27. Saving West Point and Unmasking Benedict Arnold
One of Robert Townsend’s greatest coups resulted from the unwelcome, but as it turned out fortuitous, quartering of British officers in the Townsend family home in Oyster Bay. During the British stay, one of Townsend’s sisters overheard a visiting officer, John Andre – Benjamin Tallmadge’s British counterpart in charge of intelligence gathering – discussing the defection of a high-ranking American hero.
She passed that on to her brother, and from there it worked its way through the Culper Ring to Tallmadge. It eventually contributed to the unmasking of Benedict Arnold as a traitor. It came in the nick of the time, during the late stages of a plot to betray the important American fortifications at West Point to the British. John Andre was arrested and eventually hanged, and Arnold fled to the British.