Perhaps because they had to humor a crotchety boss, Rochambeau’s staff were instantly charmed by Washington. Blanchard professed to be “enchanted” with the American general, who exhibited “an easy and noble bearing, extensive and correct views, [and] the art of making himself beloved.”30 Washington suited the idealized expectations of the world-weary French as to how a New World liberator should behave. “We had been impatient to see the hero of liberty,” said the Count de Dumas. “His dignified address, his simplicity of manners, and mild gravity surpassed our expectation and won every heart.”31 Count Axel von Fersen found Washington “handsome and majestic” but was perceptive enough to discern trouble behind the placid countenance. “A shade of sadness overshadows his countenance, which is not unbecoming and gives him an interesting air.”32 It is perhaps surprising that more French officers didn’t pick up the anxiety that beset Washington that summer.
As Washington and Rochambeau commenced their talks, it quickly grew apparent that the likelihood of a combined military operation that year was remote. Even though Rochambeau paid lip service to Washington’s eternal plan to regain New York, he insisted on first having clear naval superiority and awaiting reinforcements from France. On their second day, the two men drew up an appeal for additional men, money, and ships from France. Although Washington and Rochambeau established instant rapport, their meeting yielded no immediate tangible results. Rochambeau’s affirmation of Washington’s preeminence in the partnership didn’t mislead the American general for a second. As Washington admitted ruefully to Lafayette, “My command of the French troops stands upon a very limited scale.”33
At the close of the meeting, the Count de Dumas rode with Washington to a nearby town and beheld the worshipful feelings of the populace toward Washington.
We arrived there at night; the whole of the population had assembled from the suburbs, we were surrounded by a crowd of children carrying torches, reiterating the acclamations of the citizens; all were eager to approach the person of him whom they called their father, and pressed so closely around us that they hindered us from proceeding. General Washington was much affected, stopped for a few moments, and, pressing my hands, said, “We may be beaten by the English; it is the chance of war; but behold an army which they can never conquer.”34
If Washington had hoped that French and Spanish support would tip the balance of the war, the inconclusive meeting with Rochambeau left him despondent. French naval superiority hadn’t yet materialized, and Washington had grown weary of this interminable conflict with its American lethargy and congressional ineptitude. Writing to John Cadwalader, he noted plaintively how the year began with a “favorable complexion” and seemed pregnant with wonderful events, but such optimism had been exposed as a delusion. The Continental Army had no money, no munitions, and soon would have no men. “I hoped,” he wrote, “but hoped in vain, that a prospect was displaying which w[oul]d enable me to fix a period to my military pursuits and restore me to domestic life . . . but alas! these prospects, flattering as they were, have prov[e]d delusory and I see nothing before us but accumulating distress.”35 Since the Battle of Monmouth, Washington had soldiered on for more than two years without a major battle, and Lafayette told him of impatience at Versailles with his supposed passivity. Washington replied that this inactivity was involuntary: “It is impossible, my dear Marquis, to desire more ardently than I do to terminate the campaign by some happy stroke, but we must consult our means rather than our wishes.”36
IF WASHINGTON THOUGHT his upcoming meeting at West Point with Benedict Arnold would revive his drooping spirits, he was proved wrong. In many ways, Arnold had been a battlefield commander after his own heart, a fearless daredevil who liked to race about the field on horseback, spurring on his men. Even George Germain lauded Arnold as “the most enterprising and dangerous” of the American generals.37 Like Washington, he had many horses shot from under him and “exposed himself to a fault,” as one soldier said.38 In an officer corps with the usual quota of shirkers, braggarts, and mediocrities, Washington valued Arnold’s derring-do and keen taste for combat, and he treated this touchy man with untiring respect. In fact, Arnold was one of the few generals who seemed not to arouse Washington’s competitive urges or suspicions.
Impetuous and overbearing, Benedict Arnold was a short man with a powerful, compact body. His penetrating eyes, aquiline nose, dusky complexion, and thick, unruly hair lent him a dashing but restless air. Growing up in a well-to-do Connecticut family, he had been a bright, mischievous boy with an incurably alcoholic father. His father’s drinking led to bankruptcy when Benedict was fourteen, a traumatic event that overshadowed his childhood. The boy was apprenticed to a relative who worked as a pharmacist, and then his mother died when he was eighteen. The deep shame and poverty of his childhood produced an energetic, headstrong young man who was obsessed with status and money. After opening a pharmacy in New Haven, Arnold diversified into trading, became a sea captain, and engaged in lucrative mercantile activities. Commercial success did not cool his temperament. He was pugnacious, often resorted to duels, and was litigious when libeled. In the early stages of the Revolution, he drifted into radical politics, starting as a captain in the Connecticut militia, then rising through the ranks.
Arnold’s early wartime exploits made him a legendary figure. After leading the impossible trek through the Maine woods in the failed mission against Quebec, he constructed a fleet on Lake Champlain and bade defiance to a superior British force. Most notably, he turned in such a fabled performance at Saratoga that General Burgoyne gave Arnold, not Gates, the laurels for the American victory. When Arnold took a musket ball in the leg at Saratoga, the doctors wanted to amputate the maimed limb, but he scoffed at this as “damned nonsense” and refused to muddle on as a single-legged cripple.39 This left him with one leg two inches shorter than the other, giving him a pronounced limp and forcing him to rely on crutches for a prolonged period. If Arnold was a blustery character who browbeat subordinates, his heroism and war wounds encouraged people to make allowances for him.
The quarrelsome Arnold never forgot the slight he suffered in February 1777 when Congress passed him over in naming five new major generals, all brigadiers junior to him. Even after Washington helped him to become a major general, Arnold still chafed over having lost seniority to these five men, and his bitterness curdled into settled malice. He wasn’t about to be placated by anyone. When he visited Washington at Valley Forge, his injured leg, in which slivers of shattered bone were embedded, was in such dreadful shape that two soldiers had to prop him up. Washington sympathized with Arnold’s plight, naming him military commandant of Philadelphia after the British evacuated in June 1778. During his time in Philadelphia, Arnold set up a fine household and courted the rich, fetching eighteen-year-old Peggy Shippen, who was half his age, and they wed the following year. Peggy was trailed by rumors of having fraternized with British officers during their occupation of Philadelphia. For his part, Arnold was shadowed by allegations that he had exploited his position as commandant to enrich himself. To clear his name, Arnold demanded a court-martial, which found him guilty of two relatively minor counts of misconduct, then let him off with a mild reprimand.