Case, Stephen. "On the Trail of Treason: Peggy Shippen's Amazing Story," American Ancestors, Fall 2012.
Was she the most dangerous young woman in American history? Peggy Shippen born in 1760 was the granddaughter of a Philadelphia mayor and belonged to one of the city's first families. At their fancy home, just around the corner from Independence Hall, her parents entertained George Washington as a dinner guest. At eighteen, Peggy Shippen married a crippled, war-hero widower twice her age. Together they embarked on a plot to destroy the American revolution . . . Peggy was Mrs. Benedict Arnold.
Documents made available in the 1920s proved conclusively that Peggy had been an active conspirator with her husband from the very start.
In 1776, at age sixteen, Peggy was a beguiling, charming star of the Philadelphia scene. When she was seventeen, the British invaded and occupied the city. Peggy developed a friendship with a particularly handsome and charming twenty-six-year-old British officer, John Andre.
When the British left Philadelphia, Benedict Arnold was appointed military commander of the city. Arnold's successful exploits at military engagements at Fort Ticonderoga, Quebec, Valcour Island and Saratoga place him, in my opinion, alongside Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman and George S. Patton, Jr., as one of the most effective field commanders in American military history. Some might compare his tactical achievements with those of Robert E. Lee and Stonewell Jackson.
