The Notorious Benedict Arnold Analysis

The Notorious Benedict Arnold by Steve Sheinkin tells the true tale of Benedict Arnold. Starting as a great general for the patriots and becoming the nation’s very first traitor. A once wealthy Arnold family, their name was destroyed by Benedict’s father. His father’s business was failing and soon after his father picked up heavy drinking. Everyone knew how the Arnolds went from rich to poor and Benedict was ashamed. His goal was to return honor to his family’s name. Arnold created a successful business in pharmaceuticals and book selling. Later he joined the Revolutionary War on the side of the patriots. Feeling like he was not given enough credits for his work and not getting recognition, Arnold began to start feeding information to …show more content…
A prime example of Arnold seeking more power and recognition for his work was when he rode up to George Washington and sought permission to lead an invasion into Canada. After running into conflicts with who was in charge in his last trip to Canada he wanted to get direct authorization of who was in charge. Arnold was in constant need of recognition for his work and not receiving it always got him angry. After a British attack on the coast of Connecticut and an impressive defensive performance by Arnold he was appointed major general. However, there was a problem. There were other men that were major generals longer and still had authority over Benedict. He was greatly offended when congress would not do anything about his position of authority and felt he was attacked for his rather gnarly character. Arnold only saw one option in his case. He must go to Philadelphia and present his case to congress in an attempt to return his seniority over some of the men. His lack of political skills hurt his case quite badly as he essentially just complained to congress the whole time. Refusing to do as he asked Arnold stayed in Philadelphia over the next few weeks following the congressmen trying to suck up to them so he could get his wish. They never gave him his wish so he did …show more content…
Back in the day and age of the revolutionary war there was no such way to travel fast and efficiently. This made things particularly hard given that all the armies had to march everywhere. When Arnold led his second invasion of Canada his trip to Quebec was not an easy one. His plan was to take 1,000 men and lead them through a discrete native american trail that not many had known about. The trail would lead them right o Quebec. Though it was not an easy trip. Arnold had wrote to a boat builder and ordered many ships that could travel quickly upstream. To Arnold’s displeasure when he found the boats they were poorly built due to the late notice. He took the boats up what what was known as “The Dead River.” Despite the name it was quite a lively river and many of the boats were destroyed on their way up. Men would have to wade through the water to push the boats up the heavy rapids and some men drowned on the way because of the extreme environment. Not only was it a tretourous path to take but the time of year wasn’t helping either. By the time the men actually made it to Quebec it was December and much of the trip was made in the cold weather. Also due to the terrain, when the men got to waterfalls that they could not paddle up they were forced to pilidge up and around them. The trips on land were especially hard because there were not enough men to carry all their food and supplies at one time, so