r/AskReddit • u/DrCompenomics • 12h ago

Who’s the best real-life example of “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” and what happened?

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u/tashkiira 6h ago

I'm gonna be that guy.

The Continental Congress betrayed Benedict Arnold.

Arnold was brought into the fold on the advice of Washington. He was a brilliant commander of men. But the Continental Congress didn't like him, at all. And they hated that he was seriously dating the daughter of a rich Loyalist.

In those times, at that level of wealth, it was typical to spend an exorbitant amount of money on securing your lady's affections. Arnold was broke, having spent nearly everything he had on his wife and wedding. He was relying on the Continental Congress to pay him as promised. Instead, the Continental Congress sent Arnold a bill for the uniforms and weapons of his men. He had no choice but to turn to his new father-in-law for help financially, and betraying the country that had just betrayed him was the price.

If the Continental Congress had just paid the man, Benedict Arnold would be one of the biggest heroes of the American Revolution and revered as a Founding Father. Instead, they nearly destroyed the American Experiment. And when Washington found out, he didn't rag on Arnold. He ripped the Continental Congress a new one.

Was what Arnold did right? No, not really. But it was the only option he had that was remotely socially acceptable.

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u/stanley604 4h ago

The Continental Congress did essentially the same thing to Silas Deane. He spent his fortune on the revolutionary cause, and served as our first ambassador to France. He was key in getting the French to come in to the fight on the American side, but Congress (driven mostly by the execrable Arthur Lee) ruined his reputation and embittered him so much that he moved to England.

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u/Fresh-Anteater-5933 1h ago

I live a few miles from the Silas Deane highway so someone must still like him

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u/stanley604 42m ago

My dad restored his house in Wethersfield, as well as the Webb House next door. Both are beautiful examples of colonial New England houses (and are open to the public).

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u/BanditKitten 6m ago

Came here to say this 😹 It's just one slurred word to me. Feels like philistine or Celestine instead.

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u/Radiant-Bite7242 3h ago

That's the part that gets lost in the traitor version of the story. He absolutely made the wrong choice, but its wild how much of the story changes once you realize how badly he felt he'd been treated beforehand.

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u/KaraAliasRaidra 3h ago

Some media has treated him like Snidely Whiplash or somebody and the truth is more complex than that.

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u/Questionably_Chungly 2h ago

The Revolutionary War and many events during it, including Arnold, make a lot more sense when you remember the truth—that the Founding Fathers were by and large a bunch of rich dudes who didn’t like paying taxes.

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u/bell37 2h ago edited 2h ago

Wasn’t just taxes. They didn’t like the fact that Great Britain made the west off limits.

A lot of founders (including Washington who claimed 65,000 acres of land in what is now Ohio) were land speculators and made claim to large swaths of land west of Appalachian Mountains (where they would charge higher prices to settlers who wanted to own land in the new frontier).

Bc Great Britain didn’t have the funds to protect that land and didn’t want to piss off French settlers and Native Americans, they outlawed settlement of any lands west of Appalachia.

Wanna guess what industry rapidly grew after the revolution? (It grew so big and was extremely unregulated that it caused the first financial crash in US history)

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u/IceNein 1h ago

The taxes were to pay for the Seven Years war, that George Washington started against the strict orders of the crown by crossing the Appalachian mountains, finding a French army scouting camp at night and slaughtering them all.

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u/sparklingdinoturd 2h ago

Arnold was screwed over almost his entire military career. He's also one of the few generals to score victories early in the war. Others took credit for it.

Not condoning what he did but you can see why he did.

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u/No-Donkey-4117 1h ago

Socially acceptable? No one in the Arnold family in all the generations since has ever dared name their child "Benedict."

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u/tashkiira 1h ago

It would have been unconscionable for him to welsh on his debts. Socially, he'd've been ruined on both sides of the Atlantic. This way, he still had somewhere he could go. For the aristocrats of the time, that was his option.

You're looking at it as one of the poors, after he was tarred and feathered far worse than those more deserving (Robert E. Lee, for instance). Not as one of the British aristocrats who started and ran the war (on both sides).

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u/PeriodicPenguin 2h ago

I agree. You put it better than I could. I didn’t expect so many people to see my comment

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u/PerspectiveFull9879 1h ago

the American Experiment

There's scarcely a phrase more groan-worthy than this one.

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u/tashkiira 1h ago

Yeah, but that's what people were calling it already in 1810, so..

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u/PerspectiveFull9879 1h ago

True, but it was a pretentious, self-important moniker even then, let alone now.

Oooh, a bunch of landowners don't want to pay taxes to the king and want to form a republic, how very experimental 🙄

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u/shrekchan 37m ago

I mean he could've just resigned, no?

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u/tashkiira 21m ago

That wasn't an option, at least not socially and financially. He'd spent a lot of money on feeding his men, on top of his 'attract the girl' lifestyle. when I say he was broke, I mean he was broke. If he'd resigned he'd've been in the same position and not had anything worthwhile. You have to remember he was an aristocrat--very few of the famous people of the time weren't, and you have to think like an aristocrat to understand a lot of the mindset.

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u/dohdudeh 4m ago

They were waging a war against the richest monarchy on earth. They didn’t betray him they just couldn’t pay him yet because the money had to be spent elsewhere. Other leaders in the revolutionary army were in the same boat and isn’t betray their country. You also forgot to mention he was bitter about other people getting promotions he wanted

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u/night4345 1h ago

Arnold was a vain, greedy man that made enemies wherever he went. Bankrupting himself over a lavish lifestyle and courting the daughter of the enemy is a very valid reason for the Continental Congress to dislike someone. Congress was constantly short on money and commanders, even Washington himself, had to badger them to give up money they simply didn't have. Arnold wasn't special in the case of lack of funds but he was the one to betray his fellows over it. Arnold's prospects didn't improve in Britain either, no one wants a soldier who's only commander officer is money and who's god is unquenchable pride.