The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold: An American Life by Joyce Lee Malcolm

Author:Joyce Lee Malcolm [Malcolm, Joyce Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 18th Century, Biographies & Memoirs, Historical, History, Military, Revolutionary Period (1775-1800), United States
ISBN: 9781681777375
Google: D-k1swEACAAJ
Amazon: B077J83S3T
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2018-05-02T03:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Defending New York, Again

“He was dark-skinned, with black hair, and middling height; there wasn’t any waste timber in him; he was our fighting general, and a bloody fellow he was. He didn’t care for nothing; he’d ride right in. It was ‘Come on, boys’—‘t wasn’t ‘Go, boys.’ He was as brave a man as ever lived.”

—An old soldier who fought alongside Arnold

at Bemis Heights, Isaac Newton Arnold, p. 29.

The chilly nights and spreading splashes of gold and red leaves warned Gentleman Johnny that New York’s brief summer was coming to an end, and with it his chances of success. Like Carleton before him, he must conquer or retreat. But how could he return to Canada without a battle? Writing gloomily to Lord Germain on August 20 from his camp near Saratoga he listed the many reasons the campaign was now likely to fail. “When I wrote more confidently,” he explained, “I little foresaw that I was to be left to pursue my way through such a tract of country and hosts of forces, without any co-operation from New York.” In truth when he left Canada he felt relatively confident he could manage without such help, but now his troops were dwindling, his supplies likewise. He was marooned with little sense of where the other British armies were. Two messengers sent to Howe had been captured on their journey and hanged. He wrote Germain that Howe’s messengers to him had doubtless met the same painful end.1 As his expedition marched farther and farther south, he now realized what ought to have been obvious from the start, that manning the forts he captured “would fall to my share alone.” He was particularly concerned with holding Ticonderoga: “A dangerous experiment would it be to leave that post in weakness, and too heavy a drain it is upon the life-blood of my force to give it due strength.”2 Yet the fortress was essential to secure a line of retreat. And retreat might be necessary.

He also had new respect for the locals. Those living in the Hampshire Grants, present day Vermont whom he judged “the most active and most rebellious race of the continent,” were threatening “like a gathering storm upon my left.”3 As for the loyalists who, he had been assured, would join his troops in large numbers, few were willing, and with good reason he doubted the sincerity of those who did. Instead he was marooned in hostile country where most people favored the Congress “in principle and in zeal.” Wherever he moved, he complained, within twenty-four hours the militia mobilized to oppose him, then returned to their farms. Further, Schuyler’s scorched-earth policies had removed cattle and destroyed crops so successfully that he was constantly short of supplies. Burgoyne had little respect for General Gates, but he reckoned the “old midwife,” had a larger army than his and “as many militia as he pleases.”4

Burgoyne concluded his letter defensively: “I submit my actions to the breast of the King, and the candid judgment of

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