Mark Jacob and Stephen H. Case's biography Treacherous Beauty - Peggy Shippen, the Woman Behind Benedict Arnold's Plot to Betray America (#441) was just the antidote I needed after reading Alison Pataki's poisonous portrayal of Peggy Shippen in The Traitor's Wife. Honestly, that novel left such a bad taste in my mouth about Peggy Shippen, I had to read a non-fiction source (and Treacherous Beauty is the sole existing biography of this fascinating woman) to help me gain a truer and more accurate picture of her.
Readers, don't even bother with The Traitor's Wife. In it, Peggy Shippen is vilified as an emotionally and physically abusive virago with nothing in her favor but her beautiful face and figure. Peggy Shippen was many things, according to her biographers in this entertaining volume, but not a cruel or capricious character. She may, in fact, have been the actual brains behind the plot to hand over West Point to the British to bring an end to the American Revolution. She certainly was intelligent enough to save herself and her infant son when Benedict Arnold took off for the safety of the British lines, leaving her behind in a borrowed house with George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton due for breakfast at any moment. The whole story is fascinating, and the reader can understand some of what motivated her actions, even if you cannot sympathize or support them.
And just what did happen to Peggy, Benedict Arnold and their children after they threw in their lot with the British? It seems that Arnold continued to make one bad decision after another, leaving Peggy to pick up the pieces after him in a never-ending downward financial spiral. What does emerge from this is a portrait of an amazingly devoted wife and mother and resourceful woman. In other words, despite her delicate appearance, Peggy Shippen Arnold was a survivor, and her story is well worth reading.
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