John André Self Portrait

The night before his execution in Tappan, New York, for espionage, British adjutant general and amateur artist Major John André sketched this self-portrait. Ten days earlier, on September 21, 1780, André had gathered military intelligence about West Point's defenses from American commander Benedict Arnold. Apprehended before he could return to his ship, André was arrested and shortly afterwards sentenced to death by hanging. The doomed André became a romantic figure to some American officers, who considered Arnold to be the real villain and André the scapegoat. The Marquis de Lafayette wrote to his wife that André “behaved with so much frankness, courage, and delicacy, that I could not help lamenting his unhappy fate.”