Free Victory at Yorktown by Richard M. Ketchum Page B

papers, after which Arnold had fled—God only knew where. While he was digesting this bombshell in the presence of Hamilton and Colonel Robert Harrison, one of them reported what they had heard from James McHenry and Samuel Shaw, who had been sent ahead of Washington’s party and had eaten breakfast with Arnold this morning. During that meal a courier had handed Arnold a letter from Jameson, which was evidently the same one that had been turned over to Washington just now. Without revealing anything about its contents to his guests, Arnold excused himself, saying he had to cross the river to West Point at once, and McHenry and Shaw could see from the expression on his face that he was deeply disturbed by what he had read. The message, McHenry said, had thrown him “into some degree of agitation.”
    Arnold immediately ran upstairs to inform Peggy about what had happened, told her he must leave at once in order to save his life, and on his way out of the house directed an aide to say he would return from West Point in an hour. Running from the house, he leaped on a horse and as he was rounding the stable saw several of Washington’s party, who told him the commander in chief was coming up the road. Arnold put spurs to his horse, galloped down a steep hill to the dock, where his barge awaited, and, after throwing his saddle and pistols into the boat, ordered the boatmen to row as fast as possible to Stony Point. He was anxious to get there in a hurry, he told them, so as to get back in time for a visit with the General.
    When the barge was off Stony Point, Arnold told the boatmen his business required him to go aboard the Vulture and promised them two gallons of rum for rowing on as fast as possible. In a final contemptuous act, when they reached the sloop and went aboard, Benedict Arnold turned his crew over to the British as prisoners. These men, whom Washington described later as “very clever fellows and some of the better sort of soldiery,” were dumbfounded to be declared prisoners, since they assumed they were under the protection of a flag of truce. Fortunately, Washington added, when they reached New York “General Clinton, ashamed of so low and mean an action, set them all at liberty.”
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    GRADUALLY, AT THE Robinson house, the story of what had occurred began to emerge. Washington’s note to Arnold, informing him he would be passing through Peekskill on the evening of September 17, en route to Hartford, had set in motion an elaborate plan on the part of Arnold to capture the American commander in chief and seize the post at West Point. Arnold immediately wrote to the British, stating that Washington would be at King’s Ferry the following Sunday and planned to lodge at Peekskill that night. Providentially for the Americans, Arnold’s letter was delayed and did not reach the enemy in time for them to catch Washington, but the plan to take West Point was still in effect. All that remained was for Arnold and Major André to work out the details, and to that end Arnold arranged for Joshua Hett Smith—brother of William Smith, royal chief justice of New York—to go on board the Vulture on September 22 and bring ashore André (or John Anderson, which was the name by which Smith knew him). Smith lived nearby, in a country home owned by his brother. He was known to be an active Whig and had hospitably offered to put up Arnold’s wife if she should visit her husband.
    The two plotters, Arnold and André, talked at Smith’s house all through that night and were still conversing at dawn when American cannon opened fire on the sloop, inflicting some damage and forcing her to drop downstream, out of range. Smith’s boatmen, who had rowed André to the meeting, realized the risks involved in taking him back to the Vulture and refused to do so. Arnold, disconcerted by this turn of events, told André he must change his uniform for