What Ever Happened to Benedict Arnold? Life After Treason
1. Why did Benedict Arnold switch sides during the Revolution?
Many historians have speculated, none has found a definitive answer. The fact that we’re still asking the question after more than two centuries points to the enigmatic quality of Arnold’s mind. It may be that George Washington summed up the matter best when he attributed Arnold’s treason to “an unaccountable deprivation of presence of Mind in a Man of the first abilities.”
2. Did Arnold turn over the important fort at West Point to the British?
He tried to, but his scheme failed. The chance arrest of his British contact, Major John André, led to the plot being foiled with only minutes to spare. After his discovery, Arnold escaped down the Hudson River to New York to join the British.
3. What was the immediate reaction to Arnold’s treason?
Shock. George Washington, along with the rest of the nation, was stunned by the treachery of one of his most valued subordinates. Citizens burned Arnold in effigy. Washington determined to make an example of him. He offered to exchange André for Arnold. André was the intelligence chief of the British Army, but the British could not, on principle, turn over to the enemy someone who had defected to their cause. So, after a trial, the Americans hanged André as a spy.
4. Was the Benedict Arnold ever punished for his treason?
Washington recruited a cavalryman, Sergeant Major John Champe, to pretended to defect to the British. His mission was to kidnap Arnold in New York City and row him across the Hudson River to New Jersey. But on the night of the planned abduction, Arnold and his regiment were sent aboard ships to travel to Virginia. The chance to grab the traitor never arose again.
5. Did Arnold lead British troops against Americans?
Yes, he commanded a loyalist regiment that fought in Virginia early in 1781. That September, he led a raid on New London, Connecticut, only a few miles from his hometown. His men burned much of the city. After the British defeat at Yorktown, Arnold sailed to England on the same ship as that battle’s losing general, Lord Cornwallis.
6. Did his wife, Peggy, accompany Arnold in exile?
She followed him to London and bore him a total of five children. Like his first wife, she was often left alone while he traveled on sea voyages. His sons all received commissions in the British Army.
7. How were the Arnolds received in England?
Although some welcomed them, others hissed when he and Peggy visited the theater. They moved for a few years to Canada and lived there among a community of loyalists expatriates from the United States. Later, they returned to London and Arnold again engaged in trade in the West Indies.
8. Were his years in England happy ones?
Arnold was frustrated by his failure to receive an active military commission. He yearned for the chance to be back in the tumult of war, but his reputation as a traitor stood in the way. His eldest son, also Benedict, was killed in Jamaica while fighting for the British during the Napoleonic wars. “His death,” Arnold wrote, “is a heavy stroke to me.”
9. Did Arnold ever return to the United States?
He did not set foot in his native land again. Peggy did return for several months to visit her family, but was received coolly by her American friends.
10. When did Benedict Arnold die?
Gout and other illnesses increasingly restricted Arnold’s activities. He died in 1801 at the age of sixty. His corpse was interred behind the wall in the crypt beneath St. Mary's Church, Battersea, in London. A stained-glass window in the building commemorates his life. The crypt more recently has doubled as a kindergarten. At the time of Arnold’s death, an obituary printed in the Gazette of the United States noted: "There is no doubt . . . but he was for some time, a real friend of the Revolution.”
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