"The 1776 Campaign That Saved the Cause of Liberty" Topic

"History has not been kind to Benedict Arnold, the Manichaean figure whose name became the timeworn proxy for "traitor" in popular histories of all varieties. Little matter that serious students of the Revolutionary War appreciate the fact that the French compared Arnold with Hannibal and considered George Washington a mere technician. Nonetheless, for many years Arnold's heroic exploits, including the march to Quebec and his victorious roles at Valcour Island and Saratoga as George Washington's top field commander, were best known to devotees of the historical novels of Kenneth Roberts.

In the 1950s, the popular appetite for stories of espionage narrowed the focus in James Flexner's The Traitor and the Spy: Benedict Arnold and John André to Arnold's plot to surrender West Point, its garrison, and Washington to the British. But massive U.S. government research projects in the 1960s, including the 10-volume Naval Documents of the American Revolution, opened new avenues for exploring the details of the Revolutionary War. The result was a spate of new books and media treatments of Arnold. Now comes Jack Kelly's Valcour: The 1776 Campaign That Saved the Cause of Liberty, which succeeds admirably in connecting the reader to the daily lives and sacrifices of the defenders of the North against a terrifying if sluggish invader…"
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Armand

Arnold is a very complicated character, not easily categorized…clearly a talented and inspirational military leader with many flaws.

Well put. And Congress did him no favors either.

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Armand

Had him being killed at Saratoga, now probabilly there'll be an aircraft carrier, and innumerable schools with his name.
This is one of the greatest historical ironies, if hadn't be the congress so idiotic with promotions, perhaps he coul've remained in the continental army, surely a better commander than Gates!

Its easy to trash the promotion system in the Continental Army, but there was some justification in the madness. There was a need to staff the army early on, before many men had gotten a chance to prove their abilities. Then the army peaked in strength fairly early in the conflict. Turnover in the senior levels wasn't that great. There was a need to take into consideration which colony men came from in determining who to promote. Arnold wasn't the only man who was @#$%ed over by this combination of circumstances.