Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution (2016) by Nathaniel Philbrick

Nathaniel Philbrick is one of this country’s very best popular narrative historians. In “Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution” he delivers another fast-paced and insightful history of the “Glorious Cause.”

Although Philbrick’s story focuses on the dramatic role played by Benedict Arnold (and to a lesser degree George Washington), he nevertheless tells nearly the complete history of the Revolutionary War beginning in 1776, and does so with great vividness and clarity. Indeed, it is one of the best accounts I’ve read and often challenges the conventional interpretation of familiar events. For instance, Philbrick credibly claims that the standoff at Assunpink Creek in New Jersey on January 2, 1777 after the successful American raids on Trenton and Princeton was the “make-or-break moment of the War of Independence.” He also dabbles a bit in “what-ifs.” For example, Benedict Arnold lobbied strongly for an independent command at sea where he could harass the British while also earning a handsome profit from privateering (money and how to obtain more of it was never far from Arnold’s mind). Had Arnold succeeded, Philbrick muses, “he might have become one of the immortal heroes of the Revolution.”

In any event, Benedict Arnold is the hero/villain of the entire story. (Despite the book’s subtitle, Washington plays only a supporting role in the narrative.) Philbrick convincingly demonstrates that Arnold was the boldest and most successful general officer in the Continental Army and was a personal favorite of General in Chief George Washington. “Washington had a blind spot when it came to his contentious major general with a wounded leg,” Philbrick claims. Meanwhile, British secretary of state for the colonies Lord Germain lauded Arnold as “the most enterprising man among the rebels.” Indeed, Arnold’s daring exploits at Valcour Island on Lake Champlain in October 1776 may very well have saved the infant American cause by preventing a British force under Guy Carleton from uniting with the main British army in New York City, thus severing New England from the rest of the American colonies and threatening Washington’s retreat from the rear. His bravery and leadership at Saratoga the following year is legendary. “Arnold might be vain and overly sensitive to a slight, and difficult to work with,” Philbrick writes, “but there were few officers in either the American or British army who possessed his talent for almost instantly assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy.”

Yet Arnold felt that he was never given due credit for his remarkable efforts. A relatively successful merchant from New Haven, Connecticut before the war, Arnold had committed both his life and his fortune to the American cause. He felt underappreciated for his long-term service and sacrifices, both financial and physical. “Money is this man’s god,” presciently observed one Continental army colonel who worked closely with Arnold, “and to get enough of it, he would sacrifice his country.” First, for solely political reasons Arnold was passed over for promotion to major general. Then he was unable to wrest reimbursement payments from a stingy Continental Congress. When he was made military governor of recently liberated Philadelphia in June 1778, he viewed it as a sinecure and quickly made arrangements to personally enrich himself, acts that would eventually lead to a humiliating court martial, setting Arnold on the path to treason. According to Philbrick, “[O]ne cannot help but wonder whether [Arnold] would have betrayed his country without the merciless witch hunt conducted by [Joseph] Reed and his [Pennsylvania] Supreme Executive Council.”

Moreover, Arnold’s treason unfolded against a bleak background for the American cause, which appeared to be on the brink of collapse in 1780. The Continental army had barely survived a brutal winter in Morristown, New Jersey. Some units nearly mutinied over lack of pay and poor supplies. And then, in one of the worst defeats of the entire war, Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered Charleston, South Carolina and 5,500 American soldiers in May. Three months later the British under Lord Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina routed a large patriot force under Horatio Gates. The British undeniably had the rebels on the run. One cannot fault Benedict Arnold for believing the American cause was lost.

“The same narcissistic arrogance that enabled [Arnold] to face the gravest danger on the battlefield without a trace of fear had equipped him to be a first-rate traitor,” Philbrick writes. His decision to defect was not some spur of the moment event; he planned it secretly and carefully – with the full support of his loyalist-leaning wife, Peggy – over several months, time spent mostly trying to exact the highest payment possible from the British for his treachery. Arnold lobbied Washington for command of West Point with the express intent of turning it over to the British. Under the dire circumstances of mid-1780, its capture, along with its garrison force, could very well have been the death knell of the revolution.

Philbrick tells in exquisite detail the dramatic events leading up to the capture of British Major (and Adjutant General to General Clinton) John Andre, which unraveled the entire conspiracy before it could be executed. Philbrick describes how the dashing and noble Andre faced down death with a stoic aplomb that mesmerized his captors. Arnold, who barely escaped capture himself, was transformed overnight from a hero of the revolution into its blackest figure. Nathanael Greene, another highly successful but underappreciated Continental army general, had this to say about Arnold: “How black, how despised, loved by none, and hated by all. Once his country’s idol, now her horror.”

Ironically, Philbrick claims that Arnold’s treachery may have saved the revolution. “As a warrior at Valcour Island and Saratoga, Benedict Arnold had been an inspiration,” Philbrick writes. “But it was as a traitor that he succeeded in galvanizing a nation.” Internal strife had crippled the American government. “As Great Britain’s focus shifted to the French and the islands of the West Indies [in 1780],” Philbrick claims, “Americans were turning their attention to destroying one another.” News of Arnold treason had put things in perspective, according to the author. The delicacy of their sacred cause had been made transparent. Americans needed to put aside their near-term political differences to ensure they would have the opportunity to debate the long-term ones.

Unfortunately, Philbrick writes almost nothing of Arnold’s post-defection career as a British Brigadier General of loyalists or of his tragic final years as a forgotten and pathetic figure in London. I would have loved to learn more about Arnold’s campaign in Virginia and how his marriage to Peggy faired after the Revolution.

In closing, “Valiant Ambition” left me deeply impressed with Philbrick’s ability to weave a compulsively readable historical narrative. I almost immediately ordered his book on the Mayflower, so excited am I to read more of his work. So if you have a deep interest in the American Revolution or simply like to read a tale wonderfully told, this book couldn’t come more highly recommended.