This lively biography of America's most famous traitor offers a new perspective on his terrible legacy as well as life in Revolutionary Era Connecticut.
On September 6, 1781, Connecticut native Benedict Arnold and a force of 1,700 British soldiers and loyalists took Fort Griswold and burnt New London to the ground. The brutality of the invasion galvanized the new nation, and "Remember New London!" would become a rallying cry for troops under General Lafayette.
In Homegrown Terror, Eric D. Lehman chronicles the events leading up to the attack and highlights this key transformation in Arnold-the point where he went from betraying his comrades to massacring his neighbors and destroying their homes. This defining incident forever marked him as a symbol of evil, turning an antiheroic story about weakness of character and missed opportunity into one about the nature of treachery itself.
Homegrown Terror draws upon a variety of primary sources and perspectives, from the traitor himself to his former comrades like Jonathan Trumbull and Silas Deane, to the murdered Colonel Ledyard. Rethinking Benedict Arnold through the lens of this terrible episode, Lehman sheds light on the ethics of the dawning nation, and the way colonial America responded to betrayal and terror.
Autorentext
Eric D. Lehman
Inhalt
Preface
Acknowledgements
On the Edge of Spring
Flashpoint
Resist Even Unto Blood
The Shadow War
Invasion
Villainous Perfidy
The Scandal of the Age
A Parricide in Old Virginia
William Ledyard's Last Summer
The Sixth of September
The Battle of Groton Heights
Remember New London
The Fall of Silas Deane
Epilogue
A Note on Sources
Notes
Index