Eric D. Lehman

Homegrown Terror


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      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 ix
Acknowledgments xxiii
On the Edge of Spring 1
Flashpoint 14
Resist Even Unto Blood 28
The Shadow War 46
Invasion 62
Villainous Perfidy 79
The Scandal of the Age 97
A Parricide in Old Virginia 113
William Ledyard’s Last Summer 127
The Sixth of September 140
The Battle of Groton Heights 151
Remember New London 162
The Fall of Silas Deane 178
Epilogue 197
A Note on Sources 205
Notes 207
Index 255

      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