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Philip Spiess
SARATOGA STORY:
A Saga of Springs, Spas, Sport, Spuds, Spirits -- and Con-Spiracy!
[in Three Parts]
[Part I, "Springs & Spas," is at Post #6510 (8-31-2023); Part II, "Spuds and Spirits," is at Post #6512 (9-7-2023)]
PART III: Conspiracy!:
The Three-Pronged Attack: The Saratoga campaign of the British army during the American Revolutionary War began with British General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne moving an invasion army of 7,200-8,000 men southward from Canada through the Champlain Valley as part of the famed “three-pronged attack.” This attack involved Burgoyne’s forces coming down from the north, a similar British force coming up the Hudson River from the south at New York City, and a third British force coming from the west at Lake Ontario eastward along the Mohawk River – hence the “three prongs” – all of them meeting to take Albany, New York. But the southern and western forces never arrived, and Burgoyne found himself surrounded by American forces in upstate New York fifteen miles from his goal. Trapped by much larger American forces, and with no relief in sight, Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga (now Schuylerville, southeast of Saratoga Springs), and fought two battles there (September 19 and October 7, 1777), winning the first despite being outnumbered, but losing the second when the Americans returned with a much larger force. The battle on September 19 began when Burgoyne attempted to flank the entrenched American position, a defensive works ordered by commander General Horatio Gates, but Major General Benedict Arnold, Washington’s most aggressive field commander, anticipated the maneuver and balked Burgoyne’s move by placing significant forces in his way. Burgoyne did gain some measure of control over the situation, but at the cost of significant casualties. Skirmishing continued over the next several days, as Burgoyne expected that reinforcements would soon arrive [see above]. Meanwhile, American militia forces continued to arrive in the area, but there were disputes within the American army: both General Gates and General Arnold had prickly dispositions, and Arnold managed to turn Gates against him. As a result, General Horatio Gates stripped Benedict Arnold of his command.
Hero of the Revolution? A Victory – but also an Imagined Slight: The battle on October 7 began with artillery fire and a bayonet charge from the British forces, but the Americans cut them down. Burgoyne lost nearly 400 men, as well as six of the ten field pieces he had, and most of the grenadiers’ command was captured. At this point, General Benedict Arnold, “betraying great agitation and wrath” (he may have been drinking), entered the action. He led an attack on a British redoubt, then led an attack on a second redoubt, recklessly riding between the lines and emerging somehow unhurt. He led the charge through the gap between the redoubts and, despite a furious battle, took one of them. However, Arnold’s horse was hit in a final volley, and his left leg was broken by both the shot and the falling horse; thus he was carried back to headquarters in a litter. But his leg was crudely set (he wouldn’t allow it to be amputated), leaving it two inches shorter than his right leg. As a result, he limped the rest of his life, something that later gave him away, that is, identified him, as the man involved in treason.
Burgoyne had lost 1,000 men in the two battles, including some of his most effective officers, his forward line was breached, his attempts to capture the American position had failed, and he was now outnumbered by about 3 to 1. On October 17, with his army surrounded, Burgoyne surrendered his army to the American commander, General Horatio Gates; his troops were kept in captivity until the end of the war. And thus Burgoyne’s failed campaign marked the major turning point of the Revolutionary War. Not only did the British acknowledge that “the courage and obstinacy with which the Americans fought were the astonishment of everyone,” but the American success brought in the foreign assistance (notably French) which contributed to the ultimate American victory. In response to Burgoyne’s surrender, Congress declared December 18, 1777, as a national day “for solemn Thanksgiving and praise”; it was our nation’s first official observance of a holiday under that name.
As a result of his heroic efforts in the battle of Saratoga, Benedict Arnold had his seniority restored (he had lost it after being passed over for promotion earlier in 1777), but his wounded leg kept him in bed for five months. Meanwhile, General Horatio Gates received a great deal of credit for the Saratoga victory, as being the commanding general of the greatest American victory in the war to date. This led to two burgeoning conspiracy plots: Gates may have conspired with others to replace George Washington as commander-in-chief (it didn’t work) – and Benedict Arnold, soured by the lack of immediate recognition by Washington of his abilities by an advance in rank, while serving as military governor of Philadelphia entered into treasonable correspondence with the British [see below]. However, eventually he received command of the fort at West Point on the Hudson River and, as we shall see, plotted to hand it over to the British.
The Great Chain: So now Benedict Arnold was commander of the fort and defenses at West Point, New York (future site of the U. S. Military Academy). Control of the Hudson River was strategically important to both the Americans and the British during the Revolutionary War because it allowed for watercraft, the major transportation of the day, to penetrate (with their cannons and troops) into the then northern heartland of the American colonies, separating New England from Pennsylvania and New Jersey and dividing in half the colony of New York, to say nothing of controlling the major port of New York City. (In October, 1777, the British, having captured Forts Montgomery and Clinton, had sailed upriver as far as Kingston, then the capital of New York, and burned its several hundred buildings to the ground.) At West Point the river narrowed and curved sharply and thus winds, tides, and currents shifted there, so that ships had to slow up and tack in order to navigate the passage, making them easy targets for guns stationed on the banks (nevertheless, American ships of the period, the nascent American navy, were neither of the size nor power of the British ships, but therefore were more maneuverable craft [remember the Spanish Armada?]). Cannons were placed in forts and artillery batteries on both sides of the river to attack ships as they slowed to maneuver the sharp curve.
In the spring of 1778, on the advice of Governor George Clinton of New York, a heavy chain supported by huge log rafts (in other words, a boom) was stretched across the Hudson River from West Point to Constitution Island to block British ships from traveling up the river. A second log boom, resembling a ladder in construction, was placed across the river about 100 yards downstream to absorb the impact of any ship attempting to breach the chain.
The chain had been constructed at the Sterling Iron Works in Warwick; when completed, the 600-yard chain contained iron links two feet in length, weighing between 140 and 180 pounds; in total (including swivels, clevises, and anchors), the chain weighed 65 tons. Carted to New Windsor, all was put together and floated down the Hudson to West Point in late April, being installed on April 30, 1778, by Captain Thomas Machin, an artillery officer and engineer. Each of the ends was anchored by log cribs filled with rocks, one at a small cove on the Hudson’s west bank and the other at Constitution Island. The West Point side was protected by the Chain Battery (of which something remains at West Point’s “Flirtation Walk”) and the Constitution Island side was protected by the Marine Battery. A system of pulleys, ropes, and anchors helped adjust the chain’s tension to overcome the river currents and changing tides. (Until 1783, the chain was removed in winter and reinstalled in spring in order to avoid destruction by ice, which, by itself, would prevent ships from coming upriver in winter.)
In any case, the British navy never attempted to breach the chain (although Benedict Arnold had suggested to them that “a well-loaded ship could break the chain”). After the war, parts of the Great Chain were saved for posterity, others being melted down. Thirteen links are displayed at Trophy Point at West Point, one each for the thirteen colonies (by then states). A section of the boom is displayed at Washington’s Headquarters at Newburgh, New York. But beware! In the 1890s and later, John C. Abbey and, later, munitions dealer Francis Bannerman of Pollopel’s Island Arsenal in the Hudson River (an impressively romantic castle now in ruins – it blew up when the munitions stored there caught on fire) sold counterfeit “Great Chain chain links” to collectors and museums. Most of those out there as monuments are these latter fakes.
Treason!: Needless to say, Benedict Arnold was a bad actor: although in his army career he had distinguished himself by acts of intelligence and bravery, he repeatedly claimed that he was being passed over for promotion by the Continental Congress (this might very well have been true, given his temperament), and that other officers were being given credit for some of his accomplishments (General Gates and the Battle of Saratoga are an example). On the other hand, a number of his fellow officers and political acquaintances accused him of corruption and other nefarious activities, but formal inquiries usually acquitted him (Washington favored him). However, when Congress investigated his finances, it determined that he was indebted to Congress and that he had borrowed money heavily to maintain a lavish lifestyle.
After Saratoga, and after he had recovered somewhat from his leg wound, Arnold returned to the Continental Army at Valley Forge; there he (along with many others) took the first recorded Oath of Allegiance, swearing loyalty to the United States. When the British withdrew from Philadelphia in June of 1778, Washington appointed Benedict Arnold the military commander of the city. This was a definite and serious misstep by Washington: it was a rich and politically divided city, and Arnold many times had shown his tendency to become embroiled in disputes, as well as showing a general lack of political sense. The position needed tact, patience, and fairness in this city recently marked by months of enemy occupation – and Arnold had none of these.
In point of fact, Arnold lived extravagantly in Philadelphia and engaged in a variety of business activities by which he hoped to capitalize financially on war-related supply movements. Charges were brought against him in public; however, as a prominent figure on the social scene, Arnold avoided scandal – then. But during the summer of 1778, he met Peggy Shippen, the 18-year-old daughter of a Philadelphia judge, a Loyalist sympathizer (very Tory) who had done business with the British while they occupied the city. During that time Peggy had been courted by one British Major John Andre; nevertheless, she married Benedict Arnold on April 8, 1779, though she and her circle of friends managed to stay in contact (often through paramours) across battle lines, even though the military banned communications with the enemy. And there lay trouble.
Having lost his pre-war business in Connecticut, Arnold was very bitter. Convicted of minor charges of using his authority to make a profit, General Washington gave him a light reprimand, but it heightened Arnold’s sense of betrayal by the one senior officer in the Continental Army who genuinely liked Arnold and respected his military abilities. Therefore, Arnold privately opened negotiations with the British military.
And essential to what eventually transpired, Benedict Arnold’s wife, Peggy Shippen, had a significant role in the treason plot. She came from a loyalist family in Philadelphia, had many ties to the British, was a conduit for information to them, and she exerted a powerful influence over her husband. As a result, in May, 1779, Arnold proposed his services to the British General Sir Henry Clinton through a Philadelphia merchant, Joseph Stansbury, who was introduced by William Franklin (the last colonial governor of New Jersey and the son of Benjamin Franklin), to Major John Andre, who was now in charge of the British spy network. Thus began a secret correspondence between Benedict Arnold and Major Andre (often using Peggy Shippen as intermediary), which led to Benedict Arnold’s change of sides. [For a quick resume of this story, see the 1955 movie The Scarlet Coat, starring Cornel Wilde and Michael Wilding.]
Shortly after Benedict Arnold’s attaining the command of West Point (August 3, 1780), he received a letter through Major Andre, wherein the British General Clinton offered Arnold 20,000 pounds for his treason. Arnold’s letters continued to reveal Washington’s movements and to provide information about the French reinforcements. Further, Arnold’s command at West Point gave him control over the entire Hudson River; he therefore began systematically weakening West Point’s defenses, never ordering needed repairs on the “Great Chain” [see above]; he also drained West Point’s military supplies, selling them on the “black market” for personal gain.
Meanwhile, on September 20, 1780, Major Andre headed up the Hudson River on the British sloop-of-war Vulture. Its presence was discovered the following morning by two American privates, John Peterson and Moses Sherwood, who promptly fired on it with rifle and musket. Then they headed to Fort Lafayette to alert their commander, Colonel James Livingston, and to request cannon and ammunition. While they were gone, a small boat furnished by Arnold was steered to the Vulture by Joshua Hett Smith (neither he nor his oarsmen suspected treason); it picked up Major Andre and landed him on shore. After the Americans had left the scene, Benedict Arnold and Major John Andre finally met, Arnold having brought an extra horse for Andre’s use. The two men conferred in the woods below Stony Point on the west bank of the Hudson [now part of Hook Mountain State Park], and then they retired to Joshua Hett Smith’s house [now called the Treason House] at West Haverstraw, New York.
However, the two American privates, Peterson and Sherwood, who had gone for military assistance, returned to the river on the morning of September 22 and launched a two-hour cannonade on the Vulture, hitting it many times and forcing it to retreat back down the river. This action left British Major Andre stranded on shore in American-held territory.
At the Joshua Hett Smith house, Benedict Arnold had supplied Major Andre with civilian clothes and a passport which allowed him to travel under the alias of John Anderson. Andre also had six papers written by Arnold hidden in his stocking that showed the British how to take the fort at West Point. On the morning of September 23, Andre, riding back to the British and safety in New York City, was stopped outside Tarrytown by three armed American militiamen (John Paulding, Isaac Van Wart, and David Williams). Andre, thinking they were Tories because one was wearing a Hessian soldier’s coat, told them he was a British officer who must not be detained, and they, to his surprise, told him they were Continentals and that he was their prisoner. Andre then said he was really an American officer and showed them his passport, but their suspicions had been aroused. They searched him and found Benedict Arnold’s papers in his stocking. Of the three American soldiers, only Paulding could read, but, realizing that Andre was a spy, he took him to Continental Army headquarters [at today’s Armonk, New York]; Andre finally admitted who he was.
General George Washington was duly informed of the situation by Lieutenant Colonel John Jameson, who sent the papers found on Andre to Washington, but Jameson, unwilling to believe that Arnold, his commanding general, could be guilty of treason, also sent a note about the situation to Arnold. Arnold received the note at breakfast with his officers, made an excuse to absent himself, and was not seen again, having been given time to escape to the British. When Washington arrived at West Point an hour later, he found its fortifications neglected, and eventually learning of Arnold’s treason, he sent men to arrest Arnold, but Benedict Arnold was gone. Major Andre received a military trial by American senior officers, who eventually condemned him to death. Hoping to be shot by a firing squad (as befitted a gentleman), Andre was nevertheless hanged as a spy, placing the noose around his own neck.
Aftermath: Benedict Arnold was pursued by an American army that included the Marquis de Lafayette, who was under orders to hang Arnold summarily if he was captured. The British gave the turncoat Arnold a brigadier general’s commission, and in December he led a British force into Virginia, capturing Richmond by surprise and destroying supplies, foundries, and mills throughout Virginia until Lord Cornwallis took over the army. When Arnold learned of the British surrender at Yorktown, his request to go to England was granted, and he and his family sailed in December, 1781. In London, Arnold’s attempts to gain positions in the government or in the British East India Company failed, he was reduced to non-wartime service pay, and his reputation suffered due to his treason. In 1801 his health began to decline; he died after four days of delirium on June 14, 1801, at the age of 60. He was buried at St. Mary’s Church, Battersea, but his remains were later removed to an unmarked mass grave during church renovations a century later.
On the other hand, Major Andre’s mother and three sisters were rewarded a pension by the British, his brother William Andre was made a baronet in his honor, and in 1821, at the behest of the Duke of York (an uncle of the future Queen Victoria), Major Andre’s remains, originally buried under the gallows in America, were removed to England and, under a marble monument depicting Britannia mourning alongside the British lion, were reburied – in Westminster Abbey!
Monument to a Leg: And so we come to the interesting conclusion of this dubious saga, of which I present a photograph (taken by me) below. Benedict Arnold [were Eggs Benedict named for eggs thrown at the traitor’s name, after the event?] has forever been infamously immortalized as the ultimate treasonous American. Yet he was, admittedly, the hero of the turning point of the Revolutionary War, namely, the Battle of Saratoga [see above], which brought our country into existence. For the obvious reason, despite all of the various monuments erected on the Saratoga battlefield (as was the custom of the times), none was raised to General Benedict Arnold – initially. But in 1887, one John Watts de Peyster, a former major general in the New York State Militia during the Civil War, and writer of several military histories about the Battle of Saratoga, decided to erect a monument to honor Benedict Arnold’s contribution to America’s victory. Now Arnold had been wounded in the foot during the Battle of Quebec, was further injured in the Battle of Ridgefield when his horse was shot out from under him, and suffered his final battle injury at Saratoga, where the leg wound he received in his left leg left him limping for life and ended his career as a fighting soldier. Thus de Peyster chose to erect the monument at Saratoga to Benedict Arnold’s wounded left leg, never mentioning Arnold by name. The inscription on the monument reads: “Erected 1887 by John Watts de Peyster Brev: Maj: Gen: S.N.Y. 2nd V. Pres’t Saratoga Mon’t Ass’t’n: In memory of the ‘most brilliant soldier’ of the Continental Army who was desperately wounded on this spot the sally port of Burgoynes Great Western Redoubt 7th October, 1777 winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution and for himself the rank of Major General.” As such, it is often called “the Boot Monument.” (An apocryphal story, often retold, says that when Benedict Arnold was leading British forces against his former countrymen in Virginia, he asked an American prisoner what the Americans would do with him if they captured him. The answer was “They will cut off the leg which was wounded when you were fighting so gloriously for the cause of liberty, and bury it with the honors of war, and hang the rest of your body on a gibbet.”). And thereby hangs – and ends – this tale.
The Saratoga Battlefield on a grim morning.
Remains of the Great Hudson River Chain as a memorial at West Point.
Monument to a Leg: The sole commemoration of Benedict Arnold's heroism at Saratoga.
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