Customer Reviews

Benedict Arnold: Revolutionary War Hero and Traitor (The Library of American Lives and Times)

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This slim volume serves as a nice introduction (or refresher) to the subject for middle-schoolers on up.

The chapter titles are as follows:

Introduction

1. Childhood

2. New Haven Merchant

3. Off to War

4. The March to Quebec

5. The Battle of Valcour Island

6. Hero of Ridgefield and Saratoga

7. Military Governor of Philadelphia

8. Treason at West Point

9. Benedict Arnold, British General

10. Last Years in Canada and England

After the brief introduction, Dr. Powell presents the material in a straightforward, chronological fashion. He begins with a brief bit of Arnold family history, then Benedict's youth and early education. A few highlights from Arnold's life as a successful young merchant bring the story up to 1775 and Arnold already in his mid-30s. It would have been nice to read a bit more of this period in Arnold's life, but perhaps the author (or the editor) decided there wasn't enough space to fully relate anymore anecdotes or details within the alotted page-count. In any case, the bulk of the rest of the book is, of course, devoted to Arnold's service during the American Revolution. Obviously, the last couple chapters relate his service with the British military and touch briefly on his "retirement".

I was curious how Arnold's story would be portrayed for this young audience, and I think the author struck a pretty fair balance. Arnold's heroism is laid out for all to see, as it should be, and so is his ultimate treachery. I'm not sure the younger readers will pick up on all of the various events that served to frustrate Arnold, or on his apparent insecurities, all of which contributed to his feelings of being underappreciated and led to his turning to the enemy for confirmation. (Of course, no one knows exactly what Arnold's thought processes were at the time and how he rationalized his treasonous actions.) But, the main thing is that Arnold is shown to be a brave and talented officer who then dishonored himself by betraying his country and comrades.

Powell's writing style flows nicely and is well-suited to its primary audience. There is one instance of redundancy that I thought slightly odd. A portion of Arnold's letter to General Washington (written shortly after his treason is revealed) is reproduced in Chapter 8 (p. 86), wherein Arnold tries to rationalize his "present conduct" as being due to his love for his country. (Although, one might wonder whether he was actually referring to Britain, in this case.) The same last sentence is also quoted on the last page of the main text (p. 99), which just seems unnecessary to me. Ah, well....

Unfortunately, as is typical for many short and/or youth-oriented books, there are no end/footnotes. There is a 'Timeline' of Arnold's life at the end of the book, as well as a helpful Glossary. (There was one word -- "impugned" -- that I thought should have been included in the Glossary but wasn't.) There is also a short list of 'Additional Resources', a Bibliography, and a brief index.

There are several photos and reproductions of paintings, documents, maps, etc. (many color, others B&W), which I really appreciated. There are also a handful of side-boxes with and extra bit of trivia or brief profile of another individual. But, there were a couple pictures/side-boxes here & there that seemed overkill and could have been replaced with more text, so I knocked off a fraction of a point for both Content and Style & Structure. Also, while most pictures are within a page or so of the relevant text, one full-page reproduction of a document seemed to be misplaced several pages after the text. A minor annoyance, I suppose.

Overall, well done, and I will continue to check out more volumes in the series.

Content: 4

Style & Structure: 4

Average: 4