Benedict Arnold: Soldier, Hero, Traitor II Quiz

Answer: After the battle, both sides retreated

For the Battle of Ridgefield, Arnold was forced to team up with his old Canadian nemesis, David Wooster, who was now serving as a major general of militia after the disaster when he replaced Arnold at Quebec. In what started as little more than a raid but turned into a sharp conflict, Arnold and Wooster's troops hit the much larger British force hard, causing the British to retreat to the ocean.

However, Wooster was killed, Arnold's troops took many casualties, and Arnold himself was injured when his horse, after being shot, fell on his wounded leg. Arnold had no choice but to retreat with his troops back to New York instead of continuing the attack, making this a rare battle that caused both sides to retreat afterward.

Answer: He tricked the enemy into believing that he had over 3,000 soldiers

Arnold knew that the prior relief column had been ambushed by loyalists and Indians, with casualties estimated at over 50%. He was determined to avoid the same fate, although his force was about the same size. Therefore, he "convinced" a local loyalist (by taking his brother hostage) to cross enemy lines and warn the British that Arnold was approaching with over 3,000 troops.

He then sent three Iroquois across enemy lines with the same message. The weight of the four messages persuaded the Indians, who made up about half of the besiegers, that Arnold's force would overwhelm them, and they ran.

When their British allies tried to stop them, the Indians turned on them, with devastating effect. At that point, the rest of the British troops had no choice but to withdraw, and so Arnold relieved the fort without even firing a shot.

Answer: He omitted any mention of Arnold

Although Arnold was the hero of both the first Battle of Saratoga (also known as the Battle of Freeman's Farm) AND the second Battle of Saratoga (also known as the Battle of Bemis Heights), Gates never mentioned Arnold's presence on the field in EITHER battle in his official dispatches. In fact, Gates implied in his dispatches that he personally had led the American troops, although he actually never left his headquarters either time.

Arnold planned to go back to Philadelphia and seek reassignment from Washington, but then every officer in the northern army subordinant to Gates (excepting Benjamin Lincoln, the officer Gates appointed to replace Arnold) signed a letter to Arnold pleading with him to stay. As a result, Arnold stayed with the army but technically had command over no part of it.

Answer: Rifle

At the time of the Revolutionary War, rifles were huge, awkward and uncommon. Although rifling the barrel made a gun much more accurate, it was considered impossible to do in a small gun, and so soldiers used smoothbore muskets. Morgan's soldiers, though, were largely backwoodsmen who were comfortable lugging around an oversized weapon. Arnold had a great respect for their skill and used them to take out the British officers and the flanking British troops at Saratoga, increasing the disarray among the British, who were shocked by their accuracy.

Answer: He was shot in the leg again and suffered permanent injury

At the very end of the battle, as Arnold was leading the charge that shattered the fortified British defensive line, he was again shot in his injured leg. Then, his horse fell on the leg, breaking it. After the British lines broke, Arnold was still trying to round up additional troops to finish the British off, despite his injury, when he received orders from General Gates to confine himself to his headquarters.

This was Arnold's third injury to the same leg, and it nearly led to amputation. As a result, he was in the hospital when the British surrendered, which led to General Gates (who never left his headquarters during the battle, and whose official dispatches never acknowledged Arnold's presence or decisive role) being hailed throughout the northern colonies as a hero.

Answer: Neither Arnold's name nor likeness is included

The "Boot Monument" is a sculpture of Arnold's boot, located at the Berryman Redoubt, approximately where he was injured during the Battle of Bemis Heights. Although it was erected 100 years after the battle and 97 years after Arnold defected to the British, Arnold was still considered too controversial to be named or publicly identified on the memorial. Therefore, the dedication on the memorial honors "the most brilliant soldier of the Continental Army, who was desperately wounded on this spot" without ever directly mentioning Arnold or showing a likeness of him.

Arnold never led colonial troops in battle again.

Answer: Conway Cabal

The key figures in the Conway Cabal were Generals Conway, Gates, and Gates' adjutant James Wilkinson (who had been an aide to Arnold during the Arnold Expedition to Quebec before Arnold fired him in early 1776), although many others (including John Adams) were known to be sympathetic to them. Adams and his cronies had appointed Gates as head of the Board of War, which controlled the army for Congress, Wilkinson as the secretary to the Board, and Conway as Inspector General, reporting directly to the Board. Conway and Gates passed secret letters scheming against Washington, but a drunken Wilkinson revealed the scheme's existence, allowing Washington to force a showdown with Congress before the scheme was complete.

Since the army backed Washington, Conway was forced to resign his command, and Gates had to transfer to the southern theater, where his inept leadership produced the Battle of Camden, the biggest rebel disaster of the war. Wilkinson was later characterized by noted historian Frederick Jackson Turner as "the most consummate artist in treason that the nation ever possessed", but he remained in the U.S. Army until 1814 and retired a hero without ever winning a battle.

Answer: All of these happened

Arnold's two years as military governor of Philadelphia were the turning point in his life. Arnold met and married a young woman named Peggy Shippen, who was secretly anti-rebel and had made a number of friends among the British when they occupied Philadelphia in 1777-1778, including Major John André. Meanwhile, Arnold's enemies, having failed to get rid of Washington, once again had him court-martialed by Congress. This time he was convicted on two misedemeanor counts of misusing wagons and aiding a vessel in which he had a financial interest. Even Washington publicly castigated him. And so, with his wife's urging, Arnold initiated negotiations to defect to the British.

Surprisingly to Arnold, Washington then offered him command of the attack to drive the British out of New York City. Because Arnold had already passed information to the British as part of his negotiations, he realized that if he took this offer, the British would reveal his correspondence with them, so he turned it down, claiming that his injuries still pained him.

Answer: West Point

Arnold became the commander of West Point, which was the main obstacle to British navigation up the Hudson River. Control of West Point would largely reverse the stinging British defeat at Saratoga, and the British were eager to get it -- to the extent of using Major John André, the favored aide of British commander Henry Clinton and also a close friend to Arnold's wife Peggy, as the go-between with Arnold.

Unfortunately for Arnold, André was an inept spy. On September 23, 1780, he was captured by three looters, to whom he foolishly revealed he was a British officer (despite traveling with papers from Arnold identifying him as an American officer). When word of the spy's capture (but not his identity) reached West Point, it went first to post commander Arnold, who correctly deciphered what had happened and used the advance warning to flee down the Hudson to a waiting British ship. The British paid him £6,000 for his failure ... and gave him 200+ years of infamy as the leading traitor in world history.

Answer: St. John, New Brunswick

Although New Brunswick had largely been settled by Loyalists who sided with Britain during the Revolution, Arnold found that he was not much more popular with Loyalists than he was with the rebels. He was forced to sue a former partner for slander in 1790, and after a demonstration on his front lawn denouncing him as a traitor in 1791, he returned to England.

In 1794, the great French diplomat Tallleyrand wrote the following in his memoirs:

"The innkeeper at whose place I had my meals informed me that one of his lodgers was an American general. Thereupon I expressed the desire of seeing that gentleman, and, shortly after, I was introduced to him. After the usual exchange of greetings ... I ventured to request from him some letters of introduction to his friends in America.

"'No,' he replied, and after a few moments of silence, noticing my surprise, he added, 'I am perhaps the only American who cannot give you letters for his own country -- all the relations I had there are now broken -- I must never return to the States.'

"He dared not tell me his name. It was General Arnold. I must confess that I felt much pity for him, for which political puritans will perhaps blame me, but with which I do not reproach myself, for I witnessed his agony."