George Washington’s Liar

George Washington’s Liar

No one imagined that Ben would become the stuff of legend. But when this shopkeeper heard that British troops had massacred citizens in Boston, something inside him exploded. He cried out in a town meeting, “Good God, are the Americans all asleep and tamely giving up their glorious liberties?” When revolution broke out, he organized a militia and led it down the road to join the fight in Boston.

Then he came up with an audacious idea. If he took Fort Ticonderoga in nearby New York, he could capture enough cannons to blast the British out of Boston. After a forced march, Ben’s little militia caught the redcoats napping and took the fort. His feat galvanized a revolution badly in need of a victory. After he was promoted to colonel, he marched his men across Maine’s rugged wilderness in freezing November and attacked Quebec with only about a thousand men. A musket ball tore through his leg, leaving him a cripple. But he limped home a hero. After that, he led his men to a string of stunning victories.

Jealous superiors grudgingly promoted him to brigadier general. He had hoped for more. Maybe that’s when bitterness took root. Finally, George Washington made him a major general. He alone understood what military experts now affirm: Ben was the greatest general on either side in this war. Ben’s star reached its zenith at the Battle of Saratoga. The colonials were in retreat when Ben wheeled his horse around and charged into British cannon fire. His horse was shot out from under him, and he was badly wounded. But his courage rallied the Americans, and victory was snatched from defeat.

Yet there was a dark side to Washington’s favorite general. The public hero was a private thief who regularly diverted war funds into his personal accounts. As military governor of Philadelphia, his embezzlement became so egregious that he was court-martialed. Ben appealed to Washington, “Having become a cripple in service to my country, I little expected such ungrateful returns.” In a move that still confounds historians, Washington countermanded the court-martial and gave Ben command of the most critical fortress in America’s defense system.

Within days, an embittered Ben cut a secret deal to turn the fort over to the enemy in exchange for £20,000 and a commission as a general in the British army. You remember Ben by his birth name, Benedict. The fort he betrayed was West Point. Had the war ended at Saratoga, Benedict Arnold would be celebrated as a hero. Instead, his very name is synonymous with treachery.

It is a baffling mystery: How could George Washington, a man famous for never telling a lie, be so completely conned by one of history’s greatest liars? Today, you will be assaulted by a blitzkrieg of lies, cleverly disguised by the enemy of our souls. Maybe the answer to why George Washington and all of us are so easily conned is found in a statement by the Dutch humanist Erasmus:

Our minds are so formed that we are far more susceptible to falsehood than truth.

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

1 John 4:1, NIV