#223： Valiant Ambition in the American Revolution
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Summary
Two figures stand in stark contrast to each other. George washington and Benedict Arnold. In the American imagination, washington is elevated as an example of sterling character, while Arnold is ostracized to the seventh layer of Dante s hell. But what few Americans know is that the start of the War of Independence was actually a blundering general. While Washton was one of the colony s very best leaders, Arnold was a traitor.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast
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in the history of the american revolution two figures stand in stark contrast to each other
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george washington and benedict arnold in the american imagination washington is elevated
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as an example of sterling character while arnold is ostracized to the seventh layer of dante's hell
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but what few americans know is that the start of the war of independence washington was actually a
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blundering general while arnold was one of the colony's very best so how is it that washington
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transformed himself into one of america's greatest leaders while arnold ended up betraying his
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countrymen well that's what my guest today explores in his book valiant ambition george washington
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benedict arnold and the fate of the american revolution his name is nathaniel philbrick and
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today on the show we discuss the evolution of washington as a general and a statesman
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benedict arnold's amazing but often forgotten battlefield exploits for the american cause
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and how arnold's valiant ambition turned into a vain and treacherous appetite that led to his
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downfall and along the way nathaniel and i just talk about the life lessons we can take from these
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two imminent revolutionaries really great podcast after the show's over make sure to check out the
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show notes at aom.is ambition for links to resources that we discuss in the show so you can delve deeper
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into this topic nathaniel philbrick welcome to the show it's great to be with you uh so your latest
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book you've written a lot of great historical books uh your latest one is called valiant ambition
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where you follow the military careers of two of the revolutionary war's most well-known names george
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washington and benedict arnold um i'm curious why did what inspired you to dig into the history of how
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these men developed into the men that we know of today how washington turned into the great general
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that we know as today and how arnold turned into america's most infamous traitor yeah well it's really
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kind of two sources to that uh my previous book was called bunker hill uh which describes as the title
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might suggest that the outbreak of the revolution in the boston area and the book uh sort of ends with
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the arrival of george washington who takes over the what will become the continental army during the
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siege of boston and uh and it was with the conclusion of that book that i realized i need to follow
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george washington you this is not the the washington that peers at us from the the dollar bill you know
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sort of the state pragmatist that looks like the rock upon which this country has been founded
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washington at the beginning of the revolution was in his early 40s red-haired fiery uh and by
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natural temperament very aggressive he wanted to attack the british uh that were holed up in boston
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even if this meant uh burning the city to the ground he just wanted to end it all in one very risky
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stroke and uh he would repeatedly bring this proposal to his council of war and every time uh the generals
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would turn it down as as basically madness and and you know this is a washington i you know i had not
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grown up with and so i i knew i wanted to follow him and so the the question for me was the to who
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to pair him up with uh because i also knew that the middle years of the revolution uh were very different
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from i think what most of us assume the revolution to be you know sort of this each battle stepping
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stone to god-ordained victory uh instead the the sort of the gas came out of the revolution
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and it became this stalemate in which um americans showed much more interest in fighting themselves
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uh than the british and i said how do you get at this dark underbelly well my mother uh when i was
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growing up in the 60s and 70s was a huge fan of benedict darnold and uh my mom was kind of a
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renegade herself uh and uh she she always said that arnold had gotten a bum rap uh that there
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were reasons why he did this and and that you know uh your teacher should teach you this and i'd
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always say mom arnold personifies evil what what are you talking about well uh i am here before you
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today to say that mom was right um i i realized that uh you know i had had this exposure to to arnold
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as a kid and i i realized that's the guy to go with that's the guy to pair with washington
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uh to and and what i do in value and ambition is is follow for four years uh why arnold at his
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highest because he was what our best battlefield general uh in the beginning but oh but he would
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have his reasons to become increasingly embittered uh with the american cause and ultimately four years
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later uh he would decide to to turn traitor and so i wanted to follow those two very
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different characters uh along very different paths yeah that's what i mean it really uh
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opened my eyes to some kind of assumptions that i had i mean even start the book it was going back
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to washington you talk about how i think one of the secretaries of the continental congress
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he had these like a journal um and where he talked about like you know sort of the the foibles of
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washington um and he thought about publishing them but at that time you know washington already been
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you know he's the apotheosis of washington had already happened and we had this myth and he just
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like no i can't undo this myth it's good for the country so he didn't publish it um so you said
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that washington at the very beginning of the war lacked a bit of military acumen didn't have that sort
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of pragmatic approach that he had so you know are there any specific examples where you talk about
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in the book the four years you discuss where washington you know showed a lack of military acumen
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that actually hurt the revolutionary cause yeah yeah well i mean from uh really where the the book
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begins which is just after the siege of boston uh the british uh now have turned their sights on new
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york and washington is dug into new york in the high ground in brooklyn on long island and the the british
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have thrown a huge force at america 30 the uh 400 vessels 34 000 sailors and and soldiers this is the
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largest invasionary force britain will mount until world war one i mean it's just a huge huge uh army
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that washington has to deal with and he had no uh experience leading a large army in battle no one in
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the american army had had that kind of experience and as i said before he was by temperament aggressive
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and even though his his army was completely overmatched by the british he was determined to
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fight and um and so he puts his army in a very risky position uh in long island and he's completely
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out general by his british counterpart uh general howe in a flanking maneuver that uh and howe had the
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opportunity to completely destroy washington's army uh uh but for the howe the howe brothers
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because his older brother was the admiral that was in charge of the british fleet were hopeful that
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they could humiliate the american army to the point that they were forced to negotiate a peace they
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really felt that by destroying the american army they would hopelessly embitter the american people
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and ultimately make a reconcile reconciliation impossible and so you could argue that it was not for
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howe washington would have probably lost his army uh right there at the battle of long island
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howe gave him the opportunity to escape at night in a brilliant retreat across the east river
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and um eventually um you know but and yet he persisted in hanging out in in new york and trying to
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defend that ultimately you'd be forced to retreat uh he would have that great comeback uh at trenton
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and princeton but the following year uh when he was defending philadelphia from uh howe's uh army that
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was now marching uh towards philadelphia which is the seat of the condom now congress once again
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washington at the battles of brandywine and germantown surrenders to his naturally aggressive
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side and uh and as a consequence puts his army in in very dangerous positions and suffers reversals that
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ultimately allow the british to take uh to take uh philadelphia and it's only after this uh in the
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winter of 1777 78 while he's holed up at valley forge that washington begins to realize okay i i really
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need to commit to a different kind of strategy uh you know i want to fight but this is not the best
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thing for my country given the state of the army i need to fight a defensive war a war of attrition
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what he calls a war of posts and it's not what he wants to do it's uh it's it's not the way he's
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wired but it's the way he will then proceed for the for the next years of the the war of independence and
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it's kind of extraordinary and there are very few leaders who can go against the very essence of who
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they are because they know it's the right thing to do and washington was one of those unusual people
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and that's the moment when he turned into the pragmatic george washington we know today and
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right and oh go ahead yeah and and one of the things that you know he had his weaknesses as a
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military commander but he was an absolute genius as a politician and um and so what happens is as the
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war devolves into a stalemate uh where you know each battle really doesn't do much to move move at
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move anything in any direction uh it's washington's ability to deal with politicians with officers who
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are infighting um it's you know it's it's his political skills that really rise to the fore and it's
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it's it's kind of it's it's and he emerges as that one person capable of holding all of this
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together yeah there was great examples of that political skill and action where i think washington
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intercepted a note um where one of the generals was bad mouthing him um and he saw it and then he
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passed it along to the guy that was supposed to get it and he left a note kind of sort of passive
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aggressive you know um and it really shut the whole thing down everyone just backed away absolutely
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right and this is this is during the terrible retreat across new jersey in the the uh fall of 1776
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you know he's at his absolute lowest point um uh trenton is to come in just a month time but at
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this point you know he's at his lowest and it's it's correspondence for joseph reed his his adjutant
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general uh the person upon whom he depends the most the the closest person in his military family
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reed is out away from headquarters so washington opens it and learns that reed unknown to him has been
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in correspondence with charles lee the second ranking general in the american army and complaining about
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washington for his indecisiveness and suggesting to lee that come winter uh uh uh that lee go south
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and organize a new army you know and so this is not good news and and for most people it would be
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crushing news that would probably inspire a good amount of anger washington uh doubtless felt that
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but instead of outwardly expressing it he does something he's brilliant he he reseals the letter
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and uh and sent it to reed with an accompanying note saying assuming uh this came for you assuming it was
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official business i opened it as usual realizing it was something else my apologies and he leaves reed
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the twist and the icy emptiness of his withheld wrath and man did he get the message and this is just
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those are the political skills that uh would really serve him and our country so well in the years to come
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yeah and not only did washington have this fiery temperament that wanted to cause you know he wanted to
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attack all the time but i guess throughout the book this whole idea of valiant ambition
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is all these generals had it in spades and there was this social pressure to you know to fight with honor
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and to show yourself a man um and so i imagine that was a lot of the pressure that washington felt too
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but he had to say you know i'm not going to take part in that i'm going to switch to this other
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strategy because it's for the good of the country right and it killed him because you know many of his
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own officers would say you know what are you doing you know why isn't you know why isn't he going after
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them politicians who really had no clue as to what was going on militarily but you know just wanted
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things to go as well as possible criticized him uh and and so it was a very difficult position to take
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and uh and yet ultimately uh after you know two years of learning it the hard way um he he committed
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to it and and you know it's it's you know it's the ultimate um you know it's it's so easy to to to
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to surrender to our our impulses in a fit of anger and pique you know uh but washington learned nope i'm
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going to take the higher ground i am going to keep the long view ahead of me and uh and we really owe
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the fact that we have a country uh to washington's strength of character in this regard so the the the
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guy you juxtaposed washington to uh was benedict arnold this is a guy who seemed like who couldn't
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put a check on his his temperament and his ambition um what's interesting the book though like as you said
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we had this idea that benedict arnold he was born a traitor like he was born he was predestined to go
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to dante's seventh layer of hell right exactly but you highlight in great detail before washington
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before arnold turned into a traitor he was one of america's great revolutionary war generals um i think
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this is forgotten so can you take us through some of arnold's contributions to the american cause before
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he committed treason i mean it's kind of right it's kind of amazing in the first years of the
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revolution there was no one better on the battlefield uh than arnold i mean it was he
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learned of lexington and concord and uh he's he's in new haven and he realizes that at the southern
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end of lake champlain is fort ticonderoga a lightly held british fortress that contains all of these
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cannons that would be of huge help to the american cause and it's also an important strategic point
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and so he proposes to the officials in boston that he take fort ticonderoga uh by this time others
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have heard about the idea and he ends up having to team up with ethan allen and the green mountain
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boys and they famously side by side take fort ticonderoga uh and then while ethan allen and the
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green mountain boys are getting drunk on the british liquor supply arnold commandeers a loyalist
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schooner sails up the full hundred mile length of lake champlain and attacks a small british force at
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saint john's in canada and takes what vessels they have destroys what he can't take with him and now
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america has command of lake champlain an absolutely essential uh quarter of water uh that you know we
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need to command and so he does that and then he he then goes to boston uh where now washington is the
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commander of the american army washington stuck in the siege of boston but he sends arnold on an
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impossible mission to try to take quebec and this requires him to go overland through maine i've
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followed i've actually followed arnold's trail uh through the backwoods of maine there's still
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nothing up there to this day you know if there's there's a signpost it has arnold's name on it because
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he's apparently the last person to go through there but you know he loses a third of his soldiers
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um to desertion and death staggers out of the the the wilderness and is there at quebec he's
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heralded as the american hannibal he's ultimately unsuccessful in taking uh quebec no fault of his
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own uh he's grievously injured but he pulls himself together and then uh in the the fall of 76
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he fights the battle of valquor island the greatest naval battle that no one's ever heard of
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uh fought on lake champlain and washington has lost new york by this time arnold by preventing the
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british from taking fort ticonderoga saves america because if they had taken that fort and linked up
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with how in new york it would have all been over and and so then he that that leads a year later to
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the battle of saratoga the great victory in which uh the french are convinced to come into the war on
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our side and and it was arnold's soldiers that that were responsible for it and so there's really
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no one uh as short of washington who's doing more than arnold to to do all this and uh and as you said
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you know he was passionate he couldn't control himself the way washington could uh when he was off
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the battlefield but man our country owed him a lot in the first years of the revolution but i guess
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were the seeds of uh arnold's you know treasonous uh you know his treasonous decision was he had these
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great victories but it seemed like he perceived that he wasn't getting the the due respect that he
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thought he deserved from other generals and also from the continental congress so i mean what were some
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of these slights that arnold experienced from these generals that you know kind of sowed the the his
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treason yeah there there are really two events that that had a lot to do with it the first was after
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uh stopping the british from taking uh fort ticonderoga at the battle of valcour uh he was up for for
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promotion he was our highest ranking brigadier general with the best record but the the continental
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congress that reserved the right to pick major generals uh determined that each state should get
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two of them and since arnold's home state of connecticut already had two he would be overlooked
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and five generals who ranked below him would be elevated past him to major general and you know this
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angered him it would have angered anyone in a greatly upset that washington who uh uh who who uh
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realized that arnold was his best battlefield general at this time and so this began his his
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questioning you know why am i doing this he had also uh given a lot of his personal fortune to the
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cause in those first years in canada and the continental congress showed no interest in in compensating
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but it would really be at the battle of saratoga uh in october of of 1777 where arnold would
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suffer the experience that would really start his spiral uh uh in down into into treason uh he was
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his commanding officer was horatio gates who was concerned that arnold with his reputation for
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aggressiveness and success on the battlefield was a threat to stealing the glory from him uh and uh
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and what he did gates did was instigate a a uh blow up with arnold there were two battles to the battle
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of saratoga and the first the battle of freeman's farm it would be arnold's soldiers that delivered
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a devastating blow to the british and sent them reeling and in his official account of the battle
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gates chose not to mention arnold and gates uh knew arnold very very well had been with him on lake
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champlain the previous year and knew just what buttons to push uh when it came to a guy of such a
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passionate nature and so they have a violent argument and arnold is out of the northern army
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uh this however does not prevent him from appearing on the battlefield in the final climactic battle of
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bemis heights and it's arnold uh at the very end leads this amazing charge uh uh to the entrance
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rear entrance of a british redoubt takes uh enters on his horse waving his sword commands him to
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surrender and he uh is shot with a musket ball fired by a german soldier that fractures his left thigh
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kills his horse which collapses on top of his injured leg and he's just lying there and one of
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his young uh officers uh from new hampshire had been with him since quebec comes up to him says he badly
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hurt and he says in the left leg i wish the musket ball had gone through my heart you know he knew that
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uh here he is you know his left leg was going to be in very bad shape uh he's he was going to be in a
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hospital bed for months ahead and gates is going to be the hero of saratoga and so it really you know
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why am i doing this you know he he would eventually uh spend that winter in a hospital bed in albany
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the leg that would emerge from the fracture box that they uh attached to it would be two inches
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shorter it would be more than a year before he could walk unassisted and he began to wonder you
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know why am i doing this um continental congress doesn't give me the respect i deserve but by that
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time they'd give him his promotion but it was too little too late gates had you know messed with
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his head and he had suffered this terrible debilitating physical injury and it was as much
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a psychic wound as it was a physical injury and and and so he began to wonder what you know why am i
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doing this and this began his his gradual creep uh towards uh treason and i think the other thing you
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you really do your job of highlighting the book is that underneath this these slights that arnold was
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experiencing that contributed to his you know decision to become a traitor was that during this
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time of the war like as you said earlier um the america the american the colonies were like were
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fighting each other basically uh and they were like their own worst enemies um so how did that
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that acrimony that existed between the colonies also contribute to his um decision to commit treason
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yeah because you know there was you know war against great britain but there was also civil war going
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on and the american people were showing much more interest in fighting each other uh than the british
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and as arnold's becoming increasingly bitter about his own treatment he's watching his country falling
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apart um the continental congress does not have the power to tax the american people directly
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so washington's army doesn't have the funds it needs to fight uh the the um and by the fall of 1780
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um it really looks like if somehow washington can win this war will there be a country left to claim
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victory i mean you know we we we now look back and see this as as god ordained but in the middle of it it
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looked like the american people had really turned their backs on the vow they had made to one another with
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the declaration of independence and so from arnold's point of view um he began to think
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well since the continental congress is no one to trust uh when it comes to the welfare of this country
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uh it's time to bring the british back uh we've defaulted on the pledge we made to ourselves let's bring
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the british back to restore the freedoms we enjoyed before this uh misbegotten revolution
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and so from his standpoint his what he uh what the others would regard as an act of treason
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an attempt to uh to sell west point to the british uh he saw it as an act of patriotism uh you know
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that it was up to someone like him to restore the government uh that had uh uh that had been
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you know fallen and uh because the american people had proven incapable of governing themselves
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so at what point did arnold decide to betray his country and i thought this interesting too
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what role did his wife play in his betrayal yeah well you know arnold uh you know spouses
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have a big influence on how people think and arnold uh you know had was was the the the hero of
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saratoga um they had been forced to evacuate with the entrance of france after the battle of saratoga
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they needed to consolidate their forces in new york and so arnold became the commander of this
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war-torn city where there's literally fighting in the streets uh between uh patriots and and uh more
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conservative loyalist leading citizens and um and arnold being the controversial person he was was soon
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surrounded in controversy he was really unhappy with what was going on in the country and and
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personally but he had fallen in love uh a a girl literally half his age 18 year old peggy shippen
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he was 36 a widower with three young sons and they fell in love and uh her father uh her family was
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well-to-do philadelphians who had royal connections prior to the revolution during the british occupation
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she and her sisters had enjoyed socializing with the british officers one of whom major john andre
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had uh had done a sketch of her that um just shows how beautiful a woman she really was
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and uh within a month of uh their marriage um uh arnold would uh send his first feelers to the british
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who are now in new york uh and uh that that feeler would go to none other than major john andre the
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officer whom peggy had befriended and would become the british spy chief and and over the next year and a
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half uh they would negotiate back and forth with arnold uh a wangling command of west point the most
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important fortress in america and scheming to turn that over to the british and um so he he made that
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decision he to to give over west point it failed i mean it was kind of i mean i i mean i i guess we
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won't go into this because um we're almost out of time but like how it failed was it just seemed like
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it was like pure chance and pure luck that this uh you know well the thing about arnold um you know
00:26:31.560
he was a good battlefield general and he was pretty darn good uh as a scheming uh uh uh traitor uh you
00:26:39.860
know he he had been in negotiations for more than a year and yet the very extensive spy network that
00:26:45.500
washington and others had put together had no notion no clue of what arnold was trying to do
00:26:51.220
and um and he and andre meet at night on the banks of the hudson river uh exchange the documents that
00:26:59.500
are crucial to the the taking of west point it's all about to happen uh andre needs to get back to
00:27:07.160
british occupied new york to make to make it happen but he's captured by three militiamen and it's only
00:27:12.800
that that uh foiled what might have been uh the plot that uh ended that made great britain victorious
00:27:21.880
yeah but then what i thought was interesting the book is that you you argue that arnold committing
00:27:28.000
treason was probably the best thing that could have happened to the americans why was his you know his
00:27:34.180
treason such a boon to the revolutionary cause well you know by the fall of 1780 uh the american war
00:27:41.940
effort had cratered it seemed like the american people had just given up uh you know no they
00:27:48.080
weren't willing they had hadn't been willing to pay taxes the british now they weren't willing to pay
00:27:52.560
the taxes required to fund the army needed to win them independence and um it just and they were
00:28:00.180
fracturing into 13 independent polities you know instead of functioning as a country but it was the
00:28:06.460
revelation of arnold's betrayal he you know this great uh hero who had uh tried to turn over west
00:28:13.040
point to the british this was uh had a galvanizing effect uh arnold would be burned in effigy in towns
00:28:19.500
up and down the eastern seaboard this was a true wake-up call and um i don't think it's an accident that
00:28:26.540
within a year's time uh america would enjoy the incredible victory at yorktown uh that would make
00:28:35.880
uh the victory of war in independent and the war of independence inevitable and and it's interesting
00:28:41.980
arnold uh uh would become a british brigadier general and be sent down to virginia and washington
00:28:49.400
was by this time very angry with arnold and making a real personal cause to get him
00:28:55.340
sent lafayette the the french general upon whom had become a virtual son to him down to get him
00:29:01.880
and this begins the movement of troops that would ultimately culminate in the great victory at yorktown
00:29:06.880
so i think ultimately you could argue that in the early years of the revolution arnold did more than
00:29:12.540
anyone short of washington for america but it was as a traitor uh that he really made possible ultimate
00:29:20.020
victory my guest here is nathaniel filbrick he's the author of the book valiant ambition it's
00:29:24.780
available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere also if you want to delve deeper into this topic
00:29:28.420
check out our show notes at aom.is slash ambition
00:29:31.320
well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice
00:29:47.100
make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy
00:29:50.760
the show i'd appreciate if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher it helps us out a lot as always
00:29:55.180
thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay