Benedict Arnold. A biography/10
CHAPTER X.
PLOTTING TREASON. *
THE greatest crime in the whole catalogue of crimes, Arnold now began deliberately to plan. He was the only one of all the officers of the Revolution who proved traitorous to his country. The two motives that hurried him on to this step, as the reader must see for himself, were his wounded pride and his sordid disposition. When the authorities of Pennsylvania were making war upon him, he confined his resentment to them alone; but as soon as Congress took up their cause, and ordered a court-martial that finally found him guilty of improper and un-military conduct, he transferred his hatred to those who were acting on behalf of his country, and of course to that country itself.
.* I am much indebted to Sparks's "Life and Treason of Arnold" for many of the details to be found in the chapters that follow.
He was covered with debt, and he had a feeling also of having been publicly disgraced; he had been delayed in the settlement of his accounts; the way in which he had been treated in the matter of his military rank it galled him to think of; he had sunk in the estimation of the French envoy; he had been for months in correspondence, in one way and another, with the enemy; creditors were following him up for debts into which his extravagant habits had led him; and he resolved to make one move more, no matter how desperate it was, to extricate himself from his position, and place himself in possession of the stake for which he was willing to risk all.
With characteristic boldness, he opened a correspondence direct with Sir Henry Clinton, in New York. He disguised his hand, and adopted the name of Gustavus. In these letters he set forth that he was an officer in the American army, who was opposed to the recent alliance of America and France, and ready to signify his disapprobation by coming back to the support of the king. As a further inducement to this, all he asked was that the loss of property he would be obliged to suffer in consequence might be made up to him again. And in order to interest Clinton the more in what he wrote, he gave items of intelligence respecting the Americans from time to time, which proved soon after to be true.
Clinton became interested, and told his aide-de-camp, Major John André, to return proper replies; which the latter engaged in, under the fictitious name of John Anderson, and in a disguised hand. Thus this correspondence was carried on for months. Clinton saw as yet no great advantage likely to grow out of it, because, when he came to find out who this Gustavus was, it occurred to him that the latter then held no actual rank in the service, and could sell nothing more than himself and his personal endeavors. This was hardly worth the trouble; almost any other man of equal courage would answer just as well.
Seeing how the matter stood, and what was chiefly in his light, Arnold resolved to place himself in a position where his favor would be likely to command the price he demanded. Accordingly he importuned Washington for the command of West Point, till the latter, though greatly surprised at his request, gave him charge of the post. And early in August, 1780, he went up the Hudson, and established his quarters in the Robinson House, on the eastern side of the river and a few miles below West Point. Here he continued the secret correspondence with André industriously, both of them still using the names of Gustavus and John Anderson, and wording the letters after the style of men engaged in a commercial transaction. It was Arnold's plan to betray West Point and its fortress, which was in fact the key to the Highlands, into the hands of Sir Henry Clinton. It was André's aim to do the most effective service he could for his king, conscious that a glittering reward awaited him if he should be successful.
The transaction, in few words, was to be thus :— Since it was known that it was the design of the Americans and French to cooperate against the British, in New York, the critical moment when the American forces would be drawn away was to be seized for the consummation of the treachery. Washington would be down near King's Bridge, and the French would be on Long Island; and then it was that the British were to sail up the Hudson in a flotilla of boats as far as the Highlands, and land and surprise West Point, which, after a mere show of resistance, was to be surrendered by Arnold. Thus would the Eastern and the Western States be dissevered, and Washington's favorite plans of warfare would fall to the ground.
Arnold of course thought he would not be driven from the country in case of the success of this project, but that his treachery would be kept a secret always; and, indeed, had Great Britain by this means obtained control on our soil again, it is not likely that he would have suffered from any discomfort; on the contrary, he might have held high and important trusts.
Major André was at this time in the thirtieth year of his age; accomplished and popular; social in the extreme; the favorite with the officers; and as ready to write a squib in rhyme, or help the ladies on with their party plays, as he was to risk his life in the service of his king. He was a native of Switzerland, but had been educated in a counting-room in London. At eighteen he had fallen in love, but the parents of the young lady broke off the match; and to his dying day he wore next his heart the portrait of her who shared his affections. He was taken prisoner by Montgomery at the capture of St John's, in Canada, and wrote to a friend at the time, that he had been stripped of everything by his captors "except the picture of Honora, which I concealed in my mouth." He could paint and draw, write verses, and make himself agreeable to all around him; and in the theatrical shows with which the British officers solaced their idleness in New York, he was always ready to take an active part.
Having been intimately acquainted with Mrs. Arnold during his stay with the British army in Philadelphia, and before her marriage, he made use of so fortunate a circumstance to cover his correspondence now with her husband. It was not, however, what a man with the highest and most delicate sense of honor would have permitted himself to do. Mrs. Arnold afterwards rested under the stigma of being privy to the nature of this correspondence; but there is nothing to show that it was more than an unfounded suspicion. Had André been alive, he would have set the matter right with a word.
Irving well says of André and his correspondence with Arnold through such a channel, "Various circumstances connected with this nefarious negotiation, argue lightness of mind and something of debasing alloy on the part of André. The correspondence carried on for months in the jargon of traffic, savored less of the camp than the counting-house; the protracted tampering with a brave and necessitous man for the sacrifice of his fame and the betrayal of his trust, strikes us as being beneath the range of a truly chivalrous nature."
Having thus opened the way, the next thing in order was an interview; it was necessary for Arnold and André to see one another. Arnold wanted André "to come to his quarters at the Robinson House, in disguise", using his fictitious name; but this risk he refused to run. Then the proposition was to meet near the outposts, at Dobb's Ferry, and on what was called the "neutral ground;" to this André at last consented. The time appointed for the meeting was the 11th of September, at twelve o'clock meridian.
André was punctual, but Arnold was kept away by an unforeseen occurrence; he was coming down the river in his barge, from the house of Mr. Joshua H. Smith, just below Stony Point on the western side, when the British guard-boats near Dobb's Ferry fired upon him and compelled him to return to the shore. He had no flag with him, and the guard were of course ignorant of his business. During the night he returned to the Robinson House, to make his arrangements all over again. André went back to the British vessel in the stream. In order to keep suspicion out of the thoughts of Washington, Arnold wrote to him of his trip down the river, and pretended he had made it in order to provide against surprise from the enemy's movements in their vessels.
Another negotiation for a meeting was opened. Washington was to be absent at Hartford, to confer with Count Rochambeau and other French officers in relation to the attack on New York; and then, thought Arnold, would be the time for the meeting with André. The British sloop-of-war Vulture came up the river and anchored just below Teller's Point, to be of service while the plot was hatching. Col. Beverly Robinson was on board, the same who once owned the "Robinson House" at which Arnold now made his head-quarters; he was a royalist, and all his property had been confiscated. In order to get word to Arnold, he pretended not to know but what Putnam was still in command in the Highlands; and so sent a letter to the latter concerning his property, requesting an interview, enclosed in another letter to Arnold. If Putnam was absent, he asked that Arnold might meet him in his stead, as he wished to talk further of his property. Washington sailed across the Hudson in Arnold's barge, on the 18th of September, on his route to Hartford. Arnold went over with him, and with the rest of his staff. The Vulture was in sight, and Washington looked at it through his glass. Those who recalled the incident afterwards, remembered that Arnold appeared uneasy and full of concern all the time. While going across, also, Lafayette remarked to Arnold, speaking of the French fleet under Guichen that was looked for every day upon the coast, "General Arnold, since you have a correspondence with the enemy, you must ascertain as soon as possible what has become of Guichen." Arnold asked him what he meant; he acted strangely, and doubtless thought the whole plot was exposed, and that this method and place had been chosen to confront and arrest him. While on the road to Peekskill, Arnold laid before Washington the contents of this letter of Robinson, and asked what he had better do; Washington advised him to take no notice of it, as it was out of the line of military proceeding; if Col. Robinson wished his property restored to him, he must apply to the civil authorities.
But Arnold heeded the advice by sending an answer by a flag directly back to Robinson, on board the Vulture; and in this answer he took occasion to say that a person with a flag would come alongside in a boat, on the night of the 20th; and in order to blind other parties, should the letter fall into their hands, he added that Washington would probably return on the Saturday following, and, if he had business with him, he could communicate it by this messenger of the 20th.
This was exactly the hint wanted to fill up the existing gap in the arrangement. Andrd came up the river again on the 20th, therefore, went on board the Vulture, and met Col. Robinson. He inquired of him for Arnold; but he was not there, and never meant to be there. The time had not yet arrived when a British vessel-of-war was the safest place for him.
On the night of the 20th, no boat came along-side; on the next night, however, the watch on deck descried a little craft gliding silently over the water, with three men in it. Their oars made no click as they worked in the rowlocks; the blades dipped silently in the river, as if the whole was the work of magic. It was about half past eleven o'clock. An officer hailed them from the deck. The man in the stern answered that they came from King's Ferry, and were going down to Dobb's Ferry. Upon this he was ordered to come alongside; and in another moment he was climbing over the rail upon the deck.
This man was Joshua H. Smith. Arnold had employed him to go on board, and told him that he was to bring back a person who was to fetch him important news from New York. To prevent surprise and capture, he carried passes from Arnold in his pocket, answering both for himself and those with him. He also bore a letter to Col. Robinson from Arnold, in which the latter said, "This will be delivered to you by Mr. Smith, who will conduct you to a place of safety.
Neither Mr. Smith nor any other person shall be made acquainted with your proposals; if they (which I doubt) are of such a nature that I can officially take notice of them, I shall do it with pleasure. I take it for granted Colonel Robinson will not propose anything, that is not for the interest of the United States as well as of himself." He wrote in this blind way about "Colonel Robinson" in order to guard against detection in case of an accident to the letter.
Robinson pretended to Smith to be too unwell to go on shore himself, and introduced to him a gentleman in his place by the name of John Anderson, who was, as the reader knows, no other than Major André. Smith declared that even then he did not suspect anything wrong, inasmuch as André was dressed in a great-coat of blue, hiding his uniform and entirely concealing his character. Besides, Robinson's plea of ill health was very natural, and he assured Smith that Mr. John Anderson knew all about the business in hand, and would make the arrangements and give the information just as well as he could himself.
Robinson, for all this, was strongly opposed, in fact, to Andrd's going on shore at all; he knew not what Arnold's promise of protection was worth, the promise of a man who was plotting to betray his country. But he was overcome by the superior zeal of André. The latter saw a dash of adventure in an undertaking with so much risk in it, and it offered more attractions to him on that account.
He therefore went down over the vessel's side into the boat. Little, indeed, did he think that he was going on an errand from which he would never return. The Captain of the Vulture wanted one of his own boats to go out armed and escort this one; but both Smith and André objected to it, as more likely to attract attention. Besides, they were going under a flag of truce, and an armed boat would be quite out of character in company with such a flag. This was a reason subsequently offered by Sir Henry Clinton. The boat, thus freighted with secrets on which depended the life of a nation, glided silently over the water towards the western shore. Not a syllable was spoken by the watermen, and the few words exchanged by Smith and André were very low. A little after the hour of midnight they landed at the foot of a mountain, full of shadows and mystery, called Long Clove. This was about six miles below Stony Point.
Arnold was already there, half hidden in the bushes, but watching with an anxious look for the approach of his midnight visitor. Twice already they had been foiled in their attempts to secure a meeting, and it was gratifying now to feel assured that all the obstacles had been removed. Arnold had come down that night from Smith's house on horseback, and a servant rode another horse; the distance was between three and four miles. The servant retired a little distance with the horses, and was waiting further orders.
Smith came up from the water first, and felt his way about in the darkness until he had approached near Arnold's hiding-place. As soon as he found that, he returned and brought back André with him. He then left the two men together, and went back again into the boat to await the result of the interview. Thus these plotters against Liberty stood concealed in that lonely place, at the hour of midnight, with no person near to interrupt their consultation. It was an hour that each had ardently wished for, but had eluded them both till now.
Hour after hour passed, and Smith began to feel impatient. It was not so easy a matter, either, to sit in a boat and resist the influences of the air of a night in September. Presently he went up the bank into the bushes again, and, in a whisper, reminded Arnold that it was getting late, and the chances of being discovered by the morning light were thickening. But the traitorous business was not yet completed; more time was wanted to make all things clear to André, and the arrangements had not been concluded for Arnold's remuneration for his infamy. The latter therefore urged Andr to remain on shore till the next night, promising to conduct him to a place of safety, and then to send him to the Vulture again. He consented, and the boat was sent higher up the river into a little creek that set in on the shore.
Arnold and André then mounted the two horses the servant had been holding in the thicket, and rode off to the house of Smith. Their road took them through the little village of Haverstraw; and there the demand of the guard for the countersign sent a shudder of alarm to the heart of André, for this was the first evidence he had that he was within the American lines. Even if he had desired to go back, it was too late then : he had reached a point from which he could not so easily recede.
They came to the house at daybreak, and went into an upper room. Smith had two days before sent away his family on a visit to their friends in Fishkill, thirty miles above, and on the other side of the river. Hardly had they shut the door, when they heard the thunder of cannon below. From the window of the chamber André saw, with sinking spirits, that a party of Americans were firing on the Vulture from Teller's Point, having secretly carried down cannon during the night; Livingston, who commanded at Verplank's Point, heard on the day before that she lay within cannon range, and resolved to compel her to change her position. André thought at one time that the vessel was on fire, and his heart almost misgave him. But she at length weighed anchor and dropped down the river beyond cannon shot reach.
The two men ate their breakfast, and then proceeded to finish the business of the meeting The whole plot was laid open, explained, and agreed upon; and then the sum of money which Arnold was to receive was named, in case the treason turned out successfully. Arnold gave André a plan of the works at West Point, together with papers properly explaining them; these he told him to conceal between one of his stockings and his foot, and, in case he met with trouble, to destroy them. Arnold then got ready to go back to his quarters at the Robinson House, on the other side of the river. But before he left, he informed André that he had better return to New York by land, since the Vulture had gone further down the river, and it might not be so easy for him to get on board of her. André, however, opposed this idea, and urged that he should be sent to the vessel on the same night. Arnold agreed to this, but furnished him with a written pass, which would be of service in case he should be obliged to go down by land. The pass read as follows :—
" HEAD QUARTERS ROBINSON
HOUSE, Sept 22 nd , 1780
" Permit Mr. John Anderson to pass the Guards to the White Plains, or below, if He chuses. He being on Public Buisness by my Direction.
B. ARNOLD M. Genl.'
It was ten o'clock in the forenoon when Arnold left the house. André stayed alone all day in the chamber. What his thoughts were no one can tell. There is little doubt, however, that he looked wistfully towards the Vulture down the stream, and many a time wished himself safe on her deck; the moment he was there, all danger was behind him; his work would be complete, and his reward secure.
Arnold had arranged with Smith, who still remained at home, to take André back to the Vulture as soon as it was dark; and André supposed that such an arrangement would be carried out. After his capture, he wrote as follows concerning it : "Arnold quitted me, having himself made me put the papers I bore between my stockings and feet. Whilst he did it he expressed a wish, in case of any accident befalling me. that they should be destroyed : which I said of course would be the case, as when I went into the boat I should have them tied about with a string and stone. Before we parted, some mention had been made of rny crossing the river and going another route; but I objected much against it, and thought it was settled, that in the way I came I was to return."
Yet there was some trouble, and Arnold had evidently expected there would be; for he had provided three passports, two for Smith, and one for André. Smith's gave him a free right to travel either by water or by land, and Andréws we have already given a copy of. When it came night, André supposed his anxiety was at an end; and he told Smith that he was all ready to be rowed down to the Vulture again. But Smith objected; he said that he had been attacked with ague in consequence of his exposure of the previous night, and did not wish to repeat so dangerous an experiment; yet he was willing to accompany him on horseback, which was strikingly inconsistent, to say the least, since his health would suffer no more from one journey than the other. The only explanation that can be given is, that he was really afraid of being fired upon on his way to or from the Vulture, since she had again come up and anchored in her old position. He said he was perfectly willing to cross the river with him at King's Ferry, and put him safely on his route into the lower country; but as for venturing in the open boat again, it was not to be thought of.
André was distressed beyond description. He pleaded with Smith to take him back by the way he came; but it was to no purpose. As Smith had promised to accompany him on horseback for a considerable distance, he closed with his offer in lieu of what he thought the safer course. He could not for a moment, however, banish the thought from his mind that he was within the American lines.
He came, as we have said, in a military coat, over which was buttoned a long blue surtout; this he now laid aside, at the suggestion of Smith himself, borrowing from him a citizen's coat, which he wore in its stead. There were three in this silent little party going down from Smith's house to the river : Smith, André, and a negro servant. André could not help feeling the humiliation of his situation, whenever he thought of his disguise. At sundown, they came to King's Ferry and crossed to Verplank's Point. They travelled along quietly for some eight miles, on the road down to White Plains; Smith trying to engage him in conversation on the war, and André studiously avoiding all the answers he could. He appeared taciturn and thoughtful; there was nothing of his usual gaiety about him. When they first came over to Verplank's Point, Smith went up to the works and called on Colonel Livingston, telling him that he was going above presently and would take charge of whatever letters he wished to send; but André and the negro rode on. Smith hastily excused himself to Livingston on account of company, and hurried along and overtook them on the road.
Towards nine o'clock in the evening, they were stopped by a patrolling party, near Crompond. Being challenged by the sentinel, Smith got off his horse, handed the bridle to his servant, and stepped forward and asked who the captain was. "Captain Boyd" the sentinel answered. The captain, overhearing his name called, made his appearance and began to put his questions. He was exceedingly inquisitive, asking Smith who he was, where he belonged, and what was his business. Smith answered him promptly, and told him that he carried a pass from General Arnold. Even after that, the captain inquired how far he was going that night; Smith replied, "as far as Major Strang's, or Colonel Drake's." The captain informed him that Strang was away from home, and that Drake had removed to another part of the country. He then insisted on seeing the passport, and went on a little ways with the party to a house, in order to get a light. André began to be seriously alarmed, and followed on with trembling; but the sight of the pass seemed to mollify the captain somewhat, although he was still as full of curiosity as ever.
He took Smith aside therefore, and begged to know what could be the urgent business that took him and his friend down so perilous a road in the night. Smith deceived him as well as he could, saying that he and his friend Mr. Anderson were sent by General Arnold to meet a person near White Plains, from whom they expected to procure important information. The captain earnestly advised him not to go on that night, for the Cow Boys, or lower party, had been out upon the road, and it was dangerous; and further recommended that they should stay til l morning at the house of Mr. Andréas Miller, where they would find a good bed and all that they wanted. Smith went and told André what the captain said; André would not hear to it at all; he was for going on at all hazards. Finally he went and brought Captain Boyd, and they argued on it together. He asked Boyd which was the safest road to White Plains; the captain told him that both were very dangerous, but the one through North Castle was the least so; for the Cow Boys, or lower party, were out on the Tarrytown road, and had done a good deal of mischief. André remembered this afterwards, and acted upon it in choosing his route.
Finally Smith declared that he should stop over night at Miller's house, and André found himself forced to fall in. The people at the house treated them cordially, and offered them the best they had; but being called out of bed to entertain travellers, they were not able to do what they otherwise might. André and Smith were compelled to sleep in the same bed, and Smith said that André "lay and tossed pretty much all the rest of the night." At earliest dawn he arose, called the negro servant, and ordered the horses to be got ready for starting on again. The honest farmer would not take any money for his hospitality, and, bidding him and his family good morning, they struck off on the road leading to Pine's Bridge. André's heart began to feel light again; Smith declared himself astonished at the sudden and marked change in his demeanor. He talked gaily of whatever came into his mind. Thus they kept on till they came within two miles and a half of Pine's Bridge, where Smith resolved to bring his part of the journey to an end. They went up to a farm house near by, which had just been plundered, and got a bowl of hasty pudding and milk to eat, after which Smith divided his funds with him, and bade André farewell. Here they parted.