Perhaps so, but Washington was more concerned with bringing Arnold to justice. That the Judas had gotten away with his crime rankled intensely. On October 13, he invited Major Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee—the father of future Confederate general Robert E.—to his headquarters to discuss “a particular piece of business.” At their meeting the next day, Washington broached the possibility of kidnapping Arnold. Could he, Lee, find a man willing to embark on such a mission?13
It took Lee a week to find two volunteers “to undertake the accomplishment of your Excellency’s wishes.” He omitted to mention to them that they were acting on Washington’s orders since, if they failed, the commander-in-chief’s name could not be linked to such an unorthodox mission. The first man was a sergeant in Lee’s regiment, John Champe, a tall Virginian in his early twenties whose taciturnity and total absence of cheerfulness masked a “remarkable intelligence.”14 His task would be to enter New York, somehow capture Arnold, and bundle him down to a waiting boat for removal to New Jersey. Modestly desirous of an officer’s commission, all Champe asked for in reward for his services was a promotion.15 The other volunteer, whose name was never revealed, would be the contact man in Newark, New Jersey, and Lee promised him “one hundred guineas, five hundred acres of land, and three negroes.”16
Washington was most pleased at Champe’s public-spiritedness. He had been reluctant to cast around for officers to undertake the business, which even he regarded as being a shade dishonorable.17 After inquiring into Champe’s details, his length of service, and his character, on October 20, in the strictest of confidences, he authorized the operation and approved the rewards Lee had arranged with “the conductors of this interesting business.” He made one stipulation: Arnold was to be brought in alive. If he were killed during the mission, the British would put it about that “ruffians had been hired to assassinate him,” whereas Washington’s aim was “to make a public example of him.”18
Late that night, Lee summoned Sergeant Champe to his quarters and ordered him to desert to the enemy immediately. For fear of raising British suspicions, Lee added that no help could be given to Champe during his flight. He would have to find his way to the British lines as if he were a real turncoat. The most Lee could offer was to delay pursuit for as long as he could if Champe’s absence was noted before the next morning. And with that, Champe collected his belongings (including the regiment’s orderly book, for added authenticity) and rode his horse out of camp at about 11 o’clock. He was given three guineas to cover his immediate expenses (Washington refused him any more, saying it would ring too many alarm bells) and the names of two known friendlies in New York. To prevent betrayal, Champe was told not to let one know the existence of the other. Who these two men were remains unknown; it is most unlikely one was Townsend, as Washington preferred not to run overlapping operations.
No one stopped him leaving, but just half a mile later, at a crossroads, a mounted patrol returning from duty issued a challenge. Champe kept silent, pulled up his hood, plunged his spurs into his steed’s flanks, and galloped past them. The patrolmen gave chase but their horses were tired and they soon quit. Unfortunately, the patrol belonged to Lee’s regiment, and half an hour later Captain Carnes reluctantly woke up Lee to tell him of the incident. Lee grasped instantly what had happened and played dumb, forcing the captain to repeat his entire story, questioning tiny details, dismissing Carnes’s belief that the mysterious rider, judging by his riding style, was a cavalryman and suggesting instead he was “a countryman” in a hurry. Lee could see Carnes wasn’t convinced and directed him to muster every man and horse and see if any were missing. That would waste at least an hour, he thought.
Sooner than he expected, Carnes returned and declared that Champe was gone, but Lee offhandedly said he must have gone out for a midnight ride of some sort. Still, it had come to the point when not to do anything would invite suspicion, and Lee called out the regiment. A pursuit party was selected and Lee included a young cornet named Middleton, whom he knew lacked Carnes’s experience and, moreover, was of a gentle enough disposition that he would not kill Champe outright if he captured him. In his quarters with Middleton, Lee managed to waste ten minutes going over in tedious detail exactly which route he should take, which equipment he might need, and how many men he should bring. Finally, after waiting for a time for Lee to sign his orders and reiterate how Champe should be treated humanely, an impatient Middleton was allowed to go. Champe, thanks to Lee’s intervention, had gained an hour’s head start—enough to get to New York ahead of the law, barring some unforeseen event. At that point, it unexpectedly began to rain: not hard enough to prevent pursuit, but sufficient to leave tracks on the muddy roads. Lee’s men were dragoons, and none in the army knew better than they how to follow footprints. Worse, the regiment had one farrier, who used a single, peculiar pattern of horseshoe, which made it difficult ever to lose the trail.
Unlike his pursuers, Champe could not afford to gallop through the countryside. Quite aside from the risk of laming his horse, the place swarmed with militiamen and was studded with checkpoints whose guards would set off a hue and cry at the sight of a lone, becloaked horseman running at full pelt so late at night. At dawn, therefore, Champe was still several miles north of Bergen on a wide and open plain where he could be easily spotted. In the distance, he could hear the faint clatter of hooves, and knew his pursuers were closing. Looking behind him, Champe was horrified to see several horsemen pausing at the crest of a hill half a mile away and signaling to their comrades that the quarry was near. Champe gave spur to his horse and he made for the bridge traversing the Hackensack River. Most of the hunters, including Middleton, were local men and knew the terrain better than did Champe. The cornet was familiar with a narrow path through the nearby woods that acted as a shortcut to the bridge, and he sent his sergeant and a few dragoons down that route while he took the rest of the squadron and chased Champe. Caught between the two forces, Champe would be forced to surrender.
Middleton made two miscalculations. First, Champe, too, knew of the path, having ridden along it a dozen times on patrol, and was aware that the sergeant’s detachment would beat him to the bridge; and second, assuming that Champe’s destination was Paulus Hook, the British fortress on the Jersey shore that guarded the western entrance to New York harbor. That had been Champe’s original intention, it is true, but seeing that there was no hope of outpacing Middleton and his men, Champe charged straight into Bergen itself and rode down one paved street after another before taking the road leading to the Hudson River, not the one heading to Paulus Hook. The sergeant’s detachment, in the meantime, had reached the bridge and were concealed beside the road, waiting for Champe. Bemused why he had not yet approached, they asked passing villagers if they had seen a speeding dragoon. They pointed out that he had gone the other way. With a curse, the sergeant and his men clambered atop their horses and set off through Bergen in hot pursuit. Soon after, Middleton heard the same news and gave chase.
Champe could see two British ships anchored a mile ahead of him. Behind him, also a mile away, were the knot of cavalrymen. There was nothing for it but to lighten the horse’s load and make a break for it. After shrugging off his cloak and tossing away his scabbard and belongings, Champe reached the shore in quick time but lost valuable minutes trying to attract the crews’ attention by dismounting and waving his arms. Middleton had closed the distance and was just two hundred yards away. Fortunately, a sentry noticed Champe, who splashed through the marsh on the bank and plunged into the chilly river to swim toward the vessels. As Middleton pulled up and cried out for Champe to surrender, marksmen aboard the ships opened fire, driving the dragoons away.
Friendly hands reached down and hauled an exhausted Champe from the water. He was taken into New York and brought before Clinton, who had heard of the sergeant’s adventure. The general was interested in Champe: He was only the second man ever to have deserted from Lee’s legion, a unit famed for its fidelity. Champe pl
ayed along admirably, telling Clinton that Arnold’s defection would only be the first of many among the dispirited Americans. Clinton chatted to him for an hour, and he was particularly interested in knowing how fondly Washington was regarded by the troops, whether other senior officers seemed disaffected, and which measures might prompt large-scale desertions.
Once finished with his inquiries, Clinton recommended that Champe see Arnold, who was then busy raising a regiment of deserters and Tories. It was an unexpected offer, but one Champe could not refuse. Arnold took an instant shine to the young man, and made him a recruiting sergeant a day after he enlisted. For several weeks, Champe paid close attention to his chief’s movements. Arnold’s house was situated on one of the city’s principal streets, which made it impossible to take him through the front door, but Champe noticed that Arnold had a habit of taking a midnight stroll in his garden before going to bed. This garden bordered an obscure alley, a wooden fence separating the two. One night, Champe sneaked along the alley and loosened several palings to allow enough space for a man to pass through. At that point, he contacted one of the two incognitos provided by Lee and asked him to get a message across the Hudson to the Newark contact, whose task it was to tell Lee to have a boat and several dragoons waiting on a particular night on the Jersey shore. At a prearranged time, they were to row to a darkened, deserted Manhattan wharf and pick up the “package.” His other New York contact would accompany Champe to the alley, and they would hide themselves in Arnold’s garden. On the day Champe had chosen for the deed, he prepared his kit: a gag and a cosh to bludgeon the general. The plan was to tackle Arnold, hit and silence him, push him through the fence, pull his hat down over his face, and hold him up with his arms sagging around their shoulders. To passersby, it would look like two friends taking their drunken friend home after a hard night. Once at the wharf, Arnold would be tied up and bundled into the boat, and Champe would leave with the dragoons. The first face a groggy Arnold would have seen the next day would have been Washington’s rockily peering into his.
Just as pure luck had saved Arnold’s hide before, when Colonel Jameson had sent him news that André was under arrest, it would do so again. The very evening that Champe was to kidnap the general, he discovered that Arnold had transferred to new quarters to oversee the embarkation of his “American Legion” aboard naval transports: Clinton that day had issued emergency orders directing the legion to proceed to Virginia. Champe and the rest of the regiment, accordingly, were immediately confined to barracks and then marched to the docks—the only person being kidnapped, it seems, was Champe himself. The depth of his disappointment can only be imagined. Lee, meanwhile, had been impatiently waiting with his dragoons on the banks of the Hudson all night, and it was only a few days later that he realized that Champe would never be coming.
Months went by. Then, without any warning, a bedraggled, bearded Sergeant Champe appeared in Lee’s camp. Soon after landing in the South and being obliged to fight against his compatriots, he had deserted—for real, this time—and lived rough in the country, traveling only at night through Virginia and North Carolina to evade Loyalist sympathizers and British pursuers. Lee immediately called the regiment to muster and proceeded to narrate Champe’s story and affirm that he had been acting under the commander-in-chief’s orders. Then he took Champe to Washington, who in place of the promised lieutenancy offered him a lavish bounty and a discharge from military service. When Champe objected and said he would like to rejoin his regiment, Washington wisely counseled against any such notion. If Champe were to be taken prisoner, he would inevitably be recognized and his life would end on a gibbet.19
Champe, his day done, bid farewell to his commanders and mounted the horse given to him by Washington. He went back to Loudoun County, Virginia, riding right out of the picture. The last time anyone saw the mysterious Sergeant John Champe was sometime in the 1780s, when Angus Cameron, a Scottish captain in Arnold’s regiment who had married a Virginia lass of sound republican principles, happened to get lost while traveling deep in the Loudoun County woods one summer night. A terrible storm rolled over him, and he spotted a cottage—the first he had seen in many miles—by the flash of the lightning. A man ushered him inside, a man strangely familiar to Cameron. And there he was—“Sergeant Champe stood before me.” Cameron’s shock at seeing him was not altogether pleasant. Champe was, after all, a two-time deserter; Cameron was an unarmed outsider hours away from help, and his host might not relish this blast from the past turning up unexpectedly.…
His misgivings were, thankfully, misplaced. “Welcome, welcome, Captain Cameron!” exclaimed Champe, “a thousand times welcome to my roof.” After joining Arnold’s legion, Champe had been placed in Cameron’s company, and he was, as the former sergeant said, “the only British officer of whose good opinion I am covetous” owing to his kindly behavior toward him during the Virginia expedition. And so it was to Cameron that Champe told the entire story. The next day, Cameron bid adieu to Champe and went on his way.20 A few years later, having married and had six children, Champe moved to Hampshire County, Virginia (now in West Virginia). In 1798, while negotiating to buy land in Morgantown, on the banks of the Monongahela River, he died. His widow moved to Madison, Ohio.21
Even as Sergeant Champe was in New York vainly plotting Arnold’s downfall, “the person in whom [Washington had] the greatest confidence is afraid to take any measures for communicating with me just at this time, as he is apprehensive that Arnold may possibly have some knowledge of the connection, and may have him watched.”22 Washington was referring to Robert Townsend, who had gone completely quiet since Arnold’s arrival in the city.
Washington subsequently reminded his intelligence chief that “I should be exceedingly glad to hear from C. Junior, because all my accounts from other quarters are very defective as to the number of troops to be embarked, or, indeed, whether an embarkation is seriously in contemplation.” Tallmadge had suggested that he cross the Sound to buck up the faltering Townsend, but this idea was sensibly vetoed by Washington, who pointed out that “the enemy would act with more than common vigor just now should an officer be taken under circumstances the least suspicious.”23
And then came a bitter blow. Washington’s insistence on shortening the route, which Tallmadge repeatedly mentioned to Woodhull, combined with his alarm over Arnold’s defection, was placing too much pressure on Townsend. At their recent meeting in New York, Townsend looked haggard, and Woodhull was “sorry to inform you that the present commotions and watchfulness of the enemy at New York hath resolved C. Jur. for the present to quit writing and retire into the country” until the tumult subsided. “The enemy are very severe,” Woodhull continued, “and the spirits of our friends very low. I did not think myself safe there for a moment, and as nothing is like to be done about New York, perhaps it may not be much disadvantage to drop [the correspondence]” temporarily. However, “if need requires C. Junr. will undertake again,” possibly in the spring.
What had finally broken Townsend’s fortitude was Arnold’s arrest of one Hercules Mulligan. According to Woodhull, the imprisonment of “one that hath been ever serviceable to this correspondence” had “so dejected the spirits of C. Junr. that he resolved to leave New York for a time.”24
Mulligan was born in 1740 in Ireland, the second of Hugh and Sarah Mulligan’s three sons (Hugh was the elder, Cooke the younger); he had a little sister, too, named after their mother. The family emigrated to New York about 1746. All three Mulligan boys became merchants. In the 1760s, Hugh Junior joined the upmarket import-export firm of Kortwright & Company, whose seven ships plied the West Indian–New York trade. Importantly, Townsend’s father, Samuel, had been using Kortwright as his West Indian agents in St. Croix since at least 1757, and therefore was well acquainted with Hugh, and certainly Hercules as well.25 An assiduous type, Hugh soon made junior partner—and in 1773 took over the company by buying out his colleagues.26 That year, Hugh met the impecunious Alexander Hamilton, rece
ntly off the boat from St. Croix; he had worked for Kortwright’s bureau (Kortwright & Cruger) in the West Indies, and the firm’s representatives out there, impressed by the boy’s talents, had persuaded the partners to sponsor his voyage to New York.27 Hugh introduced Hamilton to Hercules, who took the orphan under his wing. When Hamilton attended King’s (Columbia) College, he boarded with Hercules, and they collaborated in hauling off a cannon from the Battery in the summer of 1775. A year later, “about the 10 or 12 July 1776,” Hercules helped Hamilton obtain his commission in the army when they recruited twenty-five men in a single afternoon.28
When Hamilton arrived, Hercules Mulligan was living on Water Street—between Burling’s Slip and the Fly Market—but in 1774 he moved to 23 Queen Street, an altogether tonier area.29 There, he opened a clothing emporium that outfitted New York’s assorted gentlemen, fops, bucks, and dandies. His newspaper ads provide a flavor of the fashionable boulevardier’s tastes. He specialized in “superfine cloths of the most fashionable colours,” “gold and silver lace,” “gold and silver spangled buttons and loops,” “a large assortment of gold and silver fringe ornaments with bullion knots and epaulets,” and gold “epaulets for gentlemen of the army and militia.”30
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