ALBANY, N.Y. —
Benedict Arnold is a hero again, at least temporarily, at two upstate New York historic sites where his pre-treason exploits are being remembered.
Arnold’s heroic actions in the Revolutionary War’s Battles of Saratoga are detailed in a new exhibit opening Thursday at Saratoga National Historical Park, and his capture of British-held Fort Ticonderoga at the side of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys is being re-staged later this month in a rare nighttime re-enactment.
The Connecticut-born Arnold led American soldiers through Fort Ticonderoga’s front gate in a pre-dawn raid on May 10, 1775, and he helped defeat the British at the Battles of Saratoga two years later. But most Americans know Arnold as the man who betrayed his nation by trying to turn over the American fortifications at West Point to the British, then joining the redcoats when the plot was uncovered.
Soon after the war broke out at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the ambitious Arnold began displaying the prickly personality traits that made him a polarizing figure years before he switched sides.
“He was hated long before he became a traitor,” said Eric Schnitzer, a park ranger at Saratoga National Historic Park in Stillwater, 20 miles north of Albany. “Some of the guys fighting with him thought he was a total and complete jerk. Other guys thought he was wonderful.”
Count the Green Mountain Boys among the former. Angry at Arnold for his orders forbidding them from looting their British captives, the New Englanders broke into Fort Ticonderoga’s rum supply instead, then took drunken potshots at the 34-year-old Arnold, who escaped unscathed.
At Saratoga, he clashed with his fellow officers, including the commander of American forces, Gen. Horatio Gates. Despite helping stem the British advance in the first Saratoga battle and getting wounded while charging enemy lines during the second, Arnold was given little official credit at the time for the American victory many historians consider the turning point of the war.
Feeling slighted after being passed over for promotions, and in deepening debt due to his extravagant lifestyle and courting of a Philadelphia woman nearly half his age, Arnold began plotting to hand over West Point to the British in exchange for money. After being given command of the American fortifications guarding the Hudson River north of Manhattan, Arnold attempted to slip information on troop positions.
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Benedict Arnold hero once again
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