Had he been killed in one of the many military encounters of his career as a Revolutionary War patriot, he would have gone down, undoubtedly, as one of the 3 or 4 greatest heroes of The Cause. But, surviving - though crippled from wounds from two major engagements - he instead became the most reviled soldier in American history. The journey from the most celebrated of patriots to having his name become synonymous, even to this day, with the most vile acts of cowardice and betrayal is part of our nation’s mythology that will forever be dark and distant. Those who seek to see beyond the folklore and see the many shades and hues of truth must be content with simple conjecture and subjective analysis. But, far from a story of simple villainy, this unique story of pathos is a complex prism. When a light strikes that prism, it emits a spectrum of colors that demands deeper reflection and closer scrutiny. Even if his story has been relegated to a footnote in the shoddy treatment of history in our schools today, all should appreciate by now I am referring to Benedict Arnold.

His ancestors can be traced back to 1635 when his namesake sailed with other Puritans, led by Roger Williams, and settled what is now Rhode Island in the Pawtucket River region. While the first iteration of the name Benedict Arnold rose to succeed Williams as governor of Rhode Island and served several terms until his death in 1678, subsequent Arnolds found progressively less prosperity. One-hundred years later when the fifth Benedict was born to this once-esteemed name, fortune and respectability had passed the Arnold family by. Our Benedict Arnold was born on January 14, 1741 to Benedict and Hannah Arnold in Norwich, Connecticut. He was the second child of the marriage; the first, also named Benedict, had died in infancy. Thus, the subject of this essay was a "replacement Benedict" from birth - no easy burden for childhood to bear.

Tragedy seemed to entwine the lives of the Arnolds like a killing vine, first clinging to the family with the death of their first male child. Its choking stems, all told, took three (Mary, Elizabeth and Absalom King) of the four children born after the second Benedict child. Only his oldest sibling, his mother’s namesake, Hannah, remained in the once-happy Arnold home by the time Benedict reached the age of 13.

The psychological impact of the systematic dismemberment of his family on the oldest child was clear to all who wrote of Benedict in adulthood. Young Benedict’s parents, chastened by their prodigious losses, instructed him in the Calvinist doctrine: specifically, the presence of a vengeful, omniscient and, sometimes, even capricious God whose wrath was not so much directed at the sinner but at those who might serve as a warning to the offender. For if God will take an innocent, what might He do to those who would truly offend? With the deaths of his siblings, the eldest child of the family disavowed the wielding of such arbitrary power (even when Divine), henceforth, and continued to challenge it as an adult.

Adding fuel to his personal fires, was his father subsequent alcoholism and fall from social grace after the death of his children. Shunned by the church (whether or not he was formally excommunicated is unclear) and in financial ruin, Benedict’s parents were both disgraced and dead by the time Benedict had reached his 20^th year. Witness, as he was, to the Norwich community’s abandonment and dismissal of his parents in their sorrow, one might see how the young man would come to despise those who were so unforgiving of human frailty. With just a little insight, one can imagine the anger a young man might harbor for those he would encounter later in his life. Why should those who, holding themselves aloft only by artificial social (or, more relevantly, political) status, be allowed to heap scorn and deny respect to those of lesser standing and cause such sorrowful consequences as befell his parents? These are the questions of youth that so often, for good and bad, chart the path of the adult life.

As he sought to salvage his family name, young Arnold left Rhode Island and rose from apprentice (with his late mother’s brothers) to a prosperous New Haven merchant and owner of his own small, but profitable, West Indies merchant fleet. Driven by a passion to reclaim his family name from the sordid indignity society had unmercifully heaped upon it, he became a true American success story. As available history recounts, he would suffer no man impugn his name and was not one to avoid confrontation if honor was in question. He would be respected. As fate and the times would fall into place, Arnold was among the first to challenge New Haven’s "old guard" loyalists when British taxation and disregard of the New World’s colonies’ began to boil in the late 1760s. He was, from his earliest manhood, one with a "chip on his shoulder."

But, even with the demands of a growing business and his constant feuding, driven by Benedict’s disdain for the "establishment," a young man’s nature will find its way through all distractions. Benedict married Peggy Mansfield on February 27, 1767. The young couple had three children before the murderous vine took root again at Arnold’s doorstep. Peggy’s untimely death in June, 1775 set her widowed husband on his fateful path in American history.

With the news of the portentous day in April, 1775 of the confrontations at Lexington and Concord, it was Benedict Arnold who organized 64 men into a militia company in New Haven. Arming and supplying themselves, and with the exhortations of their leader, the militia was formally established as the Governor’s 2nd Company of Guards. Allowed to vote on their own officers, the group elected Arnold, known throughout their ranks as a champion of American liberties, as their Captain. Later in the month when Arnold proposed to march to Massachusetts’ aid, the loyalist city elite forbid the ragtag militia access to New Haven’s magazine and arms store. Arnold delivered the retort, "None but the Almighty God shall prevent my marching." Delivering an "open the door or we’ll break it down!" ultimatum, Arnold and his men were promptly given the keys to the armory and, weapons secured, his band set off to help the Bostonians confront His Majesty’s forces in Boston. Still greater things were already brewing in the mind of the young leader and they would soon bubble to the surface.

That is was Arnold’s idea to confront the British at Fort Ticonderoga and secure the precious cannons is a fact with scant historical disputation. That the idea was also acted upon by Vermont’s Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys virtually simultaneously is also a matter of historical record. Regardless of the time line, Arnold’s idea was formally commissioned by the Massachusetts Committee of Safety upon his arrival in Boston and he was granted a colonel’s commission. He left his New Haven Footguards and rode west in early May, 1775, recruiting his assault forces as he went. Within 10 days and, joined by Ethan Allen’s forces, the audacity and boldness of Arnold’s plan bore fruit. Fort Ticonderoga fell in less than 10 minutes. The 200 artillery pieces captured there were subsequently part of the grand saga of Henry Knox and his amazing caravan that transported the precious cargo eastward to the Boston. The story of their "miraculous" appearance of these same cannon on Dorchester Heights in March, 1776 led to the British evacuation of Boston, retreat to Nova Scotia, and their triumphant reappearance in New York harbor months later.

As the rebels took command of the Fort Ticonderoga and its tiny British contingent, he took one of the first of many steps in defense of his principles that would bring him into an unending series of confrontations with those less chivalrous and less concerned with any "code of honor." As Ethan Allen’s rowdy mountain men began to loot the fort and the personal belongings of the British forces, Arnold stood firmly against such behavior. He was, backed with a much smaller force of troops, roundly and aggressively shouted down, to the point of being shot at by drunken Vermont troops at least twice. It was Arnold’s first but not last experience with louder voices and higher placed civilian patrons. Arnold, characteristically, did not back down this time either and the looting stopped.

Allen and his ‘Boys dispersed back into the safety of their lush hills, all the way telling all who would listen how it was their initiative and bravery that conquered the British. Heedless of these exaggerated stories that quickly spread back east, Arnold did not seek his home but began, instead, formulating much grander plans. His eyes were on Lake Champlain and, ultimately, the British fortress of Quebec. He moved decisively onto Quebec not knowing that his initiative was frowned on by the tentative Continental Congress who disavowed any offensive actions, especially into Canada. While Arnold’s name was bantered about in halls of power (such as they were) as a renegade - poetically enough, a "loose cannon" - he forged ahead. His disregard for his "betters" in the civilian sector was growing typical of the man. Ominously, these early slurs were to be the first sparks in Arnold’s imagination that would ultimately convince him of the incompetence of those who would lead the new country.

Arnold, unaware for the most part of those working behind the scenes (including Ethan Allen) to minimize his chances for success, wrote a letter outlining his proposed campaign on Quebec to the Congress in June, 1775. After several months of personal lobbying (not the least of which was convincing George Washington, himself, of the worthiness of the northern assault) Arnold was finally given command of around 1000 volunteers to accomplish his plan. He set off across the treacherous wilds of Maine for Quebec. The hazardous and legendary journey would earn Benedict Arnold the title "America’s Hannibal." Unfortunately, Arnold had lost too many men from disease and desertion to attack the city unsupported. When he finally arrived on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec in November, 1775, he could only wait.

Arnold, wisely, laid siege to the city and its military leader, Sir Guy Carleton. He effectively bottled up the city and the British forces, even though commanding an inferior (in every sense of the word except in audacity) force, for nearly 2 months. With the arrival of General Montgomery, flush from his conquest of Montreal, the combined forces finally assaulted the city on New Year’s eve, 1775. It was a disaster. The British were privy to the plan thanks to some American deserters. Montgomery was killed in the first charge and Arnold was shot in his left ankle soon after. Leaderless and thoroughly undisciplined, the assault forces retreated. The great northern adventure was eventually abandoned. But Arnold was to lead one final miraculous battle when he built his own "fleet" and defeated a pursuing British force on Lake Champlain at the long-forgotten Battle of Valcour Bay. He successfully retreated with the bulk of his troops from the failed Canadian invasion and delayed a British invasion of the colonies from Canada for almost a year. But, despite his almost super human efforts, he was denied any praise and, instead, was forced to face more accusations and blame from the Continental Congress. While the American Congress was excoriating Arnold, he was grudgingly praised by more knowledgeable men. Lord George Germain the British Colonial Secretary was said to remark "Arnold has shown himself the most enterprising man among the rebels".

While American leadership was hanging the scapegoat’s mantle on Arnold, those who served with him - the honorable and the truly patriotic including George Washington, himself - would speak only of his passion and leadership. Those who would bring him to heel - the infant government with its petty power struggles and inconstant purpose - would constantly deny Arnold the recognition and acceptance he so ardently desired. They would, in the eyes of the ever-driven Arnold, constantly seek to "remind him of his place". This highly personal pursuit for public and official recognition would ultimately be Benedict Arnold’s hamartia - his tragic flaw.

Even after he almost single-handedly saved the day at the Battle of Saratoga from the incompetence of General Gates by leading the charge at Bemis Heights, Arnold was to still find no glory or appreciation. At the very moment the pompous Gates (who would, later in the war, be recalled from South Carolina by Washington, himself, for cowardice at the Battle of Camden) accepted British General Johnny Burgoyne’s sword in surrender, Benedict Arnold lay near death in a field hospital with a left thigh completely shattered by British grapeshot.

He would never recover physically nor, as history lays bare, psychologically. Ignored and relegated to a "desk job" as military governor of Philadelphia (even there, his enemies would bring charges of misconduct and threaten a formal inquiry), he was ultimately shown the easy path to treachery by Peggy Shippen (who he married) and British Major John Andre. As part of the plan the trio devised, he sought and was given the command of West Point. West Point was not a military academy but a strategic post guarding the Hudson River. Arnold then famously conspired to open the Fort’s barricades to a British fleet which sought to secure the Hudson and cut New England off from the lower colonies. The treachery was thwarted when Andre was caught with evidence of the treason in his boot and, subsequently, hung by George Washington as a spy. Arnold escaped aboard a British frigate. The rest, as they say, is written large in our children’s history books. However, seldom is the full story told and we are taught - as is so often the case - only the myth and its stark lesson: treason carries a heavy price.

But it is a grave mistake to recall the life of Benedict Arnold as one of simple treachery and betrayal. It is, perhaps, one of the most complex and fascinating American tragedies ever lived out on the stage of reality. Shakespeare would write of it were he alive. The contradictions in the man - fervent patriotism versus heinous treason, military genius versus self-serving egotism, endurance through immense personal tragedy versus greed and deceit - will remain inexplicable in the haze of 225 years long past. He was a man of great skill yet his fatal flaw - a burning, unquenchable need for acknowledgment - ended his story in tragedy of classical Greek proportions. However, he - and the lessons his life teach us - cannot be ignored.

When all is examined, the name and fate of Benedict Arnold lay solely with a single misplaced bullet on the hot, smoky fields near Saratoga. For if the British bullet had been true to its mark, the death of the recipient would have undoubtedly secured his place in the esteemed pantheon of Revolutionary War heroes. Monuments would be erected and coinage stamped to honor a revered Revolutionary hero. But, striking thigh instead of heart, sparing life but securing infamy, it did its victim no good service. In the words of General Nathaniel Greene: "Never since the fall of Lucifer has a fall equaled his."

More in the character of Greek tragedy, myth has it that Arnold, while serving as a British General in Virginia years later, asked an American prisoner what his countrymen would do to him after West Point. The reply he reportedly received was:"We would cut your leg off and bury it with full military honors for your work at Quebec and Saratoga. The rest of you we would hang."

On the Saratoga battlefield there is a solitary monument consisting of only the left boot of an unnamed American officer. The inscription, which fails to identify the boot’s owner - the name is too hateful still - poignantly reads:

"In memory of the ‘most brilliant soldier’ of the Continental army, who was desperately wounded on this spot, the sally port of Burgoyne’s ‘Great Western Redoubt’, 7^th October 1777, winning for his countrymen the decisive battle of the American Revolution."

Such is the essence of classical tragedy.