John Champe (d. 30 September 1796), Continental army soldier, was born in Loudoun County in the mid-1750s and probably was the son of John Champe or Thomas Champe, the two sons and executors named in the 1763 will of John Champe, a Loudoun County farmer who bequeathed to his namesake grandson some household furnishings and utensils, a cow and calf, and a horse and saddle. The name of Champe's mother is not recorded. The Loudoun County family was related to the prominent family of that name in King George County, but the exact relationship has not been documented.
Champe was living in Loudoun County during the second half of 1776 when he enlisted as a private in the cavalry troop being raised by Captain Henry (later "Light-Horse Harry") Lee (1756–1818). One of six troops of light horse that composed the 1st Regiment of Continental Light Dragoons, Lee's troop joined George Washington's army in New Jersey in January 1777 and soon distinguished itself in scouting, foraging, and raiding actions. In April 1778 when Lee was promoted to major and given command of an independent partisan corps consisting of two light-horse troops, Champe became corporal of the 2d Troop, and on 1 January 1779, by which time Lee's corps had grown to consist of three troops, Champe was promoted to sergeant. The addition of three troops of infantry to Lee's command by the spring of 1780 transformed it into a legionary corps with an authorized strength of three hundred men, half mounted and half dismounted, capable of taking on special missions in all sorts of terrain. Sometime before the autumn of 1780 Champe apparently became the corps's sergeant major, its senior noncommissioned officer responsible for discipline, drill, and the duty roster.
Champe earned a place in history because of his attempt to capture Benedict Arnold. On 14 October 1780, soon after the discovery of Arnold's plot to surrender West Point and his escape to British-occupied New York City, George Washington asked Lee, who was then managing intelligence and reconnaissance operations in northern New Jersey, to devise a plan for abducting Arnold. About six days later Lee informed Washington that he had engaged two men for that purpose, a sergeant and a Newark inhabitant who had useful contacts with the enemy. Lee's plan was for Champe to join Arnold in the guise of a deserter and "contrive to insinuate himself into some menial or military birth about the Genls person." Champe would communicate with Lee through the intermediary in Newark until they could "seize the prize in the night, gag him, & bring him across to Bergen woods." Lee characterized the sergeant (whom he did not identify by name) as "a very promising youth of uncommon taciturnity, & inflexible perseverance. His connexions & his service in the army from the beginning of the war assure me that he will be faithful. I have instructed him not to return till he receives direction from me, but to continue his attempts, however unfavorable the prospect may appear at first. I have excited his thirst for fame by impressing on his mind the virtue & glory of the act." Lee also promised Champe a promotion. Washington approved Lee's plan on 20 October with the "express stipulation & pointed injunction" that Arnold be taken alive. Washington also warned that "the Sergeant must be very circumspect—too much zeal may create suspicion—and too much precipitancy may defeat the project."
Champe deserted from the American camp during the night of 20–21 October, and Lee reported seeing him and his civilian accomplice in Newark the next day. On 25 October, Lee wrote Washington that Champe had "accidentally met Col. Arnold in the street" and entertained "high hopes of success." Years later when writing his Memoirs, Lee stated that Champe had hinted vaguely to the British commanding general at the likelihood of many more American desertions and that a few days later the sergeant enlisted in the American Legion, the Loyalist corps that Arnold commanded. Lee's Memoirs also include a dramatic account of how Champe and his accomplice plotted to seize and gag Arnold in the garden behind his house late one night early in November, carry him like a drunken soldier through alleys and back streets to the Hudson River, and row him across to Hoboken, New Jersey, where Lee would meet them with a party of dragoons. That plan, Lee wrote, was thwarted the day before its attempted execution when Arnold unexpectedly moved his headquarters to another part of the city and ordered the American Legion, including Champe, to board transport ships for an expedition to Virginia. Lee's account cannot be substantiated in detail, however, because Arnold's expeditionary force did not embark until mid-December, by which time Lee and his corps were already on their way to join the Continental army in the Carolinas. In any event, the difficulty of abducting a man of Arnold's notoriety from a garrisoned city was so great that the chance of success could not have been very favorable.
According to Lee's Memoirs, Champe accompanied Arnold's expedition to Virginia, where he found an opportunity to desert from the British ranks in the spring of 1781. Traveling through the backcountry, Champe rejoined Lee's corps in South Carolina that summer. Lee introduced the sergeant to General Nathanael Greene, who promptly sent him north to General Washington. According to Lee, Washington discharged Champe from the army so that he would not run the risk of being captured and executed by the British.
Champe married in July 1783 and settled in Hampshire County. He and Phebe Champe (whose maiden name is not known) had at least four daughters and three sons before he died on 30 September 1796 while inspecting land along the Monongahela River near Morgantown. Champe's presumed gravesite is in Prickett Cemetery at Prickett's Fort State Park in Marion County, West Virginia.
Sources Consulted:
William Buckner McGroarty, "Sergeant John Champe and Certain of His Contemporaries," William and Mary Quarterly, 2d ser., 17 (1937): 145–175; George F. Scheer, "The Sergeant Major's Strange Mission," American Heritage 8 (Oct. 1957): 26–29, 98; Peter F. Stevens, "The Strange Saga of John Champe: The Virginian Who Attempted to Kidnap Benedict Arnold," Virginia Cavalcade 35 (1985): 64–69; grandfather's will in Loudoun Co. Will Book, A:96–97; Henry Lee, Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States (1812), 2:159–187, a dramatized account that gives Champe's age as twenty-three or twenty-four in 1780, suggesting a birth date about 1756 or 1757; a fabricated account, adapted from Lee's Memoirs but purporting to be by Champe, was published in the Dec. 1834 issue of the British magazine United Service Journal and reprinted in William and Mary Quarterly, 2d ser., 18 (1938): 322–342; quotations from Henry Lee to George Washington, n.d. [ca. 20 Oct. 1780], and 25 Oct. 1780, George Washington Papers, Library of Congress, WAshington, D.C., and from Washington to Lee, 20 Oct. 1780, de Coppet Collection, Princeton University; John Frederick Dorman, ed., Virginia Revolutionary Pension Applications (1973), 17:55–56; depositions of widow Phebe Champe, 13 Dec. 1828 (with marriage and death dates), and elder brother William Champe, 17 Dec. 1828 (also with death date), Bounty Warrants (1779–1860), Office of the Governor, Record Group 3, Library of Virginia (LVA); John Champe file, Land Office Military Certificates (1782–1876), Virginia Land Office, Record Group 4, LVA; John Champe file, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, Record Group 15, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. (with variant marriage date of July 1782 in appended report Phebe, Widow of John Champe, 25th Cong., 2d sess., 17 Feb. 1838, House Rept. 568, serial 335); dedication of stone at presumed gravesite reported in Morgantown [W.Va.] Dominion Post, 23 Apr. 2001.
Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Philander D. Chase.
How to cite this page:
Philander D. Chase, "John Champe (d. 1796)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2006 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Champe_John, accessed [today's date]).
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