, now requiring
canoes and bateaux, now taxing the strength of its resolute little
horde with rough rocks, delusive bogs and all those fiercest
terrors of famine which lurk in a virgin wilderness. Bitter cold,
unmerciful snow-falls, drift-clogged streams, pelting storms, were
constant features of Arnold's intrepid march. When we realize the
purely unselfish and disinterested motive of this march, which has
justly been compared to that of Xenophon with his 10,000, and to the
retreat of Napoleon from Moscow as well, we stand aghast at the
possibility of its having been planned and executed by one who
afterward became the basest of traitors.

During the siege of Quebec Arnold was severely wounded, and yet he
obstinately kept up the blockade even while he lay in the hospital,
beset by obstacles, of which bodily pain was doubtless not the
least. The arrival of General Wooster from Montreal with
reinforcements rid Arnold, however, of all responsibility. Soon
afterward the scheme of capturing Quebec and inducing the Canadas to
join the cause of the United Colonies, came to an abrupt end. But in
his desire to effect this purpose Arnold had identified himself with
such lovers of their country as Washington, Schuyler, and
Montgomery. And if the gallant Montgomery had then survived and
Arnold had been killed, history could not sufficiently have
eulogized him as a hero. Soon afterward he was promoted to the rank
of brigadier-general, and on October 11, 1776, while commanding a
flotilla of small vessels on Lake Champlain, he gained new celebrity
for courage. The enemy was greatly superior in number to Arnold's
forces. "They had," says Bancroft, "more than twice his weight of
metal and twice as many fighting vessels, and skilled seamen and
officers against landsmen." Arnold was not victorious in this naval
fray, but again we find him full of lion-like valor. He was in the
Congress galley, and there with his own hands often aimed the cannon
on its bloody decks against the swarming masses of British gunboats.
Arnold's popularity was very much augmented by his fine exploits on
Lake Champlain. "With consummate address," says Sparks, "he
penetrated the enemy's lines and brought off his whole fleet,
shattered and disabled as it was, and succeeded in saving six of his
vessels, and, it might be added, most of his men." Again, at the
battle of Danbury he tempted death countless times; and at Loudon's
Ferry and Bemis's Heights his prowess an