Was in London last week, where a taxi driver pointed out a blue historical plaque at 62, Gloucester Place. It read, "Here lived Benedict Arnold, the great American patriot."
That reminded me of a famous story. Supposedly when Arnold was old, he longed to go back to his own country, like The Man Without a Country. But he had once asked an American officer what would happen if he were captured by the Americans.
"We'd cut off your leg and bury it with honor," the diplomat replied, "and hang the rest of you."
Arnold fled across the ocean to England in a ship called the Vulture, while the heroic British Major John Andre died in his stead.
A few years ago, I visited the Saratoga battlefield in upstate New York, where Arnold was badly wounded, and saw there the monument to Arnold's leg .The battlefield was the turning point in the American Revolution. The British were trying to come down the upstate New York great lakes, Champlain and George, and down the Hudson River to divide rebel New England from the rest of the country. The 36-year-old general Benedict Arnold stopped them at Saratoga, and his victory convinced the French that the Americans could beat the British, so they helped us. In spite of his later treason, Arnold was crucial to American victory.
"When Arnold died in London twenty odd years later, it is said that his last request was that the epaulettes and sword-knot which Washington had given him, might be brought. 'Let me die,' he asked, 'in my old American uniform, in which I fought my battles. God forgive me for ever having put on any other.'" http://www.westcottsociety.com/Archives/People/Bios/Arnold_Benedict.htm
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