The Life of John André

The Life of John André
Author: D. A. B. Ronald
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2019-01-19
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1612005225

This biography of Britain’s spy chief during the Revolutionary War sheds new light on his conspiracy with Benedict Arnold—and his mysterious capture. John André was head of the British Army’s Secret Service in North America as the Revolutionary War entered its most decisive phase. In 1780, he masterminded the defection of the high-ranking American general Benedict Arnold. As the commander of West Point, Arnold agreed to turn the strategically vital fort over to the British. André and Arnold also conspired to kidnap George Washington. The secret negotiations between Arnold and André were protracted and fraught with danger. Arnold’s wife Peggy acted as go-between until September 21st, 1780, when the two men met face to face in no-man’s-land. But then André was captured forty-eight hours later, having broken every condition set by his commanding officer: he was within American lines, wearing civilian clothes, and carrying maps of West Point in his boots. When he announced himself as a spy, the Americans had no recourse. Tried by a military tribunal, he was convicted and hanged. André’s motives for his apparent sacrifice have baffled historians for generations. This biography provides a provocative answer to this mystery—explaining not only why he acted as he did, but how he wished others to see his actions.

The Execution of Major Andre

The Execution of Major Andre
Author: John Evangelist Walsh
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2001
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780312238896

A dramatic account of the career, capture, and execution of the most famous Revolutionary War spy focuses on Major John Andre, a gentleman agent and secret Loyalist who collaborated with Benedict Arnold to attack West Point.

The Traitor's Wife

The Traitor's Wife
Author: Allison Pataki
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2014-02-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1476738602

"Socialite Peggy Shippen is half Benedict Arnold's age when she seduces the war hero during his stint as military commander of Philadelphia. Blinded by his young bride's beauty and wit, Arnold does not realize that she harbors a secret: loyalty to the British. Nor does he know that she hides a past romance with the handsome British spy John André. Peggy watches as her husband, crippled from battle wounds and in debt from years of service to the colonies, grows ever more disillusioned with his hero, Washington, and the American cause. Together with her former love and her disaffected husband, Peggy hatches the plot to deliver West Point to the British and, in exchange, win fame and fortune for herself and Arnold."--from cover, page [4].

The Notorious Benedict Arnold

The Notorious Benedict Arnold
Author: Steve Sheinkin
Publisher: Flash Point
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2010-11-09
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1429951354

New York Times bestselling author, Newbery Honor recipient, and National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin presents both the heroism and the treachery of one of the Revolutionary War's most infamous players in his biography of Benedict Arnold. Winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for Nonfiction Winner of the YALSA-ALA Award for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Most people know that Benedict Arnold was America's first, most notorious traitor. Few know that he was also one of its greatest Revolutionary War heroes. Steve Sheinkin's accessible biography, The Notorious Benedict Arnold, introduces young readers to the real Arnold: reckless, heroic, and driven. Packed with first-person accounts, astonishing American Revolution battle scenes, and surprising twists, this is a gripping and true adventure tale from history. “Sheinkin sees Arnold as America's ‘original action hero' and succeeds in writing a brilliant, fast-paced biography that reads like an adventure novel...The author's obvious mastery of his material, lively prose and abundant use of eyewitness accounts make this one of the most exciting biographies young readers will find.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Several complex political, social, and military themes emerge, one of the most prominent being that within the Continental army, often simplistically depicted as single-minded patriots, beat hearts scheming with political machinations that are completely familiar today...Arnold's inexorable clash with Gates and his decision to turn traitor both chill and compel.” —Horn Book Magazine (starred review) Also by Steve Sheinkin: Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About Westward Expansion King George: What Was His Problem?: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the American Revolution Two Miserable Presidents: Everything Your Schoolbooks Didn't Tell You About the Civil War Born to Fly: The First Women's Air Race Across America

Treacherous Beauty

Treacherous Beauty
Author: Stephen Case
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2012-07-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0762787082

Histories of the Revolutionary War have long honored heroines such as Betsy Ross, Abigail Adams, and Molly Pitcher. Now, more than two centuries later, comes the first biography of one of the war’s most remarkable women, a beautiful Philadelphia society girl named Peggy Shippen. While war was raging between England and its rebellious colonists, Peggy befriended a suave British officer and then married a crippled revolutionary general twice her age. She brought the two men together in a treasonous plot that nearly turned George Washington into a prisoner and changed the course of the war. Peggy Shippen was Mrs. Benedict Arnold. After the conspiracy was exposed, Peggy managed to convince powerful men like Washington and Alexander Hamilton of her innocence. The Founding Fathers were handicapped by the common view that women lacked the sophistication for politics or warfare, much less treason. And Peggy took full advantage. Peggy was to the American Revolution what the fictional Scarlett O’Hara was to the Civil War: a woman whose survival skills trumped all other values. Had she been a man, she might have been arrested, tried, and executed. And she might have become famous. Instead, her role was minimized and she was allowed to recede into the background—with a generous British pension in hand. In Treacherous Beauty, Mark Jacob and Stephen H. Case tell the true story of Peggy Shippen, a driving force in a conspiracy that came within an eyelash of dooming the American democracy.

Turncoat

Turncoat
Author: Stephen Brumwell
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 475
Release: 2018-05-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0300235186

A historian examines how a once-ardent hero of the American Revolutionary cause became its most dishonored traitor. General Benedict Arnold’s failed attempt to betray the fortress of West Point to the British in 1780 stands as one of the most infamous episodes in American history. In the light of a shining record of bravery and unquestioned commitment to the Revolution, Arnold’s defection came as an appalling shock. Contemporaries believed he had been corrupted by greed; historians have theorized that he had come to resent the lack of recognition for his merits and sacrifices. In this provocative book Stephen Brumwell challenges such interpretations and draws on unexplored archives to reveal other crucial factors that illuminate Arnold’s abandonment of the revolutionary cause he once championed. This work traces Arnold’s journey from enthusiastic support of American independence to his spectacularly traitorous acts and narrow escape. Brumwell’s research leads to an unexpected conclusion: Arnold’s mystifying betrayal was driven by a staunch conviction that America’s best interests would be served by halting the bloodshed and reuniting the fractured British Empire. “Gripping… In a time when charges of treason and disloyalty intrude into our daily politics, Turncoat is essential reading.”—R. R. B. Bernstein, City College of New York “The most balanced and insightful assessment of Benedict Arnold to date. Utilizing fresh manuscript sources, Brumwell reasserts the crucial importance of human agency in history.”—Edward G. Lengel, author of General George Washington “An incisive study of the war and the very meaning of the American Revolution itself…. The defining portrait of Arnold for the twenty-first century.”—Francis D. Cogliano, author of Revolutionary America

This Is Not My Memoir

This Is Not My Memoir
Author: André Gregory
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2020-11-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0374713278

The autobiography-of-sorts of André Gregory, an iconic figure in American theater and the star of My Dinner with André This is Not My Memoir tells the life story of André Gregory, iconic theatre director, writer, and actor. For the first time, Gregory shares memories from a life lived for art, including stories from the making of My Dinner with André. Taking on the dizzying, wondrous nature of a fever dream, This is Not My Memoir includes fantastic and fantastical stories that take the reader from wartime Paris to golden-age Hollywood, from avant-garde theaters to monasteries in India. Along the way we meet Jerzy Grotowski, Helene Weigel, Gregory Peck, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Wallace Shawn, and many other larger-than-life personalities. This is Not My Memoir is a collaboration between Gregory and Todd London who create a portrait of an artist confronting his later years. Here, too, are the reflections of a man who only recently learned how to love. What does it mean to create art in a world that often places little value on the process of creating it? And what does it mean to confront the process of aging when your greatest work of art may well be your own life?

Take the Journey

Take the Journey
Author: James Percoco
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2023-10-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1003842771

In Take the Journey: Teaching American History Through Place-Based Learning, author, historian, and educator James Percoco invites you and your students to the places where many events in American history happened. The Journey Through Hallowed Ground is a 180-mile National Heritage area encompassing such historic sites as the Gettysburg battlefield and Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello. Though it might prove difficult to visit these particular sites with your students, Percoco argues that every community has a story that can be connected to larger themes in American history and that placed-based history education can be made a part of every classroom, from Nevada to Washington to Pennsylvania. Filled with students' voices and an enthusiasm for American history, Take the Journey offers the following: Practical and easy-to-implement lessons Classroom-tested materials Specific directions for employing place-based best practices in the classroom Ways to meet state standards without sacrificing teacher creativity or hands-on learning Lists of resources and primary source materials So bring your students along and let them discover the twists and turns offered by history and the Journey Through Hallowed Ground. '

Sophia's War

Sophia's War
Author: Avi
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2012
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1442414421

A beloved Newbery Medalist pens a gripping adventure set during the Revolutionary War. After witnessing the execution of Nathan Hale in New York City, newly occupied by the British army, Sophia Calderwood resolves to do all she can to help the American cause, including becoming a spy.