Victory at Yorktown (10 page)

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BY THEN IT
was clear to André that he faced death, but he wanted to die before a firing squad, not on the gibbet. General Clinton, who had done his best to have André released, wrote to Washington, arguing that he, Clinton, “permitted Major André to go to Major General Arnold at the particular request of that general officer” and that “a flag of truce was sent to receive Major André and passports granted for his return.” But the American commander in chief would have none of that. André had come ashore from the
Vulture
and spoken with Arnold “in a private and secret manner.” He had changed his clothes and disguised himself, when captured had at first refused to produce the pass Arnold gave him, and had asked the militiamen who caught him which party they belonged to before admitting he was a British officer. And when he was searched, the important papers Arnold had given him were found concealed in the foot of his stocking—“papers which contained intelligence for the Enemy.” What was this if not the activity of a spy? Indeed, under questioning, André had confessed “it was impossible for him to suppose he came on shore under the sanction of a Flag.”

Arnold, behaving in character, had the nerve to threaten Washington, saying that if the death sentence was executed, he would “retaliate on such unhappy persons of your army as may fall within my power.” In fact, he continued, if General Washington suffered the unjust sentence to fall on André, “I call heaven and earth to witness that your Excellency will be justly answerable for the torrent of blood that may be spilt in consequence.”

Until the last moment, André was left to wonder about the manner of his death, while his superior, Clinton, could not bring himself to accept the harsh penalty imposed on a young man who was his favorite aide. André's final letter to Clinton was to absolve the general of any blame and to thank him for his “profuse kindness.” At the appointed hour, André walked the half-mile from the stone house in which he had been confined, arm in arm with two men of his escort, to the mournful sound of a “dead march” played by fife and drum. He betrayed no sign of weakness but bowed politely to several people he recognized in the enormous crowd.

As he came in sight of the gallows, the prisoner involuntarily stepped backward in revulsion. One of the American officers accompanying him asked, unfeelingly, “Why this emotion, sir?” At that, André recovered his composure and replied, “I am reconciled to my death, but I detest the mode,” and resumed walking. John Hart, an army surgeon, said he appeared to be “the most Agreeable, pleasing young fellow I ever see, the most agreeable smile on his countenance that can be conceived of.…”

All eyes were upon André as he approached the gallows and stood there for a moment, placing his foot on a small stone and turning it over, unconsciously perhaps, in a last touch with earth. Then, in the words of an artificer in Benjamin Baldwin's regiment, he “stepped into the hind end of the wagon, then on his coffin, took off his hat and laid it down, then placed his hands upon his hips and walked very uprightly back and forth as far as the length of his coffin would permit, at the same time casting his eyes upon … the whole scenery by which he was surrounded.” The surgeon James Thacher heard André say, in a small voice to himself, “It will be but a momentary pang.” To which John Hart added, “there was not the least tremour or appearance of fear. Such Fortitude I never was witness of … to see a man go out of time without fear, but all the time smiling is a matter I could not conceive of.”

The hangman, a fellow named Strickland, hideously disguised with black grease on his face, stepped into the wagon with a halter in his hand, but André pushed him away, unpinned his shirt collar, took the rope from the executioner's hand, and, placing the knot under his right ear, drew the noose snug around his neck. Colonel Alexander Scammell informed André that he had a right to speak, and he responded, “I pray you to bear the witness that I died like a brave man.”

Then the Briton took a handkerchief from a pocket and tied it around his eyes. That done, the provost officer commanded that his arms must be tied, so André pulled out another handkerchief and handed it to the executioner, who fastened his arms behind his back. The rope around his neck was then made fast to the pole overhead and suddenly the wagon was drawn from under the gallows—so suddenly that it swung the victim violently back and forth until the lifeless body finally hung absolutely still. As the man in Baldwin's regiment said, “He remained hanging, I should think, for twenty to thirty minutes, and during that time the chambers of death were never stiller than the multitude by which he was surrounded.”

“Thus died, in the bloom of life, the accomplished Major André, the pride of the Royal Army, and the valued friend of Sir Henry Clinton,” wrote James Thacher, who, like so many of those present, was deeply affected by what was perceived as the final scene in a tragedy.

America's military men recognized that the gentlemanly, courtly André was the antithesis of Arnold, but even so, they asked themselves, why had Arnold done what he did? How could someone who had fought so hard for the independence in which he believed turn against his country and his fellow soldiers? They may not have liked him, but there was no denying the man's courage in battle, his utter determination to win at all costs, his disregard for his own safety, and his ability to inspire men to fight.

At the time no one imagined that Peggy Arnold was intimately involved in the plot; not for a century and a half would it be known that she was her husband's accomplice in the squalid affair.
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With Benedict Arnold, who gave his name to traitors in America, the motivation is easier to understand. He was greedy—greedy for money, for position, for recognition—all denied him or given him only grudgingly despite his heroic actions in battle. He had been passed over for promotion several times by Congress and understandably resented that other men, less qualified and with far less experience in battle, were appointed to a higher rank than his own. Unfortunately for his career, Arnold was plainly disliked by a number of his contemporaries, who were rankled by his raw ambition and his naturally pushy nature. Although the world might see what he did as a despicable, venal act, to Arnold it was a commercial transaction, no different from the sale of the share he had claimed in the British sloop
Active
, captured by a Pennsylvania privateer while he was the commandant in Philadelphia. Instead of wooden timbers and armaments and rigging, the merchandise was his country. What's more, Arnold knew how desperate the condition of the American army was, and wanted to ensure that he would end up on the winning side.

Greed is a goad that has turned many a man to the devil's work. In Benedict Arnold's case, the man obsessed by greed had no hesitation in resorting to evil to satisfy his craving.

As Washington put it, “He wants feeling!” and went on to say that “he seems to have been so hackneyed in villainy, 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.”

Peggy Arnold was something else again. She had grown up with money, never having to worry about it. Money was always there, and what she wanted she was always given. Spoiled by her family, sought after by young men, the cynosure of all eyes in her charmed circle, she took it for granted that she was admired, adored, and would always be invited to dance when the waltz began. Then this dark, mysterious, powerful figure, with a limp that reminded everyone of his heroism in battle, appeared on the scene, and she was drawn to him, an outsider, as he was to her, the ultimate insider. Filled with desire for him, she wanted whatever it was that he wanted, and what he wanted must have seemed eminently appealing to an attractive, impressionable young woman who longed for excitement and adventure.

On September 25, aboard the
Vulture
, Arnold had written a letter to George Washington—which could, under the circumstances, fairly be described as an obscenity—in which he claimed that love for his country actuated his present conduct, “however it may appear inconsistent to the world, who very seldom judge right of any man's actions.” Having blamed the world for misinterpreting his actions, he then asked the General to protect his wife from any insult or injury, for “she is as good and as innocent as an angel, and is incapable of doing wrong.” And that assessment of her character was the one the public seems generally to have accepted for a century and a half.

Arnold enclosed a letter for his Peggy with the one to Washington, asking that it be delivered to her, and carefully included a sentence he intended Washington to read, so as to divert suspicion from his wife: “Thou loveliest and best of women, Words are wanting to express my feelings and distress on your account, who are incapable of doing wrong yet are exposed to suffer wrong.”

In the wake of the treasonable act, authorities in Philadelphia seized Arnold's papers, and at once other repugnant activities came to light: his wrongdoing in office, his own and his wife's secret purchases in New York, his influence peddling, his apparent theft and sale of goods intended for the garrison at West Point. Accused in the
Pennsylvania Packet
of “baseness and prostitution of office and character,” Arnold soon became a figure of derision across the United States, his effigy hanged or burned in village after village, his once-heroic image shattered for good.

When he reached New York, the traitor's reception was a far cry from the hero's welcome Arnold had foreseen before his plot was discovered. General Clinton did give him the rank of brigadier general of provincials, but that was a step down from his rank in the Continental Army, with a somewhat demeaning limitation of his command, which Arnold was obliged to accept. His reputation with Clinton's officers was suggested in a London newspaper: “General Arnold is a very unpopular character in the British army, nor can all the patronage he meets with from the commander-in-chief procure him respectability.… The subaltern officers have conceived such an aversion to him that they unanimously refused to serve under his command.…”

Arnold, brash as ever, wrote to Clinton, quoting André as saying that while he was authorized to offer Arnold only £6,000 for his services, he was certain that General Clinton would give him the £10,000 Arnold proposed (even though “No sum of money would have been an inducement to have gone through the danger and anxiety I have experienced,” the traitor added). Clinton's response was immediate and spoke eloquently: he sent Arnold a draft for £6,000. When one of Arnold's former comrades-in-arms learned of the transaction, he wrote to John Lamb, saying that the hero of Quebec and Saratoga had shown himself “as base a prostitute as this or any other country” had produced. It would have been far better for Arnold and his friends, he continued, “had the ball which pierced his leg at Saratoga been directed through his heart; he then would have finished his career in glory.”

Before long an announcement appeared in New York's
Royal Gazette
, a loyalist newspaper, addressed to officers and soldiers of the Continental Army “who have the real interest of their country at heart, and who are determined to be no longer the tools and dupes of Congress and of France.” Brigadier General Benedict Arnold offered to lead the volunteers in what was to be called an American legion and to share with them “the glory of rescuing our native country from the grasping hand of France.…” For the next six weeks the announcement appeared semiweekly and in that time produced volunteers of only eight officers, three sergeants, twenty-eight common soldiers, and one drummer for Arnold's American legion.

In mid-November of 1780 a haggard, exhausted Peggy Arnold arrived in New York with her baby, Edward. She had been banished from the state of Pennsylvania by the Supreme Executive Council on grounds that her presence there was “dangerous to the public safety,” and, fearing for her life, she had been escorted to the west bank of the Hudson River by her father. There they bade each other a tearful farewell, and she was soon united with her husband. Interestingly, while in Philadelphia she had agreed, if permitted to remain there with her family, to cease all correspondence with her husband for the duration of the war, but the authorities would have none of that. They wanted no part of Benedict Arnold.

Whether the relationship between Arnold and Peggy had changed during her exposure to what must have been a shattering experience in her hometown, where old friends turned their backs on her and she learned firsthand the meaning of treason, is impossible to say, but the two had a powerful physical attraction for each other and within several weeks of her arrival in New York Peggy was pregnant. Soon they became part of loyalist society in the city to which thousands of Tories had flocked during the war, consorting with the chief justice, William Smith, and his wife, with Sir Henry Clinton and others at dinner parties, dances, and the theater. Yet as much as Benedict Arnold may have enjoyed the limelight, he was not a man to adjust easily to the sedentary life. He wanted action, and suddenly Clinton gave him a shot at it. He was to lead a detachment of some seventeen hundred men to Portsmouth, Virginia, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

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AT THE END
of what Washington called an “inactive campaign,” he positioned his troops in such a way as to protect West Point while camping near sources of provisions he hoped would carry them through the coming winter. He was sure that Clinton would detach some of his troops from New York and send them to the South “to extend his conquests,” but if that should happen, the Americans were in no position to do much about it. After Gates's horrific loss at Camden, no one wanted that general in charge of anything, and Washington's immediate thought was to replace him with Nathanael Greene, his most able, resourceful general. Greene was then at West Point and accepted the southern command reluctantly, knowing he could expect little help from the commander in chief, who was burdened with so many problems. Writing to his beloved wife, Kitty, Greene said, “My dear Angel, What I have been dreading has come to pass. His Excellency General Washington by order of Congress has appointed me to the command of the Southern army.”