Show cah ig ra q e A 12 q 0 fp I 1 sa s1 en ai rn d X 7 04 at bened act arnold S 7 77 77 77 major john ire the arnold and andre A by ELMO SCOTT WATSON N JUNE 11 edward edvard shippen a prominent attorney and judge of the philadelphia vice admiralty court of philadelphia ladelphia sat him down at his desk and to his father wrote a letter in which oc curs this significant sentence my peggy this morning made me a pres ent of a fine baby which tho of the worst sex is yet heart ly welcome could judge sh apen have looked into the future one wonders it if he 4 might not have struck out those words Is yet heartily welcome for according to some historians this fine baby was des lined tined to prove herself in the judges judge s strangely prophetic words of the worst sex indeed and it is not unlikely that there came times when the judge wished st e had never been born for this baby ho was given her mothers name of margaret marggret was to become one of the most glamorous figures in american history was to be a belle of colon a al days the toast of both british and continental officers during the revo lution the yo young I 1 wife of a distinguished ameri can general and ani a participant in the chain ot of events which was to bladel blacken en his name with in famy among his countrymen tor for all time and to besmirch her name as well was peggy shippen arnold an innocent victim of the treason of her husband bened ct et arnold or was she the arch conspirator who used her wiles to lead him into the mire of that able crime D d she really love him for himself and prove her devotion to him by voluntarily sharing his d bgrace and exile from his native land or did she marry him while she was in love with another man and because of her infatuation aid that other man in carrying forward the plot which was to ruin the man whose name she bore those are the questions that have been brought up by research into documents of the revola flonary war period which have recently become available to the historians and it seems imps sible to give conclusive answers ans vers because the his themselves do not agree the traditional view of peggy shippen arnold Is that she was an innocent victim A recent biographer of arnold charles coleman sellers in his ren benedict edict arnold the proud warrior declares I 1 know of no evidence suf to implicate peggy shippen arnold in the arnold dreison plot I 1 do not attach any imbor tance to her correspondence with major andre for she was writing to other british friends also her letters to andre seem harmless it Is true she was under suspicion after the plot was ex posed and had to leave ph ladelphia I 1 think it Is rather far fetched though to accuse her of be ing a traitor just as positive on the other side Is E irvine haines author of two articles on this subject in the new york times magazine last year he ile says A careful study of eNi evidence dence heretofore un known or overcool ed leads to the conviction that she was not only guilty but even enen more than her husband one of the arch conspirators recent discover es in the private correspondence of sir henry clinton in an almost unknown diary of aaron burr and in s own letters some of them addressed in code to major andre himself furnish testimony too damning for peggy to con grovert she alive and on trial if we reread the thi story of the revolutions greatest personal tragedy in the light of what we know now it becomes a drama of ambitious femininity unia ie in american annals it was not the game legged hot tempered disgruntled hero of quebec and saratoga who was the real mover in the plot on the continental side but the ambitious tory girl the spy and tool too of clin ton who schemed so cleverly that she deceived such astute politicians as john hancock john adams alexander hamilton and even washing ton himself it was cl CI anton acting on the sug of lord george germain the british colonial secretary who bo conceived the conspire acy but it was peggy shippen with a skill and effrontery amazing in one so young who carried carrle I 1 it out N aa A morel moderate view one which takes a somewhat middle ground between these two ex ia Is that of randolph G adams custod an of the william L clements I 1 arary of american history at the university of michigan which ac quiren the military papers of sir henry clinton a few years ago from these papers mr adams has pieced together the ins de story of ar treason and he says Hist historians have usually acquitted peggy shippen of any corn com in her husband husbands s treason but the clinton papers give many indications of another story it is d now to avoid the conclusion that mrs arnold certainly handled some of the secret dispatches and that the sime same spies who carried the d snatches spat ches were also used to carry personal messages to andre and the other british officers she had known in PI in tell ng ug the story of tl e tragedy of peggy shippen arnold one only has available a few a very nery few albeit known facts over which there can be no d spite sp ite and a number of other f facts which ire are capal cipalla le of different inter pret ions deam d ng upon the writer 9 point of blew to yards the different actors in the drama f 1 av 4 mrs benedi A oki sketch of 0 shipper by major andre and re of arnolds arnold s treason we know the date of her birth something of her es as a belle of philadelphia society immediately before and dur ing tl e early years of the revolution the date of her marriage to arnold something of her career as his wife in this country and while sharing his exile in england and the date of her death but as to her motives her real character and the actual part she he played in the he conspiracy of her husband to betray his country the evi dence is extremely contradictory haines makes out an exceedingly strong case against her as the arch conspirator the villa n ess of the piece briefly his story is this As the daughter of a prominent colonial family strong ly tory in its sympathies peggy shippen has been reared in an atmosphere of luxury had been taught to admire the brit sh military caste had dreamed of marry marrying 7 into that caste and of becoming a great lady in tn the courts of europe she first met john andre then a lieutenant in the royal english fusil ers in 1774 when sir guy carleton governor general of canada canida sent him to philadelphia as a secret agent go ng un der the name of john anderson to spy on the first continental congress then in session in the pennsylvania capital she was then only four teen years old but already possessed of great beauty and andre himself only twenty four bears ears old fell in love with her and she with him after he left philadelphia sl e corresponded with him but she d d not see him again until 1777 when she visited in new york city where he was now a captain on the staff of S r henry clinton the british commanders and his secret agent as he hid had been for sir guy carleton their love affair progressed and return ng to philadelphia which was at this time held by the continental forces she continued her correspond ence with andre then washington lost the battles of brandy wine and germantown and the br tish tools took pos session of ph idelphia hd elphia bringing peggy and an together to ether again she helped i llin im organize org inize the series of pageants called the Misch ianza lanza div en by the pr tish officers on the eve of the de of general howe british commander in philadelphia for england and she was chosen as the most beautiful girl in philadelphia to pre side over them as queen but in june the br tish evacuated ralla f delphia and andre and peggy were ed once more in the meantime the british ministry realizing that the rebellious colonies could not be defeated by force resorted to treachery to accomplish its ends it was the idea of lord germain british secretary of war thit that some of the american leaders could be bought off and cl CI anton fell in with the scheme but the british plan to seduce american lead ers was ras getting nowhere until june 1778 when the continental forces again occupied occue ed philadel nhia and pen ven benedict arnold was made mill tiry tary governor of the city then davs haines ly by tl tj is t n e peggy shippen was deep in the rory conspiracy A ae least three times during the vinter of 1777 78 she had carried important let from spies in philadelphia to british agents in new york gallovic Gallo wiy and germain determined to use her to breah break down arnold A patriot by early conviction arnold soon was led to favor fanor i eggy s family and ther the r tory friends A man originally rigl rigi nally of simple tastes he be was lured into ex tra vaance by the pace set by the shippen en A widower adox er twenty years older than pegy he was flattered by her apparent 1 I reference for him in april 1779 arnold and peggy were mar ried that she could have preferred this lame middle iced continental genera general to andre Is not conceivable there is evidence that it was andre not arnold whom she loved and that she pres bently wished to escape from the web which she herself had helped to spin her family and rela eions brought tremendous pressure to bear upon her as the r letters show elizabeth tilghman writing to peggy s sister elizabeth says that poor peg peggy y was ras Burgoy ned into marrying ar nold in april the very month and year in which the unhappy marriage took place sir henry clinton was ras sure tor for the first time that arnold had become so deeply enmeshed in the net of intrigue that the conspirators had woven about him that tl e great climax of the conspire acy was at hand arnold influenced by his wife accor according dAg to some historians sought and after being refused once obtained command at west point the key to the whole continental defense tern he ile corresponded in code with both andre and clinton his wife also continued to write to andre and to receive letters from him haines declares that the millinery letters which aich passed between peggy and andre having to do with the purchase of various articles of clothing were code messages relating to the plans for handing anding li west point over to the brit ish randolph adams from his researches imong the clinton papers in the university of michigan I 1 bairy says of this A son had been born to arnold and peggy shippen just before the treason we have actual evidence of her desire to buy baby s clothing in new york for there were no shops in west point like those in lower manhattan her list of demands for pink ribbon and clouting clotting Is among the other pipers papers sent by one of the brit ish spies to new york the spectacle of the rejected suitor major andre buying these articles for benedict ar nold s biby b iby does not usually figure in history yet the number of times that the wants of the arnold baby figure in the correspondence Is sa s1 sig 9 of some knowledge on mrs arnold s part that her husband was engaging in a rather fa correspondence with the british headgear head adams also declares that an examination of andre andres s papers in the clinton collection serves only to blacken yet more the character of benedict arnold but haines who Is convinced of peggy shippen s guilt says of arnold traitor he was ras but he was also betrayed and by means of an influence to which many of the great of the earth have been susceptible the lure of a beautiful woman but whatever peggy shippen s part in the con she paid bitterly for it in the end when a series of blunders resulted in the premature exposure of the plot she found herself left behind by her husband when he fled to the brit ish she soon learned that andre her lover if he was her lover was to die on the scaffold and she went back to philadelphia only to be ex belled from her native nathe city as dangerous to the public safety during the remaining years of the war she lived in new york with british and tory friends alile wl ile her husband fought with the british against his former comrades when the revolution ended she went with him to england and there she had a brief taste of the glory she had hoped for she was welcomed as a national heroine publicly thanked at the court of king george and gien gi en a pension of BOO pounds a year and a bonus of pounds for meritorious services eg but ent even though the ar won the gritt grit tude of the british officials the english public would have none of them they were ere slighter and insulted in society and peggy s triumph was ras short lived the final chapter Is the dead ashes of disillusionment writes haines arnold d ed in poverty yet after his death as she I 1 ersela wrote peggy paid off all his debt within four or five hundred pounds and still had left property and invest ments of her own she lived three years longer than he be dying in 1804 at the early age of forty four too soon by some decades to s t to thack eray as she might well have done tor for his por trait of becky sharp C by western newspaper union |