Vulgar History Podcast
Peggy Shippen, Part One
July 31, 2024
Ann Foster:
Hello, Tits Out Brigade. Before we start the episode, I have a big announcement to make! I’m going on a trip, I’m going to be in England and I’m going to be in Scotland to research my book that I’m writing. Did you hear? I’m writing a book about Caroline of Brunswick. Anyway, while I’m there, I know that some of you live in those places, so I have pencilled in some time to meet up with Tits Out Brigade members in those cities, the cities being Edinburgh Scotland and London, England. So, we’ll be meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland on Wednesday, August 21st and in London, England on Wednesday, August 28th. Details are still being figured out, partially because I don’t know how many of you are going to be there which will mean where we meet or not. But it’s going to be something like we’ll meet in a public open space and walk around looking at some oldy-timey things, is my hope. Anyway, details are still being figured out and if you want to take part, let me know. Go to VulgarHistory.com/Meetup and fill in the form for updates. This is the first-ever Tits Out Brigade meetup(s) and I’m really excited to make this happen. So yeah, VulgarHistory.com/Meetup to sign up for updates and to kind of RSVP so I know how many people to expect.
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Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women’s history comedy podcast. My name is Ann Foster and we’re in the midst of Season Seven, How Do You Solve A Problem Like Marie Antoinette? If you’re new here and you’re like, “Great, we’re going to talk about Versailles, we’re going to talk about the French Revolution, not really, because this is a long and meandering journée, Season Seven. We’re working our way towards talking about Marie Antoinette, but to do that, first, (and this is just a peek inside of how my brain works and how I like to research and learn about things) we’re learning about the world and the world events and what was going on around Marie Antoinette to eventually get to Marie Antoinette. That being said, at the end of all these episodes, I do connect each of the people I talk about with Marie Antoinette herself.
Now, the person we’re talking about today, Peggy Shippen, I’m going to say does have some Marie Antoinette vibes, just in the sense of being, like, a young woman who is just in the midst of some… in the midst of a revolution that she never really asked to be a part of, she would like to be removed from this narrative. This story also involves a lot of American history. We’ve been talking about the American Revolution for several weeks now, and this one has got a lot of cameo appearances from, I think, I’m going to say, all of the main characters from the musical Hamilton, AKA the Founding Fathers of America.
Also, it takes place largely, especially this episode (there’s going to be a Part Two) but this episode takes place a lot in Philadelphia. I’ve heard from many of you, there are listeners in Philadelphia, and Philadelphia is really the fifth girl and Sex in the City in this episode. The vibes of Philadelphia, this story couldn’t have taken place anywhere else. Your beloved mascot, Gritty, does not appear in this episode, but I feel like he does. I feel like the spirit that would eventually become Gritty is here in this episode, in the spirit of Philadelphia. I don’t want to ruin what Philadelphia does, but this city, like you’re known for people greasing poles and climbing them, and the vibes, the greased poles, the Gritty vibes, like, it’s really… I’ve learned through researching this episode, especially Philadelphia has its own vibe, and I’m into it.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into Peggy Shippen, Part One!
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So, Peggy Shippen. I did a survey a bit ago just to ask some American listeners who they’d heard of from American history and who they hadn’t heard of just so I can kind of understand when I’m telling the story, am I going over people who everyone in America is like, “We all know the story,” or if it’s something that’s new to all of you. I will say there’s people in the story that 99% of Americans responded. As I’m looking at this, 289 people answered the survey, and basically all of them have heard of some of the people in the story. Most of them have heard of some of the other people in the story. But Peggy herself, 22% of people had heard of her. So, this may be new information to many of you. Although, you know, wait for the plot twist of who her husband becomes because that’s one of the more famous people.
So, she was born Margaret Shippen, but she’s always known as Peggy, born July 11th, 1760, in Philadelphia. She was the fourth and youngest daughter of Edward Shippen IV and Margaret Francis. And so, this was a prominent Philadelphia family. And 1760, this is before the American Revolution. So, this is where America is still, like, the British colonies, right? So, people, her family, were vibing with that, they were happy to be, you know, British colonists’ descendants living in America.
I’m just bringing up my little sheet here to see who else you might know was born at around the same time. So, 1760, about a decade earlier, Queen Charlotte from Queen Charlotte: Bridgerton Story was born, so we’re at around that same time period here. Jeanne de la Motte from the necklace scam was born around the same time as well. Caroline of Brunswick was born eight years later. So, kind of, that’s who’s around, who you might have heard of, who is on the scene around now. So yeah, it’s just this wealthy family in Philadelphia. I know there are lots of listeners in Philadelphia, shout out to all of you. I’m going to give you numerous places in your city that you can go and visit. I don’t know if these buildings are still around, but maybe they are.
Anyway, so the Shippen family is a prominent Philadelphia family. So, the Shippens included: two Philadelphia mayors were Shippens, the founder of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, anyone listening from there might know about this. So, her dad, Edward, was a judge and a member of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania. And so, because this was like when she was born, it was not the American Revolution yet, but like all the revolutions we’re talking about, or we’ve ever talked about on this podcast, it didn’t just happen overnight, these sentiments had been building for a while. So, even by then, the Shippen family was politically divided. Some of them were on, like, Team Independence and some of them were on Team No, “I love being part of a British colony.” Her dad was on that second version. He was considered to have allegiance to the British crown. So, his influence on his family and his daughters would probably mean they were also.
Peggy grew up as the baby of the family. She was the family’s darling, her father, like, always kind of preferred her to the others. And her vibe as a young person very much reminds me of Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind in good and bad ways, where she was just… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with treating a child well and like letting them do things that they want to do. Sometimes that’s appropriate to do. And sometimes those children, like Peggy or like Scarlett O’Hara, grow up to be sort of entitled, spoiled people and she did. No hate to entitled, spoiled people anywhere. “As a young woman, she enjoyed music, do needlework and drawing. She participated in the study of politics,” which, you know, she wasn’t completely oblivious to what was happening around politically. She looked up to her father and he… Like, this is part of why she was the favourite. Like she is sort of like, from Sweet Valley High, a bit of a Jessica Wakefield-vibe person; she’s a bit of a mean girl, but she also was, like, intellectually curious. From her dad, she learned about politics, finance, and just kind of what was going on, the forces that would be leading to the American Revolution. So, she knew about that stuff as well.
In 1774, when she was 14 years old, a military guy, who almost all of you in America have heard of, George Washington, because the Revolution had not yet happened, he was not yet the President, he was just kind of like, an important military guy. He was invited for dinner at the Shippens so he met 14-year-old Peggy, who was impressed by him. He seemed, I don’t know, just like a charismatic sort of guy and he fondly remembered their family, which becomes important later on. He was fond of the Shippens, including her.
But then, as you know, the musical Hamilton would tell us like [raps part of “Aaron Burr, Sir”] “Se-Se-Seventeen-seventy-six,” the American Revolution sort of kicked off, and this is, you know, there’s people like George Washington on one side being like “We want to have independence from Britain,” and on the other side is like the Red Coats, right? The British people who are like, “No, we want this to still be like a British colony.” Everything’s all in chaos right now. Peggy’s dad was suspected of being loyal to the British people and this was sort of dangerous for him to be like that in Philadelphia. She’s 16 at this point. So, he moved the family from Philadelphia to a farm in Amwell, New Jersey. And so, Peggy lived there with her older sisters, Mary, Sarah and Betsy. They’re just, kind of like, doing farm girl, cottagecore life. Probably not her favourite thing because just so you know about Peggy, she loved expensive things, she loved going to parties, she preferred a more active social life than what she was getting living cottagecore farm girl life.
So, they returned to Philadelphia, but then the dad was accused of being a spy, so they had to leave again. And they went to Schuylkill Falls. Is that a place still? Let me know. Anyway, the girls, again, were sad to lose out on their social lives in the big city because they were really, especially Peggy, they were really sort of like socialites on the scene. Whenever there was a ball or a party, the Shippen sisters… In the musical Hamilton again, which is most of what I know about the American Revolution, like, the Schuyler Sisters are there, like coming out, just having fun. The Shippen Sisters same vibe, just like work, et cetera. Anyway, they did eventually, so just like going back and forth and back and forth, their life is a bit uncertain for a while. This is the thing too that’s important to remember: they didn’t know that the George Washington side was going to win the American Revolution. Like the British side could have won. So, they didn’t want her dad didn’t want to say like, “I’m anti-Britain. Yeah, that’s cool.” Like, it probably seemed like Britain was going to win. So, he’s just like, “Let’s just wait this out.”
Anyway, so they did return to Philadelphia because their dad was afraid that if they weren’t on-site in their house in Philadelphia, their house might be plundered. At this point, September 1777, the British captured Philadelphia. So, they took over the city of Philadelphia. The Shippens were back in Philadelphia, and they held social gatherings at their home, partially because, like, the dad was at least sympathetic to the British cause, but also just because they all… I don’t know, like the British took over and it’s kind of like, “Okay, well, who’s sort of like the rich people of this town? Let’s have lots of parties with them. British are here, maybe that’ll be like that forever.”
A frequent guest to their gatherings at their home was a man who, let me just check for live results… 12% of Americans surveyed have heard of, not very famous to you but he’s very famous to me after this story. And he’s one of my favourite people in the story: John André. So, John André was a man, he’s in his, like, mid-late twenties. He was from England, he was an English person, so he was in America because he had come over to fight. He had come over in 1771 and then he was captured and kept in jail for five years until he was released in a prisoner exchange.
So, he came to the attention, like he was just kind of like average army guy, but the British authorities noticed him, not just because he was like super hot and charming, but also because while he was in jail, he had made detailed secret maps, like, as a prisoner, and they were like, “Oh, this guy’s got some good spy like instincts so we’re going to make him be a spy.” So, he’s just on the scene. Philadelphia is a British-possessed town and he’s just one of the British people there, he’s just kind of like a hot spy. He was also, this is part of where you’re like, you know, I love a spy, but here’s where I’m just like, “Oh, this guy’s great.” So, he was also somehow appointed Social Director to the army. So, he was kind of like their David Rizzio. He was, like, arranging their parties. He was also known as a poet actor. He was also a competent violinist. He was a stage director and he painted background scenes for plays produced by acting members of the English army.
So, this sort of sets the scene of Philadelphia. The British took over and they’re not just being like, I’m sure there’s a curfew and stuff, but it’s not just like, “You’re under a British rule, the soldiers are here,” but they’re like, “You’re under the British rule and the soldiers are here and some of us are actors. And John André is our social director. And we’re going to have sets and we’re going to put on plays because some of us are soldiers and also actors.” So, this is where Peggy is being a teen. There’s still, like, a social life for her to be part of and for her to be the most beautiful belle of the town and her sort of Scarlett O’Hara vibes. John André often escorted 17-year-old Peggy to dinners, promenades, and plays. He once gave her a lock of his hair in a gold locket. Now they weren’t officially, like, sweethearts, his girlfriend at this time was Peggy’s kind of frenemy, if she’s a Jessica Wakefield, sort of the Lila Fowler, who is another person called Peggy Chew. But these two were fond of each other for sure. Everyone was fond of Peggy Shippen for her whole story, she’s just clearly such a likable person. In addition to that, she was also, you know, like, spoiled and entitled and kind of a brat. I mean, my favourite character in Little Women is Amy, my favourite character in Pride Prejudice is Lydia. She’s bringing me those bratty younger sister vibes that I vibe with because I, myself, am also a bratty, younger sister.
So, Peggy Shippen is like the belle of British-occupied Philadelphia. She and her sisters are, they’re kind of, I don’t know, if you’re a millennial, you remember like the Hilton sisters. It’s just kind of like they’re the two, they’re the hot, young teens and everybody wants them invited to their parties and Peggy is the hotter of them. So, at one point, the captain of a British flagship invited her and other young women to attend dinner and, like, dance on their ship. And so, they were piped aboard the ship by a band. The captain later said he “and all the fellow officers were all in love with her.” Another British army captain declared she was the “handsomest woman in America.” So, she’s just like, what is she by now? 18 years old and just like the most beautiful popular girl in British-occupied Philadelphia. And she’s finally able to go to all these parties. She’s known for wearing very low-cut dresses, which listeners of this podcast know is a thing that I always enjoy hearing about people doing.
So, the social event of May 1778 in British-occupied Philadelphia was a party called the Mischianza and it was of course being planned by party planner/spy John André. And the Mischianza was an elaborate celebration held in honour of a British general who was about to go back to England, so it was like his farewell. And this was an event that took place over, I don’t know if it’s necessarily weeks, but certainly days and nights. So, this is going to include a regatta along the Delaware River, three musical bands, a 17-gun salute, a parade, a tournament of jousting knights – okay, British-occupied Philadelphia – ball and a banquet with a fireworks display. It was like the social event of the season. And so, the thing is, they were like, “Great, we’re going to invite all the hottest people,” which means the Shippen sisters, like especially Peggy. And Peggy Shippen was one of the youngest people invited, the youngest beauty invited. She’s again, like 18 years old at this point.
Now, local Quakers who, depending on what order these episodes come out, you may know a lot or a little bit about Quakers, but they’re just sort of like very plain-dressed religious folk, quasi-John Knox vibes. They were mad. They went to her dad to be like, “Don’t let your daughters go to this party because they will wear low-cut dresses, because there’s going to be cultural appropriation. They’re all wearing, like, feathered turbans to look like they’re Turkish,” which is, like, “Fair point Quakers.” Anyway, they’re just like, “This is too scandalous. Don’t let your daughters go.” But the dad was like, “Of course, my daughters are going to go. It’s the social event of the season. And I love my little Peggy and she wants to go.” So, the Mischianza was like the event of the season but other things that they had been doing, again, like British-occupied Philadelphia sounds like, for her, a pretty fun time. So, there was, like, skating parties, sleigh rides, cricket matches, horse races, and she’s just like the most beautiful, popular girl and she’s just like living her best life, really, just as a hot, young teen.
So, this is, of course, during the American Revolution. This is the year 1778. So, some other critics were critical of people attending these British-held parties because if they’re on like Team George Washington, then they’re just like, “You shouldn’t be partying with the British, you should be… whatever, fighting them,” or something. Yeah. So, there was some criticism of Peggy and her sisters doing this, but one Philadelphia resident defended the girl’s right to party with the British soldiers, saying, “Proper allowances must be made for those in the bloom of life and spirits after being so long deprived of gaieties and amusements.” So, I will say, you know, the Quakers were mad at their outfits and Team George Washington was mad about people, like, Americans having fun with British people. And one of George Washington’s friends, the Marquis de Lafayette, from the musical Hamilton, a French person who is going to show up in numerous episodes of this series, Marquis de Lafayette got some friends together. And during the Mischianza, he poured whale oil onto the British barriers, like, I don’t know, I guess like the fences, ignited them and then slipped away because he was just like, “Fuck you, British partiers.”
Anyway, Peggy, it turns out, like the British soldiers, part of why she was just vibing and having such a good time is because, in a real Lydia Bennett vibe, she just loved flirting with British soldiers. She thought they were so witty and hot. But then after the Mischianza, when this general left, like, more of the British left, so it would seem to be that the British stopped occupying Philadelphia. And now George W. and his team were coming in. Peggy and her sisters were set to lose the soldiers to flirt with because the American patriot soldiers were less witty and charming and hot. In my notes, I called George Washington, George W. and it’s hard for me to not just say that out loud so officially, starting now, I’m going to call him George W. But that’s what I mean, George Washington, very famous person to Americans, allegedly. George W, on my survey, 99% of Americans surveyed are familiar with George Washington.
So anyway, George W. was like, “We need to choose an American Patriot-type person to be the governor of Philadelphia.” And because they needed to bring order to Philadelphia after the evacuation of all the British soldiers, the city was still politically divided. So, he’s like, “I need somebody who’s charismatic. I need somebody who’s going to, like, lay down the law, someone who’s like a proven good leader/soldier. I need a charismatic, patriotic leader to get everyone in Philadelphia to decide to join Team George W.” The person he chose, who is a person who is known by 88.3% of Americans surveyed, was a man named Benedict Arnold. So, Benedict Arnold was a hero of the George W. Patriot Army. So, he was age 37, he was admired at this point. I mean, people in America who’ve heard of him, like you know where this is headed, people who haven’t heard of him, let’s just enjoy the story.
So, B. Arnold is admired as one of America’s most courageous warriors. He had done lots of successful army things. He started out his life as an apothecary, and then joined the army. One of the things he did was he had led an army that tried to get into Quebec, which connects us to the previous episode about Marie-Josèphe Angélique and what she was up to in Quebec. He did not get into Quebec because, much like what she experienced, it’s hard to do stuff there in the winter. Anyway, so he’s this war hero, age 37, he had been injured in the war and so he had a limp. One of his legs was shorter than the other because of his injury so that made people think he was even more admirable, because like visually looking at him, you could be like, “Look at the injuries he sustained while fighting for Team George W.” His job was to restore civilian peace to Philadelphia. He was not excited about this job because he wanted a more prestigious job. He wanted to have been appointed to Congress instead. Also, he had spent some of his own money, like his own funds were spent to help pay for some of the battle stuff he did, and he wanted George W. to pay him back and George W. had not paid him back. George W. was also the person who was in charge of putting him in Congress and he didn’t get that job.
So, Benedict Arnold shows up, chip on his shoulder, limp in his leg. And he arrived one month after the Mischianza. He was greeted by excited residents on the streets. Like, the people in these streets, we see them do various things on the streets of Philadelphia. I think, isn’t that where there’s still that thing where people climb poles covered in butter or something? Like, I think Philadelphia has a long history of excited residents taking to the streets. So, here they are in oldy-times. So, they just watch this carriage pass by. They’re just like, “We love you! You’re this famous war hero,” et cetera. One of his first jobs was to clean… So, Philadelphia, the city at this point, June 1778; smelly, smelly, garbage-covered city. Literally, there was debris-covered streets because when the British had left town, they had just been like, “Screw you!” and did things like they dumped human and horse carcasses and garbage on the streets. So, it literally smelled horrible and one of Benedict Arnold’s jobs was to literally clean up the city.
So, what he moved into is the Masters-Penn House on High Street. Is that a museum? You tell me, Philadelphians. He had 10 servants, and he lived a flashy lifestyle. He wanted to look like he was rich, but he also believed that the United States owed him a debt and he vowed to collect this debt by making friends with Philadelphia’s elite and wealthy citizens. Like, he wanted them to sort of vouch for him and to help convince George W. to pay him back and maybe give him a better job. This included befriending the Shippen family. So, he showed up, I’m sure Peggy was excited. But you know, she and her sisters had still been like… The British soldiers were gone, replaced by less hot, less witty American soldiers. But they were still like it-girls about town; they went around in their fancy imported British clothes, which the Americans were like, “Mm, you shouldn’t wear fancy British clothes, you should wear American-made, boring clothes.” They, yeah, Peggy and her friends apparently made fun of the Patriots’ “homespun clothes and boring entertainments.” Not as fun as what the British were providing.
So, Benedict Arnold wanted to try to be like, “Let’s try and make everybody get along. But also, I want to meet some hot, young teens.” So, he hosted a ball, like a big event, the social event of the season. He’s like, “Great, we’re going to invite all of the hot, young everybody to this party.” And then he was told, like, “Eugh, turns out that the American people are not hot. If you want hot people, you need to invite some loyalist British types, like the Shippen sisters.” And so, eventually, they were invited as well, just because the rest and enough, like the it-girls about town, were all on the loyalist side, not on the Patriots side.
So, I don’t know if this is where they met, but he hosted and/or attended many events, and you know, Peggy was at every party and by the end of this summer, they were courting. She was a teenager, and he was 37 and that is what is happening. She is, I believe at this point, like, 17, 18 years old. And he was escorting her to dinners, receptions and the theatre. He was, at one point, challenged for dating a teenage loyalist and Benedict Arnold was like, “Come at me, you wish you were dating her. She’s the hottest girl in town and she’s mine.” And I feel like to Peggy, she was just like, “He is a war hero. He’s the governor. Like I could not aim any higher. This is the best boyfriend I could find.”
Also, with his leg injury, he used a white jewel-encrusted cane. So, you know, he had this injury, but he was kind of like, “Oh no, my injury makes me even more cool and interesting.” And all of Philadelphia, like the city, is a character in this story; the city of Philadelphia is the fifth girl in Sex and the City. All of Philadelphia, which again is a character, were intrigued by the courtship of this military hero and this hot young teen belle. One woman wrote to a friend, “I must tell you that Cupid has given our little general a more mortal wound than all the hosts of Britain could.” So, he was smitten by Peggy Shippen, but like everyone who met her was, her vibe in that way is similar to Nomi Malone in the movie Showgirls.
So, by September, like they met that summer and then by that September, Benedict Arnold was asking her father permission to marry her. He was like, “Dear Mr. Shippen, I am not a gold digger, even though I do have numerous debts and like living a lavish lifestyle. I know that I am on Team George W. and you’re allegedly a loyalist, but you know what? That shouldn’t stand in the way of a love story between a 37-year-old man and your teenage daughter.” He also wrote a love letter to Peggy, which exists that we can still see, and it was literally a copy-paste of a love letter he’d written to a previous woman he was also trying to woo. So, he had templates he was using. Anyway, so he wrote these letters, he requested this via letters. Peggy and her dad didn’t, neither of them replied right away. I feel like they were, like, steppin’ stuff here, they were just trying to figure out what to do.
And so, why wouldn’t the dad want Peggy to marry this guy? One issue was Benedict Arnold’s social status. He was formerly an apothecary and the Shippens were, like, fancy, rich people. Also, he was 37 and she was 17. And then also, he was a widowed father of three sons who his sister in Connecticut was caring for. So, the issue was like, are these three sons going to come and join their household? Do we want that? But on the pro side, Peggy’s dad knew that if she married Benedict Arnold, this could maybe be good for his career ambitions because Benedict Arnold was, like, the Governor.
But then the other perhaps biggest issue is the fact that Benedict Arnold was… an asshole. So, he was mean to his subordinates. This whole thing happened where he part-owned this ship that arrived with goods that he was bringing into town so that he could sell for profit. He put these goods in a government-owned warehouse and asked the army to transport it for him. Using government equipment for private purposes was illegal so he did that. He also did this thing where there’s this woman who wanted to pass through. So, New York, at this point, New York City, was British occupied. And so, Patriots couldn’t really get in there but he, like, made an illegal passport so this woman could get in there to do spy work. He got in trouble for that as well. These three things really sank his whole reputation. Like, he was mean to the people he worked for, he used government stuff to, like, store his weird West Indies goods, and he made a passport for this spy.
So, his enemies took this to the newspapers, which were the pamphlets of the era. Someone filed a complaint against him to the Supreme Executive Council, which is a body of jurisprudence that is in the story a lot, and it just sounds like if you watch that season of American Horror Story in New Orleans where it was all about witches, and they’re like, “Who’s going to be the next Supreme Witch?” Like, I just picture this council of, you know, Emma Roberts and people. Anyway, so a complaint was filed against him to the Supreme Executive Council. And Benedict Arnold was like, “I’m all too happy to answer for these actions to A) Congress, or B) George W. Those are the only people I’m accountable to. I do not recognize you, Supreme Executive Council and Emma Roberts.”
So, this drama was happening literally at the same time that he was wooing his teenage girlfriend. Around the same time one of Peggy’s sisters, her oldest sister, Betsy, was being married and Betsy was nervous about the wedding night. And then Peggy was like, “Oh my God, I’m also worried about, like, what sex is.” Allegedly, she took a solemn oath to never have sex, which she then retracted very soon afterwards, but just a detail I wanted to share. Eventually, Peggy convinced her father to agree that she could marry Benedict Arnold by doing some tactics that she was known to do, which includes weeping, taking to her bed, throwing a fit, refusing to eat or drink, and just being kind of a hysterical, nightmare, tantrum child. And when she did that, her father gave her what she wanted. And in this case, that was marriage to Benedict Arnold.
So, Benedict Arnold. The Supreme Executive Council was still, like, full of haterade for him. He went to George W. for advice, like he wanted to go ask for advice from his bro, George W, but en route, I guess he’s like on his carriage or on his horse, then some other guy comes up in a horse to give him, I’m picturing like a scroll, but it’s probably more like a sealed letter, but it was a proclamation from the Supreme Executive Council accusing him now also of military misconduct. They had timed like charging him with this to coincide with when he was leaving. He was leaving Philadelphia to go find George W. So then, they gave him this paper at the same time to make it look like he had defected to the British. The Supreme Executive Council just really hated this guy and I’ve got to say, I don’t blame them, he sucked. But anyway, the charges he was filed for were basically those three things I said before. There’s eight charges total, but it’s like storing your stuff in the warehouse, giving that woman the passport and being mean to your subordinates, effectively.
Peggy and the Shippens were on Benedict Arnold’s team. They thought that this was an example of the Supreme Executive Council power had run amuck. Like, “Why are they hating this guy?” George W. was also on Benedict Arnold’s side. He suggested Benedict Arnold should ask for a congressional hearing. But then Arnold was like, “No, I prefer a court martial so I can be judged by my peers.” The newspapers were full of this scandal, you know, the ‘Scandoval’ of its era, just what’s going to happen with B. Arnold.
Eventually, all but two of the charges were dropped against him. Benedict Arnold was so mad about all this, he resigned as Commandant or Governor, or whatever his job was. Anyway, he resigned from his Philadelphia job, and he purchased Mount Pleasant, a manor home just outside of Philadelphia, not to live in, he wanted to rent it out as an income property because just bear in mind this man has so many debts constantly. And so, then George W. announced a court martial to examine the original charges, and that’s what Benedict Arnold had wanted. He wanted to be judged by his peers. Five days after the court martial was announced, Peggy Shippen and Benedict Arnold got married in the Shippen dining room. For their “honeymoon,” they went to various family homes around New Jersey and Pennsylvania. But Benedict Arnold, like, from literal day one, the relationship was really affected by the haters and losers, as he probably would have called them, were against him. He was obsessed with the damage done to his public reputation, like just wait, Benedict Arnold.
So, then there was a whole thing, it’s like back and forth, like where would the court martial be held? He wanted it in one place, George W. wanted it in another place. Meanwhile, Benedict Arnold was enjoying being married to 18-year-old Peggy Shippen. He wrote that she brought him “Scenes of sensual gratification.” Okay, Benedict. She referred to him as “The best of husbands.” And eventually, Benedict Arnold was like, “Everyone thinks I’m a traitor to the British and the Patriots are being mean to me. So, why don’t I just become a traitor to the Patriots? Why don’t I just become a British spy? Okay, I’m going to do that.” He decided to do that. It was like in that one episode of… If you’ve watched The Traitors, New Zealand, where there’s this one woman and everyone thought she was a traitor the whole time. And then eventually the traitors were like, “Let’s recruit her to be a traitor because everybody thinks she’s a traitor.” And then she’s voted off and she’s like, “I’m a traitor.” And everyone’s like, “I knew it.” But it’s like, no, she only was for one day. It’s just like that, except in American Revolution.
So, one month after they got married, like they got married on April 8th, I think and on May 1st, Benedict Arnold invited this guy over to be like, “Guess what? I’m a traitor now.” He’s like, “I offer my services, Benedict Arnold, myself to be a double agent/spy. And I would like for my spy name to be Gustavus Monk,” or just Monk for short. We haven’t had a lot of this in this podcast, but we’ve had some of this, people becoming spies and choosing preposterous names. So, this goes in that list of people. The other guy was like, “Fantastic, welcome to Team Traitors,” just like on the TV show Traitors. Did they put on cloaks? Maybe. And re-entering this story, John André, the party planner/spy. So, they’re like, “Okay, great, we’re going to work with John André, who is this spy, and also just like hot guy, violin player, draws maps while in jail.” So, there’s sort of this sequence of people where, like, Gustavus Monk, AKA Benedict Arnold, would sort of like have handlers, and then he would pass on information through to John André.
So, this guy, the in-between guy, I didn’t put in everybody’s names because there’s a lot of names. And this guy, this is all that he does. But the guy who connects Benedict Arnold to John André, he’s like, “John André, guess what? There’s this guy, I won’t say his name. He’s a general who we’re going to call Gustavus Monk, wants to, like, spill some Patriot secrets, and also FYI, his wife, Peggy Shippen, sends her regards.” So, like, not a good job guy, like now André, John André knows who this spy is. John André, though, was like, “Oh, amazing! Peggy Shippen, that hot, young teen? I remember her. We were pals, she has a lock of my hair on the locket. So, here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get Peggy to write letters that are just to me, to John André, being like, ‘Hey, John André, let’s talk about fabric and remember when you organize the Mischianza? Good times,’ but then there will be, like, invisible ink in between the lines of the letters. We’re going to use Peggy’s correspondence to hide codes in.”
So, John André, I am a fan of John André’s whole vibe but I’m going to say: No one in the story is good at being a spy, not just my opinion, just objectively. So, John André wrote out instructions for Benedict Arnold being like, “Here’s how to be a spy.” At one point, he accidentally wrote “Arnold,” and then he crossed out the word Arnold and wrote “Monk.” So, like, okay. John André; hot, party planner, like, draws a good map, but like, are you a good spy? Don’t know.
Meanwhile, so the whole court martial scenario is still going out. Benedict Arnold is so stressed out about that and probably also about the fact that he just like became a traitor, that he suffered an attack of gout on his already injured leg. So, he was more disabled than usual in terms of not being able to walk. Peggy Shippen, now a married woman of 18, was, you know, she spent her days hanging out with her gal pals. To her credit, she always had… She’s a girl’s girl. Wherever she goes in this whole story (which is very far from being over) she always had female friends around her. And to me, that often speaks well of a person. So, she’s hanging out with her gal pals and they’re just like, “Remember when the British occupied Philadelphia, and we could just go tits out, go to parties, flirt with the soldiers, those were good times we had, right?” Because the rest of her life, she had to go back home and hear her husband, Benedict Arnold, rant and rave and/or brood in the library about his court martial and being a spy.
So, although he’d bought the Masters-Penn mansion to rent out, they were now living in it. But she was not the mistress of the house, she was sharing that job with Benedict Arnold’s sister, Hannah Arnold, who was described in the main book I read— As a reminder, Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-era Women and the Radical Men They Married by Nancy Rubin Stuart. Nancy Rubin Stuart describes Hannah as being plain-dressed versus she had come to town with his three older sons. Like she had been watching them in Connecticut, but then she came here because now he’s married and stuff. She had resentments towards the stylish, luxury-loving, teenage Peggy Shippen, who was just, like, hot. She was 18 and married, but still like the hot it-girl around town. So, Hannah and Peggy, not the best of friends, not a lot in common at this point.
So, Peggy Shippen, there’s a whole question about like, how much did she know about what Benedict Arnold was up to? There’s a whole theory that, like, was she the one who convinced him to become a traitor because she had been friends with John André before? So, did John André get her to get him to switch sides? Which I feel like from what I’ve read, he did that himself and she just was kind of like, “I just married you one week ago and what is happening?” But she did seem to know what he was up to. In one of Gustavus Monk’s letters to John André, he said, “Peggy sends you her particular compliments,” which apparently is like spy language for like, “She knows what’s going on. She’s cool with the spy business.” But also, in terms of the spy business, being a traitor, et cetera, like, the American Revolution, still, this is 1779. So, it’s not, like, solidified that Team George W. is going to win. The British could very easily win, at which point Benedict Arnold and Peggy potentially could be rewarded for doing all this stuff. So, you know, it’s important when looking at history, and I’m talking to myself, not to you, but for myself to remember the people doing stuff don’t know what’s going to happen later. They’re just doing what seems best for them at the time.
Anyway, so Benedict’s spy boss ordered that he should get an active post in the army so that he could fuck some stuff up, like, more directly, so he could help make the Patriot side lose some battles so that the British could do better. But Benedict Arnold was like, “But I can’t get a job in the army because I’m actively under court martial right now for being a nightmare person,” and they still hadn’t set a date for the court martial. So, he was like, “George W, can we get this court martial over with because I really want to take on an active army job… No reason. I just like army jobs!”
By now, Peggy Shippen was a pregnant teen spy bride. Philadelphia was not doing well; food supplies were dwindling, prices were going up… relatable content. A lot of people were mad at Benedict Arnold, even though he wasn’t, like, in charge of Philadelphia anymore. I think people just generally hated him, understandably, he just was an annoying person. Anyway, a lot of people were mad at him. He was attacked. He demanded troops from Congress to protect him and the city, but he was denied. So, things were sort of in a crisis, Peggy pregnant. And so, she hadn’t been actively engaging in the whole like invisible ink, spy craft stuff. But at this point, she’s like, “Okay, something needs to change.” So, she answered a letter, like John André had sent her a letter being like, “Hey, let’s talk about fabric, but secretly spy stuff.” And so, she answered this letter. I don’t think there is spy stuff in the actual letter she sent, I don’t think there’s invisible ink or codes or ciphers, but just the fact she responded to his letter was her way of saying like, “I’m in. I’m in vis-à-vis let’s be spies.”
So, December 23, 1779, a bizarre date for his court martial because, like, not because it’s close to Christmas but just because it’s the middle of the winter and it’s colonial America and just like, guess what? A blizzard happened, they had to adjourn because there was a blizzard. One of the witnesses at the court martial was Alexander Hamilton. Eventually, at the end of the court martial, they were able to reconvene after the blizzard. And Benedict Arnold was acquitted of all charges except for one and I think the one was the giving the passport to the person. He was mad about this.
One month later, Peggy gave birth to their first child, a son named Edward Shippen Arnold, who they call Neddy. So, because Benedict Arnold was bad with money, they had to move out of the Masters-Penn mansion, rent it and live in one of Peggy’s father’s rental properties. This is, again, I need to emphasize, like, they’ve been married for not even a whole year yet and it’s never not been a crisis. So, Benedict Arnold, he became obsessed with how he could get money and he’s like, “Well, if I just, like, escalate my like spy shit, maybe I can get paid more money.” And the people who he worked for were like, “We’re not going to pay you more spy money until you get, like, an active military position.” So, he was like, ”Okay, I’m going to get a military position at West Point,” which was a very decisive, important outpost for the Patriots. He’s like, “I want to be in charge of West Point.”
So, to try to get this job, you know, he asked for it, but he was unpleasant, and people didn’t like him so that didn’t work. So then, Peggy, his glamorous 18-year-old child bride, she was deployed to go in her low-cut gowns to go and try to seduce the chancellor of the state of New York, not to fuck him, but just to be flirty and be like, “Hey, my husband, Benedict Arnold, should really have this job. Don’t you think you should give him this job?” So, she tried to do that, you know, to support her mans. And then George W. gave Benedict Arnold a different job. Benedict Arnold was like, “No thanks. West Point or nothing is what I want.” And George W. is like, “Why? The job I just offered you is, I think, better.” But Ben Arnold is like, “Well, I have this injured leg and West Point seems like a good job where I can just, like, sit around sometimes so that’s the job I want.” And George W. is like, “Mmm, I’ll get back to you.”
Anyway, at a party, someone congratulated Peggy like, “Oh, I heard Benedict got this new job that’s not West Point.” And she was so freaked out by this information that she went into a fit, which is kind of… There’s various points in the story where she is seen to go into what is described as a hysterical fit. I think she… And maybe this ties back to the whole thing about when I talked before, like, in her childhood, like she would throw tantrums and stuff to get what she wanted. I think she is a person who verbally processes, I think that she is high strung, I think that the fact that she’s, like, 18 years old, just had a baby, her husband is a traitor, it’s weighing on her heavily and when she is stressed out, I think she just cries and has an emotional outburst and that is what just happened here.
So, anyway… Finally, good news. Benedict Arnold got the West Point job. Peggy and their son, Neddy, we’re going to go there and hang out with him there. His plan was to go to West Point and weaken it, like, to make there be less soldiers there and to, I guess, draw maps and, like, tell the British how to get in and stuff like that.
So, August 1780. So, he had this job to sort of like weaken the army, but also at the same time, the Patriot army was pretty weak itself, frankly. So, there was a crisis. There was a lack of enough soldiers; the supplies were almost all gone; morale was very low. So, he just had to, sort of like, nudge things a little bit, like things were already not great for them. By now, the British had captured Charleston because France had always been sort of like helping out the American side because of Marquis de Lafayette. Maybe we’ll talk about that in another episode, but France had sent reinforcements to help the Americans, but it wasn’t enough. This was partially because the French were like, ”You, America, the ‘United States,’ you’re bankrupt, you won’t pay us for our work. And therefore, we’re not going to help you anymore.” So, George W. went to Connecticut to talk to the French to try and, like, charm offensive, get them to help out some more. In and around this time, Benedict Arnold was like, ”Oh, George W, like you’re going to Connecticut, do you want me to help? I can come with these talks as well.” And George W. was like, “Wow, Benedict Arnold is being really nice and positive right now. Before I used to think he was maybe a spy and a traitor, but now he seems like really on-board Team George W. That’s great,” he thought to himself.
So, he’s living at West Point. Peggy and baby Neddy are now there as well with him. And they’re staying in this house near West Point, kind of in the wilderness. When Benedict Arnold got the job, the person who had the job before was like, “Are you sure you don’t want to live in this house close to things?” And he’s like, “No, I prefer being in the random wilderness better for doing spy shit so people can’t see what I’m up to… I mean, [suspiciously] I just like trees.” So, I’m guessing Peggy… This is a real trajectory from her. Like, she was this hot, young girl on the scene, she married who seemed like the most important man in Philadelphia, and now, suddenly, she’s living in the woods with her baby being an 18-year-old mother.
This is kind of where her story – we’re talking about Benedict Arnold a lot because her story is a lot of just, like, dealing with his shit – but thinking about her for a minute, it’s like, this is where she starts to kind of step… Not step up, because she was, like, doing fine. But this is where we see that she had some hidden skills and resiliency and depths that maybe she didn’t even know that she had. But she’s like, “Okay, my husband is a spy. I’m living in the woods. Let’s get on with it.” Like she’s not complaining about it. She’s not being like, “No, I want to stay with my parents.” She’s like stand by her man, to the extreme here.
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So, to be continued. We will talk more about Peggy Shippen next week with some more crossovers with more characters, both from the musical Hamilton and from the Vulgar History podcast, in interesting ways. Her story goes places you might not expect, like, people in the maritime, the Atlantic region of Canada, be on notice. You know, you might be surprised at where some of these people go next time.
Anyway, I do want to tell you as a, just as a FYI as a special announcement. Today, when you’re listening to this, if you listen to this when it’s published, July 31st, I made a guest appearance on a podcast called The Art of Crime, and that’s available for you to listen to today. I really encourage you to listen to it because it’s a story that I had wanted to tell on this podcast for a while, but it never really fit into any of the themes. So, The Art of Crime is a history podcast about the unlikely collisions between true crime and the arts. So, already, it’s like, “Oh! Intriguing.” The host Gavin Whitehead approached me just because he’s been doing episodes about the Revolutionary era, and I am as well, and it just seemed like maybe we could do something together. And I was like, ”What about if I come to your podcast and tell the story of Princess Caraboo?” which if you haven’t heard of her, then I mean, listen to the episode of The Art of Crime that just came out today where I share the story of Princess Caraboo, who is, although ‘caribou’ is the name of an animal who is indigenous to North America, specifically to Canada, she is not to do with that. So anyway, it’s a story of a classic grifter. And she’s also from the same time period as this whole season, the 18th century, pretty exactly. Anyway, The Art of Crime podcast, you should listen to that. I am the guest on that today.
Also, as I mentioned, at the beginning of the show in the little pre-show announcement, I am going to be going on a little journée myself. I’m going to be doing some research in London, England, and in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have made time while I’m in both cities to see if anyone from the Tits Out Brigade in those areas, your regional representatives, would like to meet up and just, like, hang out. And so, if you’re interested in that, if you are going to be in Edinburgh, Scotland on Wednesday, August 21st, and/or London, England on Wednesday, August 28th, then let me know. And I’m making… Figuring some plans out so that we can have some sort of little meetup, walking around somewhere together. So, go to VulgarHistory.com/Meetup and fill in the form to get updates about where and when that’s going to be happening.
And… Other things to tell you, I have a Substack, which is like a newsletter, which is complementary to this podcast. So, it’s just another project I’m doing, you know? I’m writing a book, I’m doing a podcast, I have a newsletter as well. The thing they have in common is me and scandalous women from history, but it’s not telling the same story in all the different places. So, if you’re interested, if you’re a Substack girly, go to VulgarHistory.Substack.com and see what I’ve been writing there.
Also, I really strongly encourage you all to join the Patreon. So, the thing with the Patreon is you can absolutely join the Patreon for free and I’ve been posting more stuff there. In this ecosystem of social media stuff and, like, algorithms and things, it’s like, if you want to know what I’m up to and what I’m talking about, and you want to actually see what I’m doing and not just kind of when Instagram decides to share that with you, I’m posting a lot of free stuff now on Patreon. So, you can join there and just get my updates and stuff, like discussion of the latest episodes and stuff, all free, if you go to Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter. Also, bear in mind that as I go on this, my journée around England and Scotland, I will be posting the updates about that on Patreon for free. Anyway, so if you go to Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter, join for free to get my updates.
And then, if you want to bump it up a level, go to the next level trademark æspa, for $1 a month, you get early, ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History, including older episodes. You can listen to them with a little advertising break in the middle. If you pledge $5 or more a month, you get access to the bonus episodes. So, this is Vulgarpiece Theatre where we talk about costume dramas with Allison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson. There’s also episodes of So This Asshole where we talk about shitty men from history, The After Show where sometimes I invite my guests on to chat for a little bit more. Anyway, Patreon.com/AnnFosterWriter, that’s where the little community is existing.
But bear in mind also I am on Instagram, and you can find my stuff there. I mostly post in the Stories, it’s @VulgarHistoryPod on Instagram where also my DMs are open. So, if you have thoughts or I know that there’s a lot of people listening who really know the musical Hamilton really well. So, you know, did I miss represent anything? You can let me know. If that’s important to you, let me know. Are you from Philadelphia? Do you feel the spirit of Gritty and all of this? Like, let me know. So, my DMs are open there as well.
We also have a beautiful brand partner, Common Era Jewellery. So, this is a woman-owned, small business that makes beautiful jewelry that is inspired by women from history, by “difficult women” from history, mostly from classic history, Greek and Roman history, Egyptian history, as well as from mythology. They’re lovely. Their pieces are made in New York City. Everybody involved in the company has healthcare and good wages. It’s a company I’m so happy to support. They have lots of pieces. There’s nobody on there from American history because the people on the jewellery all predate that but there’s lots of classic people, Boudica, Cleopatra, Agrippina, Anne Boleyn is there just kind of like crashing the whole classical thing because she’s so iconic she had to be there. But also, people from mythology, Medusa, Aphrodite, poet Sappho, lots of stuff. Anyway, the pieces are available in solid gold as well as in more affordable gold vermeil. Vulgar History listeners can always get 15% off anything you order from them by going to CommonEra.com/Vulgar or using code ‘VULGAR’ at checkout.
If you want to support this show and also just confuse people by wearing clothing that says things on it that other people may not understand or maybe that people will understand and that’s how you can meet other members of the Tits Out Brigade, merch is available in two different places. And so, for Season Seven, we have “The Friend hath need of these things,” the iconic quote from the Public Universal Friend on various things. And then also Karyn Moynihan, our guest in the Peg Plunkett episodes, designed the beautiful Peg Plunkett’s Pub design, which is available at VulgarHistory.com/Store. That works well if you’re in America and if you live literally anywhere other than America, or if you’re in America and you like to do things a little different, you can also go to VulgarHistory.Redbubble.com. All of the merch is there. It’s amazing. One of my goals, one of my dreams, one of my hopes is that one day I’ll see somebody wearing one of these shirts in public, but also, it’s not just shirts. There’s also pins, there’s magnets, there’s stickers, you can get these designs just kind of go there, you click on the design, you just kind of choose which thing you want to have it on… mugs, cushions, various things. I mentioned you can get in touch with me on Instagram. You can also get in touch with me using going to my website, VulgarHistory.com, where there’s a little “Contact me” button. And I guess that’s everything.
Next week, Peggy Shippen, the spirit of Gritty just continues to make Philadelphia such a place. And also, Peggy and her husband, Benedict, go to various other cities that might surprise you.
Anyway, until next week, keep your pants on and your tits out.
Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Ann Foster, that’s me! The editor is Cristina Lumague. Theme music is by the Severn Duo. The Vulgar History show image is by Deborah Wong. Transcripts are written by Aveline Malek. Find transcripts of recent episodes at VulgarHistory.com.
References:
Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-era Women and the Radical Men They Married, by Nancy Rubin Stuart
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