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
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
Beach Lane Books
SIMON & SCHUSTER
NEW YORK
Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at
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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.
BEACH LANE BOOKS
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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.
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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