lyagushka's Full Review: James Kirby Martin - Benedict Arnold, Revolutionar...
James Kirby Martin's re-examination of the most notorious American traitor is a soundly researched and ultimately rewarding read. Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero contains equal parts biography and military history, with a smattering of political history mixed in. If the book starts off with a rather heavy tone, the story of Arnold - too frequently reduced to the single word treason - amply recompenses the reader's perseverance.
Martin's choice of title, "Revolutionary Hero," clearly indicates his stance on the life of Benedict Arnold, a complex and passionate, if tragically proud man. Martin cannot hope to entirely salvage Arnold's reputation, nor erase the hard facts of his betrayal of the cause for which he earnestly fought and sacrificed so much. What he instead attempts and, to a certain extent, achieves is the illumination of a personality and the forces that could have embittered such a personality to an extent that made his traitorous actions nearly inevitable.
The book opens with a prologue that presents Arnold on the day he realizes that George Washington has learned of his betrayal of the Revolution. Arnold is dining with friends and fellow officers when he learns that The General, his once trusted friend and patron, is mere minutes from his home and in possession of documents incriminating Arnold. His hasty flight from his home, wife and infant child sets a scene meant to draw the reader into the life of this curious and fraught character. In this Martin succeeds.
Unfortunately, he then immediately squanders the reader's interest with a belabored discourse on the mythos that formed about Arnold when the public learned of his betrayal of the Patriot cause, a shroud of malicious and ungrateful slander that has remained about him until the present day. This ivory tower sort of diversion left me less interested than I was when I finished the little vignette in the prologue. I found the presentation, refutation and correction of the various false stories that grew up around Arnold unnecessary and even a little confusing. Had it gone on much longer than it did I might well have given up on the book entirely. Fortunately, Martin gets to the meat of his text soon thereafter.
The life of Benedict Arnold
Descended from a once prominent Rhode Island family, which had fallen into greatly reduced circumstances, Arnold was born in 1741 to a highly religious Calvinist mother and an ambitious father. The early deaths of two of Arnold's siblings drove his respectable father to the oblivion of hard drink and his mother to exhort young Benedict to cleave ever closer to a capricious, wrathful God as envisioned by the Calvinists. Benedict, having been groomed for a gentleman's education at university, completed only two years of his studies before lack of funds and the deaths of his parents forced him to leave his books behind to provide for himself and his unmarried sister.
Acutely aware of the prestige his family name once held, of his own father's attempts to reclaim that esteem, and having acquired half of an upper-class education, Arnold developed an exquisite sensitivity to matters of personal honor and a gentleman's attachment to his good name. He went into business for himself as a merchant, while his sister, Hannah, kept house for him. By all accounts brother and sister were very fond of one another. Hannah remained in Benedict's household during his brief first marriage, caring for his three boys after the early death of their mother, during his long absences for business and later while he served in the Continental Army. Hannah proved a capable surrogate mother and a shrewd businesswoman.
Arnold's experience as a sea captain and smuggler made him a good candidate as a military officer when conflict with England broke out. He was made a colonel and ordered north to Quebec, charged with preventing or delaying the English army's progress southwards to the lower colonies. This expedition proved to be far more dangerous and challenging than anyone had anticipated, and Arnold's nearly unbelievable attainment of the walls of Quebec earned him the moniker "America's Hannibal." It was to be just the first proof of Arnold's astounding ability, courage and complete dedication to the American revolution.
In the course of describing Arnold's life and military career, Martin has a good deal of myth-shattering to do. First and foremost among these is the unity of the Patriot cause against the tyrannical English crown. As it comes down to us in these latter days, the Continental Army was composed of selfless, virtuous citizen-soldiers whose fighting spirit and grim determination made up for their lack of training and equipment, and whose unity of purpose swept all before it. The reality, of course, is much less grandiose and tidy than our schoolbooks would have it.
But as Martin capably demonstrates, the legends are largely correct in that money and supplies were in desperately short supply, and that lightly armed colonial troops compared poorly to the well-drilled British regulars. These and other difficulties wrought havoc for the officers, and Arnold repeatedly took on some of the most difficult assignments - with poor intelligence, untrained men, long odds and too few supplies. His tenacity in the face of overwhelming situations, the near-starvation of some of his troops and his temper earned Arnold a few outspoken enemies. Yet he was a truly charismatic military leader with undeniably superior martial instincts, incredible bravery and fortitude. More than once Arnold bankrolled his troops out of his own pocket, with nothing more than the hope that Congress would in future see fit to reimburse him. On one occasion he sacrificed one of his ships as a floating bomb aimed at the British fleet.
To make things just a little messier, the Continental Congress insisted on micro-managing the military. Itself a body of civilians with little knowledge of things military, Congress continually showed preferment in matters of military rank for men with political influence but no martial talent, experience or achievement. This, in essence, was the root of Arnold's fateful decision to turn against the American cause. According to Martin, Arnold came to see the Congress as a betrayal of the ideals of the revolution, as yet another capricious and arbitrary power, much like his mother's Calvinist God or the British crown. (The mutual friendship and great admiration between Washington and Arnold delayed his betrayal.) He makes a good case for the pathways Arnold's embittered mind followed to reach such a conclusion.
Style
Martin's writing style, while occasionally uninspired, is serviceable and workmanlike once it hits its stride. I found it at first somewhat plodding and pedantic, but it picks up nicely after the first hundred pages or so. I felt that more could have been done to enliven the historic setting in the first third of the book, which is heavily biographical. Once Martin begins his treatment of Arnold's military career, his writing becomes more fluid and less affected.
Still, there were a few omissions that disappointed me. Martin never deals explicitly with the details of Arnold's betrayal. As I reader I did finally come to see how such a decision could have formed in the man's mind, but the actual event of Arnold contacting and co-operating with the British is never dealt with. Likewise, I wished for a bit more explication of Arnold's personality. Martin painted a few solid outlines of his character, but stopped far short of what a real biographer might have attempted. To be fair to Martin, it seems to me that he presented only what could be easily established on the basis of solid historical evidence. If he, as a historian, preferred to err on the side of caution that is understandable and respectable.
A few pages of black and white reproductions of paintings and plates augment the text nicely. Martin's lengthy captions for these illustrations are useful and interesting. Several easily understandable maps showing military actions appear throughout the text. Copious endnotes provide sources and additional commentary for the material of the text. An index is included at the end of the book.
In the end, Martin cannot entirely restore the honor that was so dear to Arnold's heart. What he does manage is to give proper credit to a man who sacrificed dearly to fight against tyrannical injustice and for the rights of the individual without preference for status. He also clearly conveys the tragedy of Arnold's life and the tantalizing sense that his name could have, and by rights should have, ranked among the revered giants of the American Revolution. In doing so, he evokes the reader's sympathy for a generous soul and great military leader whose fatal flaws of pride and an over-sensitivity to personal slights set the stage for the most famous act of treachery in US history.
Despite my criticism of Martin's writing style, I can recommend the Benedict Arnold, Revolutionary Hero to anyone with an interest in American history of the Revolutionary time period. Those with some background in this era will probably get more out of the book than those without. My four-star rating reflects the value and rarity of the material. Were the writing of a higher caliber, I would probably have given this book a stronger endorsement and a five-star rating.
To those interested in early American history, I would also highly recommend:
• Patriarch - Richard Norton Smith's excellent volume on George Washington's presidency
• John Adams - McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of our unsung second president
• Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams - Lynne Withey's examination of a very hands-on First Lady
• Understanding Thomas Jefferson - E.M. Halliday's unveiling of our most enigmatic president
• The First American: Benjamin Franklin - a superlative biography on America's premier elder statesman
• A Midwife's Tale - a fascinating look at life in pre-revolutionary Maine based on the journal of midwife
This landmark biography stands as an invaluable antidote to the historical distortion surrounding the life of Benedict Arnold.More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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