TURNCOAT Benedict Arnold was America’s most notorious traitor.
For more than 200 years, the restless spirit of Benedict Arnold has haunted West Point, cursed by George Washington himself to roam, earthbound, “as long as you are the greatest traitor in our nation’s history.” But now the curse appears to have been broken and the tortured ghost released — thanks to Russian-backed President Donald Trump!
Soon after Mr. Trump’s cozy relationship with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin came to light, four cadets at West Point — sworn to truthfulness in their honor code — claim they saw General Arnold’s eerie form walk into a beam of white light and vanish.
“The ghost gave a small, grateful smile and waved to us, then he slowly dissolved until there was nothing there,” reported one of the eyewitnesses.
A special counsel is currently investigating allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian officials who interfered with the U.S. presidential election — in return for Trump’s guarantee that if elected, he’d lift sanctions against America’s adversary.
“The apparition has not been seen since May 17, the night after the special prosecutor was appointed. We can’t be sure if President Trump’s actions lifted the centuries-old curse, but it’s hard to believe the timing is coincidental,” observed Dan Greavesby of the prestigious New Jersey Institute for Paranormal Research.
THUMBS UP: President Trump scored yet another victory by lifting curse on Benedict Arnold.
Benedict Arnold’s role as America’s most infamous traitor during the Revolutionary War is well known to every schoolchild. Once a highly esteemed Major General in the Continental Army, he secretly switched sides in the middle of the war. Arnold had been put in command of American fortifications at West Point (future site of the military academy) and in 1780, he conspired with British spies to turn the fort over to the Red Coats. The plot was foiled just in time and Arnold escaped, joining the King’s forces.
The turncoat waged a bloody campaign against his former compatriots. Most notoriously, he massacred patriots at Fort Griswold in his native Connecticut and burned down the nearby towns of Groton and New London, spreading desolation and woe in the region.
After the war, Arnold fled to England, where he lived out the remainder of his life bearing a blackened name synonymous with treason.
“In 1801, Benedict Arnold became deathly ill and fell into a state of delirium for four days,” revealed Greavesby. “He told relatives surrounding his deathbed that he had been visited by the spirit of George Washington, who’d died two years earlier. He fearfully told them that General Washington had put a curse on him, then just hours later he passed away.”
Over the succeeding years, Benedict Arnold’s spectral figure has been spotted by scores of witnesses, making nighttime rounds atop the walls of West Point.
“He’s described as wearing a grim expression and sometimes mournfully mouthing the words, ‘Forgive me,’” said Greavesby.
Abbott and Costello in The Time of Our Lives
The Benedict Arnold Curse is said to have inspired the 1946 Abbott and Costello comedy The Time of Our Lives. In the film, tubby funnyman Costello plays a patriotic Revolutionary War tinker named Horatio Prim who is mistaken for a traitor and shot. His ghost is cursed to be earthbound “until the crack of doom,” unless it can be proven he was really a patriot.
Descendants of Arnold are relieved that their forebear has at long last been released from his earthly bonds.
“If Mr. Trump’s actions truly are responsible for Benedict’s salvation, he has our family’s eternal gratitude,” said great-great-great-great granddaughter Mrs. Millicent Killheady-White of London.
In popular fiction, Benedict Arnold’s ghost has battled Robin and Batgirl, as well as the Scooby Doo gang.
If you enjoyed this mind-bending yarn by fiction writer C. Michael Forsyth, check out his collection of bizarre news satire, available on Kindle and in other eBook formats.
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Copyright C. Michael FBorsyth
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