Benedict Arnold Archives - 250 and Counting

The Battle of Split Rock is really just a continuation of the Battle of Valcour, and a lot of it takes place in a location called Button Mould Bay (or Buttonmold Bay).

So why is it called the Battle of Split Rock?

That’s a fine question. On the western shore of Lake Champlain, just north of Button Mould Bay, is a formation called Split Rock Mountain. It rises sharply from the lake to an altitude of just over 1000 feet, and it’s where the confrontation between the British and the Americans resumed.

Button Mould Bay is an area of shallower water on the opposite side. It gets its name from a series of clay masses which have hardened almost to the point of concrete, into a shape much like an oversize button, or like the molds used in button making. Those concretions actually made it easier for Benedict Arnold to run his ship, and the galleys accompanying him, aground and set ablaze. This was the ship that had all of Arnold’s papers on it that I told you about the other day.

The post Battle of Split Rock–October 13, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Battle of Valcour Island didn’t really take place on the island; rather it was in Valcour Bay, a strait between New York and Valcour Island, in Lake Champlain.

After the failed invasion of Quebec the Continental forces retreated south to Fort Ticonderoga, at the south end of Lake Champlain. As they retreated they destroyed materiel they couldn’t use and left it behind in the relatively shallow, relatively narrow lake. This made navigating the lake tough for the British, so they took their time to get more reliable ships to assist with their next move.

That turned out to be a mistake.

As both sides prepared for the next conflict, the Americans scouted the lake and determined that they could effectively steer the British ships into Valcour Bay, where they would have ships waiting to fight them off. In addition, the wind was blowing the “wrong” way for British navigation, making things even tougher. Some British ships actually ran aground near the island but the battle itself was pretty brutal, with ships on both sides being badly hit. One British vessel’s powder magazine was struck and the entire ship exploded.

In the long run, however, darkness began to fall and both sides backed off. The Americans retreated, and the British basically stopped their attack largely because they were getting low on ammunition.

Benedict Arnold realized that Crown Point was no longer a viable defense point, so he destroyed and abandoned the fort, moving the forces to Ticonderoga. The next day, the British took Crown Point and remained there for about two weeks. Unfortunately, cold weather was already settling in and the decision was made to winter back up in Canada.

Remember when I said that taking their time was a mistake? Had they acted more quickly, they’d have beaten the weather AND caught the Americans by surprise. General Carleton and other officers recognized this in hindsight. Hessian commander Baron Riedesel noted, “If we could have begun our expedition four weeks earlier, I am satisfied that everything could have ended this year.”

And in a weird way, this battle was the catalyst for Benedict Arnold turning against the Americans. He’d lost a lot of personal papers during the battle, and when he requested compensation for some of his expenses in and following Quebec, he couldn’t provide documentation. He’d already been secretly negotiating with the British to change alliances (this would have been in late 1779), but that incident pushed him into resigning his command in order to be transferred to West Point, which he’d planned to surrender to the British.

Fortunately his plot was discovered and he fled to New York City, which was still occupied by the British. Eventually he got passage for himself and his family to England. He never set foot in the United States again.

The post Battle of Valcour Island–October 11, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Battle of the Cedars was actually a series of skirmishes that took place near the end of the American invasion of Quebec, which started in September 1775. The Cedars was an area just under 30 miles west of Quebec, and in April, Benedict Arnold had placed a detachment of troops in that area, because he’d heard that British and Indian troops were forming there.

When Arnold’s men engaged with them, they wound up surrendering. What’s more, a backup force was also captured. But Arnold wasn’t giving up so easily, and he was able to get reinforcements that allowed him to move from the area just outside Montreal toward The Cedars. Unfortunately for him, the British had four-inch guns to fire at him, plus the threat that any prisoners captured so far would be killed—by the Indians, not by the British. Arnold may or may not have known what rules the Indians worked under, so he called a war council to get his advisers’ opinions. Arnold wanted to mount a surprise attack but his council convinced him otherwise.

And that was pretty much that for the Battle of the Cedars. All that remained was the negotiations for prisoner exchange, but I won’t spoil for you here how that worked out; you’ll have to let Mike tell you.

The post The Battle Of The Cedars Ends–May 26, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

While hindsight is very much a 20/20 vision, it’s still worth exploring why the Battle of Quebec went so poorly for the American side:

Now, I am by no means a military expert, but these are the things that stood out for me just based on a quick read of the situation. It was hubris, and a brand of short-sightedness that this particular city got deep into the heads of Montgomery and Arnold, and they refused to let it go.

The post The Battle of Quebec–December 31, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The siege of Quebec was an event that was months in the making, and it was still just the penultimate act of the play.

Benedict Arnold and his troops thought they could get to the American side of the St. Lawrence River within 21 days; instead it took several weeks. Along the way they lost about a third of their troop strength. Some of the men died of illness en route, but most of them finally gave up altogether and headed home.

When they finally arrived they realized they didn’t have nearly what they needed to effect a decent attack on the city, so they had to hunker down and wait for supports to arrive. They were able to institute a couple of blockades, but that wasn’t nearly enough.

Finally General Montgomery showed up, and after an attempt at getting the city to surrender, they began the shooting. Unfortunately that didn’t do a lot of good, so the Continental Army had to settle for placing the city under siege. At this point, however, the clock was ticking because a big chunk of the Colonial soldiers were due to have their enlistments end on December 31. Something had to give, and soon.

The post The Siege of Quebec–December 8, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The events at Lexington and Concord were only about a month in the rear-view mirror when it occurred to both the Americans and the British that the Canadian provinces were colonies, too, and that they might have some kind of interest in the activities going on further south.

Quebec, being perhaps the largest city close to the border, was the natural target for everyone involved. So it was always in the back of minds in the Thirteen Colonies, and in England. And slowly, each side began to think about either converting Canada to the American side, or defending Canada from American invasion.

And on this day in history, everyone moved a giant step closer to what eventually became the Battle of Quebec.

The post Montgomery Arrives at Quebec–December 1, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

We gotta give Benedict Arnold this: he set a goal and he stuck to it.

Given the opportunity to take men and help invade Quebec through a kind of pincer move with General Montgomery, Benedict Arnold took 1100 men through the wilds of Maine to the St. Lawrence River, a trip that he thought would take 20 days over 180 miles.

But they ran into problems almost immediately involving weather, leaky boats, bad maps, bad terrain, illness and almost half the men turning back.

But make it he did, still with 600 men in tow, and with the help of the locals he got the sick ones healthy, the hungry ones fed, and established a base of operations for the next step, which we’ll talk about in just a few days.

The post Arnold’s March to Canada Ends–November 9, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Benedict Arnold and Company are still on the move toward Quebec. Over a three-week period they’ve moved fewer than 90 miles, with only…300 to go. Today they’ve reached The Great Carrying Place, a 13-mile walk alternating between woods and knee-deep mud, all while carrying everything they’ll need to get to Canada.

Back in the Colonies proper, General Gage is being replaced by General Howe. Gage was largely responsible for the Siege of Boston, especially since they weren’t able to break that siege. And then Bunker Hill came along. Sure, the British won but at great cost—a Pyrrhic victory. Once word got back to Britain about that, Lord Dartmouth appointed Howe within a couple of days. Of course, it took several weeks for the news to get back to America, and on September 26 he learned he was being replaced. By this days’ end, Gage was on his way back to Britain.

The post The Great Carrying Place–October 11, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

It was not so very long ago that some of us sought directions from Mapquest. Then we printed them out in order to make a trip of some kind.

It was only a little bit longer ago that we depended on physical maps to get places. In fact, if you’re a fan of the HBO show The Wire, you may recall a plot point that revolved around printed maps. A secret code led to a point on the map.

Back in the 18th Century, maps were very important resources for the overland traveler. And if a map had a mistake on it, you could be hopelessly lost. It’s not as though you could pull into Ye Olde Gas Station and get directions.

So the bad news for Benedict Arnold and Company is that the map he used to get to Quebec was terribly inaccurate. The good news is that it was largely incorrect from a distance standpoint. It could have genuinely been much worse.

The post October 2, 1775: Whoa…We’re Halfway There!? appeared first on 250 and Counting.

We think of “Benedict Arnold” and the word “Traitor” comes immediately to mind. The two are essentially synonymous. Say one, and you’ve said the other.

But Benedict Arnold was quite loyal to the Independence cause in the early days of the war. In fact, he was often eager to show what he could do. And why he switched sides is quite complicated and can’t really be answered quickly.

There were times when he felt that injustices were suffered upon him by other generals and by the Continental Congress. Some of them were real but others, imagined.

He had two painful battlefield wounds in a leg that was already plagued with gout. Was it a psychological issue?

Was it a midlife crisis, during which his politics shifted? Given that he married a very young, very pretty and very Loyalist woman named Peggy Shippen, maybe he just did it for the nookie.

Peggy Shippen is actually the most common explanation.

At any rate, in 1775 Arnold was still on our side and embarked on an expedition to Canada that turned out to be far more complicated than anyone suspected it would be.

The post September 19, 1775: Up the River appeared first on 250 and Counting.