Victory at Yorktown by Richard M. Ketchum

a disguise, return to New York by a different route, and deliver the papers to Clinton. The Briton protested heatedly, but he was finally persuaded to put on some of Joshua Smith’s clothes and let Smith escort him to the British lines. At nightfall André and his companion were warned by American militiamen that travel after dark below the Croton River was extremely hazardous, so they put up for the night at a farmer’s residence.
    Next morning the two set out together on the east side of the river, heading for White Plains, but Smith left André when they reached a place called Pine’s Bridge, telling him he would have an easy time reaching the British lines from there, and the major went off alone, carrying a pass in his pocket from Arnold that would supposedly get him past any rebel patrols.
    André was riding through what was purportedly neutral ground, which was in fact a no-man’s-land—a savagely contested area where no one was safe, where loyalist partisans who called themselves “Cowboys” were on one side, fighting the “Skinners,” who supposedly supported the rebels, with both gangs preying on hapless travelers of all persuasions for whatever they could steal from them. Between nine and ten André was suddenly stopped by three American militiamen, who rushed out of the woods where they had been playing cards and grabbed his horse. Confused and alarmed, the British officer did not produce his pass from Arnold, which might have saved him, but instead told the men he hoped they belonged to “the lower party” (the popular term for the king’s supporters, who held territory at the lower end of the river).
    â€œWe do,” said one of them.
    â€œSo do I,” replied André, adding that he was a British officer on urgent business and must not be detained. Then he showed them Arnold’s pass, adding, “I am in his service.”
    â€œDamn Arnold’s pass!” one of the men said. “You said you was a British officer. Where is your money?”
    André said he had none with him, at which they ordered him to dismount and strip. Finding no money in his clothing, they had him remove his boots and finally his stockings, and there they discovered the papers given him by Arnold—revealing the troop strength and defenses of West Point. André, realizing that they wanted money more than anything, offered them a substantial sum, but since he had none with him, they decided they were asking for trouble by keeping him and took him to the nearest outpost, which was at North Castle.
    There, the temporary commander, Lieutenant Colonel John Jameson of the Second Continental Dragoons, looked at the papers and tried to decide what to do. He and other officers at advanced posts had been ordered by Arnold to keep an eye out for a John Anderson and if they encountered him to send him at once to headquarters at West Point. Jameson had Anderson, all right, but those papers were something altogether different. They appeared to be “of a very dangerous tendency,” and he decided to send them to General Washington, who was known to be returning from Hartford, at the same time he dispatched the prisoner to Arnold at West Point.
    Shortly after André departed under guard, Major Benjamin Tallmadge, who was in Washington’s secret service, returned from a scouting mission, heard about John Anderson, and suspected that there was a lot more to this than met the eye. He spoke with Jameson, * persuaded him to recall the prisoner, and John Anderson and his guards came back to Lower Salem on Sunday morning, September 24, to be held pending instructions from Washington. Here he was put in the care of Lieutenant Joshua King, who was to deliver him to Washington, and the lieutenant was not overly impressed by what he saw. “He looked somewhat like a reduced gentleman,” said King. Over his undress military clothes, he wore a “coat, purple,