 
General Arnold, the leader of this detachment, had acquired by this and many other brilliant achievements a degree of military fame almost unequalled among the American generals. His shameful defection afterwards, by the foulest of treason, should be lamented as a national dishonor; it has not only obliterated his own glory, but it seems in some sort to have cast a shade on that of others whose brave actions had been associated with his in the acquisition of their common and unadulterated fame. The action here alluded to, the march thro the wilderness from Casco to Quebec, was compared in the gazettes of that day to the passage of the Alps by Hannibal. And really, considered as a scene of true military valor, patient suffering and heroic exertion (detached from the idea of subsequent success in the ulterior expedition) the comparison did not disgrace the Carthaginian. Yet since the defection of Arnold, which happened five years afterwards, this audacious and once celebrated exploit is scarcely mentioned in our annals. And Meigs, Dearborn, Morgan and other distinguished officers in the expedition, whom that alone might have immortalized, have been indebted to their subsequent exertions of patriotic valor for the share of celebrity their names now enjoy. See the character of Arnold treated more at large in the sixth book. |
|
