CAPTURE OF MAJOR JOHN ANDRé

Capture of Major John André

On another September 23rd, this time during the critical middle years of the Revolution, a British officer named Major John André was stopped by militiamen near Tarrytown, New York. André carried papers hidden in his boot that revealed a shocking plot: the American commander of West Point, Major General Benedict Arnold, planned to surrender the vital Hudson River fortress to the British. The militiamen brought André to American authorities, and Washington’s staff quickly grasped the scale of the betrayal laid out in the captured documents. West Point controlled movement along the Hudson, and its loss could have split the rebellious colonies and strengthened British operations in the interior. André’s capture gave the Americans a chance to avert the disaster, but it also set in motion one of the most painful episodes of the war. The officer himself, a talented and well-liked figure in British circles, would later be tried and executed as a spy, while the American traitor he exposed escaped.