This “brilliant” account of Benedict Arnold’s military campaign to bring Canada into the Revolutionary War is “hard to put down”—includes maps (Mag Web). In 1775, Benedict Arnold led more than one thousand men through the Maine wilderness in order to reach Quebec, the capital of British-held Canada. His goal was to reach the fortress city and bring Canada into the Revolutionary War as the fourteenth colony. When George Washington learned of a route to Quebec that followed a chain of rivers and lakes through the Maine wilderness, he picked Col. Benedict Arnold to command the surprise assault. The route to Canada was 270 miles of rapids, waterfalls, and dense forests that took months to traverse. Arnold led his famished corps through early winter snow and waist-high freezing water, up and over the Appalachian Mountains, and finally, to Quebec. In Benedict Arnold’s Army, award-winning author Arthur S. Lefkowitz traces the troops’ grueling journey, examining Arnold’s character at the time and how this campaign influenced him later in the Revolutionary War. After multiple trips to the route Arnold’s army took, Lefkowitz also includes detailed information and maps for readers to follow the expedition’s route from the coast of Main to Quebec City.

This landmark biography stands as an invaluable antidote to the historical distortion surrounding the life of Benedict Arnold.

An epic story of one man’s devotion to the American cause In October 1776, four years before Benedict Arnold’s treasonous attempt to hand control of the Hudson River to the British, his patch-work fleet on Lake Champlain was all that stood between British forces and a swift end to the American rebellion. Benedict Arnold’s Navy is the dramatic chronicle of that desperate battle and of the extraordinary events that occurred on the American Revolution’s critical northern front. Written with captivating narrative vitality, this landmark book shows how Benedict Arnold’s fearless leadership against staggering odds in a northern wilderness secured for America the independence that he would later try to betray. Praise for James L. Nelson: "James Nelson is a master both of his period and of the English language." --Patrick O'Brian, author of Master and Commander "James L. Nelson tells this story with clarity and literary skill and with such ease and order that the reader feels he is attending a dissertation on history given by a consummate lecturer." --Ron Berthel, Associated Press, on Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, winner of the American Library Association’s 2004 Award for Best Military History "It is, by far, the best Civil War novel I’ve read; reeking of battle, duty, heroism and tragedy. It’s a triumph of imagination and good, taut writing . . . " --Bernard Cornwell on Glory in the Name, winner of the W. Y. Boyd Literary Award

New York Times bestselling author, Newbery Honor recipient, and National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin presents both the heroism and the treachery of one of the Revolutionary War's most infamous players in his biography of Benedict Arnold. Winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Nonfiction Winner of the YALSA-ALA Award for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Most people know that Benedict Arnold was America's first, most notorious traitor. Few know that he was also one of its greatest Revolutionary War heroes. Steve Sheinkin's accessible biography, The Notorious Benedict Arnold, introduces young readers to the real Arnold: reckless, heroic, and driven. Packed with first-person accounts, astonishing American Revolution battle scenes, and surprising twists, this is a gripping and true adventure tale from history. “Sheinkin sees Arnold as America's ‘original action hero' and succeeds in writing a brilliant, fast-paced biography that reads like an adventure novel...The author's obvious mastery of his material, lively prose and abundant use of eyewitness accounts make this one of the most exciting biographies young readers will find.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Several complex political, social, and military themes emerge, one of the most prominent being that within the Continental army, often simplistically depicted as single-minded patriots, beat hearts scheming with political machinations that are completely familiar today...Arnold's inexorable clash with Gates and his decision to turn traitor both chill and compel.” —Horn Book Magazine (starred review) Also by Steve Sheinkin: Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America

A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the George Washington Prize A surprising account of the middle years of the American Revolution and the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold, from the New York Times bestselling author of In The Heart of the Sea, Mayflower, and In the Hurricane's Eye. "May be one of the greatest what-if books of the age—a volume that turns one of America’s best-known narratives on its head.”—Boston Globe "Clear and insightful, [Valiant Ambition] consolidates Philbrick's reputation as one of America's foremost practitioners of narrative nonfiction."—Wall Street Journal In the second book of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns to the tragic relationship between George Washington and Benedict Arnold. In September 1776, the vulnerable Continental army under an unsure George Washington evacuated New York after a devastating defeat by the British army. Three weeks later, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeded in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have lost the war. As this book ends, four years later Washington has vanquished his demons, and Arnold has fled to the enemy. America was forced at last to realize that the real threat to its liberties might not come from without but from withinComplex, controversial, and dramatic, Valiant Ambition is a portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation.

From 1775 through 1777, George Washington and Benedict Arnold were America's two most celebrated warriors. Their earlier lives had surprisingly parallel paths. They were strong leaders in combat, they admired and respected each other, and they even shared common enemies. Yet one became our greatest hero and the other our most notorious traitor. Why? In the new paperback edition of George Washington and Benedict Arnold: A Tale of Two Patriots, author and military historian Dave Palmer reveals the answer: character.

This lively biography of America’s most famous traitor offers a new perspective on his terrible legacy as well as life in Revolutionary Era Connecticut. On September 6, 1781, Connecticut native Benedict Arnold and a force of 1,700 British soldiers and loyalists took Fort Griswold and burnt New London to the ground. The brutality of the invasion galvanized the new nation, and “Remember New London!” would become a rallying cry for troops under General Lafayette. In Homegrown Terror, Eric D. Lehman chronicles the events leading up to the attack and highlights this key transformation in Arnold—the point where he went from betraying his comrades to massacring his neighbors and destroying their homes. This defining incident forever marked him as a symbol of evil, turning an antiheroic story about weakness of character and missed opportunity into one about the nature of treachery itself. Homegrown Terror draws upon a variety of primary sources and perspectives, from the traitor himself to his former comrades like Jonathan Trumbull and Silas Deane, to the murdered Colonel Ledyard. Rethinking Benedict Arnold through the lens of this terrible episode, Lehman sheds light on the ethics of the dawning nation, and the way colonial America responded to betrayal and terror.