Indeed, there was more to Peggy’s despair than the Shippens knew. Contradictory emotions roiled over her: grief over Arnold’s thwarted plans and their mutual hopes for a large reward; relief that her husband was safe, coupled with doubts about their marriage. Would she ever see Arnold again? Since he was safely ensconced among the British, would she, could she, join him in a new life in England? Or would she remain in Philadelphia, neither married nor single, residing in her parents’ home to raise her son alone?
Peggy’s supportive but unsuspecting relatives expressed disgust with Arnold, declaring that her marriage to him seventeen months earlier had been a mistake. “The sacrifice was an immense one at her being married to him at all,” Burd fumed. His father-in-law, Judge Shippen, worried that his beloved daughter would never recover her stability. Should Peggy be put “into the hands of so bad a man, her mind might, in time, be debased, and her welfare . . . endangered.”29
For all her angst, Peggy remained curiously loyal to Arnold. To the Shippens’ consternation, she seemed to want “to be persuaded there was some palliation of his guilt . . . and that his conduct had not been so thoroughly base and treacherous as it was generally thought.”30 Peggy’s tenderness, the Shippens concluded, was typical of her affectionate nature, not to the character of the infamous man she had wed.
Then came rumors that the Supreme Executive Council planned to exile Peggy. “We tried every means to prevail on the Council to permit her to stay among us, and not to compel her to go to that infernal villain her husband in New York,” Burd wrote to his father. In an effort to placate the council, Judge Shippen had Peggy sign a paper promising “not to write General Arnold any letters whatever, and to receive no letters without showing them to the Council if she was permitted to stay.” For several days, Peggy’s future looked brighter, according to Burd, with signs that council members seemed “to favour our request.”31
Finally, on October 27, the council reached a decision.
The Council, taking into consideration the case of Mrs. Margaret Arnold (the wife of Benedict Arnold, an attainted traitor with the enemy at New York), whose residence in this city has become dangerous to the public safety; and this board, being desirous, as much as possible, to prevent any correspondence and intercourse being carried on with persons of disaffected character in this state, and the enemy at New York, and especially with the said Benedict Arnold, therefore, resolved, that the said Margaret Arnold depart this state within fourteen days from the date hereof, and she do not return again during the continuance of the present war.32
Once again, Judge Shippen tried to reason with the council. “She is very young and possessed of qualities which entitle her to a better fate,” than being forced to return to her villainous husband.33 Other family friends, like John Jay, sympathized. “Poor Mrs. Arnold; was there ever such a villain? His wife is much to be pitied. It is painful to see so charming a woman so sacrificed,” he wrote to Robert Morris.34
No amount of pleading would change the Supreme Executive Council’s decision.35 On November 9, the Shippens’ carriage rolled across New Jersey, reaching British lines at Paulus Hook (today’s Jersey City) on November 13. There, Judge Shippen bid a tearful good-bye to Peggy and his infant grandson, Neddy, as they boarded a boat for New York City. “My poor daughter Peggy’s unfortunate connection has given us great grief,” Judge Shippen later wrote his father.
A day later, Burd wrote his own father, “If she could have stayed, Mr. Shippen would not have wished her ever to be united to him [Arnold] again. It makes me melancholy every time I think of the matter. It is much more so to be obliged, against her will, to go to the arms of a man who appears to be so very black.”36
Peggy’s reaction to her exile has not been recorded. Family letters suggest that she still loved Arnold and believed his attempted delivery of West Point to the British had been a courageous and even a noble deed.
On Tuesday, September 26, Knox’s horror over Arnold’s betrayal was matched by his recognition that the British prisoner was the same man he had shared a cabin with four years earlier at Lake George. Later that Tuesday, Continental dragoons escorted André and Smith to West Point, and, by Thursday, André was transported downriver and lodged at Casparus Mabie’s Tavern in Tappan, New York, near Washington’s headquarters.
Letters from the British demanding André’s release had already reached the commander in chief. From the Vulture, Colonel Beverly Robinson arrogantly defended the prisoner’s behavior. His letter claimed that the British officer “went up with a flag at the request of General Arnold, on public business with him, and had his permit to return by land to New York.” Ignoring the fact that the “public business” happened to be treason, the Loyalist contended that André’s imprisonment was a “violation of flags, and contrary to the custom and usage of all nations.” Moreover, “every step Major André took was by the . . . direction of General Arnold, even that of taking a feigned name.”37
General Clinton also wrote Washington, insisting that he had permitted André to meet Arnold “at the particular request of that general officer.”38 Within Clinton’s packet was a letter from Arnold, written at the British general’s insistence. “I have the honor to inform you, sir, that . . . a few hours must return Major André to our Excellency’s order, as that officer is assuredly under the protection of a flag of truce . . . for the purpose, of a conversation which I requested to hold with him,” Arnold wrote. “Thinking it proper he should return by land, I directed him to make use of the feigned name of John Anderson, under which he had, by my directions come on shore, and gave him passports to pass my lines to the White Plains on his way to New York.”39
Washington, who doubted the existence of a flag, since André had not mentioned one in his confession, appointed a fourteen-man board of general officers to weigh the matter in a court-martial. André’s trial began on Friday, September 29, at Tappan’s Dutch Church, with Nathanael Greene as president and Henry Knox as one of the judges. Today, an abstract of those proceedings from John Laurence, the board’s general advocate, is the sole remaining record of what transpired.
According to that document, André appeared that morning before his judges, still dressed in Smith’s old clothes, and described the events leading to his capture. The rowboat that had brought him from the Vulture to the shore near Haverstraw had carried no flag, André explained, for he expected to return to the British sloop that same night. Only later, when forced to ride with Arnold to Smith’s manor house, did André realize he had been tricked into crossing into American lines. After the Vulture was attacked and towed downstream, André realized he was trapped. The only way he could escape was to don Smith’s old clothes as a disguise.
Ultimately, wrote Laurence, the jury concluded that André had violated several international laws of war. The officer “came on shore from the Vulture sloop of war in the night of the 21st Sept last on an interview with Genl [A]rnold in a private and secret manner; that he changed his dress within our lines and under a feigned name, and in a disguised habit being then on his way to New York, and when taken he had in his possession several papers which contained intelligence for the enemy.” In conclusion, “Major André, adjutant general to the British army, ought to be considered a spy from the enemy and, that agreeable to the laws and usage of nations, it is their opinion he ought to suffer death.”40 The next day, Saturday, September 30, Washington approved orders for André’s execution to occur on Sunday, October 1, at 5 p.m.
Washington’s subsequent letter to Clinton explained that André had “confessed with the greatest candor, ‘that it was impossible for him to suppose he came on shore under the sanction of a flag.’”41 Even with a flag, the officer’s intent and behavior would still have violated the international laws of war. A similar notice was dispatched to Clinton. Within that packet were two other letters, one from Peggy to Arnold (now lost) and another, an anonymous letter written in a style suspiciously similar to that of Alexander Hamilton.
&
nbsp; “Though an enemy, his [Andre’s] virtues and his accomplishments are admired. Perhaps he might be released for General Arnold, delivered up without restriction or condition. Major Andre’s character and situation seem to demand this of your justice and friendship. Arnold appears to have been the guilty author of the mischief and ought more properly to be the victim, as there is great reason to believe he mediated a double treachery and had arranged the interview in such a manner that if discovered in the first instance, he might have it in his power to sacrifice Major Andre to his own safety.”42
An anguished Clinton pondered the concept of an exchange but ultimately rejected it, reasoning that it would discourage future informers from cooperating with the British. In a feverish attempt to save André, Clinton asked for a meeting with the Americans. Surely there had been some mistake. The Board of General Officers must not have been “rightly informed” before reaching their decision. Clinton’s deputies would consequently arrive aboard the schooner Greyhound the next day, Sunday, October 1, on the shores of the Hudson at Sneeden’s Landing “as early as wind and tides will permit.”43
Reluctantly, Washington agreed to the meeting, appointed Nathanael Greene to arrange the parley, and postponed André’s execution until noon, Monday, October 2. To André, Clinton piteously wrote, “God knows how much I feel for you in your present situation, but I dare hope you will soon be returned from it—believe me, dear Andre.”44
The meeting accomplished nothing. In it, Greene reiterated the Board of General Officers’ decision that neither the existence nor absence of a flag had relevance to the case against André. He had violated the international laws of war. If the British agreed to return Arnold, the Americans would release André. If not, the British officer must be executed.
In a back room at the stone-walled Mabie’s Tavern, André came to terms with his imminent death. Humbled, generous-spirited, and impeccably polite, he had not reported Arnold’s insistence that he carry incriminating papers across enemy territory. Nor had he implicated Smith for abandoning him during the last few miles of neutral territory. Instead, André blamed his capture upon himself. “Had he been tried by a court of ladies, he is so genteel, handsome and polite a young gentleman that I am confident they would have acquitted him,” his moved guard Tallmadge opined.45
Hamilton was also touched by André’s genteel humility. He wished, as he wrote his fiancée, that he was “possessed of André’s accomplishments for your sake, for I would wish to charm you in every sense.”46
Foremost among André’s concerns was the effect of his death upon Clinton. “I am bound to him by too many obligations and love him too well to bear the thought, that he should reproach himself, or that others should reproach him,” he tearfully confided to Hamilton.47 Through the future statesman’s efforts, André was finally allowed to write to Clinton. His letter expressed his desire to remove “any suspicion . . . that I was bound by your Excellency’s orders to expose myself to what has happened. . . . I am perfectly tranquil in mind and prepared for any fate to which an honest zeal for my king’s service may have devoted me. . . . With all the warmth of my heart, I give you thanks for your Excellency’s profuse kindness to me.”48
André had one other wish: to be shot as a soldier, rather than hanged as a common spy. “Sympathy towards a soldier will surely induce your Excellency and a military tribunal to adopt the mode of my death to the feelings of a man of honor,” he wrote Washington. “Let me hope, sir . . . that I am not to die on a gibbet.”49 To avoid causing the prisoner more anguish, the Virginian did not reply.
On the sunny morning of October 2, five hundred people waited outside Mabie’s Tavern as others streamed into the area. An observer reported that suddenly an unnaturally pale André appeared on the porch, flanked by soldiers on one side and a fife and drum corps on the other, and “had run down the steps [of the tavern] as quickly and lively as though no execution were taking place.”50 As musicians played the “Dead March,” soldiers escorted him past Tappan’s Dutch church and up a long hill. Upon the summit stood a gallows and beneath it a two-horse baggage cart upon which rested a black coffin. Nearby was a freshly dug grave. “Gentleman, I am disappointed. I expected my request would have been granted,” André said with a frown as he saw the gallows, then added, “I am reconciled to my death, but not the mode.”51
Having scanned the faces of the spectators, André mounted the wagon, stood on the coffin, removed his hat, and lowered his shirt collar. “It will be but a momentary pang,” Dr. James Thacher heard him say.52 Seizing the noose, André brought it over his head, tied a knot under his left ear, and placed a handkerchief over his eyes. When asked for his last words, the British officer raised his handkerchief. “I pray you to bear me witness that I meet my fate like a brave man.”
After tying André’s arms, a second kerchief was knotted above his elbows. At the hangman’s signal, a whip cracked, driving the horses forward, leaving Major John André hanging from the gallows. Messengers immediately carried reports of André’s execution south to Philadelphia.
Within a day of that news, Peggy arrived at her parents’ home at South Fourth Street in a state of nervous collapse. After her own death, in 1804, Peggy’s heirs found among her possessions the gold locket André had once given her containing a lock of his hair.
8
“Haste Happy Time When We Shall Be No More Separate”
“SHALL MEN ALWAYS BE the enemies of men. . . . Is society, at least, susceptible of amendment, if not perfection?” asked the Marquis of Chastellux in his 1772 book An Essay on Public Happiness.1 With that question in mind, the forty-six-year-old author sailed from France to Rhode Island in July 1780 as a major general with General Rochambeau. Two months later, on a rainy Friday, November 24, Chastellux met Henry Knox, whom he instantly liked. As the Frenchman noted in his travel journal, later published as Travels in North-America, Washington’s chief of artillery was “very fat but very active and of a gay and amiable character.” That same Friday, Knox led Chastellux down a thickly wooded path to meet his wife, Lucy, who was happily “settled in a little farm” with her children.2
Lucy’s clothes, Chastellux observed, were “ridiculous without being neglected”—tidy and clean but apparently an odd imitation of current fashion. Equally striking to him was her hairdo, arranged like a three-cornered military hat and “all decked out with scarves and gauzes in a way that I am unable to describe.” Regardless of Lucy’s appearance, he admired her warmth, devotion to Knox, and the domesticity of a “real family” she provided for him near the army camp.3
During that visit, Chastellux observed Knox’s pride in his family. Weeks earlier, in a letter to his brother, William, Henry had written of his new son, “We think our gosling quite a cygnet.” Moreover, Lucy, his “dearest partner, enjoyed [a] fine state of health since last August.” Best of all, she had “for the greater part of the time been with me” during the past months of the war.4
Overshadowing Knox’s domestic harmony were the army’s depleted resources. With few funds available from a financially pinched Congress, Knox, Greene, and other generals sent a circular on October 7 to the patriotic states of New England. “Our present condition promises them [the enemy] the speedy accomplishment of their wishes,” the notice warned, our “army consisting of an inadequate thousands, almost destitute of every public supply . . . subsisting month after month on one bare ration of bread and meat.”5 With the return of cold weather in December, conditions grew even worse.
From headquarters, Knox complained to his brother, “The soldier, ragged almost to nakedness, has to sit down . . . and with an axe . . . to make his habitation for winter . . . punished with hunger into the bargain.”6 Privately, Knox was also financially strapped. Like other officers he suffered a “total stoppage of pay [which] has put me to many difficulties.”
Enlisted men in the Continental army suffered from similar “stoppages.” On January 1, 1781, eleven regiments from Pennsylvania under General Wa
yne mutinied and killed three officers, then marched from the Morristown encampment and seized Princeton, New Jersey. From there the mutineers planned to confront Congress and demand back pay. Despite the horror of the officers’ deaths, the mutineers’ complaints were real, observed Dr. James Thacher, because the men had received only “a mere shadow of compensation . . . a total want of pay for twelve months and a state of nakedness and famine to excite . . . the spirit of insurrection.”7
By January 5, Washington desperately issued another circular to New England legislators. “It is vain to think an army can be kept together much longer under such a variety of sufferings unless some immediate and spirited measures are adapted to fund at least three-months pay for the troops,” he warned the states.8 To speed that message he had “prevailed upon Brigadier General Knox to be the bearer of this Letter.”
Knox consequently rode to New England to meet with members of various state legislatures. So persuasively did he portray the “aggravated calamities and distresses” resulting from the soldiers’ lack of pay that several states sent small amounts of aid.9 The most generous were Massachusetts and New Hampshire, which provided their soldiers and noncommissioned officers with twenty-four dollars in specie.
By January 10, General Wayne and Joseph Reed had reached a compromise with the mutineers. Half of the men took furloughs until March, with a bonus for reenlistment, and the other half were discharged.
From Arnold’s perspective, Congressional reluctance to provide financial support for the Continental army was only one of several mistakes made by leaders of the Revolution. Five days after André’s execution, Arnold addressed a letter “To the Inhabitants of America.” Published in the October 11 issue of New York’s Royal Gazette and as a broadside, the letter declared that the American alliance with France was misguided.
Defiant Brides Page 13