Treacherous Beauty

by Stephen Case

  Odell and Stansbury left British headquarters, with the china dealer in possession of André’s script for treason. And thus was born the plot of the poets—Stansbury, Odell, and André, three men of confident verse, all of them rookies in the spy trade, trying to write an end to American independence.

  Before his absence from Philadelphia could be noticed, Stansbury hurried back, a difficult journey that included rides on a sloop and a whale boat and then a trip across New Jersey on back roads.

  Meanwhile, André wrote to Peggy Chew as promised. “I would with pleasure have sent you drawings of headdresses had I been as much of a milliner here as I was at Philadelphia in Meschianza times,” he wrote, “but from occupation as well as ill health I have been obliged to abandon the pleasing study of what relates to the ladies.”289 Then he got to the point as overtly as he dared—he wanted this letter shown to Peggy Shippen: “I trust I am yet in the memory of the little society of Third and Fourth street and even of the other Peggy, now Mrs. Arnold, who will I am sure accept of my best respects and with the rest of the Sisterhoods of both streets peruse not disdainfully this page meant as an assurance of my unabated esteem for them.” But the André-Chew correspondence yielded nothing.

  Curiously, a signed draft of André’s letter survives in General Clinton’s records, but it is unknown whether the draft is a copy of a sent letter or the unsent original. It was marked A for acid, but researchers have determined that it contains no interlining with invisible ink.290 Did André decide against sending the letter and involving Chew? Did he send it and get no response? Did Peggy Shippen decide that the Chew channel was unworkable and intervene, either to protect her friend or because she didn’t trust her?

  Peggy Chew, to her good fortune, would remain out of the plot.

  Arnold, on the other hand, received and answered his message from André. But he told Stansbury he was changing the ground rules a bit. He would use Bailey’s Dictionary rather than Blackstone’s Commentary on the Laws of England, and he would add one to each number in the code. For example, the first word on the second line of the third page would be 2.3.4, not 1.2.3.

  Arnold also moved on to another code name, Gustavus, believed to be a reference to Gustavus Vasa, who led Sweden to independence from Denmark in the 1500s. Gustavus’s story included an escape in which he hid in a wagon of hay while Danish soldiers poked it with their weapons. The soldiers pierced Gustavus’s skin, but he did not cry out, and he passed through the Danish lines to lead the revolt that made him king. Arnold, too, intended to quietly endure the pain and prevail.291

  Stansbury smuggled Arnold’s response out of Philadelphia and sent it to Odell in Manhattan so he could forward it to André. But Odell got curious. He opened the letter, noticed that it was marked F for fire, and held it over a candle to heat it up and reveal the message. What appeared was “one indistinguishable blot, out of which not the half of any one line can be made legible,” according to Odell. The letter had become wet, thereby spreading its invisible ink. Odell was forced to write a confessional letter to André explaining that he was “mortified to death” about his unauthorized peeking. But he offered to decipher future letters, and indeed most of the André-Arnold correspondence that survives today is decoded in Odell’s handwriting.292

  The inky mess was an apt metaphor for the blots on Arnold’s career that were multiplying and spreading. Shortly after volunteering to commit treason, Arnold wrote Washington asking to be given a new assignment. He secretly wanted to be in a better position to help the British inflict pain on his own army. Washington turned Arnold down, urging him to concentrate on his court-martial, which had been rescheduled to begin on June 1. Arnold was in no shape for warfare anyway. His wounded left leg was causing him great pain, and his good right foot was wracked by gout. He was lifted into his carriage for the trip to army headquarters in Middlebrook, New Jersey, where the court-martial would take place.

  Peggy stayed in Philadelphia while Arnold settled in at headquarters to prepare his case. He could have used her diplomatic advice. Talking openly in camp about the charges and even trying to lobby the scrupulously impartial Washington, Arnold earned rebukes. And when the court-martial opened, Arnold made matters worse by complaining that there were too many Pennsylvanians sitting in judgment of him.

  The court-martial lasted one day before it was suddenly postponed by Washington so that he and his officers could respond to a British offensive north of New York City. Arnold waited three weeks for the court-martial to resume. Then he gave up and went home.293

  In the offensive that preempted Arnold’s court-martial, the British seized two rebel outposts along the Hudson River, at Stony Point and Fort Lafayette. And André seized a bit of melodramatic glory that annoyed his comrades. He personally accepted the surrender of the tiny Fort Lafayette, a blockhouse with about seventy-five men, by staging a showy event as if he had just knocked down the walls of Jericho. The surrender ceremony, held on the ramparts and visible from both shores, occurred on the king’s birthday, providing an excuse for salutes to be fired off and soldiers to cheer in a manner far out of proportion to the significance of the victory.294 “No display of ostentatious arrangements was overlooked on this occasion,” a critic wrote in a public letter to Clinton. “What, Sir Henry, could you intend by this farce? What excuse will a person of Mr. André’s reputed sense find for this parade?”295

  About six weeks later, rebel forces recovered the position, but André’s confidence and ambition were nonetheless swelling. He hungered for a more dramatic triumph, the kind that Arnold might provide. And he wanted an answer from Arnold right away. Odell wrote to Stansbury, “Lothario is impatient.”As a code name for André, Lothario was an interesting choice, as it referred to a character in Nicholas Rowe’s 1703 play The Fair Penitent who was a womanizer.296

  But this Lothario was not impatient for long. A second letter arrived from Arnold, and this one was unblotted. The general shared the intelligence that no action had been taken to prevent the depreciation of currency, and that the Continental Army was poorly supplied in Charleston and would give up the city if pressed. Simply by divulging that information, Arnold was acting as a spy and risked the hangman’s noose. But the intelligence served as a sign of good faith as Arnold brought up his chief concern: “I will cooperate when an opportunity offers, and as life and everything is at stake, I will expect some certainty—my property here secure and a revenue equivalent to the risk and service done.” Arnold wrote, “I cannot promise success; I will deserve it.”297 He added a personal note indicating that the negotiations would be friendly: “Madam Ar presents you her particular compliments.” A second letter from Arnold, with valuable intelligence about the Hudson defenses, arrived too late to assist the British offensive.

  André responded promptly, but Stansbury could not get an audience with Arnold and left the letter with Peggy—yet another indication that the British and Loyalists trusted her in the plot. The letter did not fill Mr. and Mrs. Arnold with joy.

  André knew about Arnold’s legal struggles, and knew he had the upper hand in any negotiations. Responding to a request by Arnold that Clinton disclose his military plans so that Arnold could tailor his intelligence, André wrote brusquely: “His Excellency wishes to apprise you that he cannot reveal his intentions as to the present campaign, nor can he find the necessity of such a discovery.”298 As his primary goal, André pushed for Arnold to arrange for the capture of a huge Continental force. But the twenty-nine-year-old soldier-poet’s instructions to the thirty-eight-year-old wounded war hero came across as a haughty lecture: “Join the army, accept a command, be surprised, be cut off—these things may happen in the course of maneuver.”

  Even so, the lecture came with some words Arnold wanted to hear: “A complete service of this nature involving a corps of five or six thousand men would be rewarded with twice as many thousand guineas.”Again, André was pushing for Arnold to arrange for the pri
soners of war from Saratoga to be exchanged. “It could be urged by none with more propriety,” wrote André, ironically mentioning “propriety” while discussing bribery.

  After a wait of four days, Stansbury was finally allowed to meet with Arnold on July 11, 1779, and that same day the china dealer wrote a note conveying his impressions to be sent to André via Odell. There was no new letter from Arnold, but the packet included a request by Peggy for sewing supplies from New York, perhaps her way of offering encouragement to her friend André. Included was a shopping list—in Arnold’s handwriting—that asked for pale pink mantua with matching ribbon, black satinet for shoes, diaper cloth, and a pair of “neat spurs.” Why was the list in Arnold’s handwriting? Perhaps it was to provide a sample that might be used for verification later.

  Odell passed those items on to André, and included a letter describing his own communications with Stansbury and assessing the state of negotiations. While the shopping list indicated a willingness to do business, the Stansbury and Odell messages were not sanguine. “I delivered Gustavus your letter,” Stansbury wrote André. “It is not equal to his expectations.”299 In his talk with Stansbury, Arnold had gone straight to the bottom line. “He expects to have your promise that he shall be indemnified for any loss he may sustain in case of detection and whether this contest is finished by sword or treaty that ten thousand pounds shall be engaged him for his services.”

  Odell, in his own note, said Arnold appeared unimpressed with André’s level of enthusiasm. Arnold told Stansbury that “he had carefully examined the letter, and found by the laconic style and little attention paid to his request, that the gentleman appeared very indifferent respecting the manner.”

  Two days after meeting with Stansbury, Arnold wrote to General Washington to urge that the court-martial resume or that he be given a few months’ leave to pursue personal business. He also suggested to Washington that his best general might be up to fighting soon. “My wounds are so far recovered that I can walk with ease, and I expect soon to be able to ride on horseback,” Arnold wrote.300 Was he giving up on the conspiracy, or was he merely trying to gain a command that would improve his bargaining position? In either case, a return to service made all the sense in the world.

  Odell refused to write off Arnold, and urged André not to give up on him either. “If I might take the liberty to suggest my own opinion,” Odell wrote, “I could wish you to write once more at least, as it cannot do any harm and may possibly still be worthwhile.” André did indeed write again, but it’s clear he had no intention of haggling like a rug merchant for Arnold’s services. And he was unwilling to guarantee payment regardless of outcome, as Arnold demanded. André explained this officiously to Arnold, as if the general’s claim was just a line on an expense-account form. “Such sums as are held forth must be in some degree accounted for, real advantage must appear to have arisen from the expenditure or a generous effort must have been made,” André wrote.301

  But if any accounting was being done, André already owed Arnold. The general had supplied intelligence—for free—and André was asking for more. “We are thankful for the information transmitted and hope you will continue to give it as frequently as possible,” he wrote. And then the haughty tone: “Permit me to prescribe a little exertion.” He wanted Arnold to give him details about Washington’s headquarters. He wanted to know more about rebel ships in the Hudson River. He wanted a map of West Point, a rebel-built collection of fortresses on the Hudson, north of where André had done his victory dance at Fort Lafayette. And he wanted to meet Arnold face-to-face. “The only method of completing conviction on both sides of the generous intentions of each and making arrangements for important operations is by a meeting,” André wrote. “Would you assume a command and enable me to see you, I am convinced a conversation of a few minutes would satisfy you entirely, and I trust would give us equal cause to be pleased.”André said the intelligence was welcome but “so much greater things may be done.”

  Arnold was unimpressed. Stansbury reported that Arnold showed him André’s letter and “remarked that it contained no reply to the terms mentioned in my last. . . . There was no assurance given that his property in this country should be indemnified from any loss that might attend unfortunate discovery.”302 Therefore, Arnold told him, it would be unfair to his family for him to enter into a risky deal.

  And so André and the Arnolds were at an impasse. A few weeks later, André reached out to Peggy, sending a letter through a friend of hers named Major Aquila Giles, a rebel officer who was a prisoner in New York and had been willing to help secure sewing supplies for her in the past. (Giles, grandson of Maryland governor William Paca, was in a situation similar to André’s in the early days of the war: He was on parole in enemy territory, a prisoner without bars.)303

  Despite the fact that André had not acted on Peggy’s previous request for sewing supplies, he pretended that such supplies were his primary concern. His message to Peggy would later gain notoriety and be known by some as the “Millinery Letter”:

  Madame—Major Giles is so good as to take charge of this letter, which is meant to solicit your remembrance, and to assure that my respect for you, and the fair circle in which I had the honor of becoming acquainted with you, remains unimpaired by distance or political broils. It would make me very happy to become useful to you here. You know the Meschianza made me a complete milliner. Should you not have received supplies for your fullest equipment from that department, I shall be glad to enter into the whole detail of capwire, needles, gauze, etc., and to the best of my abilities render you in these trifles services from which I hope you would infer a zeal to be further employed. I beg you would present my best respects to your sisters, to the Miss Chews, and to Mrs. Shippen and Mrs. Chew. I have the honor to be, with the greatest regard, Madam, your most obedient and most humble servant.304

  It seems safe to assume that André’s “zeal to be further employed” did not extend to gauze and diaper cloth. Nor was he trying to supplant the dutiful Major Giles, though by involving Giles in the plot he was doing the major no favor. In fact, Giles was violating his parole by carrying such a message, and could have paid with his life.305

  André waited two months for a response from his beautiful Philadelphia friend, who politely referred to herself in the third person:

  Mrs. Arnold presents her best respects to Captain André, is much obliged to him for his very polite and friendly offer of being serviceable to her. Major Giles was so obliging as to promise to procure what trifles Mrs. Arnold wanted in the millinery way, or she would with pleasure have accepted of it. Mrs. Arnold begs leave to assure Captain André that her friendship and esteem for him is not impaired by time or accident. The ladies to whom Captain A wished to be remembered are well, and present their compliments to him.306

  In other words, she was telling him thanks but no thanks.

  General and Mrs. Arnold would turn their efforts toward getting the general back into Washington’s good graces. They would hope for the court-martial to resume and clear him. They would seek a proper command in the Continental Army, or an honorable release so the general could pursue his private business. They were ready to build their life together, to prosper in bad times, to grow. Their family was indeed growing—Peggy had recently shared the good news with Arnold that she was pregnant, with the baby due the following spring.

  The conspiracy with André seemed like a thing of the past, a sideshow, a dream. The Arnolds were now thinking of their future. They were strivers. They were optimists. And it was an optimism unimpaired by time or accident.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Way to West Point

  Even without invisible ink, plotting poets, and code names, the first year of the Arnolds’ marriage would have been a complicated challenge. Peggy, pregnant within a couple months of her wedding, was going through all the pressures of an expectant mother. Like the institution of marriage itself, mo
therhood was a “dark leap.” Though Peggy could count on the best of medical care, the best was not very good at that time, and pregnant women were terrified both for themselves and their babies.

  Married women of the era were likely to be pregnant five to ten times, with three to eight of their offspring surviving and the rest lost to miscarriage, stillbirth, or death in infancy. Women were at greater risk than men of dying in the prime of their lives, partly because of the dangers of childbirth.307

  The crude conduct of midwifery brought a host of horror stories. Reformist Dr. William Shippen, Peggy’s relative, recalled arriving at a home where there were “two grandmother midwives, one of whom . . . had borrowed a sharp knife and scissors and took off one arm [of the baby]. . . . The other was attacking like a horrible insensible the other arm.”308

  Peggy could count on her mother and the rest of her family to consult the proper professionals before any such atrocities, but the uncertainty inherent in childbirth must have weighed heavily on her. One of her few comforts was the fact that she could share the uncertain adventure with her sister Betsy, who had become pregnant three months before Peggy.

  While Mrs. Arnold embarked on the path to motherhood, her husband was in a legal no-man’s-land—charged with serious crimes but given no prompt opportunity to refute them. And her city had become a house of horrors, where the streets were unsafe and her friends were persecuted and prosecuted. Shippen in-law Grace Galloway, who stayed in Philadelphia to protect her family’s property when her Loyalist husband fled for his life, wrote in her diary: “Awoke early in a fright. Dreamed I was going to be hanged.”309 The treatment of Mrs. Galloway was a reminder to the Shippens and other elite families that they could be instantly dispossessed. Pennsylvania’s radical lawmakers voted to confiscate the Galloway house to serve as the official residence of the state’s president, Joseph Reed. When Mrs. Galloway refused to leave, radicals threatened to throw her clothes into the street. Arnold posted a guard at her house to try to protect her, but she was evicted and carried out in her chair by militiamen. The Arnolds sent their housekeeper to help her pack, and lent their coach to take her away in the style to which she was accustomed. To the annoyance of Peggy and her husband, no doubt, Reed moved into the house with his wife, Esther, in the summer of 1779.310