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No figure in American history has been, and still is, more reviled. Yet, it is noW clear that the nation’s debt to him can never be paid. And the complexities of modern society make it most improbable that a debt of , equal magnitude will ever again accrue to a single sailor.
Not many people think of Benedict Arnold as a sailor.
In the strict sense of the word, of course, he was not. But he most certainly was an accomplished seaman. More than that, he was a designer and shipbuilder of genuine talent.
How he became such is shrouded in the vagueness of time and sparse records. Bat what he did with his nautical talents is not disputed.
Alfred Thayer Mahan, the great naval historian, has expressed it succinctly:
When Benedict Arnold on Lake Champlain by vigorous use of small means obtained a year’s delay for the colonists, he compassed the surrender of Burgoyne in 1777.
This latter “decisive event” of the Revolutionary War, says Mahan, “was due to Arnold’s previous action.”
Claude Van Tyne in his War of Indepen' dence, American Phase makes it stronger:
Arnold had fought and would fight again in bigger battles, but never for bigger stakes. It was the American cause that was saved that day [on Lake Champlain], Had Ticonderoga been taken and held that winter, Burgoyne’s campaign of 1777 would have certainly succeeded.
There is no particular point in reviewing Benedict Arnold’s treason in detail. It is too well known.
In the autumn of 1780, while commanding the important fortress of West Point, Arnold undertook to deliver that post over to the British. His plot was discovered. Arnold fled to a British warship anchored in the Hudson, leaving his glamorous young wife—socialite | Peggy Shippen of Philadelphia—and an in' ) fant son behind.
Major John Andre, a popular and gifted young English officer who had been working
°n the plan with Arnold, was apprehended and subsequently hanged as a spy.
Arnold went to England, was joined there bY his family, and spent the remaining 20 years of his life in a series of generally unsuc- eessful and disheartening ventures—all the '''bile, apparently, being consumed by the acid of his own tarnished image.
The significant point here, however, is not 111 connection with Arnold’s infamy, but with bis motivations and character.
Why did he do what he did? How did he become what he was?
Historians and story-tellers do not agree. Moreover, they are split not into merely two Camps; they are divided into many, with Multiple variations of theme and theory.
Until recent times, the most widely held view of Arnold’s treachery was that it hemmed from excessive ambition, jealousy, avarice, resentment over shabby treatment °y the Continental Congress, and an inability to get along with some of his peers and superiors. But this view, which crystallized Mainly through the interpretations of unsympathetic historians of the 19 th century, is n<nv rather seriously questioned.
The late Kenneth Roberts, among the best °* all American historical novelists, was one °1 those whose careful research would not P^mit him to accept the “bitterness” motive 0r Arnold’s acts. Roberts, summed up his view of Arnold in the book Rabble in Arms:
Benedict Arnold was a great leader, a great general; a great mariner; the most brilliant soldier of the Revolution. Patriotism burned m him like an unquenchable flame. But of all bis brave and patriotic deeds, the one he was surest would, in the end, be most useful to his c°untry, was, I truly believe, the tragic step that branded him forever with the name of traitor.
The danger of being wrecked by an uncontrolled Congress had been foreseen by many men by Washington, by Franklin, by Ar- Uold, by Silas Deane and scores of other ptttericans, as well as by Englishmen and renchmen. Repeatedly we had been on the ^erge of military destruction; and that, too, ad been admitted by Washington and
Deane and Franklin and others. But where so many leaders anticipated defeat and chaos, and the ultimate tyranny of the French, yet felt themselves unable to avert that end, Arnold, on becoming convinced of it, laid plans to avert it.
He had been the first to insist upon the value of Ticonderoga, Crown Point and St. John’s in 1775, and to plan their capture. He was the first to foresee the possibility of taking Quebec, and it was by his planning that the heroic march was made. It was he who foresaw the need of a fleet to stop the British; and he who planned the fleet and the battle that it fought. It was he who comprehended the need of a stronger American navy and the way in which it might be obtained, though his proposals were ignored. It was he who planned the sudden march that turned St. Leger back to Canada; he who with Kosciusko chose the battleground on which to make a stand against Burgoyne; he whose leadership dealt the blows that wrecked the schemes of England. Every military move he made was planned with masterly skill.
Knowing all this, I say it was impossible for Arnold, the brilliant soldier, the planner of campaigns, to formulate a sudden angry plan that might have boiled from the addled brain of any spleeny child or shrewish woman—a plan inspired, as the ignorant believe, only by revenge, and with no object save to betray. If he sought to give everything to England until we had regained our strength, it was done to fight a greater threat than England.
It was, Roberts believed, the likelihood of France gobbling up a weak and divided America which motivated Arnold’s treason. Right or wrong, no one has spent more time or energy on trying to unravel the Arnold mystery than did Roberts.
Philip Vail, who wrote a book about Arnold in 1963, The Twisted Saber, confirms the problem:
Seven years ago when I moved to Southwestern Connecticut, I developed an interest in Benedict Arnold. I was living in “Arnold Country” and when I found that many residents of the area resented the man and his deed as strongly as though he had died only recently, I began to study his life and career in earnest. As I read books and documents, pamphlets and the accounts of his contemporaries, the enigma of the man became more baffling. It was—and still is—impossible to answer questions definitely.
The strange welter of contradictions which still surrounds Arnold the traitor applies equally to Arnold the man and Arnold the seaman.
Indeed, there are times as one goes through the various writings when it becomes difficult to believe that the subject is one and the same person. Historians and the so-called biographers of Arnold cannot even agree on what the man looked like. It is easy to find half-a-dozen different descriptions of the color of his hair, his eyes, and his general facial characteristics.
Only two physical attributes of Arnold are agreed upon. He was stocky and an exceptional athlete.
The most likely figure of Arnold that emerges from all reports is one of a physically restless man, about five feet eight or nine inches, broad-shouldered and muscular, yet wiry, with a swarthy complexion and light blue eyes; he was dark haired with a somewhat hard face, thin-lipped, and long-nosed.
This does not jibe too well with other descriptions of Arnold which, by turn, attribute to him a sort of bulldog visage, or as having eyes which were “deep blue” or “violet” or “snapping black,” or a “thin hooked” nose, or as being extremely short and weighing over 200 pounds, or as having a florid countenance.
It does not jibe either with the only generally known portrait of Arnold done by a contemporary. This picture shows him narrow-shouldered, somewhat pudgy, with a bulbous-eyed kind of petulance and double chins. But the artist is unknown and it is doubtful if he saw much, if anything, of Arnold, let alone painted him from life. At the time when the picture presumably was done, 1776, Arnold was a very busy young man of 35. In recent months he had led the incredibly difficult march on Quebec from the Maine seacoast, fought at Montreal, had been twice wounded, was hard put to find food for his troops, and at the same time he was planning to build a fleet with which to fight the British on Lake Champlain. The year before, Arnold, with Ethan Allen, had captured Ticonder- oga—and then sailed up the Lake to take St.
John’s and such British ships as then were based there. It is difficult to imagine him looking like the soft, paunchy dandy in the picture while leading the rugged life he did.
Moreover, such descriptions do not quite fit Arnold’s known capabilities. He was ad' mittedly a superb runner, jumper, skater, gymnast, and horseman. A soft, chunky 200- pounder does not entertain his troops hv jumping over ammunitions wagons, or by turning handsprings on the quarterdeck. Nor does he lead an expedition through a thousand miles of wilderness in the late months of the year without losing a few pounds.
The only verified likeness of Arnold 111 existence is a black and white profile drawing (reproduced on page 80) done at Philadelph13 some years later by Andre’s friend, Pierre Eugene Du Simitiere. About all it discloses is a faintly aquiline nose and a strong jaw.
But if Arnold’s appearance is a matter o dispute, his basic nature is even more so.
Writers have managed to attribute to him 3 variety of characteristics, mostly uncompb" mentary. A quick temper, sensitive, proud> impulsive, greedy, quarrelsome, impetuous, selfish, thoughtless.
Much of this view appears to be caricature based on Arnold’s differences with such ®en as Ethan Allen and General Horatio GateSj his outspoken criticism of Congress and some of the state governments, his unorthodox methods of rounding up supplies and what ever materials were necessary for the job 3t hand, and, of course, his treason.
But, it can scarcely be the whole truth.
The facts do not bear it out. Yet, the tren continues. For example, British author La11 ran Paine, in his recent (1956) treatise °n Arnold, seems to perpetuate it when he says- Never in Arnold’s violent and tumultuous life was he passive or philosophical about anything. It was this very intensity of spirit which lifted him to such heights, then brought him low in infamy . . . and yet this trait ... is not unique among men of vision, great courage and passionate conviction.
Certainly Arnold was not passive, and be had vision and courage. He was probably 111 tense at times. But his own writings, as well 3s actions, indicate a character that was far froII| being thoughtless, hasty, ill-considered, ban3 or self-centered; indeed, the reverse is evident-
The scene taught its lesson. He too became a merchant, a shipowner. He went further. He commanded his own ships and made many prosperous voyages, fairly earning the title of “captain.”
Of young Benedict, Todd adds:
His education was furthered, it is probable, by trading voyages with his father in which he gained that knowledge of seamanship which he afterwards used to such advantage—although we have no proof of the fact.
Then, according to Todd, after the death of the father and before Arnold opened his drug-and-book business in New Haven, he made several voyages to the West Indies as supercargo and one to London.
Other historians have different stories. Some allege that Arnold captained his own brig in trade between New England ports and the Maritime Provinces of Canada.
Paine says that Arnold made but one voyage with his father and refers to his later exploits on Lake Champlain as those of a “landlubber . . . [who] . . . became the United States’ first admiral.”
Malcom Decker in Benedict Arnold, Son of the Havens, gives a considerably more dramatic account of Arnold’s nautical background. He reports that Arnold, in keeping with a
His military undertakings were planned with consummate skill and executed the same Way. His administrations were efficient, his logistical management—perhaps the most hying of all jobs at the time—was effective. He was one of the very few who understood the importance of communications and tim- lng. And his personal leadership of men was Without parallel on the field of action.
Arnold was, in short, the brightest jewel in Washington’s entire military diadem—and Washington knew it. The respect and affec- hon which such men as Washington, Schuy- for, Hamilton, Warren, Deane, and others fxhibited for Arnold over and over again is, 11 Would seem, in itself sufficient proof of a remarkable man.
In a more personal vein, while Arnold always had his enemies, they seemed to evolve "tore from conflicts of interests and actions than from conflicts of personality. Many disliked him for things he did but few for what he He was a devoted family man, a success- *U1 business man, a loyal and generous friend Who helped educate the children of others less fortunate than he. He drank little (his father having set a rather bad example in this matter) and philandered not at all.
Why, then, has history so often delineated Arnold in entirely different terms? Even the Sentle and convivial Washington Irving, who lived and died near the spot where Andre was fPprehended, has contributed to the darker image of Arnold.
How did Arnold acquire his seamanship? In general it is known that he came from a amily active in overseas trade. His grand- ather, who had been governor of Rhode ;sland, had engaged in merchanting. His ather was more involved. Charles B. Todd, in f Real Benedict Arnold, describes a scene witnessed by Arnold’s father:
It is doubtful if Arnold’s treason has been foe sole cause of this trend. There must have keen something more. Yet, Roberts is con- vmced that Arnold was a man too busy with foe future to look back or harbor old resentments. No trait was stronger in Arnold, according to Roberts, than his willingness to let bygones be bygones—precisely the opposite View from that held by many commentators, Past and present.
devil-mav-care spirit, “muscled in” on the “New Haven corsairs” with considerable success—dealing in foodstuffs, rum and molasses. Arnold, he declares, spent “two years of this plying sail-wise, hither and yon, into unmentionable Carib ports.” And he characterizes Arnold as a kind of reincarnation “sprung from a Drake or a Hawkins—those strenuous hounds of Elizabeth.”
It is interesting to note, regardless of the truth of this gaudy comment about Arnold, that Washington and his chief-of-staff, Henry Knox, did have financial interests in privateering.
One thing seems certain. At the time of the Battle of Lexington in April 1775, Arnold “was possessor of an elegant house, storehouses, wharves and vessels at New Haven.” Such was the testimony elicited in later legal proceedings when it became necessary to establish the value of Arnold’s property prior to involvement in the war.
But whether Arnold was, in fact, a landlubber or a latter-day Drake, he knew ships
Broivn Brothers
and, what is equally as important, he knew how to build them.
If it is not possible to know exactly where he acquired these skills, neither is it difficult to surmise.
As a boy Arnold was quick, daring, outgoing, and inquisitive. He may also have been, as some assert, reckless and impertinent. But there seems little doubt that he learned rapidly and was interested in all active pursuits. He was born on 14 January 1741 in Norwich, Connecticut, at the headwaters of the Thames, and lived near the water most of his life. Undoubtedly, he picked up a goon deal of knowledge just poking around seaport areas.
Arnold’s father, in his early life, had been a cooper by trade. It also seems likely that, as he ventured into the merchant business, the elder Arnold learned many of the skills of the shipwright which could easily have been passed on to young Benedict.
Finally, when Arnold moved to New Haven at age 21 to set up in business for himself; there is some evidence that he may have lived for a number of years near a shipyard' Given Arnold’s intelligence, curiosity, alld seagoing interests—it is not unreasonable to suspect him of spending many hours at the ways, communicating with the carpenters; shipwrights, and sailing masters who clustere about the Connecticut shore.
It is equally reasonable to suppose that Arnold was acquainted with all sorts of sail!11? vessels and rigging. His father, according 10 Willard Wallace in Traitorous Hero (1954/ employed “sloops and schooners,” wh*e Roberts suggests that Arnold himself was extensively familiar with the brig and lts varying forms of gear.
To understand why there are those wh° feel that Arnold was indispensable to the creation of an independent America, h lS necessary to understand the military sitt'a tion in 1776.
Arnold himself was alternately harry!11!/ the British forces in Canada and trying tot keep his own meager forces out of a prisoners stockade during the first five or six mom of the year. At about this time, the Britis1’ who had found the going in the Boston arca somewhat untenable, decided on a new Gran
Strategy. Sir William Howe, who had replaced General Gage, would move on from Boston and take New York City. Another army under General “Gentleman Johnny” llurgoyne would reinforce Sir Guy Carleton Montreal. Howe would move up the Hud- s°n- Burgoyne would come down Lake Champlain and Lake George. Colonel Barry St. Leger with a third detachment would 111 °ve east through the Mohawk Valley. The three would converge at Albany. New Ragland would be cut off from the other Colonies and the revolution crushed.
It was a good plan basically. It almost
w°rked.
The Americans on the other hand had nothing save a few sloops and flatboats, little money, no ship timber, no naval stores, no billed shipwrights, no guns, no munitions. To add to their fleet they must cut timber in the neighboring forest and shape it into ships. Everything else must come from the Atlantic seaboard over the almost impassable roads of the wilderness.
Howe moved his troops to New York in June and occupied the city. Washington, 'Vlth intelligence from Arnold and Schuyler, aad seen through the strategy at once. He tuoved to meet Howe.
Arnold, meanwhile, had secured authority rom Washington to do what he could to stop the advance of the British from Canada. It '|as at this point that Arnold conceived, ^signed, arranged for, and oversaw the evelopment of America’s first fleet—and subsequently commanded its first fleet action.
The British, who could advance southward °nly by controlling Lake Champlain, were Pitting together a fleet, including a large r1*P> at the lake’s northern terminal of St. John’s. Arnold had abandoned St. John’s in June, taking with him the three vessels that c or Montgomery had captured on the lake Ue previous fall; these consisted of a sloop, a Schooner, and a ketch. Between them these ^ssels had 32 guns, the largest being four 'Pounders on the schooner.
And that was it.
The British had materials, skilled manner, and energetic leadership. Todd is exPressive on the plight of the opposition.
But Arnold managed it. Todd says:
Let us see what he did in this feat of making
brick without straw. He was not himself a shipwright; it is not probable he could muster a ship’s carpenter in his whole force who had served a regular apprenticeship. Tools, sails, shrouds, iron-work, guns, munitions must be hauled and boated from Albany with infinite labor; and then his men must go into the forests, chop down the trees, hew them to the proper shape and length and put them together in the semblance of ships.
The truth is that Arnold bullied and cajoled money and materials from Schuyler, cannon and armament from Ticonderoga, carpenters and shipwrights from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine. And he designed the vessels he wanted himself—most importantly, galleys on which he could count should the winds on Champlain be too little or blowing the wrong way. It may be that the design of some of the British vessels was also the product of his mind.
Howard Chapelle, the eminent nautical authority of the Smithsonian Institution, writes:
Arnold seems to have had a great deal of interest in the St. Lawrence vessels [those used earlier by the Americans in their Canadian campaigns] and may have been responsible for their general design, as he was later for the gondolas and galleys on Lake Champlain.
Most of the actual ship drawings in existence today are those made by the British after the Champlain action. Yet Arnold’s hand in their construction is authenticated, and some of his drafts exist. Chapelle, in describing the recovered gondola Philadelphia, speaks of “Arnold’s specifications for gondolas,” and says “Arnold called for the floor timbers to be spaced 18" on centers.” He adds that “Arnold intended the gondolas to have a 4" deadrise and rocker. The Philadelphia seems to be spiked throughout, while Arnold expected to half trunnel and half spike.”
It is also a matter of record that Arnold, over the objections of various commanders, insisted on the construction of four galleys, the mobility of which, he believed, could compete with the British schooners. For the kind of battle that was later fought, he proved to be right.
At any rate, by late September, Arnold had accomplished a near miracle. With the help of the little shipyard on Wood Creek at
The definitive biography of Arnold remains to be written. But, it is doubtful that any words could capture the melancholy mood created by Howard Pyle’s painting of Arnold escaping to the fittingly named HMS Vulture.
Bettman Archive
Skenesborough [Whitehall], New York, he had assembled, according to Mahan, two schooners, one sloop, four galleys, and eight gondolas.[1]
In opposition, the British at St. John’s had one ship, two schooners, one heavy radeau, one gondola, and 20 gunboats. In terms of firepower the British outgunned the Americans by a ratio of better than two-to-one. Moreover, says Todd:
Arnold had never before maneuvered a fleet, and for captains and seaman must depend largely on landsmen, for gunners on men who had never seen artillery. The signals, maneuvers and evolutions of a fleet he must first learn himself and then teach his men.
Todd probably overstated the case. The English, too, were in strange waters and had never fought on the lake or in the kind of ships they had. Yet, it is undeniably true that Arnold, possessing common sense and cunning—plus, of course, a year’s experience in sailing on Lake Champlain—outfoxed his adversaries.
While not nearly so well known as Arnold’s treason, the Battle of Valcour Island is familiar to most history buffs and to all naval historians. An excellent recent account of it by Timothy W. Hubbard of the University of Missouri has appeared in the October 1966, issue of American Heritage. The battle will not be recounted here at length.
Nonetheless, it should be summarized to complete the nautical portrait of Arnold.
Valcour Island lies about halfway up Lake Champlain on its western side. A relatively narrow channel runs between it and the New York shore, and the island is so shaped that
those approaching from the north cannot see the southern entrance. Unless familiar wd1 the lake, one is unlikely to notice the channe and, in any event, cannot see over the island s bluffs while passing. These were facts 011 which Arnold counted.
He had taken soundings between Valcot>r and the western shore and had decided t0 make a stand there if necessary—depending on the size and nature of the British fleet' Early in October he assembled his ldd fleet, manned by 700 men, and anchored d in a rough crescent at the southern end 0 the Valcour channel. Then he himself saue north to bait the hook—to let the Britis see him and know they had opposition wad ing. Once seen, Arnold tantalizingly sade south, disappeared from the English vie"’’ and rejoined his fleet.
There was then held, around 9 October one of history’s most crucial strategic con ferences. Arnold summoned all his captains10 his galley, the Congress, to discuss the best way to fight the British. ,
For the most part, Arnold’s captains, ^ eluding his second in command, Gener Waterbury, wanted to venture out into oped
Water and engage the superior Englishmen ln a running, retreating battle toward the s°uth, eventually taking refuge beyond Crown Point. The argument was that the fleet would thus be generally preserved to fight again another day.
In one of the war’s momentous decisions, Arnold dissented—as Captain Mahan has stated, “with sounder judgment.”
There was only one reason for this fleet, Arnold insisted—to damage the enemy and delay him, to give the Americans time to counter the British thrust toward Albany from die north. The object of the action was not ^e preservation of the force—which was, as file World War II phrase later had it, expendable.
Arnold correctly estimated that the British Would wait for a stiff north wind before proceeding south to hunt him down. He counted °u their passing his fleet before discovering file American forces, knowing that only a few °I the British ships could beat back to windward. Then, to be sure the Americans would fie found and, to keep the thoughts of the firitish commanders, Captain Thomas Pringle and Sir Guy Carleton, diverted from the Possibility of waiting for a southerly wind before engaging, three American galleys and a ^cfiooner would sally forth, fire on the British and retreat to their line of anchorage to wait for the enemy to come within range.
This, at least, appears to be a more or less accepted view of Arnold’s reasoning.
In any case, it is precisely what happened °n 11 October—except that the American Schooner Royal Savage went aground trying t° regain her anchorage. Only four or five of the British vessels, not including the big ship n.flexible with her 18 12-pounders, were able t° return far enough to get into the fight that day for any length of time.
For five hours in the afternoon the two s’des slugged it out. The British lost one schooner, and several gunboats were lost or badly damaged. The Americans were in a far Worse fix, having lost a schooner, the big gon- °fu Philadelphia, which sank on the spot, and having sustained severe damage to two galleys, including Arnold’s. By nightfall, the ritish fleet anchored just south of Valcour, confidently expecting to see the surrender of ae Americans early the next morning.
They did not, as Hubbard says, reckon with “the seamanship and guile” of Arnold—• who was kissed by fortune that night in the form of a heavy, low-lying fog.
Arnold took advantage of it. With softly set sails, muffled oars, and a hooded lamp at each taffrail—which could be seen only by the ship behind—he tiptoed his little fleet through the British blockade.2 By daybreak, the Americans were seven miles south, still intending to fight but hoping eventually to reach the sanctuary of Crown Point, 35 miles away.
Most of them didn’t make it.
The astonished British recovered quickly enough to find them by noon, although the chagrined Governor Sir Guy Carleton weighed anchor so fast that he forgot to leave orders for the troops and Indians he had landed on Valcour and had to return to remedy the oversight. For the rest of that day and most of the next, the Americans were on the short end of a running, battering fight. Arnold’s own galley was run aground on the eastern shore of the lake and set afire—Arnold working his way south on foot to Grown Point, dodging hostile Indians as he went.
In three days Arnold had lost 10 of 15 vessels—one schooner, two galleys, and seven gondolas. About 80 men were lost and most of the remainder scattered. The British had
2 See L. J. Bolander, “Arnold’s Retreat from Valcour Island,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1929, pp. 1060-1062.
See also A. E, Gilligan, “The Battle of Valcour Island,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1967, pp. 157-160.
lost only about 40 men, but their fleet was damaged, severely in places, and they were in no shape or mood to serve as an effective van toward the capture of Crown Point and Ticonderoga. They made a few faint stabs at Ticonderoga, but by then the northern winter was on them, and they retired to St. John’s to hole up until the following spring. Mahan writes:
The little American navy on Champlain was wiped out; but never had any force, big or small, lived to better purpose or died more gloriously.
The little navy, he observes, was
. . . created by the indomitable energy and handled with the indomitable courage of the traitor, Benedict Arnold.
A year later Burgoyne moved south with his army and was met by a bolstered American force at Saratoga. Here, again, in two battles fought in September and October, Arnold was the general on the field who rallied the rebels to victory and caused the surrender of Burgoyne.
This, historians do agree, marked the turning of the war and guaranteed the creation of the United States.
The mystery and complexities of Arnold himself may never be resolved. But, until now, they seem to have been compounded mainly by those who have studied him or at least written about him—Sparks, Irving, Bancroft, Todd, Mahan, Roberts, and others. The authoritative work on Arnold, it would seem, remains to be done. But the tangible reminders of his perfidy are not nearly as many or as conspicuous as one might imagine. Probably the best biographical work to date has been done by Isaac Arnold (no relation) in 1880. He attempted to be fair* yet it never occurred to him to doubt many of the most damning characteristics attributed to Arnold by earlier, emotionally charged historians. And the author himself admittedly indulged in some fantasies.
For example, in attributing certain comments to Arnold during the West Point affair* he footnotes:
I need scarcely say I have no authority for the above dialogue, but every reader may judge for himself what degree of probability there is that it occurred. I mention this because for every fact stated without qualification, I have given the authority, or have had authority which I believed sufficient.
It seems a little strange, at this distance 1° time, that the man considered by his contemporaries as “the very best fighting general of the Revolutionary War”—without whom American independence could not have been born—is remembered almost exclusively f°r an abortive effort to trade that independence away. And, coincidentally, he is remembered not at all for his extraordinary feats of seamanship.
Have there ever been other indispensable seamen in American history? It is hard to think of one whose acts could not or would not have been contributed by someone else had he not been there. With Arnold this is not so. In his case, it was Arnold or nothing- If the Army, with reason, does not ordinarily single out the Connecticut seaman as one of its distinguished alumni, perhaps the Navy should.
Without Benedict Arnold it is by no means certain that there would ever have been an American Navy.
★
Modern Spelling?
A blue-and-gold sign spotted at the Naval Academy tennis courts next to the reserved parking for the Modern Languages building reads: “Courts reserved for use of USNA officers, civilian facluty, and dependents.”
-------------------------------------------- Contributed by Commander R. A. Holmes, III, U. S. Navy
1 See E. G. Farmer, “Skenesborough: Continental Navy Shipyard,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, October 1964, pp. 160-162.
A graduate of the University of Arizona, Mr. Yeager was Communications and Executive Officer of the USS Fogg (DE-57) and Executive Officer of the USS Riddle (DE- 185) during World War II. From 1946 to 1952, he was Editor of the Congressional Digest and took his law degree at George Washington University in 1953 while acting as Washington director of the Tufts University Systems Co-ordination Division at the Naval Research Laboratory. He is currently Counsel, Committee on Science and Astronautics, U. S. House of Representatives.