Defiant Brides

by Nancy Rubin Stuart

  Even before his vitriolic letter to Washington of May 5, Arnold weighed his options. What more could he lose by defection? “A patriot is a fool in ev’ry age,” English satirist Alexander Pope had written in 1738.34 Arnold now shared that view: The Revolution was ill-conceived from the start. The idea that a British colony could survive on its own had been naïve. Undermining it was a politically divisive Congress that had failed to support the army and confounded the ideals originally inspiring the Revolution. Since Arnold was already suspected of being a traitor, why not profit by becoming one—and stop the unnecessary bloodshed along the way? So, presumably, the tortured general raved through the first weeks of his marriage as his bride sympathetically listened.

  On Saturday, May 1, Arnold summoned Joseph Stansbury to his home. The man, a 1767 émigré from London, was not only Philadelphia’s most fashionable china merchant but also a writer of anti-Revolutionary poems. During the British occupation of 1777–1778, Stansbury had been rewarded with the post of commissioner of the city watch. After the patriots reclaimed Philadelphia, Stansbury switched sides again by swearing loyalty to the Revolution. Covertly, though, he remained a Tory.

  Years later, Stansbury claimed he initially thought Arnold summoned him to the Masters-Penn House to order more china. Instead, the crippled general had stunned him by explaining “his intention of offering his services to the commander in chief of the British forces . . . that would most effectually restore the former government and destroy the then-usurped authority of Congress, either by immediately joining the British army or cooperating on some concerted plan with Sir Henry Clinton.”35

  To accomplish that, Arnold proposed disguising his identity through the alias of Gustavus Monk—Monk for short. Flushed with promises of a handsome reward, Stansbury thus agreed to become Arnold’s secret agent. A week later the china merchant rode through patriot-held New Jersey, sailed across New York harbor, and entered the city. There he connected with a Loyalist poet, the Reverend Jonathan Odell, who was acquainted with another amateur poet, the British officer John André. By 1779, André had ingratiated himself with General Henry Clinton and served as one of his most trusted aides. As Howe had before him, Clinton admired André’s intelligence, finesse, and talents. So fond was the widowed commander in chief of the younger officer that he often hosted André at his country house in The Fields, today the corner of First Avenue and Fifty-second Street.

  By Monday morning, May 10, Odell had arranged for Stansbury to meet with André at British headquarters (and Clinton’s home) at No. 1 Broadway. Patiently the British officer listened to the Philadelphian’s message that a certain American named Monk offered to reveal key information about the Continental army. Added to his astonishment was Stansbury’s message from his old friend Peggy Shippen—now Peggy Shippen Arnold—conveying her regards.

  “Such sudden proposals,” a flustered André wrote Clinton, created “confusions . . . when one must deliberate and determine at once” a decision. By afternoon the British commander in chief agreed that he was willing to consider the American’s offer. “We meet Monk’s overtures with full reliance on his honorable intentions and disclose . . . the strongest assurances of our sincerity,” André explained. Nevertheless, that information must produce a significant triumph for the British, either by “seizing an obnoxious band of men . . . or enabling us to attack [and] defeat a numerous body.”36

  To seal the deal, André handed Stansbury a letter of instructions that explained the three ways that Monk could transmit information. The first was through the use of ciphers, or numbers coded to the letters of a certain “long book,” like Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England.

  Another was by using invisible ink to write a message that would be inserted between the lines of a conventional letter. That was known as “interlining”—a technique André hoped to persuade Peggy to use in letters from her friend Peggy Chew. “The lady might write to me at the same time with one of her intimates,” André explained to Stansbury. “She will guess whom I mean, the latter remaining ignorant of interlining. . . . I will write myself to the friend to give occasion for a reply. This will come by a flag of truce . . . every messenger remaining ignorant of what they are charged with. The letters may talk of mischianza [entertainment] & other nonsense.”37

  A third and final technique involved the writing of a seemingly conventional letter on a matter like “an old woman’s health” that secretly alluded to a timely military situation.

  André’s next paragraph has intrigued historians for decades. While copying his report about the meeting for Clinton, André intuitively identified Monk as “Arnold.” Then, realizing his slip, André crossed out the name and substituted “Monk.” Worried that border guards might seize his instructions, André insisted that Stansbury take “mysterious notes” from it, “burn it, or rather leave it sealed with me.” Ultimately, the china merchant copied “mysterious notes,” which he later conveyed to Arnold.38

  During Stansbury’s visit to New York, Arnold received two letters from Washington. The first announced June 1 as the new date for the court-martial; the second, defended the Virginian’s diplomatic relations with the Supreme Executive Council. “I feel my situation truly delicate and embarrassing. On one side, your anxiety, very natural in such circumstances,” Washington agreed. “On the other . . . the impropriety of precipitating a trial so important in itself left me no choice [but to agree.]”39

  Arnold had no choice but to accept the new trial date. Nothing, he replied to Washington, “can be more disagreeable than the cruel situation I am in at present, not only as my character will continue to suffer until I am acquitted by a court-martial, but as it effectually prevents my joining the army . . . as soon as my wounds will permit.” He intended to do so, Arnold falsely promised, “to render my country every service in my power at this critical time; for, though I have been ungratefully treated, I do not consider it as from my countrymen in general, but from a set of men, who void of principle, are governed by private interest.”40

  Even as Arnold wrote those slippery words, he suffered an attack of gout in his right leg, which left him even more disabled than usual. Stress, as is well known today, can often exacerbate a latent constitutional illness.

  Although nearly a year had passed since the British evacuation of Philadelphia, the city’s leading belles remembered their British beaux fondly—so passionately, in fact, that they annoyed Grace Galloway, the disgruntled wife of a fled Tory. After having tea with Nancy and Peggy Chew on May 5, Grace complained in her diary that “all their discourse was of the [British] officers [who] sent cards and messages.” In return, the girls celebrated the birthdays of six officers that year “by meeting together, drinking their health in a glass of wine.” In fact, “the girls “brag[ged] so much of their intimacy that I was quite sick of it.”41

  Those flirtatious correspondences, in turn, led André to write his former sweetheart, Peggy Chew, in the hope that Peggy Shippen Arnold would secretly interline her reply. “I hardly dare write to you after having neglected your commissions and not apologized for my transgressions,” André ingenuously penned. “I would with pleasure have sent you drawings of headdresses had I been as much a milliner here as I was at Philadelphia in the Mischianza times, but from occupation as well as ill health, I have been obliged to abandon . . . what relates to the ladies.

  “[I] should, however, be happy to resume it had I the same inducements as when I had the pleasure of frequenting yours and the Shippen family. 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.”42

  In all likelihood, Peggy Chew was thrilled. She may have shared the letter with her friend, Peggy Shippen Arnold, but if so, the latter did nothing about it. In the aftermath of her wedding, things had not gone as Peggy planned. Her husband ranted continually about the injustices of his countrymen, then gloomily retreated into his l
ibrary. Nor had Peggy become the sole mistress of the Masters-Penn mansion. Instead she was obliged to share that role with her sister-in-law. Just before the wedding, the tall, plainly dressed Hannah Arnold arrived from New Haven with Arnold’s three sons. Years earlier, she served as her brother’s housekeeper in that city and ran his apothecary business while he traded in the Caribbean. After the 1775 death of Arnold’s first wife, Margaret Mansfield, Hannah had stepped in again to raise his children. Legend has it that when a Frenchman courted Hannah, Arnold threw him out of his house because he was a Catholic.

  Whether that story is apocryphal or not, the thirty-six-year-old, unmarried Hannah not only knew Arnold’s tastes but was a far more experienced home manager than young Peggy. A subsequent letter reveals that she superficially accepted Peggy but harbored secret resentments toward the stylish, luxury-loving, teenage Philadelphia belle.

  Arnold’s dark moods persisted through May, fueled by tensions over the court-martial and wary responses from the British over his treasonous offer. In a ciphered message to André on May 23, the crippled general insisted, “It will be impossible to cooperate unless there is mutual confidence.”43 To stimulate that confidence, Arnold offered key information: “General Washington and the army move to the North [Hudson] River as soon as forage can be obtained. Congress ha[s] given up Charles Town, South Carolina. . . . They are in want of arms, ammunition and men to defend it. Three or four thousand militia is the most that can be mustered to fight on any emergency.” That riveted Clinton’s attention. Within a year, the British had seized Charleston.

  Arnold’s letter also demanded certain financial rewards: “I will expect some certainty, my property here secure and a revenue equivalent to the risk and service done. I cannot promise success: I will deserve it.” In closing he revealed Peggy’s acceptance, if not direct complicity, in his deal to serve as a spy: “Madame Ar[nold] presents you her particular compliments.”

  By Tuesday, June 1, Arnold had appeared at Middlebrook for the court-martial. By late afternoon or early evening that day, messengers had arrived reporting Clinton’s attack on Stony Point. Promptly, Washington dashed off a note to Arnold. “I am sorry to inform you that the situation of affairs will not permit a court martial to proceed on your trial at this time,” he wrote. “The Army should at least advance towards the North [Hudson] River with all practical expedition.”44 As described above, among those preparing to leave New Jersey was Arnold’s friend Henry Knox, then fretting over the ailing Lucy, their newborn Julia, and his older daughter.

  After his return to Philadelphia, Arnold resumed correspondence with André. By then, he and British General Henry Clinton had asked for the names and identities of members of Congress, presumably for nefarious purposes. Once they were received, “generous terms would follow our success and ample reward and honors.”45 In a subsequent letter, Clinton also demanded that Monk obtain an active post in the army. As commander of a battle, the spy could easily pretend surprise with a British triumph and still escape blame. That battle, he again stressed, must be a major one—“a complete service . . . involving a corps of five or six thousand men [for which Arnold/Monk] would be rewarded with twice as many thousand guineas.”46

  Arnold was not impressed: ten or twelve thousand guineas was hardly fair compensation. As wary of being ambushed as a spy as when on the battlefield, Arnold consequently insisted upon additional protections. Essentially, Clinton had placed him in an impossible position: he could not obtain a high military post until the court-martial had cleared his name. To speed the trial, Arnold begged Washington to set a new date. “As a part of the British army are gone down the North River, I hope the time is now arrived to appoint as early a day as possible,” he wrote on July 16. Moreover, he added, he was finally well enough to accept a field command: “My wounds are so far recovered, that I can walk with ease and I will soon be able to ride on horseback.”47

  Coincidentally General “Mad Anthony” Wayne had recaptured Stony Point that same day, enhancing Arnold’s expectations for a new trial date. Still Washington balked. “You may be assured it is not my wish to delay your trial a single moment,” he explained. “At the same time you must be sensible, that I cannot fix with precision on any day, during the more active part of the campaign.”48

  In New York, an equally frustrated André finally decided upon a new tack. On August 16 he wrote Peggy Shippen Arnold to renew their friendship. His letter, the British officer genially explained, “meant to solicit your remembrance, and to assure you that my respect for you and the fair circle in which I had the honor of becoming acquainted . . . remains unimpaired by distance or political broils. It would make me very happy to become useful to you here.” Graciously, André added, “You know the Mischianza 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 a whole detail of capwire, needles, gauze, &c., and, to the best of my abilities, render you in those trifle services from which I hope you would infer a zeal to be further employed.”49

  Sixteen months earlier, during the spring of 1778, André’s design of gauzy turbans and other finery had thrilled Peggy. Now, though, his offer of similar favors was laced with peril. As the steamy days of that Philadelphia summer cooled into early autumn, the usually polite, and now pregnant, Peggy did not reply.

  5

  “Fortitude under Stress”

  CITIZEN DISCONTENT ROCKED PHILADELPHIA during the summer of 1779 when food supplies dwindled and prices for basic commodities soared. “There is hardly any flour, salt or coffee, tea or sugar, spirits or wine to be got in the town owing to the regulation of the mobbing committee,” complained Grace Galloway in her diary. “The country people will not bring butter and they [the patriots] stop them on the road and take their marketing from them.”1 In reality, wealthy patriots like Robert Morris, chief financial agent of Congress, had paid the farmers in gold for their crops that were stored to feed French reinforcements expected to arrive from Rhode Island.

  That left workers “desperate from the high price of the necessaries of life,” as Benedict Arnold recalled.2 On October 4, a group of armed protestors who had opened the gates to the jail learned that Morris was visiting the unpopular lawyer James Wilson. As the group advanced towards Wilson’s house, an officer alerted Arnold of the trouble. Gamely he rushed before the men to calm them, but was swept into the crowd. “The press of the mob was so great that it was difficult to keep our feet,” Arnold recalled. Soon he found himself “crowded among the . . . prisoners, which they had taken into custody in their march through the city.”3

  As the vigilantes swept him past the Masters-Penn House, Arnold caught a glimpse of Peggy and another woman peering from a second-story window. “The moment she saw me in the crowd, she screamed out and fainted,” he recounted.4 Within moments, the mob carried Arnold to Wilson’s house. There, as an army colonel tried to dispel their rage, shots rang out, scattering the crowd and prompting Arnold to dash into Wilson’s house. A second time the mob advanced wielding hammers and iron bars, broke into the house, killed one man, and wounded others. Only with the thunder of hoofbeats announcing the arrival of Joseph Reed and the Pennsylvania militia did the vigilantes disappear.

  “They rescued the prisoners, but thought proper to send them to prison where they are this night,” Elizabeth Drinker scrawled in her diary.5 Among those apprehended were Arnold, Morris, and Wilson. The next morning, the bruised general returned to his distraught wife, Peggy, who pleaded with him to remain indoors. But Arnold, as his bride was already unhappily learning, rarely listened to others. The next day he went out and was again menaced by more angry men.

  “A mob of lawless ruffians have attacked me in the street and threaten my life,” Arnold immediately complained to Samuel Huntington, the new president of Congress. “There is no protection to be expected from the authority of the state [Joseph Reed] for an honest man. I am . . . requesting Congress to order me a guard of Contin
ental troops.”6

  Like everything political Arnold touched in 1779, his request backfired. “The President informed General Arnold that his application ought to be made to the Executive Authority of the state of Pennsylvania,” Huntington archly replied.7 Arnold would have to apply to Reed personally for an order of protection. Clearly that was impossible.

  Terrified for her husband and their unborn baby, Peggy surrendered whatever allegiance she had—if she ever had any—for the patriotic cause. It could not have been coincidental that on October 13, she finally answered André’s letter of August and agreed to resume their correspondence. “Mrs. Arnold presents her best respects to Capt. André, is much obliged to him for his very polite and friendly offer of being serviceable to her. . . . 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 Capt. A. wished to be remembered are well and present their compliments to him.”8

  Peggy’s “millinery” letter, as historians later called it, arrived at British headquarters at an auspicious moment. On October 23, André was promoted as a major and appointed as Clinton’s Deputy Adjutant General. “Good fortune still follows me,” the twenty-nine year old euphorically wrote his mother and sister in England. “The Commander-in-chief has raised me to the first office in the army . . . I am Adjutant General. . . . I . . . can hardly look back at the steep progress I have made without being giddy!”9

  In contrast to André’s relationship with Clinton was Arnold’s tense relationship with his patriotic commander in chief. Most of the Continental army had remained in the Hudson Highlands through November, leading Washington to delay a date for the court-martial. By early December, ten thousand Continental solders were ordered to the hills of Jockey Hollow at Morristown, New Jersey. During that trek, blinding snows hobbled their progress in the first of several blizzards of the “hard winter” of 1779–1780, the coldest of the century. In his journal, Joseph Plumb Martin wrote that he and his fellow soldiers were “naked, fatigued and starved, forced to march many a weary mile in winter, through cold and snow, to seek a situation in some (to us, unknown) wood to build us habitations to starve and suffer in.”10