A Year With George Washington
January 5th, 1781 – Benedict Arnold captures and later burns Richmond, Virginia to the ground.
Having betrayed George Washington and his fellow patriots by defecting to the British side just four months before, newly minted British Brigadier General Benedict Arnold set about to undo the work he had so vigorously brought about earlier in the war.
Arnold landed just below the city of Richmond with roughly 1600 men, including mercenary Hessians led by Captain Johann Ewald, who had fought at Brandywine and Germantown; mounted dragoons of the Queens Rangers commanded by Col. John Simcoe; and American loyalists in the Royal American Regiment, also known as Robinson’s Corps.
Marching to Richmond, Arnold and his men were met with a small force of 200 Virginia militiamen, who were utterly unprepared for the fight. The men were drawing near the end of their enlistment periods and were thus preparing to return home rather than being engaged in fortifying for battle. After managing to fire one volley, the overwhelmed Virginians scattered to the wind, leaving the city to Arnold.
Arnold sent word to Governor Thomas Jefferson, who had also fled the Capitol with his family and all the military stores he could manage, that if the citizens of Richmond would gather together all the tobacco and their valuables and present it to him, he would spare the city. Jefferson promptly declined and Arnold, furious at the refusal, set the city ablaze.
Arnold’s betrayal at West Point the previous fall both stunned and distressed General Washington at the time, as he considered the irrepressible soldier to be one of his two best field commanders, the other being Daniel Morgan. That he would now employ his talents to the destruction of all that Washington had accomplished over the last five-and-a-half years brought his blood to a boil.
When General Washington learned that Arnold had sailed up the James River, destroying plantations and stores along the way, culminating in the utter destruction of the capital of Virginia, he devolved into a fit of rage. Still reeling but resolved, the Commander-in-Chief then put a 5000 Guinea bounty on Arnold’s head (about $1,500,000 in today’s money) and ordered the Marquis de Lafayette to pursue him unrelentingly and summarily hang him were he to capture him.
Governor Thomas Jefferson had just recently moved the capital of Virginia from Williamsburg to the more inland city of Richmond in an effort to make the seat of government and its military stores less vulnerable to attack.
The enigmatic Jefferson has come under scrutiny by historians for his actions (or lack thereof, as it were) in defending the capital, but in the case of Arnold’s attack on Richmond, most, if not all of his advisors, including General Baron Von Steuben, believed that Richmond was safe, and that Petersburg to the south was the more likely target.
In any event, Governor Jefferson had little time to react to Arnold’s raid. Four days after Arnold had vanished, Jefferson wrote to George Washington and revealed a degree of astonishment at how quickly Arnold struck his target and moved.
“Within less than 48 hours from the time of their landing and 19 from our knowing their destination they had penetrated 33 miles, done the whole injury and retired.”
Much to Washington’s anguish and regret, Benedict Arnold would never pay a price for his betrayal, and on December 8th, 1781, he and his family would set sail for England. He never set foot on American soil again.
Arnold’s villainy near the end of the war, to most, has far eclipsed or even erased the heroism he rightly earned in the beginning. The Burning of Richmond is, for many, cause enough for him to be forever labeled America’s ultimate traitor.
