Publisher's Synopsis
What drove a woman from the upper crust of eighteenth-century New England culture to plot the assassination of her husband with American and British soldiers in the middle of the American Revolution? For decades, inhabitants of Worcester County have been intrigued and perplexed by the tale of Bathsheba Spooner. The story is widely unknown outside of central Massachusetts. Many people believe the story is legendary when they first hear it. It was, in effect, the most dramatic "true crime" tragedy in American history during the 1700s.
The episode ingredients included a cold, possibly abusive husband, a handsome, directionless teenager, a pair of roughened British prisoners-of-war, and readily available cash set aflame by social and political isolation, wartime uncertainty and social upheaval. Add to this mixture a haughty, impetuous and (possibly insane) beautiful woman, and what resulted was a brutal homicide whose notoriety was only heightened by the distraction of New Englanders war-weary and economically stressed.
