Treacherous Beauty: Peggy Shippen, the Woman behind Benedict Arnold's Plot to Betray America

by Stephen Case, Mark Jacob

Overview

Histories of the Revolutionary War have long honored heroines such as Betsy Ross, Abigail Adams, and Molly Pitcher. Now, more than two centuries later, comes the first biography of one of the war’s most remarkable women, a beautiful Philadelphia society girl named Peggy Shippen. While war was raging between England and its rebellious colonists, Peggy befriended a suave British officer and then married a crippled revolutionary general twice her age. She brought the two men together in a treasonous plot that nearly turned George Washington into a prisoner and changed the course of the war. Peggy Shippen was Mrs. Benedict Arnold.

After the conspiracy was exposed, Peggy managed to convince powerful men like Washington and Alexander Hamilton of her innocence. The Founding Fathers were handicapped by the common view that women lacked the sophistication for politics or warfare, much less treason. And Peggy took full advantage.

Peggy was to the American Revolution what the fictional Scarlett O’Hara was to the Civil War: a woman whose survival skills trumped all other values. Had she been a man, she might have been
arrested, tried, and executed. And she might have become famous. Instead, her role was minimized and she was allowed to recede into the background—with a generous British pension in hand.

In Treacherous Beauty, Mark Jacob and Stephen H. Case tell the true story of Peggy Shippen, a driving force in a conspiracy that came within an eyelash of dooming the American democracy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762786794
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	07/01/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	621,685
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Stephen H. Case is managing director and general counsel of Emerald Development Managers LP. He is a member of the board of the American Revolution Center. He lives in Bethesda, MD.

Mark Jacob, deputy metro editor at the Chicago Tribune, was part of the team that won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. He lives in the Chicago Metropolitan Area.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Chapter 1 Princess of Philadelphia 1

Chapter 2 No Safe Haven 14

Chapter 3 Enter André 25

Chapter 4 The Meschianza 40

Chapter 5 Arnold Arrives 54

Chapter 6 Love and Money 71

Chapter 7 The General's Wife 82

Chapter 8 Spymaster 92

Chapter 9 The Dance of Deceit 101

Chapter 10 The Way to West Point 113

Chapter 11 "The Greatest Treasure You Have" 129

Chapter 12 Meeting after Midnight 142

Chapter 13 A Capture and an Escape 149

Chapter 14 The Mad Scene 158

Chapter 15 Pariah of Philadelphia 167

Chapter 16 The Three Fates 176

Chapter 17 "The Handsomest Woman in England" 188

Chapter 18 Strangers in America 201

Chapter 19 Unmanned 210

Chapter 20 The Keepsake 221

Epilogue 229

Acknowledgments 232

Chapter Notes 236

Bibliography 260

Index 271

About the Authors 280

Editorial Reviews

Treacherous Beauty fills an important gap in American history with its in-depth narrative of the treason of Benedict Arnold and his beautiful young wife, Peggy. This excellent book is also the story of a star-crossed love affair beyond anything that a playwright could imagine.”
—Arthur S. Lefkowitz, author of George Washington’s Indispensable Men
 
“Treacherous Beauty is history at its most engaging: familiar in its context, but surprising, even enlightening, in its detail. It is, in fact, surprising that those who care about America’s past have not been enlightened about Peggy Shippen before.”
—Eric Burns, author of Virtue, Valor, and Vanity
 
“At last, a serious work on one of the most fascinating and little known women in American history! Peggy Shippen was so much more that the wife of the famous traitor—she was a women with a foot in two worlds, an American whose life serves as a perfect illustration of the wild complexities of the Revolution. With Treacherous Beauty Mark Jacob and Stephen H. Case have done ample justice to the life and times of their subject with this fair-minded, well researched, and finely crafted biography, a gift to students of the Revolution eager to dig beneath the well worn surface of that conflict’s history.”
—James L. Nelson, author of Benedict Arnold’s Navy
 
"Chicago Tribune deputy metro editor Jacob and Case, an American Revolution Center board member, detail Peggy’s role as go-between and document her later life in London. They succeed in capturing the period atmosphere as they adroitly interweave military maneuvers with the shadowy machinations. The book also benefits from rarely studied correspondence by Peggy to her son Edward provided by her descendant Hugh Arnold." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

In British-occupied Philadelphia during the winter of 1777–1778, privileged society girl Peggy Shippen (1760–1804) became friends with the charming, cultured British officer John André, an artist, poet, thespian, and spy. André was also the impresario of an extravagant costume party, “the most shameful carousing amid catastrophe since Nero fiddled while Rome burned,” write the authors. The following year, Peggy married Gen. Benedict Arnold, who was twice her age. Forming a secret partnership with André, this trio of conspirators enlisted the help of British loyalists and other confederates, and in May 1779 “they set about to deal a death blow to the American Revolution” with Arnold supplying information to the British. After André’s arrest, the plot unraveled. André was hanged, and Peggy, declared “an enemy of the people,” was banished from Philadelphia. Chicago Tribune deputy metro editor Jacob and Case, an American Revolution Center board member, detail Peggy’s role as go-between and document her later life in London. They succeed in capturing the period atmosphere as they adroitly interweave military maneuvers with the shadowy machinations. The book also benefits from rarely studied correspondence by Peggy to her son Edward provided by her descendant Hugh Arnold. Maps. Agent: Gary Heidt. Signature Literary Agency. (July)

Publishers Weekly

This book attempts to correct what Jacob (metro editor, Chicago Tribune) and Case (general counsel, Emerald Development Managers) contend is the underappreciated role of Peggy Shippen Arnold in the most infamous case of treason in American history. Her husband, Revolutionary army general Benedict Arnold, plotted to turn West Point over to the British in 1780. An ambitious socialite, Shippen was the daughter of an influential Philadelphia public official faced with delicately balancing loyalist sympathies with the city's rapidly shifting political and military realities. She actively mingled with British officers, including Arnold's coconspirator Major John Andre, and eventually with the dashing Arnold himself, who aggressively courted and then married her. The argument made by Jacob and Case, that Peggy Shippen played a key role in executing the plot, is not a new one, having been advanced through the years, most notably in James Thomas Flexner's The Traitor and the Spy. The real accomplishment of this book is in fleshing out the family and personal tensions that dominated the world of those who attempted to maintain their positions as the Revolutionary War challenged the established social order. VERDICT While scholars will be disappointed, history enthusiasts will be intrigued by this story involving love and revolutionary-era loyalties.—Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato

Library Journal