Life and Times of Washington, Volume 2 / Revised, Enlarged, and Enriched

by John Frederick Schroeder; Benson John Lossing

The general officers lamented the sentence which the usages of war compelled them to pronounce, and never perhaps did the Commander-in-Chief obey with more reluctance the stern mandates of duty and policy. The sympathy excited among the American officers by his fate was as universal as it is unusual on such occasions, and proclaims alike the merit of him who suffered, and the humanity of those who inflicted the punishment.

Great exertions were made by Sir Henry Clinton, to whom André was particularly dear, first, to have him considered as protected by a flag of truce, and afterward as a prisoner of war.

Even Arnold had the hardihood to interpose. After giving a certificate of facts tending, as he supposed, to exculpate the prisoner, exhausting his powers of reasoning on the case, and appealing to the humanity of Washington, he sought to intimidate that officer by stating the situation of many of the most distinguished individuals of South Carolina, who had forfeited their lives, but had hitherto been spared through the clemency of the British general. This clemency, he said, could no longer be extended to them should Major André suffer.

It may well be supposed that the interposition of Arnold could have no influence on Washington. He caused Mrs. Arnold to be conveyed to her husband in New York, and also transmitted his clothes and baggage, for which he had written, but in every other respect his letters, which were unanswered, were also unnoticed.

The night after Arnold's escape, when his letter respecting André was received, the general directed one of his aides to wait on Mrs. Arnold, who was convulsed with grief, and inform her that he had done everything which depended on him to arrest her husband, but that, not having succeeded, it gave him pleasure to inform her that her husband was safe. It is honorable to the American character that, during the effervescence of the moment, Mrs. Arnold was permitted to go to Philadelphia to take possession of her effects, and to proceed to New York under the protection of a flag without receiving the slightest insult.

This treatment of Mrs. Arnold by Washington is the more remarkable for its delicacy when we recollect that she was under very strong suspicions at the time of being actively concerned in the treason of her husband. Historians are still divided on the question of her guilt or innocence.

The mingled sentiments of admiration and compassion excited in every bosom for the unfortunate André, seemed to increase the detestation in which Arnold was held. "André," said General Washington in a private letter, "has met his fate with that fortitude which was to be expected from an accomplished man and a gallant officer, but I am mistaken if at this time Arnold is undergoing the torments of a mental hell. He wants feeling. From some traits of his character which have lately come to my knowledge, he seems to have been so hardened in crime, so lost to all sense of honor and shame, that while his faculties still enable him to continue his sordid pursuits, there will be no time for remorse."

The traits in his character above alluded to, were disclosed in a private letter from Hamilton, who said: "This man (Arnold) is in every sense despicable. In addition to the scene of knavery and prostitution during his command in Philadelphia, which the late seizure of his papers has unfolded, the history of his command at West Point is a history of little as well as great villainies. He practiced every dirty act of peculation, and even stooped to connections with the sutlers to defraud the public." {6}

From motives of policy, or of respect for his engagements, Sir Henry Clinton conferred on Arnold the commission of a brigadier-general in the British service, which he preserved throughout the war. Yet it is impossible that rank could have rescued him from the contempt and detestation in which the generous, and honorable, and the brave could not cease to hold him. It was impossible for men of this description to bury the recollection of his being a traitor—a sordid traitor—first the slave of his rage, then purchased with gold, and finally secured at the expense of the blood of one of the most accomplished officers in the British army.

His representations of the discontent of the country and of the army, concurring with reports from other quarters, had excited the hope that the Loyalists and the dissatisfied, allured by British gold and the prospect of rank in the British service, would flock to his standard and form a corps at whose head he might again display his accustomed intrepidity. With this hope he published an address to the inhabitants of America in which he labored to palliate his own guilt, and to increase their dissatisfaction with the existing state of things.