← Back to the front page

Lenny Kravitz’s Hero Uncle and Other Lesser Known American Heroes

Khalid Elhassan August 18, 2020 35 min

American Revolutionary War - United States — The British surrender at Yorktown. Library of Congress

15. Unmasking a Traitor

One of Robert Townsend’s greatest coups resulted from the unwelcome, but as it turned out fortuitous, quartering of British officers in the Townsend family home in Oyster Bay. During the British stay, one of Townsend’s sisters overheard a visiting officer, John Andre – Benjamin Tallmadge’s British intelligence counterpart – discussing the defection of a high-ranking American hero. She passed that on to her brother, and from there it worked its way through Townsend’s ring to Tallmadge. It eventually contributed to the unmasking of Benedict Arnold as a traitor.

It began with enterprising spy work in the fall of 1780. Townsend’s ring’s skullduggery led first to the capture of British intelligence officer John Andre, and Andre’s capture, in turn, led to unraveling Benedict Arnold’s treason. It spared the American side from what would have been a dramatic espionage coup that might have altered the war’s outcome and the course of history.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.