After a presidential election year when the word “character” was bandied all over the place—often by people possessing very little of the commodity themselves—history may have something to teach us. So readers interested in a clear definition of character, and its importance as an essential element of leadership, will find many valuable clues in Nathaniel Philbrick’s engrossing new study of the lives and tangled interaction of George Washington and Benedict Arnold.
Both were dynamic men of action with unquestioned personal courage; both were driven by passionate ambition from an early age; both were capable of inspiring the men they commanded to acts of extraordinary sacrifice and endurance; both were hot-tempered by nature. Yet, despite all of these superficial similarities, one of them ended up a traitor, the other Father of His Country.
It all boiled down to character, a case of honor versus glory. George Washington was guided by an indestructible sense of honor; Benedict Arnold was driven by a thirst for personal glory and the perquisites it could bring. Both men hungered for greatness, but to Washington, greatness meant subordination of self to cause, learning from mistakes and mastering personal weaknesses. To Arnold, greatness meant the triumph of self over others, victory on the battlefield as a key to wealth, privilege, and the indulgence of personal appetites. For him, causes were merely vehicles.
None of this detracts from the early contributions that Arnold made to the cause of American independence. These included the capture of Fort Ticonderoga—and its cache of crucially needed heavy artillery—that helped drive the British out of Boston in the opening phase of the revolution; an invasion of Canada that, had it succeeded, might have positioned the colonies for a favorable negotiated settlement with the crown in the early stages of the struggle; and an inspired, improvised freshwater naval campaign that, at Valcour Island, inflicted losses on a superior enemy fleet that it set back by a year Britain’s strategic plan to drive a fatal wedge between the Northern and Southern colonies.
Most celebrated of all was Arnold’s contribution to the true turning point of the Revolutionary War: By seizing the initiative and defying his faint-hearted, dithering commanding officer, Horatio Gates, Arnold took the offensive against the British in twin battles that ended in the surrender of an entire British army at Saratoga. It also resulted in a wound that shattered Arnold’s thigh and left him semi-crippled for the rest of his life. Besides his wound, Arnold, who never suffered fools gladly and often drank to excess, had accumulated a long list of enemies within the Army and the Continental Congress. His penchant for insubordination and his less-than-meticulous scruples when it came to money matters provided them with plenty of ammunition. When, still recovering from his wounds, he was given what appeared to be a plum assignment as military governor of Philadelphia after it was evacuated by the British in 1778, everything began to go sour. Entertaining lavishly and living far beyond his means, Arnold tried to recoup his fortunes
by engaging in influence peddling and war profiteering. A widower, he acquired a glamorous trophy wife, a young society beauty named Peggy Shippen, whose family was known for its loyalist sympathies and who, during the British occupation, had carried on a flirtation with a young British officer, something of a charming fop, named Major John André.
Her link to André, who would serve as middle man for Arnold’s subsequent treason, may have been decisive. In the final analysis, however, it was Arnold’s own nature that was key to his betrayal. As the many real and imagined slights and humiliations piled up, he had no core sense of duty or honor to counterbalance personal grievance. It was all about him—and so, as far as he was concerned, treason was just a career move.
Nathaniel Philbrick has taken an interesting piece of history and turned it into a winning mixture of war story and morality tale. Drawing heavily on first-hand accounts, and with a keen eye for the pithy quote, this is more of a colorful, revealing scrapbook than a tightly structured narrative. Valiant Ambition dodges back and forth, from one theater of war to another, from the bird’s-eye view of the historian to the worm’s-eye view of a common soldier, Joseph Plumb Martin, who served through most of the war and left a delightfully candid memoir of his experiences that the author draws on to great effect.
A few quibbles: Philbrick’s gifts as a storyteller sometimes lead to hyperbole, such as billing the public revulsion at Arnold’s treason as a national catharsis that solidified wavering Americans behind the cause for independence. This seriously exaggerates its (admittedly) real importance. And at times, he can be a bit sloppy about military details, for example, referring to battlefield formations that, at most, qualified as divisions rather than “armies.” But he tells a good story and teaches a great lesson along the way: the difference between honor and glory, between force of personality and strength of character—a lesson at least as important today as ever.
Aram Bakshian Jr., who served as an aide to presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, writes frequently on politics, history, gastronomy, and the arts.
