BENEDICT ARNOLD | Sept. 21–How Treason Was Unmasked in New York

Benedict Arnold in Colonial
blue uniform, hero of Saratoga.

September 21–This day in 1780, George Washington's trusted General Benedict Arnold met with British Major John André to propose handing over West Point in return for cash and a high position in the British army.

The treasonous deal was uncovered by a Long Island-based group that became known as the Culper Spy Ring, part of Washington's secret service.

Arnold was born on January 14, 1741 to a respected family in Norwich, Connecticut Colony. He was a member of the British militia during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), when British troops defeated French and hostile Indian allies. It was during this war that then-Colonel George Washington made his name, serving under General Braddock.

Arnold after the French and Indian War became a successful trader. In 1775 he joined the Continental Army and distinguished himself during the next five years, helping Ethan Allen’s troops capture Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 and then participating in the unsuccessful attack on British Quebec, rising to the rank of Brigadier General.

Arnold in British red, post 1780,
traitor.

Arnold excelled in campaigns at Lake Champlain, Ridgefield and Saratoga, and gained the support of George Washington. He was wounded in one leg.

However, Arnold was not happy with his treatment by the Army leadership. In 1777, five men of lower rank were promoted over him. He had been counting on the extra pay because his second wife was spending extravagantly in Philadelphia.

He was appointed commander of West Point, and saw an opportunity for a deal that would take care of both his debts and his envy.

His plan was to trade his command of West Point for money  and safe passage from the British to England.  Arnold met with British Major John André and made his treasonous deal. When he realized that the plan had been discovered, Arnold fled to the British and led redcoats against Washington's troops in Virginia and Connecticut.

Meanwhile, when the deal between Benedict Arnold and John André was relayed to George Washington, he ordered the capture of Major André, who was then hanged as a spy in October 1780.

Arnold moved with returning troops to England. However, he was not happy with the choice he had made to betray his country for money and a higher military grade:

• He complained that he never received everything that he had been promised by the British.
• He regretted that he could never return to the United States. Arnold asked a captured captain from the Colonial Army: "What do you think would be my fate if my misguided countrymen were to take me prisoner?" The captain replied: "They would cut off the leg that was wounded at Saratoga and bury it with the honors of war, and the rest of you they would hang on a gibbet."
• On his deathbed in London in 1801, he asked to be dressed in the uniform of the Colonial Army from before his defection to the British, saying: "Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another." (Source: Clifton Johnson, The Picturesque Hudson, 1915.)

How Washington's Culper Spy Ring Exposed the Treason

Benedict Arnold's planned deal was reportedly uncovered by the first U.S. spy network, created by General Washington and led by Benjamin Tallmadge. The spy network operated in taverns frequented by sailors and others who traveled across Long Island Sound and were privy to activities on both sides of the Sound.

From the time that British forces occupied New York in August 1776, New York City and Long Island were key British strongholds and naval bases for the duration of the Revolutionary War. Getting information from New York on British troop movements and other plans was critical to General Washington, commander of the Continental Army, encamped west of New York City.

In 1778, Benjamin Tallmadge established a small ring of trustworthy men and women from his hometown of Setauket, Long Island. He was a young cavalry officer. Known as the Culper Spy Ring, Tallmadge’s network became the most effective of any intelligence-gathering operation on either side of the Revolutionary War, and Tallmadge can be considered the first head of what was a combination of today's FBI and CIA.

Tallmadge had enlisted in the Continental Army when the American Revolution began in 1775. He soon rose to the rank of major. In mid-1778, General Washington appointed Tallmadge head of the Continental Army’s spy network, to operate behind enemy lines on Long Island, the equivalent of Bill Donovan as head of the OSS in World War 2. In addition to serving as head of Washington's secret service, Major Tallmadge participated in many of the fiercest battles of the Continental Army in the northern states. Fellow spy Caleb Brewster served under Tallmadge in the capture of Fort St. George at Mastic, Long Island in November 1780.

Tallmadge, who went by the code name John Bolton, sought out only people he could absolutely trust, beginning with his childhood friends, the farmer Abraham Woodhull, and Caleb Brewster, whose main task during the Revolution was commanding a fleet of whaleboats against British (including American Tory) shipping on Long Island Sound. Brewster was the only member of the ring that the British had definitely identified as a spy.

Woodhull went by the name of Samuel Culper, and his code name became the name of the ring. He ran the group’s day-to-day operations on Long Island. He personally traveled back and forth to New York City collecting information and observing naval maneuvers there. He would evaluate reports and determine what information would be taken to General Washington. Dispatches would then be given to Brewster, who would carry them across the Sound to Fairfield, Connecticut; Tallmadge would then pass them on to Washington.

By summer 1779 the well-connected New York merchant Robert Townsend was serving as the ring’s primary source in New York City. Townsend wrote his reports as “Samuel Culper, Jr.” and Woodhull went by “Samuel Culper, Sr.” Austin Roe, a tavernkeeper in Setauket, acted as a courier for the Culper ring.

A local Setauket woman and Woodhull’s neighbor, Anna Smith Strong, aided in the spy ring’s activities. Her husband, the local Patriot judge Selah Strong, had been confined on the British prison ship HMS Jersey in 1778, and Anna Strong lived alone for much of the war. She used the laundry on her clothesline to leave signals regarding Brewster’s location for meetings with Woodhull.

Despite occasionally strained relations within the group and constant pressure from Washington to send more information, the Culper Spy Ring achieved more than any other American or British intelligence network during the war. They collected and passed on information in 1773-83  concerning key British troop movements, fortifications and plans in the New York area.

The group’s greatest achievement may have been in 1780, when it uncovered British plans to ambush the newly arrived French army in Rhode Island. Without the spy ring’s warnings to Washington, the Franco-American alliance may have been damaged or destroyed.

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