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More than 200 years after Benedict Arnold's death, his name is still synonymous with treason. However, the details of his path from patriot to conspirator are less familiar. On October 7, 1780, Arnold made a public declaration explaining his reasons for this change in loyalty. The text is included in The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence, a compendium of letters, diary entries, newspaper articles, and public documents from the era.

To celebrate the start of a new school year, today's excerpt comes from a novel written for teens, but engaging for anyone young at heart. Laurie Halse Anderson's book Chains--winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction and a National Book Award finalist--tells the story of a thirteen-year-old slave girl named Isabel whose sale to a Loyalist family in New York City coincides with the start of the Revolutionary War. Here Isabel alerts the Rebel army to a plot she overheard her master and his colleagues devise to assassinate General George Washington.