Benedict Arnold, American general during the American Revolution later turned British spy (born 1741)

Benedict Arnold was an American-born British military officer who served during the American Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defecting to the British in 1780. General George Washington had given him his fullest trust and had placed him in command of West Point in New York. Arnold was planning to surrender the fort to British forces, but the plot was discovered in September 1780, whereupon he fled to the British lines. In the later part of the war, Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army and placed in command of the American Legion. He led British forces in battle against the army which he had once commanded, and his name became synonymous with treason and betrayal in the United States.

The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British rule to form the United States of America. The revolutionary era reached its zenith with the American Revolutionary War, which commenced on April 19, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The leaders of the American Revolution were colonial separatists who, as British subjects, initially sought greater autonomy. However, they came to embrace the cause of full independence and the necessity of prevailing in the Revolutionary War to obtain it. The Second Continental Congress, which represented the colonies and convened in the present-day Independence Hall in Philadelphia, established the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander-in-chief in June 1775. The following year, the Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, which served to inspire, formalize, and escalate the war. Throughout the majority of the eight-year war, the outcome appeared to be uncertain. However, in 1781, a decisive victory by Washington and the Continental Army in the Siege of Yorktown led King George III and the British to negotiate the cessation of colonial rule and the acknowledgment of American independence. This was formalized in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, resulting in the establishment of the United States of America as a sovereign nation.