Homegrown Terror
A DRIFTLESS CONNECTICUT SERIES BOOK
This book is a 2014 selection in the Driftless Connecticut Series, for an outstanding book in any field on a Connecticut topic or written by a Connecticut author.
Homegrown Terror
Benedict Arnold and the Burning of New London
ERIC D. LEHMAN
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Middletown, Connecticut
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS
Middletown CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress © 2014 Eric D. Lehman All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Richard Hendel Typeset in Garamond Premier Pro by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
The Driftless Connecticut Series is funded by the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper.
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8195-7329-2
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-8195-7330-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
5 4 3 2 1
Cover illustration: detail from the mural “Battle of Groton Heights,” by David R. Wagner.
Contents
Preface
Just after midnight, a fleet of twenty-four ships slid east on the calm black water of the Devil’s Belt. It was late summer in 1781, and the fleet had waited until complete darkness to weigh anchor and move up from the west, with a fair wind behind them. Now they stood near Plum Island, outside Gardiner’s Bay, at the very tip of Long Island, ten miles southwest as the crow flies from the entrance to New London harbor. The ships would have to go farther to avoid