16
What but the fluctuation of our army enabled the enemy to detach so boldly to the southward, in ‘78 and ‘79… . And what will be our situation this winter? our army by the 1st of January diminished to little more than a sufficient garrison for West point, the enemy at full liberty to ravage the country wherever they please… . The army is … dwindling into nothing.
—Gen. George Washington1
Washington’s letter of despair went on for more than twenty-five hundred words, as he looked back to the lost Battles of Paoli and Germantown, the British conquest of Philadelphia, and the “cruel and perilous situation … in the winter of ‘77, at the Valley Forge.” He wrote the letter as he was emerging from his darkest day: The treason of Benedict Arnold had been revealed only a month before.
Sometime in June 1778, soon after Arnold took command of Philadelphia, Joseph Stansbury, a glass and china dealer, furnished the dining room of the mansion that Arnold had made his home and headquarters. Stansbury knew the mansion well, for he had dined there when General Howe was in residence.2 Stansbury was a notorious Tory who had decided not to sail away to New York with theother panicky Tories, though he certainly seemed a likely candidate for self-exile.
London-born, he had come to Philadelphia as a boy and grew into a witty young man known for his verses and song. In the first days of the Revolution he had been a tepid supporter of protests against British trade regulations. But he gradually became a Loyalist. Three months after Philadelphia celebrated the Declaration of Independence, Patriots placed him under house arrest for taunting Rebels by singing “God Save the King” and urging them to join him in the chorus.3 His writing became Loyalist. In compassionate “Verses to the Tories” he wrote:
Think not, tho wretched, poor, or naked,
Your breast alone the Load sustains;
Sympathizing Hearts partake it;
Britain’s Monarch shares your pain… .4
When Howe and his Redcoats marched into Philadelphia, Stansbury had been one of the Tories who cheered. He became a favorite of Howe’s, entertaining the general with Loyalist verse and songs. In one he has the gods meet on Olympus. Jove (Jupiter) says:
Ye know, all ye Pow rs that attend my high Throne,
Your Will to my Pleasure must bow:
I will, that those Gifts which you prize as your own,
Shall now be bestow’d on my Howe.5
Stansbury became a confidant of Joseph Galloway, Howe’s spymaster and police chief. Galloway made Stansbury a commissioner of the night watch, a manager of the lottery for the poor, and an agent in Galloway’s spy network. When the Patriots returned to Philadelphia, Stansbury routinely took an oath of allegiance to the new nation and was thus officially clear of taint when he became Arnold’s interior decorator.6 Stansbury had been one of the Tory entrepreneurs who had taken over Patriots’ stores when they fled the city. That act alonewould have qualified him as a despised Tory, shunned by any Patriot with a memory of British occupation. Arnold may not have seen Stansbury’s privately circulated poems. But it seems impossible for Arnold not to have learned of Stansbury’s Loyalist connections from the reports of Patriot agents who were in Philadelphia during the British occupation.
In December 1778 Galloway received information he undoubtedly knew already: Arnold was “being thought a pert Tory” by Philadel-phians. A month later came another letter saying that Arnold had “behaved with lenity to the Tories”—and was to be married to Peggy Shippen.7 Arnold, a thirty-nine-year-old widower, wed her in April 1779, three months before she turned nineteen.
As military governor Arnold won few friends among Patriots. Under loose fiscal oversight, he had been involved in shady dealings that led to a court-martial and an official reprimand from Washington. He antagonized important members of Congress. He lavishly issued passes to Tories who wanted to go to New York. This at a time when the Patriot government was charging hundreds of families with treason against Pennsylvania. In vain Arnold opposed the execution of two Quakers for treason. One was a gatekeeper appointed by Galloway, and the other was a miller who had sold provisions to the British and acted as a guide. Arnold saw their simultaneous hanging as mindless Patriot vengeance against the pacifist Society of Friends.8
Sometime in the early spring of 1779 Arnold’s many grievances coalesced into his own treason. He sent for Stansbury. There is no record of their meeting, but there is a letter, written to Stansbury by Maj. John André, dated May 10, 1779, two weeks after General Clinton’s brilliant aide had become the director of Clinton’s secret service.9 The letter reveals that Arnold had told Stansbury that he wanted to work for the British:
Sir … On our part we meet ArnGen Monk’s ouvertures with full reliance on his honourable Intentions and disclose to him with the strongest assurances of our Sincerity… . His own judgment will point out theservices required, but for his Satisfaction we give the following hints … Contents of dispatches from foreign abettors—Original dispatches and papers which might be seized and sent to us—Channels thro’ which such dispatches pass, hints for securing them. Number and position of troops, whence & what reinforcements… .
André made the mistake of almost writing an abbreviation of Arnold’s name and rank, crossed that out, and substituted “Monk,” the code name Arnold had chosen. Apparently he saw himself not as a traitor but as a heroic reincarnation of Gen. George Monck, who in 1660, changing sides, helped to overthrow Parliament, end the Cromwell rebellion, and put Charles II on the throne. Thus began the months of Arnold-André-Stansbury correspondence that led to Arnold’s treason.
Some letters were partially written in invisible ink. Most used ciphers (letters, symbols, or numbers substituted for real words) or codes (for which both writer and recipient must have a key, such as a codebook).10 Many letters have not been found, but there are enough to incriminate Peggy Shippen Arnold. In one André wrote to Stans-bury, instructing him to tell “The Lady” to write to André through one of her friends. “The letters may talk of the Meschianza & other nonsense,” André said. He wanted her letters to be sent through the sieve that was the Philadelphia—New York connection, which involved a postal service operating under an Arnold-approved flag of truce. André designed a system that left “every messenger remaining ignorant of what they are charg’d with.”11
Newlywed Peggy, for example, wrote an innocent-looking note to John André to get him to contact her husband: “Mrs. Arnold … is much obliged to him for his very polite and friendly offer of being serviceable to her … [and] begs leave to assure Captain André that her friendship and esteem for him is not impaired.”12 Peggy Shippen Arnold knew what was going on, despite her husband’s later claim that she was “as innocent as an angel.”13
When Arnold took command of West Point, he made his headquarters at Beverley, the mansion of Col. Beverley Robinson, George Washington’s erstwhile Virginia friend who had become a Tory and commander of the Loyal American Regiment. Beverley had been confiscated after Robinson’s exposure as a Tory officer. Before Arnold and André began corresponding, Robinson had written to Arnold urging him to lead the Loyalist cause as an “important service to your country.” Robinson, a wealthy merchant and influential Loyalist, foresaw a defeated America becoming part of a prosperous British union that would “rule the universe … bound, not by arms and violence but by the ties of commerce.”14
Arnold’s treason extended beyond his offer to hand over West Point for the equivalent of about one million dollars.15 The fall of that key fortress would have been a disaster for the Patriots. But that was to have been only the beginning, for Arnold saw himself as the leader of a British-Loyalist army that would not only punish the Rebels and win the war but also raise the esteem of Loyalist fighting men. Coincidentally just such a force, independent of Clinton and the British Army, was being proposed by William Franklin, the son of Benjamin Franklin and the deposed royal governor of New Jersey, who was fast becoming one of the most dangerous Tories in America.
Franklin became aware of Arnold’s offer through Stansbury and another Tory poet drawn into the conspiracy as a go-between: the Reverend Jonathan Odell, who was both a satirist and an Anglophile (“Rise Britannia, rise bright star! / Spread thy radiance wide and far!”).16 Driven out of New Jersey for his Tory beliefs, Odell became chaplain of a Loyalist regiment on Staten Island. He also became a close friend of William Franklin, after whom Odell named his only son.17
The drama of Arnold’s betrayal and André’s capture had a Tory subplot. Robinson was aboard HMS Vulture, which carried André up the Hudson to his rendezvous with Arnold. Joshua Hett Smith, a lawyer and the brother of the Tory attorney general of New York, handed over his house near West Point for the meeting at which Arnold gave André intelligence and documents about the fort’s defenses. Smith also helped André disguise himself with a civilian coat and hat. This was André’s fatal error, making him a spy rather than a British officer who, if captured, could claim the status of a prisoner of war. He compounded his error by hiding the documents in his socks, disobeying Clinton, who had ordered him not to carry incriminating papers.18
The Vulture had been fired on by Patriot cannons. Smith, rather than helping André get back to the security of the Vulture, led him, on horseback, to a place on the Neutral Ground near British lines; from there André could supposedly walk to safe territory.19Local people warned that Tory brigands, known as Cow-boys, were in the area, raiding and robbing.
André, riding on alone, neared British lines. Three young men, in odd bits of uniform and toting muskets, stopped him. As one of them later related the encounter, André said, “Gentlemen, I hope you belong to our party.”20
“What party?” one of the men asked.
“The lower party,” André said, referring to the Loyalists. He apparently thought he was among De Lancey’s Cow-boys. “Thank God, I am once more among friends. I am glad to see you. I am an officer in the British service.”
But there were other outlaws in the area—Rebel plunderers, sometimes called “Skinners” because they skinned victims of their valuables. Maj. Benjamin Tallmadge, Washington’s chief intelligence officer, later called André’s captors “Cow-boys,” who were “roving and lurking above the lines, sometimes plundering on one side and sometimes on the other.”21 Whether Skinners or Cow-boys, they found the hidden papers, beginning the string of events that exposed Arnold, who would manage to reach the Vulture and safety ahead of his pursuers. The three captors were given medals by Congress.
Clinton, who had a paternal affection for André, tried frantically to save his thirty-year-old aide from the gallows. Washington could find no way to change André’s fate without affecting the morale of his army or his own sense of military justice. He was, however, ready to exchange André for Arnold. Clinton had his own morale problem: Loyalists were cheering Arnold. Clinton feared that if he gave up Arnold, every Loyalist in America would turn against the British.
Arnold himself sent a chilling threat to Washington: If he hanged André, “I call heaven and earth to witness that your Excellency willbe justly answerable for the torrent of blood that may be spilt in consequence.” Looking toward his new career in the British Army, he wrote: “I shall think myself bound by every tie of duty and honor to retaliate on such unhappy persons of your army as may fall within my power.” He also remarked darkly that André’s execution would put forty Patriot prisoners in South Carolina in jeopardy.22
Washington was not moved, though witnesses said his hand shook as he signed André’s death warrant. On October 2, 1780, at Tappan, New York, Washington’s headquarters about twenty miles up the Hudson from New York City, Maj. John André, in his regimental uniform, was hanged.23
Arnold’s treason and his raw threats came at a crucial moment in the Revolution. As Washington sat at his headquarters in New Jersey in October 1780 and wrote his letter of despair, he looked to the South and saw two states slipping away. He looked to Arnold and wondered what his treachery would bring. Arnold, commissioned a brigadier general in the British Army, gave new hope to Loyalists who wanted more of a combat role than the guarding of baggage trains. As commanding officer of a new Loyalist military organization, Arnold would bring a fresh ferocity to the battlefield. So would William Franklin’s Associated Loyalists. As Arnold had warned, there would be a torrent of blood.