David Eppenstein's Reviews > Defiant Brides: The Untold Story of Two Revolutionary-Era Women and the Radical Men They Married

I found this book thanks to the review of a GR friend. Histories of our Founders are always of interest to me and this one offered a glimpse into the lives of a couple of their wives. Better yet one of these wives was Peggy Shippen Arnold wife of Benedict Arnold. I've read 7 or 8 biographies of Arnold as he has become a fascination for me personally since his story is replete with life lessons that we all should be familiar with. I have already read a full biography of his wife but there's always the chance to learn something more so a purchase was made.

Now I wasn't expecting too much from this book and it is only 212 pages of text so my expectation was reinforced by number of pages for what is a biography of two women. The author's preface further informs the reader that there isn't much primary source material available for women in general from this period of history. As the author explains women were rarely ever part of the events that comprise history as their roles were restricted to domestic responsibilities. As a consequence very little was ever written about women or written by women so the challenge of this book was to find enough material upon which to assemble a respectable history. The two women the author has chosen are Peggy Shippen Arnold and Lucy Flucker Knox, wife of Henry Knox, Revolutionary War general and our first secretary of war.

Both of these women have similar lives and origins prior to their marriages. Both were from prominent families and both had advantageous lives. The Shippen family were politically neutral during the Revolution. I would term them more as fence straddlers never declaring for one side or the other but cooperating with whom ever was in power at the moment. Lucy's family were Loyalists and left for England when things became heated. Neither of these two families approved of the choices their daughters made for a husband. The Shippens tolerated Arnold for the sake of peace with their spoiled daughter Peggy while the Fluckers refused to attend the wedding of their headstrong daughter Lucy and then left for London. The pairing of these two women and their marriages is very interesting, more interesting than I expected.

I'm giving this book 4 stars though it's closer to being a 3.5 star book. What pushes it to 4 is the amount of detail reported in the everyday affairs these 2 women and their friends and families. The reader will be treated to learning about the social lives of well to do 18th century women and what their values, concerns, joys, and sorrows were. My God, Lucy Knox had 13 children in a time when childbirth was an extremely dangerous undertaking. Of that 13 children only 3 survived and the reader can't help but wonder how she stayed sane and functioning. Every few pages Lucy is pregnant and then a few more pages and one of the kids is sick and then dead. Keep in mind that these women were well off by the standards of the day so can the reader imagine the lives of the wives of the ordinary Revolutionary soldier of the time? I love histories that give the reader a look at ordinary life taking place during historic events. These women weren't ordinary but the quality of their lives was no walk in the park so the reader can only imagine the lives of others.

Since the available material for these women isn't very extensive it is more than what there probably is available for any other woman of the time. The author I believe is forced to compensate for the lack of really meaty detail by including how these women were affected by the lives of their husbands. Considering the role of women in this time such inclusion should be expected. I was very familiar with Arnold and his treason but this book offered detail that I had not discovered in any of the numerous biographies of Arnold that I have read. That alone was enough for me to earn the 4th star but that's a bias of mine. But I also have to say that I really didn't know that much about Knox so this book is also a partial biography of the 2 husbands of these 2 wives. So while the book is supposed to be about 2 women it would be impossible to write their story without including their husbands. This was an engaging and informative little treasure of a book about a very small part of our Revolutionary history. Enjoy