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The letter to William Heath is dated
Robinson House, Sept. 26, 1780.
Dear Sir: In the present situation of things, I think it necessary that you should join the army; and request that you will do it. You will come to headquarters yourself. The route through Litchfield will be the most eligible for you, on account of security, and you may direct your baggage to halt at Fishkill, for your further orders. I write to the Count de Rochambeau by this conveyance; and I trust that your coming away now will not be attended with any material inconvenience to him.
I cannot conclude without informing you of an event which has happened here, which will strike you with astonishment and indignation:—Major General Arnold has gone to the enemy. He had had an interview with Major André, Adjutant General of the British Army, and had put into his possession a state of the army of the garrison at this post, of the number of men considered as necessary for the defense of it, a return of the ordinance, and the disposition of the artillery corps, in case of an alarm. By a most providential interposition, Major André was taken in returning to New York, with all the papers in General Arnold’s hand writing; who, hearing of the matter, kept it to himself, left his quarters immediately, under pretext of going over to West Point, on Monday forenoon, about an hour before my arrival; then pushed down the river in the barge, which was not discovered until I had returned from West Point in the afternoon, and when I received the first information of Mr. André’s capture. Measures were instantly taken to apprehend him, but, before the officer sent for the purpose could reach Verplanck’s Point he had passed it with a flag, and got on board the Vulture ship of war, which lay a few miles below. He knew of my approach, and that I was visiting, with the Marquis, the north and middle redoubts; and from the circumstances was so straightened in point of time, that I believe he carried with him but very few, if any, material papers; tho he has very precise knowledge of the affairs of the post. The gentlemen of General Arnold’s family I have the greatest reason to believe, were not privy in the least degree to the measures he was carrying on, or to his excape.
Go. Washington.
Nathaniel Green’s letter is addressed to Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth at Hartford, and reads: “I think I have not written you since the late desertion of Arnold. Was you ever more astonished in your life? A man high in reputation, and with the fairest prospects of domestic happiness. The love of parade and the thirst for gold has proved his ruin. How black, how despised, loved by none, and hated by all. Once his Country’s Idol now her horror. Curse on his folly nay his villainy and most of all his meanness. The latter has been displayed in such dirty colours in his transactions at this post, as has not been equaled in the history of man. All kind of private and public robery has he pursued, and accompanied it, with such circumstances of littleness as shows him to be the basest of mortals. I freely confess I had no conception notwithstanding the converse I have had with mankind, that it was possible for human nature to arrive at such a degree of corruption. The discovery has been very providential. Had these Posts fallen into the Enemies’ hand God knows what might have been the consequence. But I think little short of the entire subjection of America. What a triumph to British pride; and what a downfall to American glory. Poor Congress what would have become of you?”
Benedict Arnold
We know that his mother’s maiden name was Hannah Waterman, and that she married first Absalom King, of Long Island, and then, after his death, on November 8th, 1733, she married Benedict Arnold and that Benedict, the traitor, was born on January 3d, 1740, new style Jan. 14, 1741; and that he had a sister Hannah, born Dec. 9th, 1742. We also know that while yet a lad he was apprenticed to a druggist in Norwich and that another lad likewise apprenticed was Hopkins. Arnold when only sixteen enlisted in a regiment and went off to Hartford but at his mother’s earnest solicitation he was sent back; only to run away again and enlist in a regiment stationed in the vicinity of Ticonderoga. He soon deserted and returned to his home and business and after serving his apprenticeship started in the drug business for himself in New Haven. This for awhile prospered and later failed. We know that before the war, in 1767, he was married at New Haven to a lady by the name of Margaret Mansfield. They had three sons, Benedict, Richard and Henry. This lady probably died in 1775. We know that during the war, in April, 1779, he was married to the youngest daughter of Edward Shippen of Philadelphia, Pa. Margaret, or as she was more frequently called, Peggy Shippen, a girl under nineteen in 1779. We know they went to England before the close of the war and Benedict Arnold was in England in 1786 and part of 1787. We do not know if he was married again after the war, but we know that a lady calling herself Mrs. Arnold arrived in Massachusetts on January 3, 1796. She came in the ship Outram from London 56 days out. With her was her daughter Elizabeth Arnold, then nine years old. A man showed them marked attention during the voyage and after they had been some time settled in Boston Mrs. Arnold announced that she had married this individual, who was Charles Tubbs, before leaving England. Mrs. Tubbs and her daughter Betty or Elizabeth Arnold became stage favorites and in 1802 the daughter Elizabeth Arnold, then fifteen years old, married C. D. Hopkins, and they continued to take prominent parts on the stage until his death, which occurred on October 26th, 1805. Meanwhile David Poe, the son of David Poe of Baltimore, Maryland, had fallen desperately in love with Betty Arnold Hopkins. Her husband’s sudden death enabled them to marry and in July 1806 Mr. and Mrs. Poe appeared together at the Vauxhall Garden Theatre in New York. In January, 1809, they were together, filling an engagement on the Boston stage, assisted by John Howard Payne, the immortal author of Home, Sweet Home, when on the 19th of the month Edgar Poe was born. What became of his Arnold grandmother may always remain a mystery. She may have died in Philadelphia in 1798 after which date she was never heard of, but wherever she reposes, with her is probably buried for all time that question one might like to solve. Was her child, as some affirm, the daughter of Benedict Arnold? If this Betty Arnold was his daughter then our immortal poet Edgar Allan Poe was a grandson of the arch traitor, Benedict Arnold.