Benedict Arnold - Plotting To Change Sides

Plotting To Change Sides

As early as 1778 there were signs that Arnold was unhappy with his situation and pessimistic about the country's future. On November 10, 1778, General Nathanael Greene wrote to General John Cadwalader, "I am told General Arnold is become very unpopular among you oweing to his associateing too much with the Tories." A few days later, Greene received a letter from Arnold, where Arnold lamented over the "deplorable" and "horrid" situation of the country at that particular moment, citing the depreciating currency, disaffection of the army, and internal fighting in Congress for the country's problems, while predicting "impending ruin" if things would not soon change.

Sometime early in May 1779, Arnold met with Stansbury (whose testimony before a British commission apparently erroneously placed his meeting with Arnold in June). Stansbury said he then "went secretly to New York with a tender of services to Sir Henry Clinton." Ignoring instructions from Arnold to involve no one else in the plot, Stansbury crossed the British lines and went to see Jonathan Odell in New York. Odell was a Loyalist working with William Franklin, the last colonial governor of New Jersey and the son of Benjamin Franklin. On May 9, Franklin introduced Stansbury to Major André, who had just been named the British spy chief. This was the beginning of a secret correspondence between Arnold and André, sometimes using his wife Peggy as a willing intermediary, that culminated over a year later with Arnold's change of sides.