Sophia's War Read online

  plightful

  Full of distress or suffering

  plout

  To fall with a splash; to plunge or splash in water

  potheration

  Confusion, turmoil, trouble

  puddy

  Short, thickset; stumpy, podgy

  puzzledom

  The state of being puzzled; perplexity, bewilderment

  randy

  Having a rude, aggressive manner; loudmouthed and coarsely spoken

  rantum-scantum

  Disorderly

  resparkle

  To sparkle

  richitic

  Suggesting wealth, riches

  sensation

  An exciting experience; a strong emotion

  shay-brained

  Foolish, silly

  shilly-shally

  To vacillate, be irresolute or undecided

  shingle

  Small roundish stones; loose, water-worn pebbles such as are found collected upon the seashore

  stimulative

  Something having a stimulating quality; a motive inciting to action; a stimulus, incentive

  swinking

  To labor, toil, work hard; to exert oneself

  smutty

  Soiled with, full of, and/or characterized by smut; dirty; blackened

  stuck pig

  Stupid

  to rise at a feather

  To become easily upset

  topsy-turvy

  In complete confusion

  unknow

  To cease to know, to forget (what one has known)

  unwarp

  To uncoil, straighten out

  upstirring

  Stimulating, rousing

  vexed

  To be annoyed

  wondersome

  Wonderful

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  Sophia’s War contains three story threads, two of them as historically accurate as I could write them. The third, and major, thread is my invention.

  The first of these stories has to do with the treatment of American prisoners by the British in New York City during the Revolution. While I had known about the notorious prison hulks in Brooklyn’s Wallabout Bay, it was Edwin G. Burrows’s brilliant Forgotten Patriots that provided me with the full depth of misery American prisoners experienced. While Burrows has estimated that some seven thousand died upon the field of battle, he provides good evidence to show that as many as eighteen thousand died in Britain’s New York prisons!

  Burrows’s book and bibliographic sources (bibliographies being the amateur historian’s mother lode) offered the kind of detail I have been able to present here. For example, even the name—however ironic—of the prison ship the Good Intent is real.

  The other true story is that of British Major John André and General Benedict Arnold. Arnold is America’s most notorious traitor and his story is an event about which much has been researched and written. For example, all the secret letters that passed between Arnold and André may be read in Carl Van Doren’ s Secret History of the American Revolution. I have quoted only a very few of them, but what is here is accurate. Indeed, the depth of research about this affair is so rich, so detailed, that I can write with confidence (for example) that the Cahoon brothers, who rowed André to shore, muffled their oars in sheepskin, that the major gave a sixpence to the boy who directed him to Tarrytown, and that the phases of the moon in the night sky are as they were.

  With all the research focused on the André/Arnold story, there are two moments that must be accorded as remarkable coincidences. The first is the driving away of the Vulture, and the second is the presence of John Paulding and his friends near Tarrytown, which allowed the capture of André.

  By my reading, there is no convincing evidence as to how and why those things happened. It is here my fiction takes over. Sophia Calderwood is a complete invention, and it is she who links the treatment of prisoners to the capture of André. This tale is Sophia’s story, or, as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “There is properly no history, only biography.” Sophia is as true an individual as I could hope to create, and her actions provide an explanation as to what really happened in 1780.

  Let it be clear, however, that beyond Sophia and her family, every character in this book is real, be it John André, Robert Townsend, Peter Laune, Dr. Dastuge, or Provost Cunningham.

  History provides endlessly amazing stories. Historical fiction, I believe, can illuminate those stories with the ordinary people who make extraordinary history. Or let me put it this way: Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction makes truth a friend, not a stranger.

  Avi

  Avi is the author of more than seventy books for children and young adults, including the 2003 Newbery Medal winner Crispin: The Cross of Lead, and, most recently, City of Orphans. He has won two Newbery Honors and many other awards for his fiction. He lives with his family in Denver, Colorado. Visit him on the Web at Avi-writer.com.

  JACKET DESIGN BY

  DEBRA SFETSIOS-CONOVER

  JACKET ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT © 2012 BY

  EDEL RODRIGUEZ

  Beach Lane Books

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  NEW YORK

  Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at

  KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

  Also by Avi

  BRIGHT SHADOW

  THE CHRISTMAS RAT

  CITY OF ORPHANS

  CRISPIN: THE CROSS OF LEAD

  THE GOOD DOG

  NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

  SILENT MOVIE

  THINGS THAT SOMETIMES HAPPEN

  THE TRAITORS’ GATE

  THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF CHARLOTTE DOYLE

  S.O.R. LOSERS

  WOLF RIDER

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Barck, Oscar. New York City During the War for Independence: With Special Reference to the Period of British Occupation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931.

  Bliven, Bruce, Jr. Under the Guns: New York: 1775–1776. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.

  Burrows, Edwin G. Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners during the Revolutionary War. New York: Basic Books, 2008.

  Campbell, Charles. The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement, 1776–1857. Tucson, AZ: Fenestra Books, 2001.

  Decker, Peter. Ten Days of Infamy: An Illustrated Memoir of the Arnold-André Conspiracy. New York: Arno Press, 1969.

  Ford, Corey. A Peculiar Service: A Narrative of Espionage in and around New York during the American Revolution. Boston: Little Brown, 1965.

  Hatch, Robert McConnell. Major John André: A Gallant in Spy’s Clothing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

  Nagy, John A. Invisible Ink: Spycraft of the American Revolution. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2010.

  Rose, Alexander. Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring. New York: Bantam Books, 2007.

  Sheinkin, Steve. The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, & Treachery. New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2010.

  Van Doren, Carl. Secret History of the American Revolution: An Account of the Conspiracies of Benedict Arnold and Numerous Others, Drawn from the Secret Service Papers of the British Headquarters in North America, Now for the First Time Examined and Made Public. New York: Viking Press, 1941.

  Werner, Emmy E. In Pursuit of Liberty: Coming of Age in the American Revolution. Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, 2009.

  BEACH LANE BOOKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Avi Wortis, Inc.

  All rights reserved, i
ncluding the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  BEACH LANE BOOKS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Book design by Debra Sfetsios-Conover

  The text for this book is set in ITC Caslon 224 Std.

  0812 FFG

  First Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Avi, 1937–

  Sophia’s war : a tale of the Revolution / Avi.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In 1776, after witnessing the execution of Nathan Hale in New York City, newly occupied by the British army, young Sophia Calderwood resolves to do all she can to help the American cause, including becoming a spy.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-1441-9 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-1443-3 (eBook)

  1. New York (N.Y.)—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Juvenile fiction. [1. New York (N.Y.)—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Fiction. 2. United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Fiction. 3. United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783—Prisoners and prisons—Fiction. 4. Spies—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.A953Sq 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012007962