 So welcome everyone to our February, our February lecture for the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum's free monthly lecture series. We have amazing presentation today by historian and author Jack Kelly, but before we get to him, I am just going to say a few words about this program and thank our sponsors for this program. First up, my name is Angie Grove. I'm the executive director at the Ethan Allen Homestead Museum. I am almost on my two year anniversary. So this is maybe my 10th or 11th lecture series. And the first one on Benedict Arnold. So I'm excited to learn about this infamous man. So our monthly lecture series is part of our larger community enrichment programs in which we have a book club. We have reenactment events. We do field trips and lots of other different programs that help the community have historical enrichment and education in their lives. Our community enrichment series is sponsored by some community organizations, including MNT Bank, North Country Federal Credit Union, and Vermont AARP. So thank you to them. And our monthly lecture series specifically has also had, grateful to have the partnership of CCTV, also known as town meeting TV, who records the programs and then makes them accessible on town meeting TV showing as well as on our YouTube page so that we can reach a broader audience and bring historical enrichment to more people. So thank you to all of our partners and the sponsors of these programs. Okay, I am going to turn over to John Devano, who is our recent past president of the Homestead Board of Directors, and he's going to introduce today's speaker for us. And one more technical thing. If you put anything in the chat box, I will be monitoring the chat box there. So if you have questions during the presentation, you can put them in the chat box to save for the end of the presentation and I'll be going through those questions. At the end, if you want to ask your question live, you'll also have the opportunity to do that as well. Okay, over to John. All right. Thank you, Angie. Welcome everyone and a special welcome to our viewers, our attendees from out of state today. I know we have several We are really pleased today to have Jack Kelly with us. Jack is an award-winning historian and novelist. His books about the revolution and early America include Band of Giants and Valkor. Kirkus Reviews described his latest book, God Save Benedict Arnold, in the following way is the true story of America's most hated man. It's a dazzling addition to the history of the American Revolution. The Wall Street Journal said that the book, quote, propels readers into the brutal action with vigorous prose and sentences that are often short and pugnacious, much like Arnold himself. Jack has received the DAR History Medal. He is a New York Foundation, he is a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in nonfiction literature and has appeared on NPR, C-SPAN, and the History Channel. He lives and works in New York's Hudson Valley and he promised us earlier today that he's going to come to the homestead later this summer. So with this, Jack, it's all yours. Thank you very much, John, and thank you, Angie, and thanks to everybody for tuning in. It's always great to talk about these events in the places where they happened. Much of Benedict Arnold's career really happened in the Champlain Hudson Valley. Everybody knows Benedict Arnold. He's probably the most well-known soldier of the Revolutionary War, other than George Washington himself. And everybody that knows Benedict Arnold knows one thing about him. And I don't have to say what that is, because you know what it is. But I wrote the book in part because it's a great story, but also to get across the idea that there's more to Benedict Arnold than that one thing. And it's really important to understand Arnold in order to get a clear picture of the Revolutionary War. My book is not a biography of Benedict Arnold as much as making the case for him. It's like a manifesto about Benedict Arnold. I sometimes think of it as Benedict Arnold's greatest hits. So the Revolutionary War began on the morning of May 19, 1775, when the red coat shot and killed eight minute men at Lexington Green. And the Patriots came back and killed more than 70 of the King's soldiers, and the war was on. Benedict Arnold, two days after the news of Lexington arrived in New Haven, Connecticut, where he lived and had a very successful trading business. Two days later, he was on the march towards Boston to join the war. He was very enthusiastic and one of the most avid soldiers to march off to war at that time. Three weeks later, on May 10, Arnold captured one of the most strategic fortifications in the 13 colonies at Fort Tide, Conor, Oga on Lake Champlain in Northern New York. And he not only captured the fort, but he went up into Canada on his own initiative without orders from anybody and captured a warship that was the only warship that the British had on land. On Lake Champlain at that time. So he thereby secured Lake Champlain for the Patriots. The question then arises, was this an important achievement of Arnold? And I think it was in part because the strategy of the British during the first two years of the war was to gain control of the water corridor that ran down the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, Lake George, with a little portage over to the Hudson River, and then all the way down to New York City. This was the super highway of the colonies. And the British felt that if they gain control that water corridor, they would be able to split the colonies, isolate New England and win the war. So the obstacle to that achieving that goal was Fort Tide Conor over approximately in the middle. And in particular, the Patriot control Lake Champlain. And I'll talk in a minute how that hampered the British in putting their plan into progress. But in addition to that, there were an abundance of cannon at Fort Tide Conor over the Patriots desperately needed, and they very famously put them on sleds in the following winter, hauled them across the entire state of Massachusetts. And that gave George Washington, his first victory, allowed him to force the British out of Boston. That was a great achievement of his head of artillery, Henry Knox. So between the stopping the British invasion and getting the cannon to Boston, it seemed like this is a very important achievement. So we have to look at the history books and see what they say about it. And it's barely a footnote. The capture of Fort Tide Conorogue is usually mentioned and just passed over. And the credit when it is given is often given to Ethan Allen. Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, of course, as I'm sure most of you up there know, the Green Mountain Boys was a vigilante group that Allen had gotten up before the war. They really didn't start out having anything to do with the dispute with Britain. And the Allen and the Green Mountain Boys did provide the manpower for the takeover at Ticonderoga. But as soon as the excitement was over, the Green Mountain Boys basically went home. Ethan Allen had a controversial, to put it diplomatically, a controversial role in the Revolutionary War. And in fact, the idea for taking over the Fort Tide Conorogue was Benedict Arnold. The leader was Benedict Arnold. And I think most importantly, the initiative to gain control of Lake Champlain was all Benedict Arnold. So that now leads to the question, do we owe it to Benedict Arnold to get the history right? And I don't think we do because Benedict Arnold was certainly a traitor and there's nothing in my book that in any way exonerates him. In fact, I think his treason was actually much more serious than some people think. So we don't owe him anything, but I think we owe it to ourselves to get the iron out the discrepancies in history. Because Benedict Arnold is a paradox. He was both a hero and a villain. He was someone who was devoted and really devoted to the Patriot cause and then tried to destroy the Revolution later. And that's not an easy thing to get your head around, to understand. And so from beginning, immediately after his treason was uncovered, there's been attempts to sort of iron it out and just say, well, he was just a traitor all along. And his accomplishments were insignificant or his participation was minimal or his motives were suspect. Some of the early biographies even said that he was a nasty little boy and made up stories about things that he'd done as a child, which were totally fabricated to show that he'd been a traitor from the cradle. So I think it's important to understand that paradox, to understand that he actually was both a really important hero of the Revolution and our worst traitor. And partly it's because that's the truth of history. And partly it's because there are many paradoxical figures all through our history. If we just think of the Revolutionary War, there's people like Aaron Burr, Ethan Allen himself, General Charles Lee, Horatio Gates to some extent. These were people they weren't certainly didn't go as far as Arnold did and betraying the cause, but they wavered or they had doubts or they acted out of self interest. And they were complicated. And that's really the way history is, you know, I think we can get past the Parson Weems type of history where George Washington never told a lie. We can see that all the people are complicated and some are much more complicated than others. And those who are have the type of paradox that Benedict Arnold had can be dangerous and Arnold certainly was dangerous. So we jump ahead to 1776 and see why the capture of Taekwondo was so important. The British goal that year was to bring a 7,000 man army over to Canada, come down the Richelieu River down Lake Champlain and down to at least to Albany and get control of the Hudson River. But they couldn't do that, because if they were to move that army down towards or Taekwondo roga now controlled by the Patriots, they would have been subject to attack by gunboats like this. This is a replica of the of the gunboat Philadelphia that was built by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. And that would have the troops in the British troop transports would have been able to be blasted out of the water. So the British had to build their own fleet of armed ships up in Canada in order to protect the troop transports in order to get the army down to Taekwondo roga and continue on their invasion. So they began an arms race that summer with Benedict Arnold in control in charge of the nautical defenses of Taekwondo roga was down here in Skeensboro. Today is Whitehall at the very tip of southern tip of Lake Champlain building more gunboats more small sailing ships armed with cannon and the British were up here in St. John's with a lot more resources, a lot more expertise, putting together a small fleet of of warships, but with a lot more guns and a lot more power than than what the Americans could muster down in the other end. That went on for all summer. In August, Benedict Arnold took his small fleet up to the north end of Lake Champlain, waited for the British and he waited and waited and all through September, nothing happened. They continued to build ships they wanted to have overwhelming firepower when they finally did come down the lake. But the delay was to prove to be very consequential. At the end of September, Arnold pulled back to Valkour Island here and had there was a protected bay between Valkour Island and New York shore. And he waited some more for the British it wasn't till October 11 the British finally came down the lake and when they patriots found out the size of the fleet that they had and the amount of firepower. Arnold second and command said, we got to get out of here where this is this is suicidal to stay here. And Arnold said, no, I have a plan. We're going to fight the Royal Navy and we're going to beat them. And he was so confident and so keen in his strategic thinking that his captain supported him they they lined up for battle. And his strategy this is a contemporary map of the battle. This was the American line in the north. The north end of the bay was closed off because it was too shallow for ships to come through there. So the British had to come around and a lot of their number of their bigger ships weren't able to get up in there. They couldn't tack back and forth enough to get through that narrow opening. This line here represents the British gunboats which they had many. And the battle basically came down to American gunboats firing at British gunboats. Very brutal formal warfare point blank cannon range firing back and forth. It went on for seven hours. The it got dark. The battle ended and the Americans were still standing. The British had not been able to break through that line of ships. But they'd expended three quarters of ammunition. The the many of their boats were damaged. So now what? Again, Arnold said I have a plan. And because of his foresight, they were able to escape from that trap of the bay in Velcker Island. Directly through the blockade that the British set up to the south. In the middle of the night, very quietly, they were able to slip away. It was almost like a fairy tale. There was more fighting down the lake. The majority of the American ships were destroyed in all that fighting. But the outcome was that by the time the British got their army down to Fort Ticonderoga, it was almost November and the British were afraid that the lake would freeze before they could take Fort Ticonderoga and then they'd be stuck there. They wouldn't be able to get back and they wouldn't couldn't go on. So they decided that they would go back try again in the spring. So the campaign of 1776 in the north was a complete success in the sense that it stopped that British invasion. And if we asked then, was it an important achievement? All we have to do is look at the other end of that water corridor down in New York City. George Washington had already lost the, in August, he lost the largest battle of the entire war in Brooklyn. He was forced out of New York City in September. He was forced over into New Jersey and then retreated all the way across New Jersey to Pennsylvania. His 20,000 man army had shrunk to 3,000 men and he wrote a letter to his brother at that time saying, I think the game is pretty near up. And it would have been up. I think it would have been curtains for Washington if he'd also had to contend with a British invasion coming down the Hudson River. But instead, because of the success in the north, Benedict Arnold and Horatio Gates, who was the commander of Ticonderoga, came south with more than 600 men and marched them out to join Washington's army in Pennsylvania. So some of the men who fought at Valcor Island also crossed the Delaware and Washington's famous Christmas night attack on the Hessians in Trenton is greatest and most consequential victory. Benedict Arnold was not among them because he'd been sent off on another assignment, but his men were there and he was able to get them down there because of the success he'd had. So what do they say in the history books? Well, I can't say it's just a footnote because this book of Alcor, the 1776 campaign to save the cause of liberty came out a couple of years ago, which I wrote myself. And it's a pretty good book. I would recommend it. And I was surprised, though, when I was doing the research for that book of how little had been written about the northern campaign. It's just something that slipped through the cracks and many of the accounts of that very crucial year 1776. So we jump back to 1777. This is Benedict Arnold's house in New Haven had one of the biggest houses in town and he had come home after a long. Many, many months of campaigning in order to take a rest. He was on leave there and he decided to resign his commission. He thought that he deserved promotions for his success at Alcor, which he didn't get George Washington supported him. But then as now the main promotions in the army were made by Congress. And there was a lot of politics and just general confusion in Congress as to how to handle the military. And they not only refused Arnold his promotion, but they promoted junior officers over his head, which was a slap in the face to any officer. So he decided to resign and have done with the war. He wrote out his resignation and went down to Philadelphia and he turned it in in July of 1777 by coincidence. On that same day, news arrived in Philadelphia that Fort Ticonderoga had fallen. General John Burgoyne had now brought that 7000 man army down. Very little opposition on Lake Champlain easily took Ticonderoga and was on the march toward Albany. Arnold forgot about his resignation, jumped on a horse, rode up to join General Gates, who's now in command in the north. Together they decided to meet Burgoyne at Bemis Heights on a high ground just beside the Hudson River and a few miles south of the village of Saratoga, which today is Skylarville. They fought two battles there collectively known as the Battle of Saratoga. In both battles General Burgoyne tried to sweep around the left end of the American lines and in both battles Benedict Arnold commanded the left division. In the first battle he fought Burgoyne to a standstill and inflicted pretty heavy casualties. And in the second battle he decisively defeated Burgoyne and then personally led a charge into the British field fortifications, broke through and put Burgoyne in a position where he had to do what he said he would never do, which was retreat. Benedict Arnold was severely wounded in that battle with a bullet through his leg, but ten days later Burgoyne had to surrender his entire army to General Gates. So if we get to the question was this an important achievement, it's referred to as the turning point of the Revolutionary War. Time magazine at one point said that they estimated this to be the most important single battle fought anywhere in the world in the last thousand years. So it sounds pretty important. So what are they saying in the history books? Well, they can't deny that it was important. So there's been a continuous and in almost every account of the Battle of Saratoga. Some attempt to diminish the contribution of Benedict Arnold. Some of the stories were he was drunk. Some said that he had been relieved of his command. He was pouting in his cabin. He was never on the battlefield or while they had to admit that he must have been out there at some point because he got wounded. He was just riding around like a madman. He wasn't he wasn't managing the battle. Those stories have over time gradually been debunked. And I think there's even been a there was recently about five years ago a new some new evidence that came out that really clarified. And I think today a lot of historians probably most historians would agree that Benedict Arnold really was the essential man in that very essential battle that that changed everything in the Revolutionary War. Three years later in 17 we come to the one thing that everybody knows about Arnold, which was that he committed treason. He went over to the British. This was an effigy of him that was dragged through the streets of Philadelphia after they found out. And of course, the question is immediately is why did he do it? And there's been many reasons proposed. And talked about a lot of historians have their favorite reason. Some said that it was all about the money. Some said that it was his wife. He'd married Peggy Shippen was a loyalist leaning young lady from Philadelphia and the she influenced him to do it. Some said that he didn't like the alliance with with the French that they developed after Saratoga. Some said he was just disgruntled over the still over the Congress's treatment of him and the promotions they didn't get. My own answer to that question was why you went over to the British is I don't know. I think Benedict Arnold is very enigmatic character, very hard to hard to penetrate and to look into his mind and see what he was thinking. What would have had so much weight that it would force him to make this 180 degree change. And I sometimes wonder if he knew or if he could have articulated himself, even why he did it. But he certainly did do it. And because he never did anything by haves. He gained command of the lower Hudson Valley. He asked George Washington to give him command of this. He was still suffering from his leg wound and then feel he could be out in the field. So he had first been in command of Philadelphia and then they moved him up here to the Southern Hudson Valley, which included West Point, a very crucial fort. It was not a military academy then, of course, it was a fort protecting the Hudson River. And he offered to the British to let them take over West Point, which they had wanted to do for years. And he was going to make that possible. So the unfolding of that plot is one of the great dramas in American history. He met in September 1780 in Haverstraw, which is on the west side of the Hudson River, with the head of British intelligence, Major John Andre, and gave him a map of the fort information about troop deployments there, other documents. And Major Andre was the go-between for the plot. Arnold then went home back to his headquarters, which was on the east side of the Hudson River opposite West Point. And Andre, after some delay, found himself riding on horseback down the east side from the peak skill ferry down the east side of the Hudson River. And he got almost down to Tarrytown. He was very excited and he was very nervous. And he was excited because he had accomplished really the greatest intelligence school of the war that was going to completely make his career, probably make his life by making this arrangement with Arnold. And he was nervous because this area of Westchester County was no man's land. It was below the American lines, but above the British lines that were down closer to New York. And it was patrolled by both loyalist and patriot militiamen. Major Andre was in civilian clothes riding along. Sure enough, three men jumped out of the bushes, stopped him at Musket Point. And then Andre made the mistake of saying, I hope you're of our party. And so one of the militiamen, who was probably not as dumb as he looked, said, oh yeah, what party is that? At that point, Major Andre had to guess. So he said the lower party, meaning the British down in New York. And the militiamen said, we're Americans, get down. They searched him. They found them documents. They didn't know exactly what he was up to, but it was very suspicious that he'd have this map of West Point and other documents on him. He offered them bribes. They refused the bribes. They took him over to their commanding officer, Colonel Jameson. I think Colonel Jameson was a little slow on the uptake because he, the first thing he did was to send a letter by courier to his commanding officer, Benedict Arnold, explaining this suspicious activity down in his district. He thought about it then the next day, and he's going, well, wait a minute, this is Benedict Arnold's handwriting. I'm not sure how to take all of this. I'll send the whole thing to George Washington. So he sent another courier off with the documents and another letter to George Washington. The twist in the plot comes in because George Washington wasn't at the American camp over on the New Jersey border, but had gone out to Hartford, Connecticut to meet with some French officers. He was on his way back to camp and he was scheduled the next morning to have breakfast with Benedict Arnold, and they were then going to go over to inspect West Point together. So you have the tense situation where you got two couriers. The second courier had found out that where Washington was going to be, so they were both headed towards Arnold's headquarters. George Washington also headed towards Arnold's headquarters from the north, who was going to get there first. Some of Washington's aides arrived at Benedict Arnold's house, said the Washington's just up the road, get ready, he'll be here in a few minutes. Then one of the couriers arrived, handed a letter to Arnold, Arnold read it. He said to his wife, I've got to go, and he told everybody else, he said, I'm going over to West Point, tell Washington to wait. He ran down to the boat launch on Hudson River, jumped in his boat and told his crew to row as fast as they could to the south. Meanwhile, Washington arrives at his headquarters, Arnold's not there. Where is he? He's over at West Point. Okay, Washington says we'll go over and do the inspection now. They go over, he takes his whole entourage over to West Point. The people there haven't seen Arnold in two days. So, watching this little puzzling, he looks around the fortifications that Arnold had supposed to have been building up were actually still falling down. A lot of the men had been sent away from West Point, there wasn't enough men to defend the fort. What was going on? So, Washington later described his own thinking at that moment. He said, my mind misgave me, but I had not the least idea of the real cause. And I think we can all identify with that feeling, it's like there's something wrong here, but I just can't put my finger on what it is. So, being the unflappable George Washington, he went back to Arnold's headquarters and decided to take a nap. Before he laid down in bed, another courier arrived and handed him a letter with the documents. He looked them over, he immediately knew what was going on. He called in his most trusted subordinate, Henry Knox, and he said, Arnold has betrayed us. Who can we trust now? And it was not a rhetorical question because Washington at that point didn't know who was involved in this plot and how far it went. So, he sent Alexander Hamilton racing down the Hudson River on horseback to try to catch up with Arnold. He sent a message over to the army on the west side of the Hudson to start marching troops up to West Point to protect the fort. And then the real drama began. Arnold's wife, Peggy, former Peggy Shepin, now Peggy Arnold, and this by the way is a drawing of Peggy that was done by Major John Andre. He was quite a pretty good artist and this was back when the British were in control of Philadelphia and Peggy was flirting with the British officers. She started tearing her clothes off, screaming that she had to see Washington, that they were going to kill her baby. She was having a hysterical fit, they thought. And so the officers gathered around, tried to comfort her and they didn't suspect that she could be so devious that she had been in on the plot all along. And in fact, was putting on the scene in order to help her husband escape. And he did escape. He got down to a ship on Hudson River, went to New York City, was made a Brigadier General in the British Army, spent the next year fighting against Americans for the British, wearing the red coat himself. After Yorktown, went over to England and never set foot in America again. A few days after, of course, Major Andre, this is a portrait, a self portrait by Major Andre, drawn while he was waiting for his trial, which happened about a week later. And he was then immediately hanged as a spy. The three militiamen who captured Andre and refused to accept his bribes, received what turned out to be the first military decorations in American history of these silver medals with the word fidelity on them, of course, in contrast to the lack of fidelity by Benedict Arnold. A few days after the plot was discovered, one of Arnold's aides said that wouldn't have been better if the bullet that went through his leg at Saratoga had gone through his heart. And historians down the years have sort of echoed that sentiment a little differently by saying that if Benedict Arnold had been killed at Saratoga, he would be remembered as one of our greatest military heroes. And I think from what I've talked about here this afternoon that you can see the logic of that idea, but I don't think it's true. I think that if Benedict Arnold had been killed at Saratoga, he would have been forgotten in the same way that Nathaniel Green and Henry Knox and Richard Montgomery and all the great military heroes of the revolution have largely been forgotten by the general public. I live in the Hudson Valley, as I mentioned, we have Green County, Montgomery County, nearby, Sullivan County, Putnam County, all named for heroes of the revolution. What you ask people who's the place is named for, they're not really that clear about it. So I'm hoping that as we come up to the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War, which is fast approaching, that some new attention can be paid just to the men who did the fighting. We're going to remember Benedict Arnold, of course, but what about all the others who stayed faithful and particularly the men in the ranks who went through a great deal of hardship in order to create a country? If you read the letters and diaries of that time, you occasionally come across the phrase that they felt that they were fighting for freedom for generations unborn. They use that phrase, and we are those generations, and they were fighting for us. So thank you very much, and I'd be happy to take a few questions. I have a website, JackHelleyBooks.com, where you can sign up for a newsletter. I keep you abreast of what I'm doing and also occasionally send out an essay on history, as some people have found interesting. And you can pick up the book at any bookstore or online service. So thank you all very much. Thank you very much, Jack. Okay, so we're now opening the floor to any questions. You have a couple of different options. You can either use the raised hand function in Zoom. You can turn your camera on and physically raise your hand so I can see you. You can put a question into the chat box. And if you put it in the chat box, I'll assume you want me to read it out loud, but if you want to read it out loud, you could make a comment when you type it in to the chat box as well. So we're going to start, Jack, with a question that was submitted during your presentation into the chat box. This question is from Glenn. There's two parts of the question. So the first question is, have you watched Turn Washington Spies? It's a TV series, which depicts Arnold's personal life and his relationship with Washington and his treason. If so, does it portray him accurately? If you haven't seen it, there's a second question. Okay, I have seen that, and I think they did a very good job both in the production values, which were very well done, I thought. And also in the depiction of Benedict Orle and the general facts, I mean, there's always going to be in any kind of dramatic series like that, there's got to be drama and there's got to be a romance, of course, too. And there was plenty of that, and they made the mileage out of it in depicting his love affair with Peggy and the various ins and outs of it. I guess the one thing that kind of always bothered me, though, is I had read so much about Benedict Arnold and seen what portraits there are of him. And I had a picture of Benedict Arnold, and the guy who played Benedict Arnold did not fit that picture, and that always grated on me a little bit while I was watching it. But I was really impressed by that series. I think it would be great to see more series that are done that well and stick as close as they did to the facts, even though they had to put in a little element of melodrama. Yeah, my memory of that series is he, the way he came across to me was a little bit of a pretty boy by the guy they had him acting for it. Was that how you viewed it? Is that what didn't match up to your view? I don't, it's hard to even put my finger on what it was. There was something about it. He just didn't look like the way I imagined Benedict Arnold looked. He seemed too tall and not, I always imagined Benedict Arnold was a little shorter and more athletic appearing, but he did a pretty good job, I'd say, but it doesn't always fit with the image you create in your mind. Yeah, for those viewers who may not be familiar with the series, I believe it was AMC, maybe that did the series, so it's something you might be able to find it online to watch it again, and I would, I recommend it. Okay, there's a few other questions that have come into the chat box. If we have time, we'll get to the second part of Glenn's question, but we'll get to some of other people's questions first. Okay. So, John Devano asked, I assume, well, we're going to turn this into a question. Are there any letters in which Benedict Arnold shared his thoughts about why he joined the British? Yes, actually, there are very few personal letters left that Benedict Arnold wrote, but he did write a public letter only a few days after the plot was discovered, which he called to the inhabitants of America, which I thought was a funny way of addressing his countrymen, but he said to the inhabitants of America, and he gave a whole list of reasons why he did it, and it was the French alliance was on the top of that list. And he said he had never been for independence. He thought, and basically the basic message of it, besides listing all these different reasons why he went over, is that he didn't feel he was committing treason. He felt he was doing what was right for the country, as he had done what was right when he first committed treason against the king, now he was committing treason against the cause, but it was, because it was the right thing to do. So I'm seeing something else here. So that was that letter turned out though that he Arnold didn't even write that letter that was written by a gentleman named Smith in New York was the British Attorney General of New York at that time. It was pretty much a standard loyalist propaganda points. It didn't have a personal sense of this is what really moved me to do it. In any case, and, and Arnold didn't really write it either so that was, that was the only explanation that ever came out of him. And he lived the rest of his life just either thinking he'd done the right thing or he wasn't going to talk about it. Thanks, Jeff. Again, I'm going to keep going through questions in the chat box but if you have a question you'd like to ask on video just raise your hand and your camera or use the raise hand function in zoom if you don't have a camera on. Okay, so another question from the chat box for you is from Kevin. Kevin said I'm reading Gore Vidal's historical fiction about Aaron Burr, her fought under Arnold and Quebec. Can you comment any further on the connection between the two people, if there wasn't. I didn't go into in my talk into the expedition to Quebec, but Arnold led a second army, the main army in the invasion of Canada which happened in late in the fall of 1775 was led first by Philip Schuyler and then by Richard Montgomery and actually took Montreal and got up as far as the city of Quebec. Benedict Arnold was sent by George Washington up into Maine, where they, he took a thousand man army over the mountains of Maine and in boats, going up the Kennebick River, and then walking from there. And they, they actually got to Quebec first. Very torturous expedition really put a strain on Arnold's leadership abilities and he came through we was able to get the whole army up there. There was no roads they were just walking along trails to get over the mountains with all their equipment. And then tried to attack or had hoped to attack Quebec but it just it didn't work they didn't have any cannon with them that was their main detriment. So Aaron Burr had signed on he was a young, I think still in his teens at that time was had been a student at Princeton and signed on as a volunteer. And that was like they did a lot of the clerical work volunteers were like AIDS. He followed Arnold to Quebec and then was sent down to make a connection with Montgomery is Montgomery was leading the main force up the St. Lawrence River and Burr then joined with Montgomery Burr, I think was a very much tended to be a career looking out for his own career. So that was a good career move he figured now I'd get up to the guy who was the commander not Benedict Arnold who was with Montgomery subordinate. And he joined him and I don't think they had much to do with the two of Arnold and Burr had much to do with each other. After that during the war. Of course, Aaron Burr ended up, I think he was tried for treason to so they had that in common later on. Correct. Yeah. So, in addition to Kevin who just asked that question that included Quebec. Rich and Glenn had also asked about Quebec. You've commented some on it. So to follow to add on to Richard's question also, he asked about Maine, which you briefly mentioned just now. So there's anything else you'd like to add about Quebec remains and there seem to be general intro. Yeah, I, it's understandable. A lot of people come and I myself remember reading and a lot of people I've talked to have gotten up their interest in Benedict Arnold. When they originally read the books by Kenneth Roberts, who did an enormous amount of research his books were fictional, but they were based on very, very solid research of that expedition. And the, the, the hardships of that expedition. And so that was many of the men that did that went over on that expedition kept diaries and Roberts actually collected all those diaries and published a book that included all the diaries. So he got very minute detail about what happened and it was, it was hard to believe what they went through to in terms. First of just the difficult climb waiting in ice water all day pushing boats up loaded with equipment and then ran out of food about halfway over and they didn't have enough food to get back. They didn't have enough, they didn't know what was coming when they got over. And then they started to starve to death and some of them did. So it was a rough and these, these guys would, they said they, they're wet all day, they would lie down on the ground, their clothes would freeze around them during the night. Then they get up and shake it off and another day of calling equipment. So it was, it was quite a expedition was compared to Hannibal going over the Alps. It's not like that faddle, but the people in the audience here might be interested in knowing about the home said books club. Next book discussion is on. It's called the fort by Bernard Conwell it is historical fiction but as Jack Kelly just mentioned seats in research. It's about the Panab Scott expedition up in Maine and 1779. So kind of a similar story. So if you have any interest in that you can check out the home seven museum website, which you can purchase the book from our online gift store and participate in that session in May. Speaking of book, Robert is asking Jack, have you read James L. Nelson's book Benedict Arnold Navy, and Robert would recommend it to everyone here. Yes, I found that that was a great book. And it went into the both the invasion of Canada and then it gave a good context for everything that happened at Valkyrie Island as well and he went into the Valkyrie Island, the building of the boats on Lake Champlain. So I definitely recommend that my book was much more focused on Valkyrie Island and just the just the Lake Champlain end of that story. He told a much broader story in that book, but definitely well worth reading. And Jack that your book that you're talking about is that the Valkor book. That's yeah that's called that's just called Valkour, the 1776 campaign to save the cause of liberty. And that goes into more a little more detail about the campaign I mentioned it in God Save Benedict Arnold as well but as part of the bigger picture in that book. Yeah, we'll have to get that book in our online gift shop as well we have God Save Benedict Arnold but I'll order some copies of Valkort. Yeah, very, very, very much like Champlain oriented story. Yeah. Okay, there's a question in the chat box from Tim. Do you feel that the rivalry between Arnold and Gates has been overblown in previous historical accounts. Yes. That's a, I'm glad he asked that question because it's part of the story of Saratoga which was that Arnold and worked together all through 1776 in the summer Gates at Ticonderoga and Arnold building the fleet on the lake. When Arnold came back he joined General Gates now in total command in the north and together they fought the battle of Saratoga. Between the first battle there were two battles about two weeks apart and after the first battle they had a very hot dispute over Arnold felt that he didn't get enough credit for what he'd done in the first battle when Gates reported it to Congress. Arnold that was all through his life he was very prickly character very sharp to defend his honor. That dispute was recorded in great detail by AIDS to Arnold and an aid to General Gates who was James Wilkinson who was a young man educated young man did a lot of the paperwork for Gates. Those AIDS were very partisan that the Arnold's AIDS were were all friends of Philip Schuyler. Philip Schuyler had been pushed out of the command by Gates they hated Gates. Wilkinson was protecting Gates and didn't like Arnold so they kind of instead of trying to sue things down they they fomented the dispute. It got into the record because they wrote a lot of letters back and forth. And people focused on that as showing that Benedict Arnold wasn't in command that Gates had pushed him aside that he had been relieved of his command etc etc. I think it was overblown and I think it was overblown because so much of it was recorded in these writings. And in fact it was it was a passing thing. They were both very under huge amount of stress. They had this dispute and then it passed over and they worked together at the battle Saratoga. And the look the information I talked about called the bachelor letter was found on eBay in 17 and in 2016. Written two days after the battle it's the second battle Saratoga by a New Hampshire militiamen to his wife and it was a genuine letter. New information from Sarah about the battle Saratoga that showed Arnold and Gates cooperating. That's been accepted by most historians now as a strong indication that the older story of the dispute and the fact that Arnold was not in command at Saratoga is has been debunked. So it's always interesting as history does continue to surprising 200 and some years later that still new evidence is coming up. Absolutely. We run into that at the homestead all the time where. Yeah, it's, there's still new things that we're learning about history every day and people in the story. Okay, another question in the chat box. Well actually this one's a comment. Robert real rock said many people don't realize that the first group enterprise spot in the battle Valkor Island. Thanks Robert for sharing that. And Robert Compton asked how was Arnold received in England after England lost the war. Yeah I was I was actually I just to mention that that first comment I was impressed myself because enterprise was a name that went down through the American Navy. Very prominently all through history and that was the first ship that was called enterprise was was one of the early ships of Arnold had gotten on Lake Champlain. And the, as far as what happened after he went over to England. He and Peggy both moved over to London. They were rewarded by the British government for what they tried to do Peggy got a stipend herself for her participation in it. Their sons of the head I think five sons in England were all made officers in the British Army, but they weren't well received and in particular, Arnold wanted to get back into active military service he loved the military they loved being in the in the in the mix in the war and the officers of the British Army hated them, but partly because he was a trader and even though he'd come to their side. They still considered him a trader untrustworthy and partly because he had killed a lot of British soldiers, you know, as an American officer. So they would never they always blocked his efforts to get back into a military command in England after he went over there. And he got back into business they lived for a while in Canada. He was never very happy. And they live fairly comfortably. But not. It was not a, I think the life of his dreams, but certainly better than many of the people that he, you know, what really always when I say his treason was more serious than people think he betrayed people he had led in battle, American soldiers. And, you know, wasn't just that he betrayed the cause or changes mind about the cause. He actually led British troops that killed Americans and that was, you know, a block on his reputation that will never be erased. So I have two more questions in the chat box, we probably have enough time for maybe three or four more questions total. So if you have a question that you're sitting on. Now's the chance to raise your hand or put it in the chat box. So the question I'm going to give you now is from John Devano. There are no statues of Benedict Arnold for obvious reason. John admits he has not been he has not visited the Saratoga battlefield, but he's heard a rumor is it true that there is a monument of a boot to recognize Arnold being wounded there. That was, I think, erected around 1900. And it's a it's a stone monument that just shows a boot and a cannon, I think, and it describes Arnold and his achievement there, but doesn't mention his name. And it's, I was talking to somebody said they remember that when they went to the battlefield as a child they thought that was the most interesting part of the whole battlefield is seeing a monument to a boot. But that was the way that they had of acknowledging what he'd done without without acknowledging him. Essentially, so he's been there was a something called cancel culture what we now call cancel culture that that started really in the Roman times. When they would some emperor or some military officer would be disgraced, they would erase everything, all records, they would, you know, chisel out his name out of all plaques and everything destroy all statues. That was the head of word for that I can't remember was in Latin. That's what was done Arnold. Everything about Arnold was erased except for the often very spurious accounts of him and the biographies that indicate indicated how how bad he was so there's the only place I could find. There's actually Arnold Bay down on Lake Champlain near virgins that was named for him. That's where his his fleet during the battle of the battle after Valkyrie Island. He ran his fleet. A ground the boats he had left and burnt them there and what's now called Arnold Bay so that's the one place I thought it was the one place in the whole country. Name for him but there's also an Arnold Lake I think up in Canada that his men had passed through on their way to over to Quebec. That's also still remains but there's no there's no Benedict Arnold junior high or anything like that. Okay, our last question for the afternoon comes from James Thornton. And it's kind of asking for you to do some speculative history here Jack because I know you've already said. Your final answer on this question is I don't know but it's asking about Arnold reasons for turning over so the question is, could part of Arnold's decision to aid the British, maybe be based on Arnold's lack of trust or confidence and Patriot and future US leaders. Well one thing that is a little bit confusing about the question from that perspective is Arnold made contact with the British in I think in the spring of 1779 when he was not yet in command at West Point. But he started talking to them and going back and forth secretly with Andre and Henry Clinton was done and British commander. Those negotiations and how much was he going to get paid to compensate him for his losses and so forth. And what could he give them that was they he wanted to give them and they of course wanted him to to hand over the biggest prize that they could and they all they thought West Point was that's what West Point was. And it took quite a while so it wasn't until I think about 16 months later that the fruit the plot came to his fruition and in 1780. In 1779. The Patriots were doing pretty well that was not an awful lot of fighting then by 1780. The, the, it looked like the Patriot cause was in deep trouble they lost Charleston South Carolina. General Gates have gone down there and lost the battle of Camden was really badly defeated. They were running out of money they had very little credit. The French Alliance didn't seem to be helping them much. So you could say Benedict Arnold was looking to get on the winning side he was he wanted to get with the British because it looked like the British going to win the war. I don't think that was the case because he had started his trees and back when the British were not didn't look like they're necessarily going to win the war the Patriots going to be defeated. So I think that his his looking into the future was was hard, you know, it's not a it's not something you could say one way or the other what did he imagine that this was going to help him. He thought that he was doing the right thing by ending the war so I would imagine he he thought of himself as being the hero. He was going to end the war by helping the British get back and control everything would go back to the way it was. And he would be considered a hero for not only for fighting but for for having brought an end to the war. Again, it's very hard to figure out what he was thinking to me. I just, I found him very enigmatic, and he himself was not a introspective person he was very. He did not think about what he was thinking about he just did things serve on the spur of the moment so I think it's always going to be a great element of mystery. Thanks, Jack. Okay, if everyone can stand for just one minute. I'm going to put some links in the chat box so you can go straight to our online store to put just Jack's book. And john Devano also has an announcement about the next lecture series program. Thank you Angie just before that I may talk about the next program. In my introduction I mentioned that Jack has appeared on c span. Yesterday I just did a Google search I put in c span Jack Kelly, and I ran across a talk he gave a while back on the Erie canal, called heavens ditch God, gold and murder on the Erie canal and I would highly recommend that you take some time to go back and take a look at it because I knew a little bit about the Erie canal but the amount of new information that was presented in that talk was amazing. So check it out just Google c span Jack Kelly, and you will find it. Our next talk is on St. Patrick's Day, March 17. And in honor of St. Patrick our speaker is Joe Bruchak, who is an anarchy poet. We're in the Hudson River Valley also. So let it not be said that the homestead just hones in on the Revolutionary War, right so it promises to be another very exciting talk. So this one also will be on zoom in February in March, come April we'll be back with our talks at the homestead. So thank you all for coming. John the talk in March is also half musical presentation is that correct. I believe. Yeah, it's going to be Joe and his son also are going and they're going to be doing some poetry apparently even an abnaki so probably with English subtitles I know we will have to figure out how that works but it promises to be a very unique and informative talk. So please join us on March 17. You'll get appropriate notices if you were here today. Thank you all for coming and I think we will, we'll sign off. Okay, thanks. Thanks everybody.