Includes bibliographical references (pages 363-395) and index.

Introduction -- The price of honor -- Great expectations -- Descent -- The fortunes of war -- Taking charge -- Smooth and choppy waters -- Love, marriage, duels, and honor -- "My country called" -- The race to seize forts -- Buried in the public calamity -- Honor in a "direful howling wilderness" -- A fierce attack, a winter siege -- Defending the lakes -- Don't tread on me -- "Besmirched honor" -- Savage warfare -- Defending New York, again -- The fatal blow -- The wages of victory -- The eye of the storm -- The court-martial -- Becoming Gustavus Monk -- Treason -- Afterword -- Final thoughts.

Historian Joyce Lee Malcolm skillfully unravels the man behind the myth and gives us a portrait of the true Arnold and his world. There was his dramatic victory against the British at Saratoga in 1777 and his troubled childhood in a pre-revolutionary America beset with class tension and economic instability. We witness his brilliant wartime military exploits and learn of his contentious relationship with a newly formed and fractious Congress, fearful of powerful military leaders, like Arnold, who could threaten the nation's fragile democracy. Throughout, Malcolm weaves in portraits of Arnold's great allies--George Washington, General Schuyler, his beautiful and beloved wife Peggy Shippen, and others--as well as his unrelenting enemy John Adams, British General Clinton, and master spy John Andre. Thrilling and thought-provoking, The Tragedy of Benedict Arnold sheds new light on a man--as well on the nuanced and complicated time in which he lived.