Treacherous Beauty

Treacherous Beauty

Image of the book cover of "Treacherous Beauty." Courtesy of Lyons Press.LancasterHistory.org welcomes Stephen H. Case on Thursday, November 16 to present on his book, Treacherous Beauty: Peggy Shippen, The Woman Behind Benedict Arnold’s Plot to Betray America. While war was raging between England and its rebellious colonists, Peggy Shippen 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.

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. Raised in Philadelphia, Peggy had close ties to Lancaster; her grandfather Edward Shippen lived in Lancaster and is buried at St. James Episcopal Church.

Stephen H. Case, co-author with Mark Jacob, is an attorney with a long and distinguished career, and is managing director and general counsel of Emerald Development Managers LP, which provides equity capital for start-up businesses. He also is a trustee of the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. Previously, he was for over 35 years a partner in the international law firm now called Davis Polk LLP; chairman of the board of Motors Liquidation Company, which liquidated and dissolved the original General Motors Corp.; and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

Event information: This event takes place in Ryder Hall at LancasterHistory.org. A reception begins at 4pm, followed by the presentation at 4:30pm. The event is free and open to the public.

Lecture

November 16, 2017 LancasterHistory.org, 230 North President Avenue Reception at 4pm | Presentation at 4:30pm FREE