40 Fun Facts About Sophia's War

Sophia's War opens as Sophia watches the British hang which young American spy in occupied New York?

Nathan Hale was a 21-year-old Continental officer caught gathering intelligence behind British lines. Watching him die shows Sophia what spying can cost, years before she takes the same risk.

John André, the British officer hanged as a spy in Sophia's War, is now buried in which English church?

Westminster Abbey received his remains in 1821, moved from beneath the American gallows at a royal duke's request. The enemy spy now rests among kings and poets under a marble monument.

In Sophia's War, how does British Lieutenant John André first enter Sophia's life in occupied New York?

He boards in their home because the occupying army makes the Calderwoods house British officers. Sophia, whose soldier brother is missing, finds herself charmed by an enemy under her own roof.

In Sophia's War, Benedict Arnold plots to hand the British which American stronghold on the Hudson?

West Point sat on high ground above a tight bend in the river, so its guns could stop British warships sailing upriver. Losing it would have split New England from the other states.

In the second half of Sophia's War, Sophia spies inside British Army headquarters while working as what?

A maid is the cover her spy handlers arrange inside the British commander's own house. There she finds André, now a major, at work on a secret that could wreck the whole American war effort.

In Sophia's War, William Calderwood is held in a notorious British prison converted from what?

A sugar house was a warehouse or refinery for Caribbean sugar and molasses, and the British packed several with rebel prisoners. One on Liberty Street held 400 to 500 men at a time.

In Sophia's War, Sophia first seeks her brother at King's College, a New York school known today as what?

Columbia University began in 1754 as King's College under a royal charter. War shut its classes for eight years while armies used its only building as a barracks and military hospital.

Condemned as a spy, John André of Sophia's War asked George Washington to let him die by what means?

A firing squad was a soldier's death, while hanging was kept for spies, so André pleaded for bullets. His request was not granted, and he went to the gallows in full British uniform.

Sophia's War mentions which Thomas Paine pamphlet that urged the colonies to break from Britain?

Common Sense appeared anonymously in January 1776 and became an immediate sensation. Its plain case for a republic with a written constitution helped rally colonists behind a clean break.

What hid George Washington's river escape after the defeat that leaves William missing in Sophia's War?

A thick fog settled over the East River at daybreak, just as the boats were running out of darkness. All 9,000 trapped soldiers reached Manhattan without a single life lost.

In Sophia's War, William Calderwood goes missing after George Washington's army loses which battle?

Brooklyn was the largest battle of the whole war, and losing it handed New York to the British until the peace. Avi grew up on the old battlefield, which first drew him to the Revolution.

In Sophia's War, Sophia's parents keep their house by posing as Loyalists, known by which nickname?

Tories were also called Royalists or King's Men, and one modern estimate makes them only 15 to 20 percent of white colonists. Posing as one lets Sophia's parents stay on in occupied New York.

Sophia's father signs which document for King George after the British occupy New York in Sophia's War?

An oath of allegiance marked a colonist as a loyal subject, whatever he privately believed. It teaches Sophia that under occupation, private beliefs and public words have to part ways.

Sophia's affection for John André in Sophia's War is shaken when the British officer refuses to do what?

Aid her captive brother is all Sophia asks, and André, for all his charm, chooses not to. She is left to try to save William by herself, and her opinion of the officer never recovers.

In Sophia's War, Sophia's long search for William ends aboard which British prison ship in the harbor?

The Good Intent is the last stop in a search that takes Sophia from a college to a warehouse jail to the harbor. Its kindly name hangs over a hold where rebel prisoners are left to die.

In Sophia's War, Sophia is planted in the New York house of which British commander-in-chief in America?

Henry Clinton led British forces in America from 1778 to 1782, with John André as his favourite aide. He did all he could to save André from the gallows, yet declined to hand Benedict Arnold over.

In Sophia's War, Sophia joins which secret Patriot spy network that served George Washington in New York?

The Culper Ring took its name from Culpeper County, Virginia, where Washington had worked as a young surveyor. Its two chief agents signed their reports as Samuel Culper Senior and Junior.

Which real spy in Sophia's War sent George Washington reports under the code number 723?

Robert Townsend was so guarded that he made a fellow agent promise never to reveal his name, even to Washington. His orders were to mix with British officers in the city's coffee houses.

In Sophia's War, Major André carries a pass from Benedict Arnold made out in which false name?

John Anderson was the name meant to get him past American sentries. It failed when three militiamen searched him anyway and found the plans of the fort hidden in his stocking.

What is Major John André's reaction in Sophia's War on meeting Sophia again at headquarters three years on?

He does not know her, because the twelve-year-old he once flirted with is now fifteen and working as a servant. Being overlooked stings Sophia, yet it is what lets her watch him.

In Sophia's War, which British sloop takes André up the Hudson before American cannon drive it off?

HMS Vulture took several hits in a two-hour cannonade and slipped away, stranding André on shore with no way back by water. Days later it carried the fleeing Benedict Arnold to safety.

Which militiaman in Sophia's War helped seize Major André days after escaping a British prison himself?

John Paulding was the only one of the three captors who could read, so it fell to him to study the hidden papers. André offered his horse and watch as a bribe and was turned down.

John André is caught in Sophia's War after mistaking a militiaman in which soldiers' coat for a friend?

Hessian troops were Germans hired out to fight for Britain, so André seems to have taken the wearer for an ally. The coat was a disguise the man had used to slip out of occupied New York.

In Sophia's War, which American major urges Colonel Jameson not to send the captured André to Arnold?

Benjamin Tallmadge ran Washington's military intelligence and suspected treason at once. He lost the argument over warning Arnold, but won enough to have André turned back and held.

In the history behind Sophia's War, John André was tried in a church and hanged in which New York village?

Tappan was the Continental Army's headquarters, across the Hudson from the road where André was caught. He was tried in its Reformed Church and buried beside the gallows.

The hanging that opens Sophia's War took place one day after which disaster struck British-held New York?

A great fire burned as much as a quarter of the city's buildings overnight. British leaders blamed rebels hiding in the city, while Washington and Congress denied any part in it.

In Sophia's War, what does Sophia do when she cannot pass her discovery to her spy contacts?

Travels north alone is the bold answer: a fifteen-year-old sets out for the American lines to stop the plot herself. She knows that being caught could mean a hanging of her own.

Besides stopping the treason, which personal motive drives Sophia against John André in Sophia's War?

Revenge for William's death in British hands sits beside her patriotism, and she knows it. Sophia keeps checking whether her motives for spying are pure.

In Sophia's War, what does John André write for young Sophia that later contributes to his undoing?

A poem fits the real André, a charmer who could draw, sing and write verse. A religious poem was found in his pocket after his execution.

Where in New York stands the monument and crypt for the prison-ship dead whose ordeal Sophia's War depicts?

Fort Greene Park holds a 149-foot column above a crypt for some of the 11,500 prisoners who died on the ships. Their bones had been washing out of the nearby shoreline for years.

Avi, author of Sophia's War, won the Newbery Medal for which novel about a medieval peasant boy?

Crispin: The Cross of Lead won in 2003 and was Avi's fiftieth book. He had come close twice before, with Newbery Honors in 1991 and 1992.

Avi, who wrote Sophia's War, got his one-word pen name as a childhood nickname from which relative?

His twin sister gave him the name when he was about a year old, and it stuck for life. Born Edward Irving Wortis, he is far better known to readers by those three letters.

Before it was published as Sophia's War, Avi's spy novel carried which one-word working title?

Deception runs through the whole story: Sophia's parents fake their loyalties, officers travel under false names, and Sophia herself deceives to do her work.

Before the hanging scene, Sophia's War begins with what short piece signed by Sophia Calderwood?

A letter to the reader has Sophia asking whether she was right to act as she did. Because she tells the story in retrospect, readers learn on the first page that she survives it.

Early in Sophia's War, what do British soldiers do to Sophia's father as the war closes in on Manhattan?

They wound him, a shock that brings the war inside Sophia's own door. The novel shows such horrors plainly, including the misery of the prisons, though never in gratuitous detail.

The young American spy whose hanging opens Sophia's War had worked in which profession before the war?

Schoolteacher was also the disguise he chose for his mission, posing as a Dutch master looking for work. He reportedly carried his real Yale diploma, with his own name on it.

Sophia's War opens in September 1776, eleven weeks after the colonies adopted which founding document?

The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, and the fight for New York was the first major battle to follow it. Sophia herself cites its list of British wrongs early in her story.

Sophia's War was planned as the third book in an Avi history series that began with which Civil War novel?

Iron Thunder put an invented boy into the true story of the ironclad Monitor, and Sophia's tale was to follow the same recipe. The first publisher dropped the series, so it came out as a stand-alone.

Before the treason at the heart of Sophia's War, Benedict Arnold was a battlefield hero of which American victory?

Saratoga left Arnold with leg injuries that kept him out of combat for years. Posted to Philadelphia, he married into a Loyalist household and soon began bargaining with the British.

Benedict Arnold, the traitor of Sophia's War, married which Philadelphia Loyalist just before he began plotting?

Peggy Shippen was no bystander: she played a part in the conspiracy, which began soon after the wedding. She was Arnold's second wife and followed him into exile in England.