Respecting André in confinement, Major, later Colonel, Tallmadge has left several statements,—letters, Sept. 23, 1780 (Sparks MSS., xlix. vol. iii.); to Heath, Oct. 10, 1780 (Heath MSS., printed in Dawson, 194, and in Sargent, 469); his letters to Sparks in 1833-4 (Mag. of Amer. Hist., 1879, pp. 748, 752); his Memoir, privately printed by his son, F. A. T., and the extracts from it (Hist. Magazine, Aug., 1859; and Dawson's Papers).
Washington gave his version of the conspiracy at a dinner-table in 1786, which is contained in Richard Rush's Washington in Domestic Life, being letters addressed to his secretary, Lear, 1790-97 (also in Dawson, 139). There are many references in the letters of 1780 in Sparks's Washington (vii, 205, 212-222, 235, 241, 256, 260-65, 281, 296, and in the App. pp. 520-552, most of the documentary proofs), and in his Letters to Washington (iii. 101-111), much of which is given in Dawson.
Several letters of Hamilton, contained in his Correspondence, are of interest: one to Greene; one to Miss Schuyler, usually dated Oct. 2, but Bancroft says it is without date and must have been written later, and, as usually printed, has omissions and interpolations. Of particular value is a letter of Hamilton's to Henry Laurens, in which he wished André's desire for a soldier's death could have been gratified (Lodge's ed. Works, viii.; Dawson; H. W. Smith's Andreana; McCoy's ed. Proceedings. Cf. Pennsylvania Packet, in Moore's Diary, ii. 333).
Lafayette's account is in his Memoirs, Eng. trans., N. Y., i. 253-56, 349, as well as letters to Luzerne and others (Dawson, 204, etc.). Sparks held various conferences with Lafayette in later life, and his notes are in the Sparks MSS., xxxii. J. F. Cooper, in his Notions of the Americans picked up by a travelling Bachelor, has an account which he says he derived from Lafayette in later years and from a British officer who had heard Arnold tell his story at a dinner.
In Dawson's Papers are included various other contemporary accounts: letters of Alex. Scammell (Oct. 1st, in Mass. Hist. Soc. cabinet; Misc. Papers, 1777-1824, i. 192; Oct. 3d, in Hist. Mag., xviii. 145; and Farmer and Moore's Hist. Coll. N. H.); of Anthony Wayne, Sept. 27 and Oct. 1, 1780 (Amer. Bibliopolist, 1870, p. 62); extracts from the Bland Papers, ii. 33-38; and Maj. Samuel Shaw to the Rev. Mr. Eliot, in Shaw's Journals, 77-82.
Some papers of Timothy Pickering, formerly possessed by the Hon. Arad Joy, of Ovid, N. Y., and now in the War Department, were printed in the N. Y. Tribune. Letters of General Greene are in Greene's Greene, ii. 227-40, and in the R. I. Col. Records, ix. 246, and in the R. I. Hist. Coll., vi., and one of R. R. Livingston in the Sparks MSS., xlix. vol. iii. Moore's Diary (ii. 323, etc.) gives various contemporary newspaper reports.
The records of observers of André's last hours and execution have been precise: Dr. Thacher's Military Journal, 274 (Dawson, 130; McCoy; Smith's Andreana, 58), and his additional statements, together with Maj. Benjamin Russell's account in the N. E. Mag., vi. 363 (also in Dawson and Andreana); letter of Col. Van Dyk in 1821 (Hist. Mag., Aug., 1863, vol. vii. 250); Todd's Joel Barlow, 35; the Military Journal of Gen. Henry Dearborn, a MS. (J. W. Thornton's sale, no. 284, bought by Dr. T. A. Emmett); Mag. of Amer. Hist., 1879, p. 574; Amer. Whig Rev., v. 381; Southern Lit. Messenger, vii. 856; xi. 193; Sparks's Arnold (p. 255); Irving's Washington (iv. 149, 157); Sargent's André, 395; and others cited by Dawson.
[1012] In a letter by Clinton, Oct. 11, 1780, to Germain, he details in an accompanying narrative the rise of the correspondence with Arnold, which began eighteen months before. Sargent notes it as being in the State Paper Office, "America and West Indies, vol. cxxvi.", and says it has not been printed. The Sparks MSS. (no. xxxii.) has a copy, where is his next letter of the 12th, telling the story of André's execution, which is printed in the Remembrancer, vii. part 2, p. 343, and in Dawson, p. 240. Clinton also wrote to Lord Amherst on the 16th; and on the 30th he wrote a secret letter to Germain, in which he says that he has paid £6,315 to Arnold (Sparks MSS., xxxii. and xlviii.). Germain's letters to Clinton and Arnold of Nov. 28th and Dec. 7th are in Sparks MSS., xlviii. On a fly-leaf of Stedman's History of the Amer. War, Clinton, having dissented to that writer's narrative (vol. ii. p. 249,—given in Dawson, 196), wrote what he called an extract from his MS. History of the War, no other portion of which is known. This is printed in Mahon, vii. App.; Sargent's André; Dawson, p. 177, and Jones's N. Y. during the Rev., vol. i. App. p. 737. Washington in this extract is severely criticised, and this is also the case in a pamphlet, The Case of Major John André, who was put to death by the Rebels, Oct. 2d, 1780, candidly represented, with remarks on said case (pp. 28), New York, Rivington, 1780,—a copy in proof-sheets in the Carter-Brown library, being the only one known, and it has been supposed that it was prepared under Clinton's supervision and suppressed (Sargent, 274; Mag. of Amer. Hist., Dec., 1879, iii. 739). The introduction is dated N. Y., Nov. 28, 1780.
Cf. also Simcoe's Mil. Journal of the Queen's Rangers, pp. 150, 292 (in Dawson, 149, 151). Simcoe offered to try to rescue André. Mahon's England, vii. ch. 62; journal of Gen. Matthews, cited in Balch's Les Français en Amérique. A long letter on the conspiracy and events attending it, varying in some ways from the American account, and possibly furnishing Arnold's story, was written by Andrew Elliott to William Eden, Oct. 4 and 5, 1780, and is among the Auckland MSS. in the Cambridge University library (England). Mr. B. F. Stevens has furnished to me a printed copy of it. The account in Jones's N. Y. during the Rev. (i. 370) misses or perverts the story throughout, and gives that writer the occasion to abuse Clinton, which he does not fail to use. Any opinion of Jones is liable to be confused by his cynical and misplaced irony, which singularly accords with the countenance of the man as portrayed in his picture.
[1013] The questions at issue were these: Was André protected by a flag? Arnold says Yes, and André himself says No. They were the principal parties who could know the fact. If there was a flag, does such use of a flag come within the purport of the military law which defines flags? Is the question of good faith in flags one only between the giver and the receiver of a flag, and can the giver of a flag act in good faith to the receiver and with perfidy to his own principal, with that perfidy known to the receiver? Can the passport of a general engaged in treasonable correspondence with the enemy protect an officer of that enemy when clothed in a disguise and bearing papers to the enemy, such as might give that enemy an unfair advantage?