Arnold was one of the best battlefield commanders the Continental army had, as good as Daniel Morgan. He was immensely important to the victories at Ft Ticonderoga and Saratoga. And those were crucial, as they convinced the French to support the colonists' revolt.

After showing incredible initiative in October 1776 in assembling a small fleet to block an invasion from Canada, and in blocking another invasion through Connecticut in May 1777, and then being a key part of the victory at Saratoga in September , Arnold was not given the rank of Major General by the Continental Congress, was not given the boost in seniority over others that he and Washington felt he deserved. Considering that General Horatio Gates had assumed credit for the Saratoga victory, this was definitely a slight that Arnold - an ambitious, touchy man- must have felt keenly. But that was nothing to the treatment he got when he was made military Governor of Philadelphia. His marriage to a woman of Loyalist family and his efforts to try to make enough money to support her in the manner to which she was accustomed drew the suspicion of another touchy, disputatious man, Joseph Reed, who'd left the army to become president of the state's Executive Council, and that Council was in constant dispute with the Continental Army. Reed searched for Loyalists, and led the Council in constantly challenging the authority of the Continental Congress. Reed decided Arnold was profiteering, tried to convict him. He could produce no evidence to that effect to give a Continental Congress committee looking into the matter. After the Committee then refused to discipline Arnold, the Council and Reed threatened to cease cooperation on the war. In response, Congress then turned the matter over to the army and Washington, for a court-marshal. In 1779, therefore, Arnold was desperately poor. Though badly paid, he had seen new French mercenaries arrive and get put on the payroll. He had fought valiantly in the Continental Army, but had been passed over for rank, and had had his reputation smeared in a political dispute. And, as has been more recently suggested, he had a wife with Loyalist connections who would have not only been able to agree that he'd been treated badly, but suggest possible ways to improve their dire situation.

Certainly, you can say that in the case of Arnold, talent, good deeds and zealous service were firmly punished. But he was not alone. The Congress did not really have an executive- and so in that function it was pretty bad. Like all bureaucracies, it was mostly ungrateful, often suspicious, and prone to dithering over details. Many in the Congress did not like the idea of a standing army in the first place, didn't feel that officers should be paid- unless they could show that they were really poor. In 1778 they only grudgingly agreed to half-pay for them for seven years. And even that was not often paid. Daniel Morgan in 1781 was owed months of back pay, and so was shabby enough to be ashamed to be seen in public. Many officers were almost as ragged as their men. There would be many who felt themselves badly treated. Like Gen. Charles Lee, ending his life as a grim and bitter bachelor on his Virginia estate. The amazing thing is that Arnold would be the only one to defect.

And beyond the officers and soldiers, badly paid or paid in seemingly worthless Continental promissory notes, there were many others badly treated. Like Silas Deane, the merchant who acted as a kind of ambassador to France in the early stage of the conflict, helping to coordinate shipments of supplies from Beaumarchais: Congress not only refused to honor his bills but accused him of financial impropriety and he never recovered. Or Oliver Pollock, the New Orleans merchant who had strong ties to Spain and Cuba and greatly financed the war in the west: he was also never paid back.