“Horatio Gates is a cock robin and a coward.”
If Benedict Arnold had written a memoir, I’m pretty sure that would have been the opening line, and it would have gone down in history with other famous opening lines, like “Call me Ishmael” and “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
For those of you who don’t know what a cock robin is, you should definitely google 18th century insults.
I went into Nathaniel Philbrick’s Valiant Ambition with some hesitation, because for some reason, reading about Benedict Arnold makes me cringe.
Benedict Arnold should have been a great American hero at the war’s close – or died one at Saratoga – but because of political bullshit (and his own personality) is a great American traitor. For some reason this bothers me.
George Washington and Benedict Arnold are the lenses through which Philbrick focuses the American war effort from 1776 – 1780. They are very similar in some ways – both men are somewhat temperamental, both are brave, and both are victims of the Continental Congress, who are so busy playing politics while also not doing any actual governing that it’s a miracle the Continental Army survived at all.
It does become clear, though, that Washington learns to play the game. He learns to trust the opinions of his officers, who he has mostly hand chosen and thinks very highly of. He tempers his anger. He comes up with a winning strategy, which is, basically, don’t lose. This was hard for Washington. The honor code of the time demanded a full scale engagement with the British. Washington desperately wanted to do this but listened to his officers and avoided it.
Arnold, on the other hand, never learned to really think of anything besides his own self – his glories, the indignities he suffered at the hands of Congress, and the lack of recognition he received for his tactical brilliance. And he was brilliant. And, of course, this self-absorption and self-aggrandizing, along with other circumstances, eventually caused him to turn his back on the country and the commander-in-chief he really did love.
And his treachery broke George Washington’s heart.
Valiant Ambition is gripping book that describes the struggle of the Continental Army and how the inaction of the Revolutionary government bound Washington and Arnold together in the unenviable positions of saving it from destruction.
As Philbrick explains, Arnold does, in his own way, help unite the American cause after the tale of his treachery becomes common knowledge and bring an end to a tiresome war.
Valiant Ambition also blows up the fairytale that an American victory was inevitable. It wasn’t. For about the whole war. It’s a popular thing now, to see some invisible hand of destiny guiding the United States to its fate as the first colony to break away from its mother country in the history of the world. But it was never certain. If Washington hadn’t listened to his officers, if the British had destroyed the army at New York City, if very few things hadn’t gone the way they had, I’d be sitting here writing about that traitor George Washington and that great British hero Benedict Arnold, who, after seeing the error of his ways, rejoined the British cause to help put down the American rebellion.
It was a well researched history book and Philbrick is a master story teller, forcing the audience to feel Arnold’s frustration and Washington’s stress, to live with every victory and die with every Congressional dispatch.
And why would Benedict Arnold call Horatio Gates a cock robin and a coward? Well, you’d have to read the book to find out. It’d be just another thing Benedict Arnold was actually right about, but nobody listened.
words in scarlet ink 