Treacherous Beauty

Author: Stephen Case and Mark Jacob
Genre: Non-Fiction
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2021
Pages: 288
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: 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.

Review: Between Valiant Ambition, Finishing Becca, and this book, Treacherous Beauty, I feel like I have a better understanding of the times and the people who lived it. 

We often learn history in a sort of one-dimensional manner, forgetting that these were real people with real feelings. People are complicated and complex, which makes dissecting and understanding history challenging. People didn't just choose a side and stay on it, after a few years of war no doubt people just wanted their lives (normalcy) back. And, as always, many people were in it for themselves, and what would be most advantageous for them. 

Peggy Shippen was certainly an interesting character study and a interesting person. Women were dismissed for way too long in history, and wives have a unique and intimate view and understanding of their husbands, whether famous or not.