Soldier Turned Traitor To Save His Country

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 27, 16 December 1938, Page 16

Soldier Turned Traitor To Save His Country

He Was Despised And Rejected

"NOT UNDERSTOOD" . . that, in short, is the of "Renown," a biography of Benedict Arnold, one of tie most picturesque characters in British-American history. . Considered by General Washington to have been America’s. most valued general in the War of Independence, Arnold became involved in petty quarrels with civic authorities, and, after a court-martial, began treasonable correspondence with the British commander, eventually undertaking to betray his com .and at West Point for a large sum of mon-y. As brigadier-gen-eral in the British Army, he turned his flair for military tactics against his own people. In setting out to prove that Benedict Arnold was not a traitor, but a man who visualised an early ending to a fruitless war-a war being drawn out by inept civilian authorities who were impeding the progress of the military officersMr. Hough faces difficult tas with courage and reveals Arnold as a patriot and not a traitor. Not understood, pilloried by office-seeking Americans, held to ridicule by those not fit to shine his boots, seriously wounded in action against the British and considering that France’s support to the struggling colonists would not bring independence, but merely a change in niasters, Arnold crosses over to the British side, only to dis- . cover that his motives haye been misunderstood. Soul Torment Aynold’s farewell message to his American comrades tells of the torment in his soul: "The heart which is conscious of its own rectitude cannot attempt to palliate a step which the world may censure as wrong. 1 have ever acted from a principle of love to my country since the commencer.ent of the present unhappy contest between Great Britain and the Colonies. The same principle of love to my country actuated my present . conduct, however it may appear — inconsistent to the world, who very seldom judge right of ahy man’s action."

Despised by the British-it would seem he had been "betrayed" into "betraying his country,’ Arnold’s life was full of misery and misfortune. At times his undoubted brilliancy raised him to great heights, but soon he would see his castles crashing to the ground. 3 He left no heritage of renownonly debits and lawsuits. His sons served in the British Army, two died om service and another was knighted and became Lieut.-General Sir James Robertson Arnold.

History seldom evaluates men correctly; tradition never. . It is in tradition that Benedict Arnold lives. Historically, all that commemorates him today in the country he so nearly died to make free are a couple of ambiguous placenames, a few obseure historie spotmarkers, a curious monument "to the most brilliant soldier in the Continental Army" (unnamed) where once the Hessian redoubt stood and an empty niche in the Saratoga battle monument, which awaits @ statue that will never he carved, . . . These things-and, in the hearts of his countrymen, a place at the richt hand. of Tundae Teenriot.

W.F.

I.

"Renown,’’ by Frank O. Hough.: George G.. Harrap and Co., Ltd., London. Our copy from the pubfishers,