Defiant brides
Subtitle: the untold story of two revolutionary-era women and the radical men they married
By: Nancy Rubin Stuart
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 248
ISBN-13: 9780807001172
Subjects: Biography; History
Description: From the Preface...

LOVE STORIES FROM EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY America are rare and often fragmented. Fortunately enough of the correspondence of Lucy Flucker Knox (1756–1824) and Margaret (Peggy) Shippen Arnold (1760–1804) has been preserved to trace their controversial marriages and dramatic lives.

Born four years apart to wealthy parents in pre–Revolutionary Boston and Philadelphia, Lucy and Peggy were intelligent, well-educated girls. As each developed into an attractive teenager in the mid-1770s, the political ferment of the American Revolution reached the boiling point. In the midst of that turmoil, both might have married men of their privileged class and led docile, if historically invisible, lives.

Thankfully that did not happen. As the title of this double biography, Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married, implies both teenagers bucked social convention. One married radical patriot and poor bookseller Henry Knox in 1774; the other wed the then-military hero Benedict Arnold in 1779. Coupled with the young women's fateful marriages was their feistiness. Under different circumstances, Lucy and Peggy might have become friends.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: label: List of Internal Pictures; label: Preface; label: PART I
title: Defiant Brides; label: 1
title: "The Handsomest Woman in America"; label: 2
title: "The Best and Tenderest of Friends"; label: 3
title: "The Delight, and Comfort of Her Adoring General"; label: 4
title: "Our Sweetest Hopes Embittered by Disappointment"; label: 5
title: "Fortitude under Stress"; label: PART II
title: Tender Wives; label: 6
title: "As Good and Innocent as an Angel"; label: 7
title: "A Momentary Pang"; label: 8
title: "Haste Happy Time When We Shall Be No More Separate"; label: 9
title: "Yet We Wade On"; label: 10
title: "My Regret at This Cruel, Dreadful Separation"; label: PART III
title: Shadow Sisters; label: 11
title: "Illusive Bubbles"; label: 12
title: "An Irresistible but Invisible Force"; label: 13
title: "I Do Not Suffer My Spirits to Overcome Me"; label: 14
title: The Brides' Legacies; label: Acknowledgments; label: Notes; label: Bibliography; label: Index