It was the opening overture of the Revolutionary War. Boston had ditched its tea, Thomas Jefferson was finishing up the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington had brought the ragtag Continental Army to New York, where a British invasion was expected at any moment.
And if all went as New York's governor planned, Washington would soon be dead.
That's according to thriller writer Brad Meltzer, who, with Josh Mensch, has written his first nonfiction book, "The First Conspiracy," about a little-known plot to assassinate the commander-in-chief.
We love in America to tell the story of the American Revolution where we just all held hands together, dreamed of democracy and took on the British," Meltzer says. "It's a great story. It's not the real story."
There was no polling data then, but historians estimate that in the summer of 1776, about one in five white colonists were loyal to the king. Most loyalists were in the middle colonies of New York and New Jersey, and included New York's royal governor, William Tryon.
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