Benedict Arnold Escaped - Sept. 24, 1780

Benedict Arnold escaped on this day in 1780.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff You
Missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
the past one day at a time with a quick
look at what happened today in history. Hello and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson. And at September
Benedict Arnold escaped to an English ship after trying to

(00:24):
hand West Point over to the British on this day
in seventeen eighty. Benedict Arnold was born on January four,
seventeen forty one, and by the start of the American
Revolutionary War he was a businessman. He was also a smuggler,
which was increasingly common as the British put more and
more restrictions on trade to North America. He was also

(00:45):
active in the local militia, and he started out on
the side of the patriots fighting against the British monarchy
for the cause of a dependence. He served with Ethan
Allen in the campaign to capture Fort Ticonderoga and the
cannons that were stored there. Then General George Washington gave
him the mission of capturing Quebec while the attack on

(01:05):
Fort Ticonderoga had been successful. The attack on Quebec was not,
and Arnold was seriously wounded in the process. His first
wife also died in the middle of all of this,
and that might have been a contributing factor to why
he just really threw himself into military service. Benedict Arnold
distinguished himself in seventeen seventy six with the creation of
a flotilla on Lake Champlain that attacked the British fleet

(01:29):
that was gathering there. This didn't destroy the British fleet,
but it did derail their plans to mount an attack,
so ultimately it was a big win for the Patriots.
He was also, though, really impetuous and rash in a
way that frustrated the other officers. He picked a lot
of fights. At one point he was accused of theft.

(01:49):
And this behavior wasn't just within the army, and it
wasn't just with other officers. His friends also knew him
to be a pretty squabbly hothead. In seventeen seventy seven,
Benedict arnold relationship to the army and to the Patriot
cause really started to sour. That year, Congress established several
new major generalships and Arnold really thought one of them

(02:10):
should be his. After all, he had distinguished himself repeatedly,
both with Ethan Allen and with that flotilla on Lake
Champlain other activities as well. But someone who was junior
to him was promoted and he was passed over. Arnold
nearly left the army over this, but General Washington convinced
him to stay on. Arnold was finally promoted later, but

(02:34):
he still didn't have seniority over the people who had
been promoted ahead of him and were really junior to
him in his mind and the grand scheme of things.
He nearly left once again. Once again was convinced to stay,
but he became even more resentful. He was seriously wounded
at the Battle of Saratoga in seventeen seventy seven. Afterwards,

(02:55):
he was sent to Philadelphia. He was going to be
the military governor there. He arrived in seventeen seventy eight.
While he was there, he ran a foul of Attorney
Joseph Reed, who started an investigation into Arnold's behavior. This
ultimately led to a court martial that dragged on and
on for years through repeated delays. A lot of those
delays orchestrated by Joseph Reed. While in Philadelphia, Arnold also

(03:19):
got married to Peggy Shipping. She was from a very
prominent family. Descriptions are a little all over the place
about them. Some refer to them as active loyalists. Others
say that they weren't exactly loyalists, but they weren't in
favor of the patriots more radical tactics. Regardless, though, he
was thirty seven and she was eighteen, and that relationship

(03:39):
does seem to have influenced his behavior. From here, he
also started making connections in Philadelphia with other loyalist families,
and by May of seventeen seventy nine, motivated by all
these ongoing frustrations with the American military and with this
ongoing court martial and his own mounting debts, he had
started reaching out of the British. He was passing them

(04:02):
information about the Patriots War effort. In June of seventeen seventy,
Benedict Arnold was given command of the fort at West Point.
He tried to turn it over to the British for
twenty thousand pounds. That failed. Arnold's contact with the British military,
Major John Andrea was captured and Arnold fled, leaving Andrea
to hang, which did not do his reputation and he

(04:24):
favors among the British. It was in the midst of
all this that Arnold escaped on September eighty. Colonel John
Brown of Massachusetts had actually alleged that Arnold was showing
a tree's in a streak all the way back in
seventeen seventy six during the Battle of Fort Takondarogo, but
it wasn't heated. Apart from a brief stint as a privateer,
ben Arnold spent most of the rest of his life

(04:46):
in London, and he died there on June fourteenth of
eighteen o one. Today his name is just synonymous with
traders in the United States. You can learn more about
Benedict Arnold's service with Ethan Allen on the September twenty
nine and October one, twenty fourteen episodes of Stuffy Myth
and History Class. Thanks to Christopher Hasciotis for his research
on today's episode, and thanks to Tari Harrison for her

(05:08):
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