Hon Yost Schuyler

While the Civil War is often characterized as pitting "brother against brother," the American Revolutionary War divided families even more. 

The Schuyler Family shared two brothers as ancestors. Hon Yost's father Peter David was already outcast from the family by the war and chose to live with the Mohawk, but the Revolution put the entire family's life at risk.

Someone like Hon Yost could not keep his allegiances secret, either: his aunt was Alida Schuyler, who married Patriot Captain George Herkimer. She became sister-in-law to General Nicholas Herkimer, the commander of the Tryon County Militia. The Militia predated the Revolution and stood in opposition to the Mohawk. When the Mohawk ambushed the Tryon County Militia and killed Nicholas Herkimer at the Battle of Oriskany, from Hon Yost's perspective, his adoptive family and his biological family was now trying to kill each other.

This conflict badly exacerbated Hon Yost's preexisting mental illness. He may or may not have held genuine political belief in the Loyalist cause, but the Loyalists via the Haudenosaunee were the only side offering him the possibility of genuine safety. Accepting Benedict Arnold's offer of an espionage mission in exchange for not only his life, but the safety of his mother and brother and the chance to escape to Canada, points to safety and not politics as his primary motivation.