While the rebel army is deprived, one soldier is living very well indeed.
Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold has been appointed by George Washington as military governor of Philadelphia. Arnold, still bitter about his treatment at Saratoga, now lives so lavishly that many wonder if he is stealing. But Washington is not concerned. He is trying to get Arnold back on the battlefield, and granting him the governorship is a way to give the major general’s shattered leg and other wounds time to heal.
Arnold’s job requires him to keep the peace among Congress, the combative Pennsylvania legislature, and the Loyalists who have remained in the city after their British allies fled. This is not Arnold’s ideal posting, but he has come to enjoy it very much.
Prior to the war, Benedict Arnold made his living as a merchant. He is obsessed with making money. So, while he entered Philadelphia in June as a soldier in need of a place to recuperate, he soon began a series of barely legal schemes to fund a lavish lifestyle. The major general regularly issues military passes allowing bearers to travel freely into British-occupied New York. Arnold has invested in merchant vessels and has granted the owner of the ships a special pass to transport goods from Philadelphia to the Eastern Seaboard—an illegal act tantamount to smuggling.5 He has also secretly undertaken a plan to purchase and hoard crucial supplies in the city of New York, knowing they will be in high demand once the British are forced out by the French. When necessary, he is unafraid to use Continental Army wagons to haul goods and supplies in an effort to enrich himself.
This intense focus on wealth and social status has begun to transform Arnold. He has taken up residence in the mansion recently occupied by British general William Howe, and is transported around Philadelphia in a luxurious carriage.6 He hosts elaborate dinner parties, inviting congressmen, local dignitaries, and even British Loyalists to enjoy fine wine and the best food money can buy. Arnold believes the war will end soon and sees no wrong in dining with the enemy. “I flatter myself that there is a time at hand when our unhappy contests will be at an end, and peace and domestic happiness restored to everyone,” he writes.
The recipient of the letter bearing these words is prominent Pennsylvania chief justice Edward Shippen IV. Arnold has fallen deeply in love with Shippen’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Peggy. Among the beautiful socialite’s prior romances was that with British officer John André, still living in Benjamin Franklin’s British-requisitioned Philadelphia house and now serving as chief of staff to Gen. Henry Clinton. André considers Peggy a young woman “of wit, beauty and every accomplishment,” referring not just to her looks but also to her worldly knowledge of topics ranging from finance to the proper care and feeding of barnyard animals.
Some of the most powerful men in America will also fall for Peggy’s charms. George Washington, who dined at the Shippen home in 1774, when she was just fourteen, will admit to being enchanted by her beauty. And a year from now, after she suffers a fainting spell upon receiving unexpected bad news, the dashing Alexander Hamilton will race to comfort her.
Peggy Shippen
Yet, whether British or American, no man really knows Peggy Shippen.
During the British occupation, the Shippen family, Loyalists all, lived a life of apparent luxury. Nights were spent at the theater, in casinos, and dancing at the refurbished City Tavern. Petite, well read, and high-spirited, Peggy was constantly the center of attention, praised for her poise and stunning good looks. But her father struggled to find the financial resources to adorn his four daughters with the latest European fashions such as silk dresses and two-foot-high wigs.
Many men noticed. “We were all in love with her,” one British officer will remember of Peggy. She is blond and gray-eyed, fond of laughter and society parties. On those occasions when events do not go her way, however, she is transformed, making a show of weeping loudly and refusing all food and drink for days on end.
Perhaps Peggy Shippen’s most profound trait is the coquette’s talent for veiling her opinion. She is not only her father’s youngest daughter, but also his personal favorite, sharing his Loyalist views against independence. Peggy and her sisters were banished from Philadelphia society early in the war, when their father was accused of being a British spy and the family was forced to flee to the countryside. The Shippens moved back to their town house on Society Hill as soon as General Howe captured the city, and chose to remain there once Philadelphia returned to American hands, despite falling on financial hard times. Holding Loyalist beliefs in a patriot citadel means Peggy must always be on her guard. The threat of betrayal and imprisonment is very real, thus Miss Shippen knows to keep her own counsel on matters of politics—and loyalty.7
Right now, the man most beguiled by Peggy is Benedict Arnold, twenty years her senior. Amazingly, after a long parade of potential suitors, she is just as besotted—mostly by his power. There is a significant societal divide between the genteel Shippen family and the hardscrabble Arnold, but he is relentless in his determination to wed.
By January 1779, there are just two obstacles to the marriage: Arnold’s lack of landholdings and his limp, which makes him look weak and infirm.
Arnold’s shattered leg is the talk of Philadelphia society. Socialites are prone to engaging in long dialogues about its chances of a full recovery, and the impact it will have on the relationship. “We have every reason to hope it will be well again,” Peggy’s brother-in-law observes, “but the leg will be a couple inches shorter than the other and disfigured.”
Soon, the governor throws away his crutches and learns to walk with a cane. Then his attention turns to buying a large estate the couple can call home. It matters not that Arnold is over his head in debt and placing himself deeper and deeper into a financial position he cannot legally maintain. His obsession for Peggy obscures all financial concerns.
By the end of January 1779, the two are engaged and Arnold is making plans to leave the military—despite the fact that his position as governor allows his business dealings to flourish. His vision is to purchase a 130,000-acre property in upstate New York where he would become a land baron and powerful presence in civilian life. Arnold knows his young fiancée is impressed by wealth and power, and he aims to please her at all costs.
* * *
On February 8, 1779, Benedict Arnold meets George Washington at the general’s New Jersey headquarters. The two are cordial, with Arnold writing, “I am treated with great kindness by George Washington and the officers of the army.”
If Washington is concerned that one of his top generals is deeply in debt, engaging in questionable enterprises, and making plans to marry a Loyalist who once dated a top British officer, he does not make this known.
Instead, he continues to fervently hope that Benedict Arnold will once again become a driving force on the battlefield. But Washington is miscalculating—for Benedict Arnold is now a man of selfish pursuits.
A very powerful man.
21
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
MAY 5, 1779
AFTERNOON
Treachery is under way.
“If your Excellency thinks me criminal, for Heaven’s sake, let me be immediately tried, and if found guilty, executed,” Benedict Arnold writes in a feverish script to George Washington. Arnold’s financial misdeeds have finally caught up with him, and a court-martial is due to begin at the end of the month. Rather than fight the proceedings, however, Arnold wants to speed them up. He longs to silence his critics, clear his name, and get on with the new life he shares with his young bride.
Arnold has another, far more devious reason for expediting the court-martial.
“They have had three months to look for evidence, and cannot produce one against me,” he adds. “I have nothing left but the little reputation I have gained in the army.”
It has been three weeks since the widower Arnold wed Peggy Shippen in her family town house on Fourth Street. The ceremony was simple, as befitting the hard times upon which the Shippen family has fallen during the war.
Never claiming to be a gentleman, Arnold apparently boasted about his wife’s performance in the marital bed the following morning.1 Crassly as he might behave, however, Arnold’s devotion to his young bride is complete. The couple honeymooned in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, spending long days traveling through the countryside by carriage and nights in the homes of friends.
In those hours on the road, Benedict and Peggy unburdened themselves to each other, forging a bond of love and trust that will last a lifetime and endure countless trials. They spoke of financial stability, discussed the outcome of the war, and Peggy confided her deepest Tory sympathies to her new husband, eager for him to know where her heart truly lay.
Benedict Arnold is a man constantly flirting with disaster. Money flows through his hands almost as fast as he can accrue it, and “extravagance” seems to be his personal mandate. Peggy’s father, knowing that he could no longer care for his own daughter, stipulated in the marital contract that Arnold purchase a lavish home for her. Arnold did so, but the couple must rent out their palatial new ninety-six-acre estate at Mount Pleasant rather than live in it, because they cannot afford the upkeep.2
The enormous debt hanging over the marriage troubles Peggy, for she knows what it is like to grow up in a family of means only to see a fortune slip away.
Yet she also admires Arnold’s ingenuity, and trusts he will find a solution to their financial crisis. Rather than be frustrated by her husband’s ruthless ambition, Peggy finds it to be an aphrodisiac.
* * *
As Benedict Arnold now writes to George Washington from his bedroom inside the former home of Pennsylvania lieutenant governor Richard Penn, he is adamant that the date of his court-martial be advanced.3 The dreams and aspirations that he and Peggy discussed during their honeymoon are fresh in his head.
Only through triumph in the court-martial can Arnold return to the war, profiteering, and perhaps something more.
In an elaborate scheme already concocted by Benedict and Peggy Arnold during their honeymoon, he will make contact with her old paramour from the British occupation, the cunning and ruthless Major John André. In a twist of fate, André was appointed deputy adjutant general to the British Army, which included responsibility for gathering intelligence, just two weeks ago. Due to a shortage of replacement troops, the British are intent on winning the war through “procuring, digesting, and communicating intelligence of the motions of the enemy.” They have begun making lists of American generals who may be turned to their cause. To many, the “revolution” appears dead, with perhaps fifty thousand conservative Loyalists on the verge of enlisting to support the British.
But the English need a man to lead them. “Unless the refugees and other loyalists are put under the command of a person in whom they confide and to whom they have an attachment, they can answer no valuable purpose,” reads one British report.
To his advantage, Benedict Arnold is currently famous in London, as Gen. John Burgoyne stands before Parliament blaming his loss at Saratoga on Arnold’s brilliant generalship. Clearly, there is no better time than right now for Arnold to engage the British and test what his services might be worth to them.
Through Major André, General Arnold hopes to share military secrets: troop strength, gun emplacements, and tactical plans. He has already met with Joseph Stansbury, a storekeeper specializing in glass and china who is well trusted in Loyalist circles. Arnold has ordered the thirty-year-old Stansbury to communicate with a network of spies led by William Franklin, the former governor of New Jersey and illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin.4 Through this network, Stansbury is to pass along a letter from Arnold indicating his desire to join the British cause—for the right price.
Just to make sure that Stansbury can come and go from the Arnolds’ Philadelphia home without being questioned, Arnold is awarding him a large sum of money, to ostensibly renovate the dining room.
Treason is a capital offense, but for a famous general like Arnold, jumping to the winning side in the conflict will undoubtedly spare him from the hangman’s noose—and allow him to enjoy a long and happy life with his beloved Peggy.
In return for this betrayal, Benedict Arnold hopes to receive enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his days. The burden of debt under which he now lives will easily be forgotten, as he and Peggy can simply walk away from their creditors and begin a new life in England. Ideally, the British will be so thankful that, in addition to money, the king may offer Arnold a knighthood, making the couple “Sir Benedict and Lady Arnold.”
Of course, Benedict Arnold will assume almost all the risk, while Peggy will share only in the reward.
* * *
On May 10, 1779, one hundred miles from Philadelphia, in a house in Lower Manhattan, Joseph Stansbury meets with William Franklin about Arnold’s bold offer. Franklin, in turn, introduces Stansbury to Maj. John André.
Again, the timing is ideal, for as a man new to his job, André is seeking a triumph in order to impress his superior officer, Gen. Henry Clinton.
André immediately writes back to Benedict Arnold, outlining the codes and methods of communication that will allow them to transmit information, promising that “any partial but important blow should by his means be struck or aimed, upon the strength of just and pointed information and cooperation, rewards equal at least to what such service can be estimated at, will be given.”
Arnold is then given a code name: Monk.5
The ingenious plot to destroy American freedom has begun.
22
OFF THE COAST OF FLAMBOROUGH HEAD
YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND
SEPTEMBER 23, 1779
5:00 P.M.
The war has come for England.
As the pale autumn sun sets over the Yorkshire coast, American commodore John Paul Jones gathers his ship’s officers on the quarterdeck to talk strategy. He is a wiry, clean-shaven man, standing five foot five and wearing a blue uniform with gold epaulets. On the main deck, the unmistakable sound of marine drummers “beating to quarters” echoes down into the ship’s hold. Every member of the three-hundred-man American and French crew races to battle stations in answer to this rat-a-tat command.1
A fight is imminent. Jones’s aging flagship, the Bonhomme Richard, is three miles from land. She sails north, pushed by a light breeze.2
LEGEND HERE
The Continental Navy’s mission has long been defensive in nature, focused on protecting America’s shores. Jones takes a different approach, preferring to capture British vessels and their cargo in English waters, bringing the war home to the enemy.
An English warship approaches from the opposite direction, closing the distance as she tacks into the wind. At first, she appears to be very much like the slow former freighter Richard, roughly one hundred fifty feet long and forty feet at the beam. But as the English ship draws closer, it is clear she is a brand-new vessel gliding nimble and sleek through the waves.
Jones will later describe the English ship, called Serapis, as “a new ship of 44 guns built on their most approved construction with two complete batteries one of them of 18-pounders.” Jones refers to the twenty fierce cannon bored to fire eighteen-pound cannonballs that poke out of her lower gun ports, deliberately stationed on the bottom deck for the purpose of blasting the hulls of enemy ships when the fighting is at close quarters.
The Bonhomme Richard has just six of these big guns.
Yet, while his vessel is slower, less modern, and outgunned, John Paul Jones knows he must win this battle if he is to fulfill his mission of capturing vessels from the British fleet.
The Serapis is protecting a fleet of forty British merchant vessels returning home from the Baltic Sea laden with cargo. Jones means to capture as many of these cargo ships as possible, thus depriving the English of naval stores vital to their war effort.
In a month of raiding up and down the English coast, the Bonhomme Richard has claimed sixteen such prizes. Jones has become notorious to the British Navy, a daring scoundr
el who must be stopped.
Aware of his notoriety, Jones ordered that the Richard raise the British flag in an attempt to conceal her true identity, but the masquerade fools no one. In the coastal town of Scarborough, a red pennant has been raised over the castle warning ships at sea that there is a pirate in their midst. Local militia line the shore, hoping to repel any American vessel attempting to make landfall.
John Paul Jones
This is more than mere precaution, for Jones has plundered the English countryside twice in the last year.3
Defeating the Serapis, if that is possible, will require cunning, able seamanship, and a level of daring for which Jones has become well known. Thirty-two and Scottish by birth, John Paul (his birth name) first went to sea at the age of thirteen, sailing with the British merchant fleet. During a 1770 voyage, he flogged a ship’s carpenter so viciously that the man died. Upon being granted bail after a short time in a Scottish prison, Paul set sail for the West Indies. He successfully thwarted a mutiny by killing a sailor with his sword in self-defense, but feared the Admiralty courts would see it differently. He therefore fled to Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he took on the surname “Jones,” in honor of local planter Willie Jones, whose family showed him great hospitality. Jones switched his alliance to the American cause at the same time. He has learned his trade well, advancing from ship’s boy to the most infamous sailor in the Continental Navy.
“If I have any capacity to render good and acceptable services to the common cause,” Jones describes his motivations, sounding very much like George Washington, “no man will step forth with greater cheerfulness and alacrity than myself.”
Indeed, John Paul Jones has single-handedly brought the Revolutionary War to British shores, startling the citizens of this island nation into realizing that the American rebellion has become a direct threat.
* * *
The Serapis draws within twenty-five yards of the Richard. The time is now 6:30 p.m. Onshore, spectators line the tall white cliffs, waiting expectantly for the flash of cannon fire that will signal the start of the engagement.
Killing England Page 19
