing to hand the Continental fort at West Point 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.720 over to the British, he joined the Royal Army and 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.880 took up arms against the rebellious colonists and even put 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:01.240 a Connecticut town to the torch. For the article, this 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.360 episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with Steve Shinkin, 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:07.440 the author of an award winning biography for young adult readers. 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:11.240 Called the Notorious Benedict Arnold a true story of adventure, 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:16.959 heroism and treachery. He said, there's no other story like Arnold's. 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.560 He was at the absolute top, one of the great 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.560 American heroes, and fell all the way to the bottom, 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.559 a kind of devil figure. And in both cases rise 0:01:26.600 --> 0:01:31.319 and fall, he did it by himself. It's a measure 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.199 of Arnold's infamy that nearly two centuries after his death 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.280 he remained so infamously reviled that Americans still sometimes refer 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:43.480 to someone viewed as disloyal as a Benedict Arnold. Houstuff 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.440 Works also spoke by email with Eric D. Lemmon, an 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.240 associate professor of English at the University of Bridgeport and 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.080 author of Homegrown Terror, Benedict Arnold and the Burning of 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.640 New London. He said Arnold's case is so disturbing not 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.360 because he decided to back the British, which which many 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.400 others in America did. It's because he was a hero 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.400 to the American side. First, because he had so many 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:09.840 friends and comrades who fought beside him. To fight beside 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.600 someone and then to switch sides and fight against them 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.839 is anathema to most people. It is so much more 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:19.320 troubling than the mere political betrayal, and that is why 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.840 it's so incredibly rare, particularly for a general in the army. 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.160 Lemon sees parallels between Arnold and another infamous figure in 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:32.520 early American history, Aaron Burr, who yes killed Alexander Hamilton 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.880 in a duel, but was also later tried unsuccessfully for 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.640 treason for his role in an ill fated plot to 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.119 lore States to leave the US and join a new empire. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.359 Lemon said both were competent war heroes who, in one 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:50.760 way or another, had their careers stalled or ruined by 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.400 their own actions, and then plotted against their perceived enemies 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:58.400 in the American government. Both had the misperception or a flaw, 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:01.760 that the government was the name, and when elements in 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:04.839 that government, in Arnold's case, Congress or in Burr's case, 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:09.080 Thomas Jefferson became antagonistic to them, they responded by trying 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:14.160 to burn the whole thing down. In some ways, Arnold's 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:19.800 treachery may have been forged by resentment and frustration. Born 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.360 in Norwich, Connecticut, in seventeen forty one, he spent his 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.760 youth preparing to attend Yale, but the bankruptcy of his 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:31.160 alcoholic father dashed those dreams. He instead apprenticed as an 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.240 apothecary the eighteenth century version of a pharmacy, and served 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.559 in the French and Indian War before settling in New Haven, Connecticut, 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:40.880 where he built a drug store business and worked as 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.440 a merchant and sea captain, involved in trade with the 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:46.960 Caribbean and Canada. By the time Arnold was in his 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.840 mid thirties, he had become successful enough to build one 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.040 of the grandest homes in New Haven, but he was 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:57.640 never quite content. A lemon said, he had great gifts 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.080 of intelligence and physical prowess. He always felt that they 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.720 were being overlooked. He had the sort of prickly personality 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.280 that took offense very easily. He was often threatening to 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.360 quit or to fight a duel with someone who insulted him. 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.360 I would say he was certainly a narcissist, but the 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.279 tragedy is that he could have gone another way. He 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:19.760 had a lot of people pulling for him, helping him 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.480 and loving him, but he ultimately chose to betray many 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:28.400 of them. In the spring of seventeen seventy five, Arnold 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.520 was serving as the captain of a local militia in 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.680 new Haven. When the British attacked Lexington in Concord, Arnold 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.120 took some of New Haven's gunpowder supply and headed to 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:41.560 Massachusetts to join the fight. Early on, Arnold distinguished himself 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.200 as a competent, even gifted military leader, but one who 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.080 frequently became immersed in political squabbles that stymied his rise. 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.200 Arnold got Massachusetts officials to back his plan to capture 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.440 Fort Taekwonderoga in New York so that the rebels could 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:01.080 seize its eighty or so cannons. But as it turned out, 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.159 Arnold wasn't the only one who wanted that artillery, and 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.200 when he got to New York with his expedition, he 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.440 was compelled to team up with Ethan Allen and his 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:12.760 Green Mountain Boys. The Americans rode across Lake Champlain from 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.440 what's now Vermont and staged daring late night surprise attack 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.119 to seize the fort. Their success was a major early 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.600 victory in the war. Though Arnold and Alan coled the raid, 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.719 it was Allan who rashly demanded the British render quote 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:30.960 in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:36.479 Congress who ended up with more of the credit. But 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.400 Arnold had even bigger ambitions. He pitched the Continental Congress 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.000 and George Washington, the new head of the American forces, 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.160 on a scheme to invade Canada, overwhelmed the few hundred 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.680 troops that the British kept there, and emboldened Canadian colonists 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:54.080 to join the American cause. A Washington agreed, but appointed 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.640 Major General Richard Montgomery to head the effort and relegated 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.160 Arnold to commanding a small force that made up its 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.920 way through the main wilderness to Quebec City. The New 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.000 Year's Eve assault on the Canadian city turned into a debacle, 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:11.880 in which Montgomery was killed. Arnold, though severely wounded, managed 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.960 to rally the remaining troops and continue the siege until spring, 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.800 when he was ordered to return home. Arnold went on 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.919 to distinguish himself in September seventeen seventy seven in the 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:28.200 aforementioned Battle of Saratoga. He quarreled with Major General Horatio Gates, 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.240 his commander, who tried to keep him back at headquarters 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.760 as a punishment, but Arnold eventually ignored his orders and 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:36.880 rode his horse to the front, where he led a 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.160 charge that outflanked a force of German mercenaries. During the fighting, 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.840 Arnold was shot and a bullet killed his horse and 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.240 caused it to fall on him, crushing the leg had 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.039 injured in Quebec. He had to be carried off the 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.120 field and walked with a limp for the rest of 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:56.400 his life. Arnold's courage had helped the Americans win a 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.359 crucial victory, but again he didn't get the credit or 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:05.360 position he felt he deserved. Instead, in July seventeen seventy eight, 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.440 Washington put Arnold in charge of the city of Philadelphia, 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.280 which the British had abandoned kept out of action. Arnold 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.800 married the young daughter of a local judge, Peggy Shippen, 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.160 and the couple lived in extravagant lifestyle that was beyond 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.000 an American general's means. Congress refused to pay some of 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.160 his expense vouchers, and eventually, in June of seventeen seventy nine, 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.920 he was court martialed on charges of corruption. Although Arnold 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:35.000 eventually was acquitted, the humiliation might have been the final straw. 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.720 Even before the trial began, he secretly reached out to 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:42.200 the British and began communicating with British spy Major John 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:47.440 Andre through coded correspondence. Meanwhile, Arnold asked to be reassigned 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.760 to West Point, the fort that served as Washington's headquarters. 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.400 In September of seventeen eighty he met with Andre at 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.920 a house near the Hudson River and hatched a plot 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.440 to hand the fort over to the British in exchange 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.440 for command in the Royal Army and twenty thousand British 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.160 pounds that's worth something like four million pounds today or 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:11.840 about five million US dollars. But once again Arnold was 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.800 foiled by fate. Before John Andre could make his way 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:19.400 back into British held territory, he was captured by American militiamen. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.640 When Arnold heard the news, he managed to escape on 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.080 the Hudson in a British ship, the Vulture. Before he 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:28.480 could be arrested. From on board, Arnold wrote a letter 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.720 to Washington complaining of the quote ingratitude of my country 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:37.440 and asking that his former superior protect Arnold's wife. He wrote, 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:42.160 it ought only to fall on me, and Arnold was 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.240 about to get even further into the thick of it. 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:48.040 In seventeen eighty one, having become a British officer. He 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:50.480 ordered his troops to burn the town of New London 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:53.360 in Connecticut, just ten miles away from where he was 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:58.000 born and raised. That's around fifteen kilometers. This action was 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.480 ostensibly meant to punish private who operated out of New 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:06.319 London for capturing a British merchant ship. Arnold's forces torched 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.880 some one hundred and forty buildings, including residence homes, and 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.600 after capturing the fort overlooking the town's harbor, slaughtered eighty 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:19.920 American militiamen who had already surrendered. Lemon said, I think 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:21.840 that once Arnold made the choice to go over to 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.320 the British, he knew he had to succeed, and he 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.200 was willing to do anything to make that happen. That's 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.640 a dangerous place to be in for anyone, and it 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.800 led him to a very dark place. In December of 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.760 seventeen eighty one, Arnold and his wife and children went 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.320 to live in London, England, supported in part by a 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.079 portion of the fee had been guaranteed for the failed 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:47.560 West Point plot. After America's Revolutionary War was over, he 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.280 moved to Canada and tried to revive his career as 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.480 a merchant but his fortune was mostly gone by the 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:58.360 time he died in eighteen oh one. Shankin said, this 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.640 is a classic rise in falset. We see them over 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.760 and over, and of course it's usually some character flaw 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:08.120 that brings the hero down. That's not just in fiction 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.880 and theater. And that's happened throughout history and we'll continue 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:17.840 to happen. It's a dynamic and in some ways sympathetic story. 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.720 But to this day, in New London, the city Arnold torched, 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:24.920 local residents return the favor by burning an effigy of 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:32.560 him each September. Today's episode is based on the article 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:35.920 how did Benedict Arnold Become America's Most Infamous Trader? On 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:39.080 how Stuffworks dot Com written by Patrick J. Kyder. Brain 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.199 Stuff is production of my Heart Radio in partnership with 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:43.640 how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.200 Four more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:10:47.280 --> 0:11:00.839 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.