so i’ve been applying to film schools and i didn’t realize one of them had a cutoff for scholarship applications at 11:59 november 1 until... 11:00 on november 1. i then proceeded to write a five hundred word summation on the life of john andré and an eight hundred word script on the execution of john andré in under an hour, while having just taken a muscle relaxer. i submitted both pieces at 11:58. then again, if you can tell the entire story while absolutely hammered, you can do anything.
on this day in history, 237 years ago: head of british intelligence, john andré, was hanged as a spy in tappan, new york.
Does John Andre have any descendants? ( obviously not directly from him but..)
Nope! To my knowledge, all of his siblings died unmarried and without issue, as well, so the André line died out with his generation.
Today in history (September 22): In 1776, Nathan Hale, Continental officer and spy, is hanged for espionage by British troops in New York City. Ironically, John André, British head of Intelligence, spent his last day as a free man exactly four years later, in 1780, before his capture in Tarrytown, New York the next day. André would also be hanged for espionage just under two weeks later on October 2, 1780.
what do you think andre's sexuality was?
Ah, my favorite question. I definitely think he was bisexual. Like, pretty much the bi-est bi to ever bi. More bi than Hamilton, if that’s even possible.
Basically, he was super in love with a writer named Honora Sneyd, who he was actually engaged to before he joined the army. Their parents broke them up because they didn’t think a long distance relationship was suitable (and also for financial reasons), and André was so devastated by it that it actually helped further his decision to become an officer.
He actually, fun fact, carried a torch for her for quite a while. When he was captured as a POW in Canada in 1775, he was still carrying a miniature he’d done of her with him… and concealed it in his mouth so the Continentals didn’t take it from him when they searched him. Weirdo.
And, of course, he was known to be a total ladies man; he was hot and the women of Loyalist court in Philadelphia, Peggy Shippen included, were fainting every time he walked into the room. That last part may not be true. But Elizabeth Schuyler had a crush on him! (And so did her future husband, fancy that.)
On the flip side of that, basically every man in the Continental army who met André post his capture was, like, totally in love with him. He was a romantic and a perfect gentleman, someone even men in the opposing army –– his captors –– found attractive (you can find some of their quotes about him here).
While I realize this isn’t direct proof of interaction with the Continentals being below the belt in any way, I just don’t think that many men would have been so enthralled by him had he not… exuded some sort of flirtatious aura, if you know what I mean.
It should be noted that most of his correspondence in general hasn’t been kept, so a lot of that is speculation based on accounts we have from Continentals. But, that being said, he was totally bisexual and made everyone who knew him fall in love with him.
do u know what andres views on slavery were?
There’s not really any information on whether he or his family owned any slaves. Before he’d joined the army, his profession as a merchant wouldn’t have required any real manual labor, so I doubt he would have had any slaves beyond a house servant (at most). I haven’t been able to find anything about him having one while in the States, either, but it’s entirely possible.
That being said, when he planned and threw the Mischianza, his personal account of the evening does describe slaves serving during the party. There’s also no record of him ever speaking out against slavery, so I think it’s safe to say that he probably supported the idea but never had the need himself.
Sorry, I'm new, but wasn't John Andre the guy that everybody was sad to have to hang because he was too pretty? Like, that's oversimplified of course, but am I thinking of the right person?
would u say that the traitor and the spy by james flexner is an accurate portrayal of andre? its on sale at my local bookstore but i dont want to get it if its not good...
It’s pretty good (though I’d hazard to say it does focus a bit more on Arnold than André). If you’d like a preview of it before you decide on buying it, you can preview it here. Most of the book is actually online.
hey so i know its kind of a thing to make tshirts from ur fav historical figures school with their names on it what school would i put for andre if i wanted a similar thing? i know he went to st pauls and westminster school but like... idk if those work really?
Choosing a school for that purpose is a little bit difficult because they all still exist –– even if you were to use the University of Geneva, which is where he went to school in Switzerland, it’d be a bit strange because, you know, people go there and they sell actual apparel.
Perhaps the route to go isn’t his schooling, but his regiment? It could be cool to see the 7th Royal Fusiliers coat of arms on a t-shirt (they do already exist, technically, but I doubt they’re as widespread as any of the schools and, well, the design of the ones available can definitely be improved). Hope that helped!
Just out of curiosity, when and how did your interest in André start? and how long have you been doing research on him?
Well, I’ve been interested in history all my life and the American Revolution in particular since I was probably in, like, the third grade. I know I’d seen the name then but hadn’t necessarily connected with him at that point. Then, it was something more along the lines of what most people know: that he was the British officer that helped Benedict Arnold attempt to betray the United States.
I’d say my general interest in him spurned sometime while I was in high school, maybe tenth grade when I took AP U.S. History? Again, I don’t know that I really appreciated him then, either. At least, not to the point I do now. I’d familiarized with him and the whole Arnold situation for a DBQ, but that was sort of that.
Ironically, though I only started watching Turn about six months ago, I’d say when I really started to get interested in him was around when the show began (and I’d decided to specialize in American History in school). I don’t know, something just clicked; I have a soft spot for historical figures of his ilk (see my other English fave: John Keats), so I suppose my interest in him was only a matter of time.
This blog has gone through many phases and he was never the focus — or even mentioned, I don’t think — until relatively recently, mostly because I either wasn’t consistently using tumblr or my aesthetic lol at the time was different.
TLDR; I’ve known of him for a very long time, but the genuine love started about two years ago.
any good book recs on john andre's life?
There aren’t very many biographies on André, and certainly nothing recent that I’d recommend. Most of the information I get is from scouring the internet for hours on end, though they’re often bits and pieces from different sources (mostly books mentioning him, not actual specific biographies — like Washington's Spies by Alexander Rose). If you’re willing to wait a few years, I’m planning on writing a biography on André myself, haha.
That being said, I’m currently working through The Life and Career of Major John André, Adjutant-General of the British Army in America by Winthrop Sargent. I’m not sure how much of it I’m buying into, given I’ve already caught a couple of inconsistencies with other sources (and it’s written by an American, so there’s some bias there), but there’s also content in there I haven’t seen before, so I’ll keep up with it for now.
His journal from June 1777 to November 1778 is available online, though! You can find the transcription of it here. It’s really just a catalogue of British movements and engagements at the time, and not really any personal information, but I found it interesting for timeline purposes.
Hey, in your post about turn and André you said that scenes Weren't Gay Enough and you never got back to it. I know that A. Hamilton mentioned in his letter to Laurens that André was attractive, but is there anything else about the? Loved your post
Whoops! My B. There was a lot going on in that post and it must have slipped my mind! Sorry.
So, there’s a lot of evidence toward the fact that multiple members of the Continental army were particularly ~attached to André. Hamilton’s letter, which I dissected here, is one of them. I also wrote another post, which you can find here, that goes a bit more in depth with the other soldiers’ (Tallmadge and Lafayette included) opinions and words on André. And just because Tallmadge was extra, extra attached, here’s a quote of him defending André thirty years after his death.
Hope that helps!
If Andre's mother died in 1813 at 91 but his father died in 1869, how old were they when they married??
Good question! Unfortunately, I don’t have a very specific answer. According to the Westminster Abbey website (which I’m not too sure to trust date-wise, as it says André’s birthday is 1751 when it’s actually 1750), his father died in 1769 at the age of 52, which would mean he was born in 1717. André’s mother died in 1813 at the age of 91, so she was born in 1722.
I can’t find many official documents regarding the André family, but I think it’s safe to say they were at least married before 1750, when André was born (his father and mother would have been 33 and 28, respectively). It could have been, and likely was, much earlier than that, but without the birth dates of his sisters to gauge with, I can only give an approximation. I’d say they were likely married sometime in the mid-1730s to early 1740s.
Sorry I can’t give a closer estimate! I hope this at least helped a bit.
A few fun facts about the rest of the André family:
