Arnold read the note from Lt. Col. John Jameson, taking great care to conceal the growing sense of panic within, for he was most assuredly about to be found out.
In reporting the capture of a British officer by three members of the New York militia, Jameson, a Virginian in command of the outpost in North Castle, New York, was following routine military protocol. The enemy officer was taken into custody and was now being held outside the village of Tarrytown, New York. André had a pass in Benedict Arnold’s handwriting, and that was what led Jameson to alert Arnold.
Jameson said he was planning to return André to West Point for questioning.
Arnold continued eating his breakfast as if nothing had happened. Yet his stomach was churning. At the moment, Arnold was the only officer privy to Jameson’s note. With Washington just hours away, that would change, for Jameson would surely want to make the commander in chief aware of the British prisoner and the documents in his possession.
Benedict Arnold stuffed Jameson’s note into his pocket and finished his meal. Excusing himself by stating that the letter was an urgent summons to his post at West Point, he called for his horse. He then walked upstairs to speak to Peggy, who was dressing for the coming breakfast with George Washington. She was four months away from giving birth to their second child, and their infant son was sleeping in a nearby crib as Arnold hastily explained that he had to run. The most important thing was immediately to reach British lines. He didn’t know when or if he and Peggy would ever see each other again. Above all else, Arnold told his wife, she should not let on that she knows a thing, thus putting her own life in danger.
Shocked, Peggy fainted.
Arnold carried her downstairs, asking the young officers to look after his stricken wife. He then galloped his horse down to the Hudson, where he took a seat in his official barge and asked to be rowed out into the river. To the surprise of the men at the oars, Benedict Arnold was not going to West Point.
Instead, he directed them south, to where the Vulture, now out of cannon range, waited patiently for the return of Maj. John André.
“At about 11 a.m. came alongside a rebel boat from West Point,” the ship’s master of Vulture wrote in the log for September 25. “Found it to be General Arnold, who gave himself up.”
* * *
“Arnold has betrayed me,” a devastated George Washington tells the Marquis de Lafayette. “Whom can we trust now?”
The general moves quickly. By evening on September 25, he takes charge of West Point. There is not a moment to waste. Men whom Washington personally considers trustworthy are placed in command; soldiers are immediately stationed at the weakest parts of the fort; and troops whom Arnold sent into the forests to cut wood, thus weakening troop strength, are recalled to battle stations.
Washington then orders that Maj. John André be transferred to West Point for questioning.
Later that day, under a flag of truce, a letter is brought to General Washington.
“On board the Vulture, September 25, 1780,” reads the heading.
“Sir, the heart which is conscious of its own rectitude cannot attempt to palliate a step which the world may censure as wrong. I have acted from a principle of love to my country.… I have no favor to ask for myself. I have too often experienced the ingratitude of my country to attempt it. But from the known humanity of your Excellency, I am induced to ask your protection for Mrs. Arnold from every insult and injury.… I beg that she may be permitted to return to her friends in Philadelphia, or to come to me, as she may choose.”
The letter concludes: “I have the honor to be with regard and esteem, your Excellency’s most obedient humble servant.
“Benedict Arnold.”
Peggy Shippen Arnold feigns ignorance of her husband’s treason. In fact, when General Washington returns to the Arnold home on the afternoon of September 25, her tactic is to place all blame on George Washington—before dissolving into tears and hysteria.3
* * *
Maj. John André knows he is in mortal danger. He is thirty years old and considers his life to have been “devoted to honorable pursuits, and stained with no action that can give me remorse.” But as a military tribunal meets to discuss his fate at the Continental Army’s camp in Tappan, New York, just a few days after his capture, there seems little hope that his life will go on much longer.
In hindsight, André’s journey was initially uneventful. General Arnold had assigned him a local Loyalist named Joshua Hett Smith as a guide. It was Smith who provided André with the clothing he wore as a disguise. As the major rode through the New York countryside astride a black horse, in an old purple coat and tattered beaver fur hat, he hardly looked like a British officer. The great cloak thrown over his shoulders hid his appearance even further. The letters from General Arnold were concealed in the soles of his stockings. However, a trained eye would have noted that the breeches and white-topped boots he wore were more in line with those of a British officer than a backwoods American.
John André’s deception is discovered.
On the morning of September 23, despite knowing that André would soon be entering an area frequented by “cow-boys,” local thugs fond of stealing cattle and otherwise harassing the populace, Joshua Hett Smith left André, fearing for his own safety.
So it was that, at nine o’clock that morning, three such “cow-boys” were surprised by André’s approach as they played cards alongside the road. John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart were all members of the New York militia. Paulding had just escaped from a British prisoner of war camp, having stolen a Hessian soldier’s clothes to facilitate his breakout. He was still wearing the coat when Major André addressed the three men. Even though Paulding had leveled a musket at the approaching traveler, André foolishly said, “Thank God I am once more among friends! I am a British officer out in the country on particular business and hope you will not detain me any longer.”
Immediately, Paulding grabbed the bridle of André’s horse. “We are Americans,” he said. “And you are our prisoner.”
Six days later, André now stands in a Dutch church in Tappan, facing the military tribunal that will decide his fate. Among the judges are the Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben. A letter from General Washington is read aloud, stating the charges and asking for a hasty resolution.
The board listens as André defends himself, admitting every charge against him to be true. It is the agreement of everyone present, Washington included, that André is a gallant young officer. He has shown himself to be honorable and courteous. However, the verdict is clear: André is a spy.
“Agreeably to the laws and usages of nations, it is their opinion he ought to suffer death,” a transcriber writes.
General Washington agrees, setting the moment for André’s hanging at 5:00 p.m. on October 1.
Major André is shocked, fully expecting to be returned to the British in a prisoner of war exchange. However, it is also common knowledge among officers on both sides that an American of the same elevated status, Nathan Hale, was hanged without ceremony by the British earlier in the war.
But John André does not show his surprise.
“Andre met the result with manly firmness,” Alexander Hamilton, who witnessed the trial, will later write of the verdict.
* * *
George Washington does not want to hang Major André. He would much prefer to execute Benedict Arnold, but André is the one who was captured. Washington is utterly furious about the betrayal and would love nothing more than to see Arnold stretch a rope—so he offers the British a trade: André for Arnold.
Gen. Henry Clinton has a deep fondness for Major André, and a flurry of letters is exchanged between the generals in which the American concedes to an English request that his hanging be delayed in order that an agreement be reached. But the British finally refuse to exchange Arnold for André.
Knowing the end is near, the major makes a final plea to Washington: he requests death by firing squad rat
her than hanging.
“Sir, buoyed above the terror of death, by the consciousness of a life devoted to honorable pursuits, I trust that the request I make to your Excellency at this serious period, and which is to soften my last moments, will not be rejected.
“Sympathy towards a soldier will surely induce your Excellency and a military tribunal to adapt the mode of my death to the feeling of a man of honor.”
Even after Alexander Hamilton pleads that this is a just alternative, Washington will not be swayed—André must be hanged.
On October 2, 1780, as Benedict Arnold enjoys the safety and luxury of his new life as a British officer in New York City, Maj. John André is led to the gallows just before noon. A length of wood has been laid in the branches of two trees, forming the crosspiece from which André will hang. He wears his British military uniform as he steps up into the back of a wagon, upon which an open pine casket already awaits.
The hangman adjusts the rope around his neck. A white handkerchief is tied around André’s head as a blindfold.
“All I request of you, gentlemen, is that while I acknowledge the propriety of my sentence, you will bear me witness that I die like a brave man.”
Then, adding his final words, André concludes his short life: “It will be but a momentary pang.”
With the flick of a whip, the horse-drawn wagon surges forward, leaving Major André swinging in midair. He is dead within minutes.
26
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
JANUARY 5, 1781
10:30 P.M.
Benedict Arnold has unleashed hell.
Richmond blazes as the traitor sips whiskey in the City Tavern. Outside, on Richmond’s Main Street, flames consume storehouses, foundries, and homes. Arnold, now a brigadier general in the British Army, commands fifteen hundred British redcoats, Hessians, and American Loyalists—many of whom stagger drunkenly through Virginia’s new capital. The aroma of bourbon blends with that of wood smoke—from the copious amounts of sour mash, discovered in a warehouse, that Arnold’s soldiers are now pouring into Richmond’s gutters rather than leaving it behind when they march away in the morning.
Six long years into the revolution, Benedict Arnold has finally brought war to the state his former commander in chief calls home—and he does so with relish.
Yet despite his momentary appearance of ease, Benedict Arnold now lives in constant fear for his life. He wears the red coat with dark blue lapels of a British brigadier general—a permanent reminder that he has truly defected to the British cause. As such, he carries two pistols in his pockets wherever he goes, to avoid capture. Indeed, Arnold is well aware what will happen if the rebels take him alive. In the words of a captured American officer, “They will cut off that shortened leg of yours wounded at Quebec and Saratoga, and bury it with all the honors of war, and then hang the rest of you on a gibbet.”
Thus far, the New Year has been a triumph for the traitor. On January 1, his invading fleet of twenty-seven ships bombarded Norfolk, Virginia, from the sea for seven hours, setting the port ablaze and destroying great portions of the city. Immediately afterward, favored by following winds, Arnold’s fleet sailed quickly up the James River to attack the capital city of Richmond and its stockpiles of ammunition and supplies so vital to the rebel war effort.
Richmond is a city built of wood, from the planks covering the muddy streets to the clapboards of St. John’s Church, on Indian Hill, where, in 1775, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson listened to Patrick Henry so famously declare, “Give me liberty or give me death.” It is Jefferson, the current governor of Virginia, who made a last-minute attempt to save Richmond by hastily forming a volunteer militia. But the two hundred men were no match for Arnold’s elite force. The Virginians quickly fled the city, followed soon after by a seething Thomas Jefferson.1
* * *
Even as Arnold now feasts in celebration of his dazzling success, he has no idea how narrowly he avoided a public hanging. Less than a month ago, in his fury over Arnold’s treason, George Washington concocted a bold plan to kidnap Arnold from his New York town house and smuggle him to New Jersey. A brave rebel soldier named John Champe would perform the deed, first by pretending to desert in emulation of Arnold, then befriending the traitor and offering to join his newly formed regiment of Loyalist soldiers, the American Legion.
At first, the plan went well. Champe made a great show of deserting to the British side, was embraced by Arnold as a compatriot, and successfully joined the American Legion. Once in position, he was poised to execute Washington’s plan and bring the traitor to justice.
But on the very December night in which the trap was to be sprung, Sergeant Major Champe and every other man under Arnold’s command were hastily ordered to New York Harbor for a journey south on board transport ships. So, rather than kidnapping Benedict Arnold, Champe spent that evening inside a dank hull, surrounded by enemy soldiers—all of whom would have killed him in an instant if they had known of his true intentions. Three weeks later, as Arnold’s fleet arrived off Norfolk, Sergeant Major Champe could only watch helplessly as the British bombarded his home state of Virginia.
In this way, George Washington’s elaborate plan to kidnap Benedict Arnold failed. As for John Champe, he is now among the men staggering through the streets of Richmond, his intended role in Arnold’s demise not to be discovered until after the war.2
* * *
Thomas Jefferson was warned. On December 9, George Washington wrote the Virginia governor about a fleet of British ships laden with soldiers sailing south from New York. Yet Jefferson, now living with his wife in Richmond, failed to act—distracted by the birth of yet another new baby girl, Lucy Elizabeth. As always, Martha Jefferson endured a difficult pregnancy, and is now unable to produce milk for the infant, further concerning the Virginian. His failed last-minute attempt to raise a militia and prevent the destruction of Richmond will forever be a blemish on his record, but the fate of Jefferson’s wife and baby are foremost in his mind right now. So great is his disgrace that he puts Virginia in further danger by delaying reports about the British invasion to George Washington, despite knowing that the general has the power to send help immediately.
“Sir,” Jefferson apologizes in a letter to Washington on January 10, “it may seem odd considering the important events which have taken place in this state within the course of ten days past, that I should not have transmitted an account of them to your Excellency, but such has been their extraordinary rapidity and such the unremitted exertions they have required from all concerned in government that I do not recollect the portion of time which I could have taken to commit them to paper.”
A flustered Jefferson goes on to describe the actions of Arnold’s troops in great detail, admitting that the people of Virginia are powerless to stop the British.
Washington responds by ordering the Marquis de Lafayette and twelve hundred troops to Virginia. Lafayette arrives on March 14. The following day, he links up with Baron von Steuben, who has already been sent south by Washington to assist Jefferson’s Virginia militia.
In addition to confronting British forces, Lafayette has also been ordered to capture the traitor Arnold. George Washington is consumed by that task. He also remains fixated on invading New York, even though the focus of the war is now shifting to Virginia.
In April, the British warship HMS Savage drops anchor in the waters off His Excellency’s Mount Vernon home and frees more than a dozen of Washington’s slaves. Only the swift intervention of his cousin Lund, the property’s caretaker during the six years the general has been away, prevents the estate from being burned to the ground.3
Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson’s personal and professional woes show no sign of ending. At 10:00 a.m. on April 15, young Lucy Elizabeth, just four months old, dies after a brief illness.4 Jefferson has coped with death on many occasions but is now crushed. The burden of loss is taking a staggering toll. Jefferson’s grief is so enormous that he tells friends that “I mean sh
ortly to retire” from politics.
Yet, simply stepping away from the job of governor is not feasible. For, on April 18, just three short days after Lucy’s death, Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton marches north from North Carolina into Virginia to join forces with Benedict Arnold. Jefferson responds by formally moving the Virginia legislature to Charlottesville, the small town just a few miles from his home at Monticello. Some seventy miles from Richmond, Jefferson can take refuge in his mountaintop sanctuary once again.
On May 28, he writes to Washington. The British force in Virginia has now swollen to seven thousand men. The redcoats further south have moved out of the Carolinas and are pushing north to join those already in Virginia. Jefferson’s letter states that the war’s focus is now the state of Virginia—and that Washington himself should come join the action.
“Were it possible for this circumstance to justify in your Excellency a determination to lend us your personal aid,” Jefferson pleads, “it is evident from the universal voice that the presence of their beloved countryman, whose talents have been so long successfully employed in establishing the freedom of kindred states, to whose person they have still flattered themselves they retained some right, and have ever looked up as their dernier resort in distress, that your appearance among them I say would restore full confidence of salvation.”
Yet, while the presence of such military leadership as the Marquis de Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, Cornwallis, and Benedict Arnold clearly suggests that the war could be decided in Virginia, Gen. George Washington is still focused on capturing New York City.
Meanwhile, on June 2, British troops capture a messenger carrying a letter from Lafayette to Thomas Jefferson. The missive reveals that the governor and legislature are hiding in distant Charlottesville. Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis immediately orders Banastre Tarleton to capture Thomas Jefferson.
Killing England Page 23