Part 21 (2/2)

=241. What became of Arnold.=--Was.h.i.+ngton contrived an ingenious plan to capture Arnold, but it failed. The traitor got his reward; he was made a major-general in the British army and received thirty thousand dollars for his villany. But the gold turned to ashes in his hands. Everybody despised him. Men pointed the finger of scorn at him, saying, ”There goes Arnold the traitor.”

A member of Parliament, in the midst of a speech saw Arnold in the gallery, and, pausing, said, ”Mr. Speaker, I will not go on while that traitor is in the house.”

Was.h.i.+ngton had, all the years before, been Arnold's steadfast friend. He admired one who could fight with such energy, and who never knew fear.

After the treason it is said that Was.h.i.+ngton could never mention the traitor's name without a shudder.

”What do you think of the doings of that diabolical dog?” wrote Colonel Williams, the gallant southern fighter, to General Morgan.

”Curse on his folly and perfidy!” said the n.o.ble-hearted General Greene.

”How mortifying to think that he is a New Englander!”

=242. Andre's Sad Fate.=--The three faithful men who captured Andre were highly honored. Each received a silver medal from Congress, with a life pension of two hundred dollars a year. Their graves are marked by worthy monuments.

But poor Andre! what became of him? He was tried within a week by a court-martial of fourteen generals and condemned to death as a spy.

”We cannot save him,” said the kindly old veteran, Baron Steuben. ”Oh that we had the traitor who has dragged this gallant young officer to death, so that he might suffer in his stead!” Andre wrote a full and frank letter to Was.h.i.+ngton, urging that he was not really a spy. All Americans felt deep pity for him because of his youth, his virtues, his many accomplishments, his belief that he was serving his country, and because he had been the victim of a villain.

But Americans could not forget that the British, four years before, had captured a brave young American officer, Captain Nathan Hale, and hanged him as a spy without any manifestation of pity or sympathy.

The officer who commanded the escort that brought Andre across the Hudson to the main army was a college cla.s.smate of Hale. As the young officers rode along on horseback, mention was made of Hale's sad fate.

”Surely,” said Andre, ”you do not think his case and mine alike!”

”They are precisely alike,” answered the officer, ”and similar will be your fate.”

Was.h.i.+ngton, who shed tears when he signed the death warrant, would gladly have saved Andre's life; but the stern rules of war and the good of the American cause left no room for mercy. His execution was put off one day, it is said, in hope that Arnold might be captured and made to suffer in his stead.

Andre bravely faced the awful event, and on the morning of the day of his death conversed freely and even cheerfully. He was disturbed only about the mode of his death; he begged to be shot as a soldier, and not hanged as a spy; but the grim custom and rules of war forbade.

=243. Arnold dies in Disgrace.=--Arnold lived in London for more than twenty years after his foul treason. No doubt they were years of bitter remorse and self-reproach. His wife proved herself a devoted woman.

Arnold's children and grandchildren all felt keenly the disgrace that rested upon the family.

As the traitor came to his final sickness, his mind seemed to recall the days when he fought for his country with distinction. He thought of the steadfast friends.h.i.+p that Was.h.i.+ngton once cherished for him. After Saratoga, this friend had presented him with epaulettes and a sword-knot, and put them on with his own hand. The old uniform in which he had fought his battles, and which he wore on the day he escaped to the Vulture, had been carefully kept during all these years of disgrace.

Just before his death the desolate old man called for these sad reminders and put them on again.

”Let me die,” said he, ”in this old uniform in which I fought so many battles for my country. May G.o.d forgive me for ever putting on any other!”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ON HIS DEATHBED ARNOLD CALLS FOR HIS OLD UNIFORM.]

Thus perished the man who, with the exception of Was.h.i.+ngton and Greene, prior to his infamous deed, had done perhaps more efficient service for the cause of our independence than any other American general.

Think of the contrast between the deep infamy of an Arnold and the patriotic grit and unselfishness of those ragged, half-starved Pennsylvania soldiers who rose in mutiny during the next winter. Mad Anthony Wayne had led some of these men at the storming of Stony Point, and he was dearly beloved by them all; yet they would not obey even him.

As Wayne was speaking to them, two men, who had been sent by General Clinton to tamper with the mutineers and offer a bounty and high pay if they would enlist in the British army, were detected. The soldiers in their wrath turned these emissaries over to their general, and they were hanged as spies.

<script>