Friday, May 20, 2016

Review: "Valiant Ambition," Nathaniel Philbrick

History review of Valiant Ambition by Nathaniel Philbrick

By Paul Carrier

Mention George Washington and Benedict Arnold in the same breath and predictable characterizations spring to mind. Washington was the father of his country, the all-knowing general who almost single-handedly won America her independence. Arnold can best be described as an American Judas, a despicable turncoat who may well embody treason more clearly than anyone else in our history.

Accurate? Nathaniel Philbrick’s response can best be summarized in three words: yes and no.

The National Book Award winner and bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and Bunker Hill has returned with another lively look at American history. But this time, instead of zeroing in on a specific incident or chapter, Philbrick focuses his scholarly eye and lively pen on two misunderstood giants of the American Revolution, and how they performed through much of the war.

Valiant Ambition combines a vivid war narrative with clear-eyed character studies of Washington and Arnold. The exploits of these men have been documented many times before, but Philbrick digs deeper, with psychological profiles that explore their hearts, minds and evolving outlooks, as well as their complicated relationship.

Yes, Washington was a heroic figure and Arnold was a traitor. But before Washington became the stuff of legend and Arnold’s name became synonymous with betrayal, they were different men traveling quite different paths. In Philbrick’s telling, Washington did not start out as the demigod we know him as today. And Arnold, however despicable his treachery, was no demon, at least not initially. At the outset, he was idolized as a champion of American liberty, and justly so.

In this nuanced study, Philbrick argues that Washington began the Revolution as a far-from-brilliant military leader who found it hard to control his temper and was in over his head. Arnold quickly emerged as one of America’s most gifted battlefield commanders, so skilled a warrior that he was dubbed the “American Hannibal” for his daring attempt to capture Québec from the British, despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

Washington grew into his job over time, through trial and no shortage of error. Arnold, blessed from the start with more bravado and ingenuity than almost any other American general, was a “testy gamecock of a man” who willingly cast aside a glorious reputation that could have turned him into one of the revolution’s greatest icons.

When the British prepared to attack Washington’s army in Brooklyn in 1776, Philbrick writes, Washington “had never commanded a large army in battle, and during the days prior to the British assault, he displayed the petulance and lack of focus of a leader who had strayed beyond his depth.” As late as October 1777, Washington showed “the same indecision” at Germantown, Pa., that had plagued him in earlier battles. Subordinates sometimes expressed concern about their commander’s “failure to make up his mind.”

Arnold was nothing if not decisive. He helped capture Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 and led his troops through the wilds of Maine later that year to assault Québec. The American flotilla he commanded on Lake Champlain in 1776 blocked a British fleet from sailing south and potentially separating New England from the other colonies. While Washington’s army “continued to suffer setback after setback, Arnold had shown that it was possible to stand up and fight.” He did so yet again in 1777 at Saratoga, but the glory that should have been his there was diverted to the undeserving Gen. Horatio Gates instead.

Over time, the character of these men set them on their eventual paths, to glory in one case and infamy in the other. Both generals were undeniably brave and bold, but Washington had the added advantage of being wise enough to take the long view, to learn from his mistakes, to keep things in perspective and to accept the limitations imposed on him by an often misguided Congress.

Arnold lived beyond his means. He was impulsive, impatient, easily angered, vain and shortsighted, although it must be said that he was so badly treated by so many so often that his resentment was not entirely unjustified. By the spring of 1779, Philbrick writes, “Arnold had begun to believe that the experiment in independence had failed,” which was not an unreasonable conclusion at the time. Yet he also was motivated by greed, bitterness and self-absorption.

The “essential difference” between the two men, Philbrick writes, was that Washington’s sense of right and wrong “existed outside the impulsive demands of his own self-interest. Rules mattered to Washington.” For Arnold, “rules were made to be broken.” He attached a “god-like inviolability to his actions.” Arnold believed that “whatever was best for him was, by definition, best for everyone else.” In a perverse sense, Arnold was right on that last point. Philbrick argues that Arnold's treason so angered the American people that it helped unite a divided nation behind the revolutionary cause.

In large part, and inevitably, Valiant Ambition chronicles major and minor battles of the revolution in which either Washington or Arnold played key roles. (They never fought together on the same battlefield.) Philbrick handles this task with clarity, solid analysis and verve. Well-drawn maps showing troop placements and movements help the reader to understand what’s going on in this captivating chronicle of two equally gifted, but vastly disparate, men.