Peggy Shippen

Peggy Shippen was a member of a prominent Philadelphia family who married the Continental general Benedict Arnold in 1779. Through her social connections she knew the British officer John André and assisted the secret correspondence behind Arnold’s plan to surrender West Point. After the plot failed, she joined Arnold in British-held New York and later lived with him in Britain and Canada.

Shippen’s marriage to Benedict Arnold placed her at the centre of the conspiracy that made his name synonymous with treason. Evidence indicates that she helped maintain contact with John André and British intelligence while Arnold negotiated the surrender of West Point.

Nathaniel Philbrick’s Valiant Ambition places Peggy Shippen at the crucial point where Benedict Arnold’s military grievances become treason, tracing how her Loyalist social connections helped open and sustain contact with British intelligence officer John André. Lucia St. Clair Robson’s Shadow Patriots brings Peggy into the espionage world of the Revolution as a woman whose marriage, family background and access to both Patriot and Loyalist circles make private relationships inseparable from the secret negotiations around Arnold.