Benedict Arnold was born on January 14, 1741. He was a general in the Continental Army who defected towards the British side during the American Revolutionary War. In the Continental Army he became well known for successful campaigns, but slowly he became dissatisfied. It began with what he felt was too little recognition for his participation during the raid of Fort Ticonderoga. Five years after Ticonderoga in 1780 he conspired with the British to take control of the fort at West Point in New York. Luckily Benedict�s plan failed. If successful in the raid, the British would have split the colonies in half with their control over the Hudson River. Benedict avoided immediate capture by the Continental Army. After his escape he joined the British Army and after some time became a general. In America his name is synonymous with traitor.

John Brown was a militant American Abolitionist whose raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Va., in 1859 made him a martyr to the anti-slavery cause and was instrumental in heightening sectional animosities that led to the American Civil War (1861 � 65).