On paper, New Havener Benedict Arnold is America’s most infamous traitor. In the papers, he was more. (more…)
As We Speak
“The right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” is enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution, ratified on June 21, 1788. New Haveners have (more…)
Tales from the Crypt
What do Benedict Arnold’s first wife, Rutherford B. Hayes’s grandmother and James Hillhouse’s uncle have in common? (more…)
End of Story
Resolved, That the board of war be and hereby are directed to erase from the register of the names of the officers of the army of the United States the name of BENEDICT ARNOLD. —Congressional minutes (more…)
Coming Undone
When we last withdrew from the saga of New Havener Benedict Arnold, it was early in the morning on September 22, 1780. Arnold was meeting, face-to-face for the first time, the man who’d been receiving his secret messages behind enemy lines: the redcoat major John André, close aide and confidant to Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief. […]
The Plot Thickens
When we last departed Benedict Arnold in the spring of 1779, the New Havener and American war hero, then the military commander of the colonial capital Philadelphia, was under siege, and not by the British. (more…)
Turning Points
The procession was attended with a numerous concourse of people, who after expressing their abhorrence of the treason and the traitor, committed him to the flames, and left both the effigy and the original to sink into ashes and oblivion.— The Pennsylvania Packet, October 3, 1780, describing a public rally in Philadelphia. The second Battle […]
Reasonable Doubts
When we last left New Havener Benedict Arnold, it was August 1775, not long after the dawn of the Revolutionary War. Following clues contained within newspapers of the day, we got to know the unfamous, not the infamous, Arnold (more…)
Paper Trail
On paper, Benedict Arnold is America’s most infamous traitor. In the papers, he was so much more. (more…)