The two great figures emerging from the Revolution, wrote Mercy Otis Warren early in the war to her friend Abigail Adams, would likely be George Washington and Benedict Arnold. As we know, she got it half right. An interesting measure of how posterity regarded the two figures is found in stories told to children in the early 1800s.
Even today, many children have heard the tale of young George Washington mischievously chopping down his father’s cherry tree, and how, when confronted, he responds I cannot tell a lie, confesses to his crime, and is praised—surprise!—for his honesty. The moral of the story is that you, child, can be like George Washington if you are honest, especially when honesty puts you in a tough spot.
Consider, on the other hand, a story written at the same time, of a child who was cruel to animals. Titled “The Cruel Boy,” it begins:
There are few things more disgraceful in children than to be cruel to those harmless creatures, which are unable to defend themselves.
If I see a child pull off the wings of an insect, or throw stones at the toads, or take pains to set foot upon a worm, I am sure that there is something wrong about him, or that he has not been well instructed.
Well, it turns out there was just such a kid:
There was once a boy who loved to give pain to every thing that came in his way, over which he could gain any power.
He would take eggs from the mourning Robin, and torture the unfledged brood of the sparrow. Cats, and Dogs, the peaceable Cow, and the faithful Horse, he delighted to worry and distress. I do not like to tell you the many cruel things that he did.
More affronts to the blessed beasts follow, plus that fact that the cruel boy grew up to betray his native land, and came to an unhappy end:
He became so wicked as to lay a plan to betray his country, and to sell it into the hands of the enemy. This was being a traitor. But he was discovered and fled.
He never dared to return to his native land, but lived despised, and died miserably in a foreign clime. Such was the end of the cruel boy, who loved to give pain to animals.
In case your still not sure of the cruel boy’s identity, the story ends like this:
He was born at Norwich, in Connecticut, and the beautiful city of his birth is ashamed of his memory. His name was Benedict Arnold.
Of course, there is nothing in the historical record, nor any reason at all to think, that young Benedict habitually de-winged insects or tipped the peaceable cow. But Arnold had become the antihero of American history, and you could instruct children on moral behavior with this simple formula: the reward of virtue will be comparison to George Washington; while vice will see your reputation besmirched by association with the lowest of the low, the traitor Benedict Arnold. And no kid would want that.