arrest Major John André 2 May 1750 – 2 October 1780 British army officer hanged spy American Revolutionary War
Major John André (2 May 1750 – 2 October 1780) was a British army officer hanged as a spy during the American Revolutionary War. This was due to an incident in which he assisted Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York, to the British Army. In 1779, he became adjutant-general of the British Army with the rank of Major. In April, he was placed in charge of the British Secret Intelligence. By the next year (1780) he had begun to plot with American General Benedict Arnold. Arnold's Loyalist wife, Peggy Shippen, was a close friend of André's, and possibly a paramour; the two had courted in Philadelphia prior to Shippen's marriage to Arnold. She was one of the go-betweens in the correspondence. Arnold, who commanded West Point, had agreed to surrender it to the British for £20,000 ($ in 2008 dollars) — a move that would have enabled the British to cut New England off from the rest of the rebellious colonies. André went up the Hudson River on 20 September 1780, to visit Arnold. At night, André rowed ashore in a boat from the sloop-of-war Vulture and met Arnold in the woods below Stony Point. Major André accompanied Arnold to Thomas Smith House (Treason House) in West Haverstraw, New York, which was occupied by Thomas Smith's brother, Joshua Hett Smith. Morning came before they had finished talking, and American troops under James Livingston that were guarding Verplanck's Point across the river had begun to fire on the Vulture, which was forced to go down the river without André. André met with Arnold on 21 and 22 September. This may have led to the comedy of errors that led to his capture.
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