So the belle of the Meschianza changed her political faith with her love loyalty; but another who has been named in connection with that entertainment shamed many a woman in faith of another kind. With her sisters, Miss Peggy Shippen had been held from the revel; but she had been toasted there. Yet she became, but a short time afterward, the wife of one of the most gallant soldiers that ever drew sword for the cause of America, Benedict Arnold. Had he been as true as he was brave he might have left an honored name; and, even as it was, though history has not yet done justice in this wise, Arnold's bitter resentment toward the ungrateful Continental Congress was not without reason and excuse; nevertheless, his action resulting therefrom was unpardonable. In his treason, as was but natural, his splendid services were forgotten by his countrymen; but his wife was true to him in his degradation as in his glory. In an interview with Washington at West Point she even went so far as to accuse the commander-in-chief of conspiring to murder her infant as well as to degrade her husband; and we can forgive, as did Washington, even this to the tortured woman. During his residence in England after the Revolution, Arnold said to an Englishman who had met him casually and, being unaware of his personality, knowing only his nationality, asked him for some letters of introduction to be used in a purposed trip to America: "Sir, I am the only American in the world whose introduction would do you more harm than good; I am Benedict Arnold." There was here more than the bitterness of ostracism; but that bitterness, which made all his life a torment, never repelled his wife or caused her faith and love to swerve. She was loyal with even a higher loyalty than that given by her sisters of America to the cause of her country, for she was faithful in heart as in deed to one who had in all ways proved unworthy of faith.
It was this same Arnold who was mentioned in the diary of another belle of Philadelphia, Miss Sally Wister, when she wrote: "Our brave, our heroic General Washington was escorted by fifty of the Life Guard, with drawn swords. Each day he acquires an addition to his goodness. We have been very anxious to know how the inhabitants of Philadelphia have fared. I understand that General Arnold, who bears a good character, has the command of the city." She was writing from the Foulks estate, in Montgomery County, where she was staying for a time, and her diary, which concludes with the above quoted entry, is full of such warm expressions of patriotism that none can doubt that Miss Sally, who died a spinster, placed the cause of America even before the attractions of such men as Major Stoddert and Captain Dandridge, who vainly attempted to influence her to "change her condition," as the quaint old phrase puts it.