Treason Site: Arnold and Andre at West Point

In the early morning hours of September twenty-second, seventeen eighty, two men met inside these woods to arrange what would have been the most catastrophic betrayal of the American Revolution. American General Benedict Arnold, one of the war's most celebrated field commanders, had been secretly negotiating with the British for months. His contact was Major John Andre, the British Army's chief intelligence officer.

Here, in the darkness, Arnold handed Andre the plans and troop dispositions for the American fortress at West Point. Had those papers reached British headquarters, the Hudson River would have been open to the Royal Navy and the northern states cut off from the south. Andre was captured while attempting to return to British lines, the papers discovered hidden in his stocking.

Arnold escaped to the British side. Andre was hanged. And Benedict Arnold's name became, in American English, a synonym for traitor.