8. Benedict Arnold and Peggy Shippen
Benedict Arnold was a dashing hero of the Revolution when he served as military commander of Philadelphia. There he met, courted, and married Peggy Shippen. Shippen was the daughter of a local merchant of wealth, and a spy on the payroll of British Major John Andre. Her family was prominent Tories. Shippen’s spying is demonstrated in the existence of coded letters, written in her hand and addressed to Andre, some of them in invisible ink. The exact role Shippen took in convincing her husband, at the time America’s foremost field commander, to betray the Revolution remains debated. Some believe she initiated it with promises of monetary reward and elevation to the nobility by the grateful British.
The Arnold plot to surrender West Point to the British failed, and little actual harm occurred to the American military position. Nonetheless, it was a deep blow to American morale at a critical juncture of the Revolutionary War. Neither Benedict nor Peggy found much happiness following their treachery, living in England after the war, where both were shunned by society. Her family in Philadelphia denied her participation in the plot, and even her knowledge of it before it was discovered. Hoards of damning evidence leave little doubt she was a willing, active participant, and likely persuaded her husband to turn traitor. Arnold died in London in 1801, and Peggy in the same city three years later. They are interred together at Battersea, in a churchyard.