Treacherous Beauty: Peggy Shippen, the Woman behind Benedict Arnold’s Plot to Betray America by Mark Jacob and Stephen H. Case (review)

Some sixty years ago popular historical writer James T. Flexner published The Traitor and the Spy: Benedict Arnold and John André (1953, with a slightly updated bicentennial edition in 1975). Peggy Shippen did not make the subtitle, perhaps a reflection at that time of as yet untapped public interest in women’s history; however, she was a major player in Flexner’s presentation. The flirtatious, outwardly vapid teenager Peggy, the product of an upper-class, loyalist/neutralist-leaning family, was allegedly smitten with the dashing, dandyish André during the British occupation of Philadelphia during 1777–78. Just how affectionate they were toward each other was left to the reader’s imagination, but some sort of adoring relationship there apparently was. When British forces evacuated Philadelphia in June 1778, wounded rebel war hero Benedict Arnold took command of the city as George Washington’s chosen military governor. Through twists and turns beautiful Peggy became so enamored of Arnold, who was twice her age, that they married in April 1779, roughly a month before he made his first overtures to return his loyalty to the British via a message sent through an intermediary to none other than Peggy’s adoring friend André. Flexner concludes that Peggy stoked the fire that drove the supposedly ever-greedy Arnold forward in what became a plot to turn the vital West Point defenses over to the British in a desperate plan to crush the American rebellion.

Six decades later journalist Mark Jacob and lawyer Stephen H. Case have presented the same basic story, perhaps with a bit more emphasis on Peggy and with less attention given to André. Although mentioning Flexner, the authors contend that they have produced “the first nonfiction book to focus on Peggy’s life” rather than merely “to depict her as a supporting character in her husband’s story” (vi). Clearly a genuflection to expanding public interest in women’s history, their claim is somewhat misleading. The authors have not separated Peggy’s story in any significant way from Arnold’s. As for the heroic traitor, he remains a central character in their saga. Based on a review of index citations, Arnold receives as much attention as Peggy, if not more. To appreciate Peggy as her own person separate from her infamous husband may be virtually impossible, especially in a book with a subtitle declaring her “the woman behind Benedict Arnold’s plot to betray America.”

Since Peggy once again turns out to be an Eve-like figure holding forth the forbidden fruit to her corruptible husband, what then of Arnold’s persistent presence in this historical drama? He functions more or less as a convenient punching bag for authors Jacob and Case, who repeat everything from fabricated tales about his dissolute youth to a barrage of less than flattering judgments regarding his presumed venal character. To take one example, Peggy described Arnold as “the best of husbands” in a March 1786 letter to her father. Shortly thereafter, according to the authors, she discovered that “her husband had been a traitor to their wedding vows.” An infant by the name of John Sage, presumably Arnold’s love child by another woman, was born around that time. Certainly, insist Jacob and Case, baby John must have been his child, since Arnold later provided for Sage in his will. The result was that a furious Peggy supposedly “never again used such exalted language to describe her husband, at least not during his lifetime” (203–4).

In reality, it is just as likely that one of Arnold’s older sons fathered, or one of the family’s maids bore, little John Sage, in the latter circumstance with any number of potential fathers residing in the town of St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. It is also possible that Sage was...