CONTENTS:

Letter from G. Washington 

Organization of Intelligence 
  The Committee of Secret Correspondence 
  The Secret Committee 
  The Committee on Spies

Intelligence Operations 
  Political Action 
  Covert Action 
  Foreign Intelligence 
  Wartime Special Operations 
  Counterintelligence 
  Deception Operations 
  Propaganda

Intelligence Techniques 
  Secrecy and Protection 
  Cover 
  Disguise 
  Secret Writing 
  Codes and Ciphers 
  Intercepting Communications 
  Technology 
  Intelligence Analysis and Estimates 

Personalities 
  George Washington 
  Washington's Intelligence Officers
  Paul Revere and the Mechanics 
  Martyrs and Heroes 




LETTER FROM G. WASHINGTON

8 Miles East of Morris Town July 26: 1777.
Sir 

By a Letter received this morning from Lord Stirling of the 22d Inst, I 
find he intends to pursue his Rout from Peeks Kill, thro Keckyate & 
Pyramus to the Great Falls -- From thence thro Watsessing -- Springfield & 
Brunswick or Bound Brook. 

The reason of my being thus particular in describing Lord Stirling's Rout, 
is, Because I wish you to take every possible pains in your power, by 
sending trusty persons to Staten Island in whom you can confide, to obtain 
Intelligence of the Enemy's situation & numbers -- what kind of Troops 
they are, and what Guards they have -- their strength & where posted. -- 
My view in this, is, that his Lordship, when he arrives, may make an 
attempt upon the Enemy there with his division, If it should appear from a 
full consideration of all circumstances and the information you obtain, 
that it can be done with a strong prospect of Success. -- You will also 
make some enquiry How many Boats are & may be certainly [used?] to 
transport the Troops, in case the Enterprize [should?] appear adviseable. 
You will, after having assured yourself upon these [several?] matters, 
send a good & faithful Officer to meet Lord Stirling with a distinct and 
accurate Account of every thing -- As well respecting the numbers & 
strength of the Enemy -- their situation &c -- As about the Boats, that he 
may have a General view of the whole, and possessing all the 
circumstances, may know how to regulate his conduct in the Affair. 

The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent & need not be 
further urged -- All that remains for me to add is, that you keep the 
whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in 
Most Enterprizes of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally 
defeated, however well planned & promising a favourable issue. 

I am Sir 
Yr Most Obed Sert 
G. Washington 



ORGANIZATION OF INTELLIGENCE

THE COMMITTEE OF SECRET CORRESPONDENCE

Recognizing the need for foreign intelligence and foreign alliances, the 
Second Continental Congress created the Committee of Correspondence (soon 
renamed the Committee of Secret Correspondence) by a resolution of 
November 29, 1775: 

RESOLVED, That a committee of five would be appointed for the sole purpose 
of corresponding with our friends in Great Britain, and other parts of the 
world, and that they lay their correspondence before Congress when 
directed; 

RESOLVED, That this Congress will make provision to defray all such 
expenses as they may arise by carrying on such correspondence, and for the 
payment of such agents as the said Committee may send on this service. 

The Committee members-America's first foreign intelligence directorate-
were Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Harrison of Virginia and 
Thomas Johnson of Maryland. Subsequent appointees included James Lovell, a 
teacher who had been arrested by the British after the battle of Bunker 
Hill on charges of spying. He had later been exchanged for a British 
prisoner and was then elected to the Continental Congress. On the 
Committee of Secret Correspondence he became the Congress' expert on codes 
and ciphers and has been called the father of American cryptanalysis. 

The committee employed secret agents abroad, conducted covert operations, 
devised codes and ciphers, funded propaganda activities, authorized the 
opening of private mail, acquired foreign publications for use in 
analysis, established a courier system, and developed a maritime 
capability apart from that of the Navy. It met secretly in December 1775 
with a French intelligence agent who visited Philadelphia under cover as a 
Flemish merchant, and engaged in regular communications with Britons and 
Scots who sympathized with the Patriots' cause. 

On April 17, 1777, the Committee of Secret Correspondence was renamed the 
Committee of Foreign Affairs, but kept with its intelligence function. 
Matters of diplomacy were conducted by other committees or by the Congress 
as a whole. With the creation of a Department of Foreign Affairs-the 
forerunner of the Department of State-on January 10, 1781, correspondence 
"for the purpose of obtaining the most extensive and useful information 
relative to foreign affairs" was shifted to the new body, whose secretary 
was empowered to correspond "with all other persons from whom he may 
expect to receive useful information." 


THE SECRET COMMITTEE

Even before setting up the Committee of Secret Correspondence, the Second 
Continental Congress had created a Secret Committee by a resolution on 
September 18, 1775. The Committee was given wide powers and large sums of 
money to obtain military supplies in secret, and was charged with 
distributing the supplies and selling gunpowder to privateers chartered by 
the Continental Congress. The Committee also took over and administered on 
a uniform basis the secret contracts for arms and gunpowder previously 
negotiated by certain members of the Congress without the formal sanction 
of that body. The Committee kept its transactions secret, and destroyed 
many of its records to assure the confidentiality of its work. 

The Secret Committee employed agents overseas, often in cooperation with 
the Committee of Secret Correspondence. It also gathered intelligence 
about Tory secret ammunition stores and arranged to seize them. The Secret 
Committee sent missions to plunder British supplies in the southern 
colonies. It arranged the purchase of military stores through 
intermediaries so as to conceal the fact that the Continental Congress was 
the true purchaser. The Secret Committee used foreign flags to protect its 
vessels from the British fleet. 

The members of the Continental Congress appointed to the Committee 
included some of the most influential and responsible members of the 
Congress: Franklin, Robert Morris, Robert Livingston, John Dickinson, 
Thomas Willing, Thomas McKean, John Langdon, and Samuel Ward. 


THE COMMITTEE ON SPIES

On June 5, 1776, the Congress appointed John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, 
Edward Rutledge, James Wilson and Robert Livingston "to consider what is 
proper to be done with persons giving intelligence to the enemy or 
supplying them with provisions." The same Committee was charged with 
revising the Articles of War in regard to espionage directed against the 
patriot forces. The problem was an urgent one; Dr. Benjamin Church, chief 
physician of the Continental Army, had already been seized and imprisoned 
as a British agent, but there was no civilian espionage act, and military 
law did not provide punishment severe enough to afford a deterrent, in the 
judgment of Washington and other Patriot leaders. On November 7, 1775, the 
Continental Congress added the death penalty for espionage to the Articles 
of War, but the clause was not applied retroactively, and Dr. Church 
remained in jail. 

On August 21, 1776, the Committee's report was considered by the 
Continental Congress, which enacted the first espionage act: 

RESOLVED, That all persons not members of, nor owing allegiance to, any of 
the United States of America, as described in a resolution to the Congress 
of the 29th of June last, who shall be found lurking as spies in or about 
the fortification or encampments of the armies of the United States, or of 
any of them, shall suffer death, according to the law and usage of 
nations, by sentence of a court martial, or such ether punishment as such 
court martial may direct. 

It was resolved further that the act "be printed at the end of the rules 
and articles of war." On February 27, 1778, the Continental Congress 
broadened the law to include any "inhabitants of these states" whose 
intelligence activities aided the enemy in capturing or killing Patriots. 



INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS

POLITICAL ACTION

While the Committee of Secret Correspondence was meeting secretly in 
Philadelphia with agents of France, Arthur Lee was meeting in London with 
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, the successful author of The Barber 
of Seville (and later The Marriage of Figaro)-who was a French agent. 
Lee's inflated reports of patriot strength, which either he fabricated for 
Beaumarchais' benefit or were provided by Lee's regular correspondent, Sam 
Adams, won the Frenchman to the American cause. Beaumarchais repeatedly 
urged the French Court to give immediate assistance to the Americans, and 
on February 29, 1776 addressed a memorial to Louis XVI quoting Lee's offer 
of a secret long-term treaty of commerce in exchange for secret aid to the 
war of independence. Beaumarchais explained that France could grant such 
aid without compromising itself, but urged that "success of the plan 
depends wholly upon rapidity as well as secrecy: Your Majesty knows better 
than any one that secrecy is the soul of business, and that in politics a 
project once disclosed is a project doomed to failure." 
With the memorial, Beaumarchais submitted a plan proposing that he set up 
a commercial trading firm as a cover for the secret French aid; he 
requested and was granted one million livres to establish a firm to be 
known as Roderigue Hortalez et Cie for that purpose. Beaumarchais' 
memorial was followed by one of March 12, 1776, by the French Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, the Comte de Vergennes. Royal assent was granted, and by 
the time Silas Deane arrived in Paris, French aid was on its way to the 
patriots. Deane expanded the Franco-American relationship, working with 
Beaumarchais and other French merchants to procure ships, commission 
privateers, recruit French officers, and purchase French military supplies 
declared "surplus" for that purpose. 

On September 26, 1776, the Continental Congress elected three 
commissioners to the Court of France, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson 
and Silas Deane, resolving that "secrecy shall be observed until further 
Order of Congress; and that until permission be obtained from Congress to 
disclose the particulars of this business, no member be permitted to say 
anything more upon this subject, than that Congress have taken such steps 
as they judged necessary for the purpose of obtaining foreign alliance." 
Because of his wife's illness, Jefferson could not serve, and Arthur Lee 
was appointed in his stead. 

With Franklin's arrival in France on November 29, 1776-the first 
anniversary of the founding of the Committee of Secret Correspondence-the 
vital French mission became an intelligence and propaganda center for 
Europe, an unofficial diplomatic representation, a coordinating facility 
for aid from America's secret allies, and a recruiting station for such 
French officers as Lafayette and Kalb. In October 1777 the Continental 
Army won a crucial victory over the British at Saratoga, and on February 
6, 1778, the French-American treaty of alliance was signed. On March 30, 
1778, Franklin, Lee, and Deane were received at the French Court as 
representatives of the United States of America, and on July 7 of that 
year Comte d'Estaing's French fleet cast anchor in the Delaware River. 
France was in the war; the mission to Paris had succeeded. 

Spain, at the urging of French Foreign Minister Vergennes, matched 
France's one million livres for the operation of Hortalez et Cie. But that 
was not the beginning of secret Spanish aid to the Patriots. During the 
summer of 1776 Luis de Unzaga y Amezaga, the governor of New Spain at New 
Orleans, had privately delivered some ten thousand pounds of gunpowder, 
out of the King's stores, to Captain George Gibson and Lieutenant Linn of 
the Virginia Council of Defense. The gunpowder, moved up the Mississippi 
under the protection of the Spanish flag, made it possible to thwart 
British plans to capture Fort Pitt. 

Oliver Pollock, a New Orleans businessman, had interceded on behalf of the 
Virginians. When Bernardo de Galvez became governor at New Orleans, 
Pollock-soon to be appointed an agent of the Secret Committee in New 
Orleans-worked closely with the young officer to provide additional 
supplies to the Americans. The Spanish governor also agreed to grant 
protection to American ships while seizing British ships as smugglers, and 
to allow American privateers to sell their contraband at New Orleans. 
Havana, too, became a focal point for dispensing secret Spanish aid to the 
American patriots. From Galvez the Patriots received gunpowder and 
supplies for the George Rogers Clark expedition, and from Galvez' very 
secret service fund came the funds used by Colonel Clark for the capture 
of Kaskaskia and Vincennes. When Spain formally entered the war on the 
American side on June 21, 1779, Oliver Pollock-who suffered personal 
bankruptcy in funding the purchase of supplies for the Patriot cause-rode 
as aide-de-camp to Galvez in the capture of Baton Rouge, Natchez, Mobile, 
and Pensacola. 

Another center of secret aid to the Patriots was St. Eustatia Island in 
the West Indies. A Dutch free port set in the midst of English, French, 
Danish and Spanish colonies, St. Eustatia (now called Eustasius) became-in 
the words of a British intelligence document of the period-"the rendezvous 
of everything and everybody meant to be clandestinely conveyed to 
America." It was a major source of gunpowder for the Patriot cause, and 
perhaps the safest and quickest means of communications between American 
representatives and agents abroad and with the Continental Congress at 
home. 


COVERT ACTION

In July 1775, Benjamin Franklin and Robert Morris worked out a plan in 
collaboration with Colonel Henry Tucker, the head of a distinguished 
Bermuda family, to obtain the store of gunpowder in the Royal Arsenal at 
Bermuda. To give Bermuda much-needed foodstuffs in exchange for the 
powder, the Continental Congress resolved on July 15, 1775 to permit the 
exchange of food for guns and gunpowder brought by any vessel to an 
American port. On the night of August 14, 1775, two Patriot ships kept a 
rendezvous with Colonel Tucker's men off the coast of Bermuda, and sent a 
raiding party ashore. An American sailor was lowered into the arsenal 
through an opening in the roof, and the doors opened from the inside. The 
barrels of gunpowder were rolled to waiting Bermudian whaleboats and 
transported to the American ships. Twelve days later half of the powder 
was delivered to Philadelphia and half to American forces at Charleston. 

America's second covert action effort ended in failure. General George 
Washington, hearing independently of the Bermuda powder, dispatched ships 
to purchase or seize it. Lacking a centralized intelligence authority, he 
was unaware of the Franklin-Morris success; when Washington's ships 
arrived in Bermuda in October 1775, the gunpowder had been gone for two 
months and British ships patrolled Bermuda waters. 

On the basis of information received by the Committee of Secret 
Correspondence, the Continental Congress on February 15, 1776 authorized a 
covert action plan to urge the Canadians to become a "sister colony" in 
the struggle against the British. A French printer was dispatched to 
Canada "to establish a free press... for the frequent publication of such 
pieces as may be of service to the cause of the United Colonies." Benjamin 
Franklin, Samuel Chase, and Charles Carroll were appointed from the 
Congress to undertake the mission, and Father John Carroll was invited to 
join the team to prevail upon the Catholic clergy of Canada. The 
delegation was given a degree of authority over American expeditionary 
forces in Canada; it was empowered to raise six companies in Canada, and 
to offer sanctuary in the thirteen colonies, in the event its effort 
failed, "for all those who have adhered to us." Excesses against the 
Canadian populace by the American military forces, the hostility of the 
clergy, and the inability of American commissioners to deliver little more 
than promises in exchange for Canadian defection, doomed the project. With 
the arrival of summer, both military and political action in Canada had 
ended in failure. 

An American agent named Charles Dumas, a Swiss journalist and friend of 
Benjamin Franklin, planted stories in a Dutch newspaper, Gazette de Leide, 
intended to give the United States a favorable rating in Dutch credit 
markets. 


FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE

The first intelligence agent enlisted by the Committee of Secret 
Correspondence was Arthur Lee, of Stratford, a physician then living in 
London. On November 30, 1775, the day after its founding, the Committee 
appointed Dr. Lee as its agent in England and informed him that "it is 
considered of utmost consequence to the cause of liberty that the 
Committee be kept informed of developments in Europe." Following the first 
Congressional appropriation for the work of the Committee on December 11, 
1775, two hundred pounds was forwarded to Lee with the urging that he find 
out the "disposition of foreign powers towards us, and the admonition that 
we need not hint that great circumspection and impenetrable security are 
necessary." 

The next agent recruited abroad by the Committee of Secret Correspondence 
was Charles W. F. Dumas, a Swiss journalist at The Hague. Dumas was 
briefed personally by Thomas Story, a courier of the Committee, and 
instructed on the use of cover names and letter drops to be used for his 
reports to the Committee and for communication with Dr. Lee in London. 

On March 1, 1776, the Committee of Secret Correspondence appointed Silas 
Deane, a former delegate to the Continental Congress, as its agent in 
France. He was instructed to pose as a Bermudian merchant dealing in 
Indian goods. He was also appointed as an agent of the Secret Committee, 
charged with making secret purchases and with attempting to gain secret 
assistance from the French Crown. Later, both Deane and Lee would be 
converted from agents to commissioners to the French Crown, albeit secret 
ones, until the open and formal alliance of France with the Americans. 

Other agents of the Committee of Secret Correspondence included William 
Bingham, who served first in France and then in Martinique, where he had 
once been British Consul; Major Jonathan Loring Austin, William 
Carmichael, and William Hodge. 


WARTIME SPECIAL OPERATIONS

After Benedict Arnold turned traitor, several special operations, none 
successful, were mounted in an effort to capture him. In September 1780, 
Major Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee presented to General Washington a 
secret plan to return the defector to American control and bring him to 
the gallows. Washington approved the plan, but insisted that Arnold not be 
killed or injured in carrying it out, even at the risk of allowing him to 
escape. "Public punishment," said Washington, "is the sole object in 
view." 

Lee's sergeant major, John Champe of Loudoun County, Virginia, was 
assigned to this special mission, and on the evening of October 19, 1780, 
"deserted" to the British under a hail of gunfire. The official documents 
he carried and his cooperative attitude during interrogation convinced the 
British of his bonafides. He was appointed sergeant major of Benedict 
Arnold's so-called American Legion, which was made up of deserters and 
Tories. Champe, now wearing a British uniform and having obtained freedom 
of movement in British-occupied New York, made contact with Patriot agents 
there and laid plans for Arnold's capture. Arnold's legion embarked for 
Virginia on the night the operation was to take place, and the plan was 
aborted. Champe accomplished his other mission, however: finding out if 
other American officers were collaborating with the enemy. He found no 
evidence that any were. In March 1781, an attempt to capture Arnold during 
his daily ride to the Virginia shore of the Chesapeake Bay was foiled by 
the chance anchoring of some British ships in the area. Yet another plan, 
devised by Thomas Jefferson, called for General John Peter Muhlenberg to 
send hand-picked soldiers "to seize and bring off this greatest of 
traitors" at Portsmouth, Virginia. Unusual security precautions at the 
British outpost thwarted the attempt. 

Recognizing the value of an important hostage, General Washington in 1782 
approved a plan to capture the son of King George III, Prince William 
Henry (the future William IV), during the young naval officer's royal 
visit to New York. The operation failed to come off after British 
intelligence heard about it and the Prince increased security around 
himself. After William later became monarch, the American ambassador told 
him of the wartime plan and of Washington's edict that, if the mission 
were successful, the young Prince should suffer no "insult or indignity." 
Upon hearing the story, William IV responded: "I am obliged to General 
Washington for his humanity, but I'm damned glad I did not give him an 
opportunity of exercising it towards me." 

On the high seas, British supply ships and troop ships often fell to 
American privateers operating under letters of marque and reprisal from 
the Continental Congress. Franklin, for example, ran a flotilla of Irish 
and French privateers from the American mission in Paris. Success in 
intercepting British vessels was so great that the British accused their 
captains of taking bribes from the Americans to surrender their ships. One 
privateer, operating under contract to Silas Deane and a French business 
associate and utilizing a French ship obtained by Benjamin Franklin, was 
the Bonhomme Richard, commanded by John Paul Jones. 

Of the sabotage operations conducted by the American patriots, only one 
mission is known to have been launched in England. Sometime after his 
arrival in Paris, Silas Deane was visited by young James Aitken, recently 
returned from America. Aitken produced crudely drawn but accurate plans of 
Royal dockyards in England and proposed to sabotage them by utilizing a 
unique incendiary device of his own design. Deane engaged his services and 
issued Aitken a passport signed by French Foreign Minister Vergennes with 
instructions to French officials: "We will and command you very expressly 
to let pass safely and freely, Mr. James Actzen, going to England, without 
giving him or suffering him any hindrance; but on the contrary giving 
every aid and assistance that he shall want or occasion for." In late 
November 1776, Aitken landed at Dover, and on December 7, he ignited a 
fire at the Portsmouth dockyard that burned from late in the afternoon 
until the following morning, destroying twenty tons of hemp, ten one-
hundred-fathom cables, and six tons of ship cordage. After failing to 
penetrate the security at Plymouth, Aitken proceeded to Bristol, where he 
destroyed two warehouses and several houses. On January 16, 1777, the 
British cabinet met in emergency session and urged immediate measures to 
locate the mysterious "John the Painter" (Aitken was a house painter). 
Guards were augmented at all military facilities and arsenals, and a 
reward was posted. By January 20 the cabinet, again in extraordinary 
session, discussed suspending habeas corpus and placing the country under 
martial law. Five days later the reward was increased to one thousand 
pounds and newspapers reported panic throughout England. Aitken was soon 
apprehended, with a pistol and inflammables in his possession. He would 
not admit to the sabotage when interrogated, but eventually confided in a 
friendly American visitor-who was secretly in the pay of the British. 
Based on these confidences, personal effects, including the passport from 
Vergennes, were located, His trial was speedy, and on March 10, 1777, 
Aitken went to the gallows at Portsmouth dockyard, where his exploits had 
begun. 


COUNTERINTELLIGENCE

Probably the first Patriot organization created for counterintelligence 
purposes was the Committee (later called the Commission) for Detecting and 
Defeating Conspiracies. It was made up of a series of groups established 
in New York between June 1776 and January 1778 to collect intelligence, 
apprehend British spies and couriers, and examine suspected British 
sympathizers. In effect, there was created a "secret service" for New York 
which had the power to arrest, to convict, to grant bail or parole, and to 
jail or to deport. A company of militia was placed under its command to 
implement its broad charter. The Committee heard over 500 cases involving 
disloyalty and subversion. John Jay has been called the first chief of 
American counterintelligence because of his role in directing this 
Committee's work. 

Nathanial Sackett and Colonel William Duer were particularly successful in 
ferreting out British agents, but found their greatest success in the 
missions of one of the dozen or so agents of their own, Enoch Crosby. 
Crosby, a veteran of the Continental Army, had been mistaken by a 
Westchester County Tory as being someone who shared his views. He confided 
to Crosby that a secret Tory military company was being formed and 
introduced him to the group. Crosby reported the plot to the Committee and 
was "captured" with the group. He managed to "escape" and, at Committee 
direction, infiltrated another secret Tory unit. This unit, including 
Crosby, was also taken and he "escaped" once more. He repeated the 
operation at least two more times, before Tory suspicions made it 
necessary for him to retire from counterintelligence work. Crosby was the 
model for the central character in James Fenimore Cooper's book The Spy 
(1821)-the first espionage novel written in English. 

Another successful American agent was Captain David Gray of Massachusetts. 
Posing as a deserter, Gray entered the service of Colonel Beverly 
Robinson, a Tory intelligence officer, and became Robinson's courier. As a 
result, the contents of each of Robinson's dispatches were read by the 
Americans before their delivery. Gray eventually became the courier for 
Major Oliver DeLancey, Jr., the head of the British secret service in New 
York. For two years, Gray, as DeLancey's courier to Canada, successfully 
penetrated the principal communications link of the British secret 
service. Upon completing his assignment, Gray returned to the ranks of the 
Continental Army and his name was struck from the deserter list, where 
George Washington had placed it at the beginning of the operation. 

Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, a senior intelligence officer under 
Washington, is credited with the capture of Major John Andre, who preceded 
DeLancey as chief of the British secret service in New York. Although 
Tallmadge declined to discuss the episode in his memoirs, it is said that 
one of his agents had reported to him that Major Andre was in contact with 
a "John Anderson" who was expecting the surrender of a major Patriot 
installation. Learning that a "John Anderson" had passed through the lines 
en route to General Benedict Arnold, the commander at West Point, 
Tallmadge had "Anderson" apprehended and returned for interrogation. 
"Anderson" admitted to his true identity-he was Major Andre-and was tried, 
convicted, and executed as a spy. Arnold, learning that Andre had been 
taken and that his own traitorous role no doubt was exposed, fled West 
Point before he could be captured, and joined the British forces. 

General Washington demanded effective counterintelligence work from his 
subordinates. On March 24, 1776, for example, he wrote: "There is one evil 
I dread, and that is, their spies. I could wish, therefore, the most 
attentive watch be kept... I wish a dozen or more of honest, sensible and 
diligent men, were employed... in order to question, cross-question etc., 
all such persons as are unknown, and cannot give an account of themselves 
in a straight and satisfactory line.... I think it a matter of importance 
to prevent them from obtaining intelligence of our situation." Washington 
occasionally had to deal with rogue intelligence officers in his own ranks 
who used their positions for personal gain or undertook unauthorized or 
illegal operations that might have compromised parts of the Patriot 
intelligence apparatus. In one instance, Washington discovered that two of 
his agents who supposedly were collecting intelligence on Long Island 
actually were "mere plundering parties." He set up a special team to 
investigate and arrest the renegade operatives. 


DECEPTION OPERATIONS

To offset British superiority in firepower and number of troops, General 
Washington made frequent use of deception operations. He allowed 
fabricated documents to fall into the hands of enemy agents or be 
discussed in their presence. He allowed his couriers -carrying bogus 
information-to be "captured" by the British, and inserted forged documents 
in intercepted British pouches that were then permitted to go on to their 
destination. He had army procurement officers make false purchases of 
large quantities of supplies in places picked to convince the British that 
a sizeable Continental force was massing. Washington even had fake 
military facilities built. He managed to make the British believe that his 
three-thousand-man army outside Philadelphia was forty thousand strong! 

After learning from the Culper Ring that the British planned to attack a 
French expedition that had just landed in Newport, Rhode Island, 
Washington planted information with known British agents indicating that 
he intended to move against New York City. The British commander was 
tricked into holding back the troops headed for Rhode Island. With 
elaborate deception, Washington masked his movement toward Chesapeake Bay-
and victory at Yorktown-by convincing the British initially that he was 
moving on New York. 

At Yorktown, James Armistead, a slave who had joined Lafayette's service 
with his master's permission, crossed into Cornwallis' lines in the guise 
of an escaped slave, and was recruited by Cornwallis to return to American 
lines as a spy. Lafayette gave him a fabricated order that supposedly was 
destined for a large number of patriot replacements-a force that did not 
exist. Armistead delivered the bogus order in crumpled, dirty condition to 
Cornwallis, claiming to have found it along the road during his spy 
mission. Cornwallis believed him and did not learn he had been tricked 
until after the Battle of Yorktown. Armistead was granted his freedom by 
the Virginia Legislature as a result of this and other intelligence 
service. 

Another deception operation at Yorktown found Charles Morgan entering 
Cornwallis' camp as a "deserter." When debriefed by the British, he 
convinced them that Lafayette had sufficient boats to move all his troops 
against the British in one landing operation. Cornwallis was duped by the 
operation and dug in rather than march out of Yorktown. Morgan, in turn, 
escaped in a British uniform and returned to American lines with five 
British deserters and a prisoner! 


PROPAGANDA

Upon receiving accurate intelligence that the British were hiring Hessian 
mercenaries for service in America, the Continental Congress appointed a 
three-man committee "to devise a plan for encouraging the Hessions and 
other foreigners... to quit that iniquitous service." The result was a 
resolution, believed to have been drafted by Thomas Jefferson, offering 
land grants to German deserters. It was translated into German and sent 
among the Hessians. 

Benjamin Franklin, who joined the committee to implement the operation, 
arranged for the leaflets to be disguised as tobacco packets to make sure 
they would fall into the hands of ordinary Hessian soldiers. Christopher 
Ludwick was dispatched by Washington into the enemy camp, posing as a 
deserter, to contact the Hessians and encourage them to defect. He is 
credited with the defection of "many hundred soldiers" from the German 
ranks. 

In 1777, after his arrival in France, Benjamin Franklin fabricated a 
letter purportedly sent by a German prince to the commander of his 
mercenaries in America. The letter disputed British casualty figures for 
the German troops, arguing that the actual number was much higher and that 
he was entitled to a great amount of "blood money," the amount paid to the 
prince for each of his men killed or wounded. 

The prince also encouraged the officer to be humane and to allow his 
wounded to die, rather than try to save men who might only become cripples 
unfit for service to their prince. Between 5,000 and 6,000 Hessians 
deserted from the British side during the war, in part because of American 
propaganda. 

Franklin also produced a newspaper report purporting to describe the 
transmittal of scalps of soldiers, settlers, women and children to the 
Royal Governor of Canada by Britain's Indian allies. The Indian 
transmittal letter indicated that a certain mark on scalps indicated they 
were those of women who "were knocked dead or had their brains beat out." 



INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES

SECRECY AND PROTECTION

The Committee of Secret Correspondence insisted that matters pertaining to 
the funding and instruction of intelligence agents be held within the 
Committee. In calling for the Committee members to "lay their proceedings 
before Congress," the Congress, by resolution, authorized "withholding the 
names of the persons they have employed, or with whom they have 
corresponded." On May 20, 1776, when the Committee's proceedings-with the 
sensitive names removed-were finally read in the Congress, it was "under 
the injunction of secrecy." The Continental Congress, recognizing the need 
for secrecy in regard to foreign intelligence, foreign alliances and 
military matters, maintained "Secret Journals," apart from its public 
journals, to record its decisions in such matters. 

On November 9, 1775. the Continental Congress adopted its own oath of 
secrecy, one more stringent than the oaths of secrecy it would require of 
others in sensitive employment: 

"RESOLVED, That every member of this Congress considers himself under the 
ties of virtue, honour and love of his country, not to divulge, directly 
or indirectly, any matter or thing agitated or debated in Congress, before 
the same shaft have been determined, without the leave of the Congress: 
nor any matter or thing determined in Congress, which a majority of the 
Congress shall order to be kept secret, And that if any member shall 
violate this agreement, he shall be expelled this Congress, and deemed an 
enemy to the liberties of America, and liable to be treated as such, and 
that every member signify his consent to this agreement by signing the 
same." 

On June 12, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the first secrecy 
agreement for employees of the new government. The required oath read: 

"I do solemnly swear, that I will not directly or indirectly divulge any 
manner or thing which shall come to my knowledge as (clerk, secretary) of 
the board of War and Ordnance for the United Colonies. . . So help me 
God." 

The Continental Congress, sensitive to the vulnerability of its covert 
allies, respected their desire for strict secrecy. Even after France's 
declaration of war against England, the fact of French involvement prior 
to that time remained a state secret. When Tom Paine, in a series of 
letters to the press in 1777, divulged details of the secret aid from the 
files of the Committee of Foreign Affairs (formerly, the Committee of 
Secret Correspondence), France's Minister to the United States, Conrad 
Alexandre Gerard, protested to the president of the Congress that Paine's 
indiscreet assertions "bring into question the dignity and reputation of 
the King, my master, and that of the United States." Congress dismissed 
Paine, and by public resolution denied having received such aid, resolving 
that "His Most Christian Majesty, the great and generous ally of the 
United States, did not preface his alliance with any supplies whatever 
sent to America." 

In 1779 George Washington and John Jay, the president of the Continental 
Congress and a close associate of the Commander in Chief's on intelligence 
matters, disagreed about the effect disclosure of some intelligence would 
have on sources and methods. Washington wanted to publicize certain 
encouraging information that he judged would give "a certain spring to our 
affairs" and bolster public morale. Jay replied that the intelligence "is 
unfortunately of such a Nature, or rather so circumstanced, as to render 
Secrecy necessary." Jay prevailed. 


COVER

Robert Townsend, an important American agent in British-occupied New York, 
used the guise of being a merchant, as did Silas Deane when he was sent to 
France by the Committee of Secret Correspondence. Townsend was usually 
referred to by his cover name of "Culper, Junior." When Major (later 
Colonel) Benjamin Tallmadge, who directed Townsend's espionage work, 
insisted that he disengage himself from his cover business to devote more 
time to intelligence gathering, General Washington overruled him: "it is 
not my opinion that Culper Junior should be advised to give up his present 
employment. I would imagine that with a little industry he will be able to 
carry on his intelligence with greater security to himself and greater 
advantages to us, under the cover of his usual business. . .. it prevents 
also those suspicions which would become natural should he throw himself 
out of the line of his present employment." Townsend also was the silent 
partner of a coffee house frequented by British officers, an ideal place 
for hearing loose talk that was of value to the American cause. 

Major John Clark's agents in and around British-controlled Philadelphia 
used several covers (farmer, peddler, and smuggler, among others) so 
effectively that only one or two operatives may have been detained. The 
agents traveled freely in and out of Philadelphia and passed intelligence 
to Washington about British troops, fortifications, and supplies, and of a 
planned surprise attack. 

Enoch Crosby, a counterintelligence officer, posed as an itinerant 
shoemaker (his civilian trade) to travel through southern New York while 
infiltrating Loyalist cells. After the Tories started to suspect him when 
he kept "escaping" from the Americans, Crosby's superiors moved him to 
Albany, where he resumed his undercover espionage. 

John Honeyman, an Irish weaver who had offered to spy for the Americans, 
used several covers (butcher, Tory, British agent) to collect intelligence 
on British military activities in New Jersey. He participated in a 
deception operation that left the Hessians in Trenton unprepared for 
Washington's attack across the Delaware River on December 26, 1776. 


DISGUISE

In January 1778, Nancy Morgan Hart, who naturally was tall, muscular, and 
cross-eyed, disguised herself as a "touched" or crazy man and entered 
Augusta, Georgia, to obtain intelligence on British defenses. Her mission 
was a success. Later, when a group of Tories attacked her home to gain 
revenge, she captured them all, and was witness to their execution. 

In June 1778, General Washington instructed "Light-Horse Harry" Lee to 
send an agent into the British fort at Stony Point to gather intelligence 
on the exact size of the garrison and the progress it was making in 
building defenses. Captain Allan McLane took the assignment. Dressing 
himself as a country bumpkin, and utilizing the cover of escorting a Mrs. 
Smith into the fort to see her sons, McLane spent two weeks collecting 
intelligence within the British fort and returned safely. 

[image caption: Nancy Morgan Hart capturing Tories attacking her home]


SECRET WRITING

While serving in Paris as an agent of the Committee of Secret 
Correspondence, Silas Deane is known to have used a heat-developing 
invisible ink, compounded of cobalt chloride, glycerine and water, for 
some of his intelligence reports back to America. Even more useful to him 
later was a "sympathetic stain" created for secret communications by James 
Jay, a physician and the brother of John Jay. Dr. Jay, who had been 
knighted by George III, used the "stain" for reporting military 
information from London to America. Later he supplied quantities of the 
stain to George Washington at home and to Silas Deane in Paris. 

The stain required one chemical for writing the message and a second to 
develop it, affording greater security than the ink used by Deane earlier. 
Once, in a letter to John Jay, Robert Morris spoke of an innocuous letter 
from "Timothy Jones" (Deane) and the "concealed beauties therein," noting 
"the cursory examinations of a sea captain would never discover them, but 
transferred from his hand to the penetrating eye of a Jay, the diamonds 
stand confessed at once." 

Washington instructed his agents in the use of the "sympathetic stain," 
noting in connection with "Culper Junior" that the ink "will not only 
render his communications less exposed to detection, but relieve the fears 
of such persons as may be entrusted in its conveyance." Washington 
suggested that reports could be written in the invisible ink "on the blank 
leaves of a pamphlet. . . a common pocket book, or on the blank leaves at 
each end of registers, almanacks, or any publication or book of small 
value." 

Washington especially recommended that agents conceal their reports by 
using the ink in correspondence: "A much better way is to write a letter 
in the Tory stile with some mixture of family matters and between the 
lines and on the remaining part of the sheet communicate with the Stain 
the intended intelligence." 

Even though the Patriots took great care to write sensitive messages in 
invisible ink, or in code or cipher, it is estimated that the British 
intercepted and decrypted over half of America's secret correspondence 
during the war. 


CODES AND CIPHERS

American Revolutionary leaders used various methods of cryptography to 
conceal diplomatic, military, and personal messages. 

John Jay and Arthur Lee devised dictionary codes in which numbers referred 
to the page and line in an agreed-upon dictionary edition where the 
plaintext (unencrypted message) could be found. 

In 1775 Charles Dumas designed the first diplomatic cipher that the 
Continental Congress and Benjamin Franklin used to communicate with agents 
and ministers in Europe. Dumas's system substituted numbers for letters in 
the order in which they appeared in a preselected paragraph of French 
prose containing 682 symbols. This method was more secure than the 
standard alphanumeric substitution system, in which a through z are 
replaced with 1 through 26, because each letter in the plain text could be 
replaced with more than one number. 

The Culper spy ring used a numerical substitution code developed by Major 
Benjamin Tallmadge, the network's leader. The Ring began using the code 
after the British captured some papers indicating that some Americans 
around New York were using "sympathetic stain." Tallmadge took several 
hundred words from a dictionary and several dozen names of people or 
places and assigned each a number from 1 to 763. For example, 38 meant 
attack, 192 stood for fort, George Washington was identified as 711, and 
New York was replaced by 727. An American agent posing as a deliveryman 
transmitted the messages to other members of the ring. One of them, Anna 
Strong, signalled the messages' location with a code involving laundry 
hung out to dry. A black petticoat indicated that a message was ready to 
be picked up, and the number of handkerchiefs identified the cove on Long 
Island Sound where the agents would meet. By the end of the war, several 
prominent Americans-among them Robert Morris, John Jay, Robert Livingston, 
and John Adams-were using other versions of numerical substitution codes. 

The Patriots had two notable successes in breaking British ciphers. In 
1775 Elbridge Gerry and the team of Elisha Porter and the Rev. Samuel 
West, working separately at Washington's direction, decrypted a letter 
that implicated Dr. Benjamin Church, the Continental Army's chief surgeon, 
in espionage for the British. 

In 1781 James Lovell, who designed cipher systems used by several 
prominent Americans, determined the encryption method that British 
commanders used to communicate with each other. When a dispatch from Lord 
Cornwallis in Yorktown to General Henry Clinton in New York was 
intercepted, Lovell's cryptanalysis enabled Washington to gauge how 
desperate Cornwallis's situation was and to time his attack on the British 
lines. Soon after, another decrypt by Lovell provided warning to the 
French fleet off Yorktown that a British relief expedition was 
approaching. The French scared off the British flotilla, sealing victory 
for the Americans. 


INTERCEPTING COMMUNICATIONS

The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted 
British and Tory mail. On November 20, 1775, it received some intercepted 
letters from Cork, Ireland, and appointed a committee made up of John 
Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Johnson, Robert Livingston, Edward 
Rutledge, James Wilson and George Wythe "to select such parts of them as 
may be proper to publish." The Congress later ordered a thousand copies of 
the portions selected by the Committee to be printed and distributed. A 
month later, when another batch of intercepted mail was received, a second 
committee was appointed to examine it. Based on its report, the Congress 
resolved that "the contents of the intercepted letters this day read, and 
the steps which Congress may take in consequence of said intelligence 
thereby given, be kept secret until further orders." By early 1776, abuses 
were noted in the practice, and Congress resolved that only the councils 
or committees of safety of each colony, and their designees, could 
henceforth open the mail or detain any letters from the post. 

When Moses Harris reported that the British had recruited him as a courier 
for their Secret Service, General Washington proposed that General 
Schuyler "contrive a means of opening them without breaking the seals, 
take copies of the contents, and then let them go on. By these means we 
should become masters of the whole plot." From that point on, Washington 
was privy to British intelligence pouches between New York and Canada. 


TECHNOLOGY

Dr. James Jay used the advanced technology of his time in creating the 
invaluable "sympathetic stain" used for secret communications. Perhaps the 
American patriots' most advanced-if not successful-application of 
technology was in David Bushnell's "turtle," a one-man submarine created 
for affixing watchwork-timed explosive charges to the bottom of enemy 
ships. 

The "turtle," now credited with being the first use of the submarine in 
warfare, was an oaken chamber about five-and-a-half feet wide and seven 
feet high. it was propelled by oars at a speed of about three miles an 
hour, had a barometer to read depth, a pump and second set of oars to 
raise or lower the submarine through the water, and provision for both 
lead and water ballast. 

When Bushnell learned that the candle used to illuminate instruments 
inside the "turtle" consumed the oxygen in its air supply, he turned to 
Benjamin Franklin for help. The solution: the phosphorescent weed, 
foxfire. Heavy tides thwarted the first sabotage operation. A copper-clad 
hull which could not be penetrated by the submarine's auger foiled the 
second. (The "turtle" did blow up a nearby schooner, however.) The secret 
weapon would almost certainly have achieved success against a warship if 
it had not gone to the bottom of the Hudson River when the mother ship to 
which it was moored was sunk by the British in October of 1776. 

An early device developed for concealing intelligence reports when 
traveling by water was a simple, weighted bottle that could be dropped 
overboard if there was a threat of capture. This was replaced by a wafer-
thin leaden container in which a message was sealed. Not only would it 
sink in water, but it would melt and destroy its contents if thrown into a 
fire, and could be used by agents on land or water. It had one drawback-
lead poisoning if it was swallowed! It was replaced by a silver, bullet-
shaped container that could be unscrewed to hold a message and which would 
not poison a courier who might be forced to swallow it. 

[image caption: The Silver Bullet]

[image caption: David Bushell's "Turtle"]


INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS AND ESTIMATES

On May 29, 1776, the Continental Congress received the first of many 
intelligence estimates prepared in response to questions it posed to 
military commanders. The report estimated the size of the enemy force to 
be encountered in an attack on New York, the number of Continental troops 
needed to meet it, and the kind of force needed to defend the other New 
England colonies. 

An example of George Washington's interest in intelligence analysis and 
estimates can be found in instructions he wrote to General Putnam in 
August of 1777: 

"Deserters and people of that class always speak of number. . . indeed, 
scarce any person can form a judgement unless he sees the troops paraded 
and can count the divisions. But, if you can by any means obtain a list of 
the regiments left upon the island, we can compute the number of men 
within a few hundreds, over or under." On another occasion, in thanking 
James Lovell for a piece of intelligence, Washington wrote: "it is by 
comparing a variety of information, we are frequently enabled to 
investigate facts, which were so intricate or hidden, that no single clue 
could have led to the knowledge of them. . . intelligence becomes 
interesting which but from its connection and collateral circumstances, 
would not be important." 

Washington's intelligence chief for a short period in 1778, Colonel David 
Henley, received these instructions when he wrote to Washington for 
guidance: "Besides communicating your information as it arises. . . you 
might make out a table or something in the way of columns, under which you 
might range, their magazines of forage, grain and the like, the different 
corps and regiments, the Works, where thrown up, their connexion, kind and 
extent, the officers commanding, with the numbers of guns &ca. &ca. This 
table should comprehend in one view all that can be learned from 
deserters, spies and persons who may come out from the enemy's 
boundaries." (It was common practice to interrogate travelers from such 
British strongholds as New York, Boston and Philadelphia.) 



PERSONALITIES

GEORGE WASHINGTON

George Washington was a skilled manager of intelligence. He utilized 
agents behind enemy lines, recruited both Tory and Patriot sources, 
interrogated travelers for intelligence information, and launched scores 
of agents on both intelligence and counterintelligence missions. He was 
adept at deception operations and tradecraft and was a skilled 
propagandist. He also practiced sound operational security. 

As an intelligence manager, Washington insisted that the terms of an 
agent's employment and his instructions be precise and in writing, 
composing many letters of instruction himself. He emphasized his desire 
for receiving written, rather than verbal, reports. He demanded repeatedly 
that intelligence reports be expedited, reminding his officers of those 
bits of intelligence he had received which had become valueless because of 
delay in getting them to him. He also recognized the need for developing 
many different sources so that their reports could be cross-checked, and 
so that the compromise of one source would not cut off the flow of 
intelligence from an important area. 

Washington sought and obtained a "secret service fund" from the 
Continental Congress, and expressed preference for specie, preferably 
gold: "I have always found a difficulty in procuring intelligence by means 
of paper money, and I perceive it increases." In accounting for the sums 
in his journals, he did not identify the recipients: "The names of persons 
who are employed within the Enemy's lines or who may fall within their 
power cannot be inserted." 

He instructed his generals to "leave no stone unturned, nor do not stick 
to expense" in gathering intelligence, and urged that those employed for 
intelligence purposes be those "upon whose firmness and fidelity we may 
safely rely." 

[image caption: Washington conferring with one of his agents]


WASHINGTON'S INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS

Washington retained full and final authority over Continental Army 
intelligence activities, but he delegated significant field responsibility 
to trusted officers. Although he regularly urged all his officers to be 
more active in collecting intelligence, Washington relied chiefly on his 
aides and specially-designated officers to assist him in conducting 
intelligence operations. The first to assume this role appears to have 
been Joseph Reed, who fulfilled the duties of "Secretary, Adjutant General 
and Quarter Master, besides doing a thousand other little Things which 
fell incidentally." A later successor to Reed was Alexander Hamilton, who 
is known to have been deeply involved with the Commander-in-Chief's 
intelligence operations, including developing reports received in secret 
writing and investigating a suspected double agent. 

When Elias Boudinot was appointed Commissary General of Prisoners, 
responsible for screening captured soldiers and for dealing with the 
British concerning American patriots whom they held prisoner, Washington 
recognized that the post offered "better opportunities than most other 
officers in the army, to obtain knowledge of the Enemy's Situation, 
motions and... designs," and added to Boudinot's responsibilities "the 
procuring of intelligence." In 1778, Washington selected Brigadier General 
Charles Scott of Virginia as his "intelligence chief." When personal 
considerations made it necessary for Scott to step down, Washington 
appointed Colonel David Henley to the post temporarily, and then assigned 
it to Major Benjamin Tallmadge. Tallmadge combined reconnaissance with 
clandestine visits into British territory to recruit agents, and attained 
distinction for his conduct of the Culper Ring operating out of New York. 

In 1776 George Washington picked Thomas Knowlton to command the 
Continental Army's first intelligence unit, known as "Knowlton's Rangers." 
Intelligence failure during the battle of Long Island convinced Washington 
that he needed an elite detachment dedicated to reconnaissance that 
reported directly to him. Knowlton, who had served in a similar unit 
during the French and Indian War, led 130 men and 20 officers-all hand-
picked volunteers-on a variety of secret missions that were too dangerous 
for regular troops to conduct. The date 1776 on the seal of the Army's 
intelligence service today refers to the formation of Knowlton's Rangers. 

Other intelligence officers who served with distinction during the War of 
Independence included Captain Eli Leavenworth, Major Alexander Clough, 
Colonel Elias Dayton, Major John Clark, Major Allan McLane, Captain 
Charles Craig and General Thomas Mifflin. 

[image caption: United States Army Intelligence Seal]


PAUL REVERE AND THE MECHANICS

The first Patriot intelligence network on record was a secret group in 
Boston known as the "mechanics." The group apparently grew out of the old 
Sons of Liberty organization that had successfully opposed the hated Stamp 
Act. The "mechanics," (meaning skilled laborers and artisans) organized 
resistance to British authority and gathered intelligence. In the words of 
one of its members, Paul Revere, "in the Fall of 1774 and winter of 1775, 
I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves 
into a Committee for the purpose of watching British soldiers and gaining 
every intelligence on the movements of the Tories." According to Revere, 
"We frequently took turns, two and two, to watch the (British) soldiers by 
patrolling the streets all night." 

In addition, the "mechanics," also known as the Liberty Boys, sabotaged 
and stole British military equipment in Boston. Their security practices, 
however, were amateurish. They met in the same place regularly (the Green 
Dragon Tavern), and one of their leaders (Dr. Benjamin Church) was a 
British agent. 

Through a number of their intelligence sources, the "mechanics" were able 
to see through the cover story the British had devised to mask their march 
on Lexington and Concord. Dr. Joseph Warren, chairman of the Committee of 
Safety, charged Revere with the task of warning Samuel Adams and John 
Hancock at Lexington that they were the probable targets of the enemy 
operation. Revere arranged for the warning lanterns to be hung in Old 
North Church to alert patriot forces at Charleston, and then set off on 
his famous ride. He completed his primary mission of notifying Adams and 
Hancock. Then Revere, along with Dr. Samuel Prescott and William Dawes, 
rode on to alert Concord, only to be apprehended by the British en route. 
Dawes got away, and Dr. Prescott managed to escape soon afterward and to 
alert the Patriots at Concord. Revere was interrogated and subsequently 
released, after which he returned to Lexington to warn Hancock and Adams 
of the proximity of British forces. 

Revere then turned to still another mission, retrieving from the local 
tavern a trunk belonging to Hancock and filled with incriminating papers. 
With John Lowell, Revere went to the tavern and, as he put it, during "a 
continual roar of Musquetry... we made off with the Trunk." 

Paul Revere had served as a courier prior to his famous "midnight ride," 
and continued to do so during the early years of the war. One of his 
earlier missions was perhaps as important as the Lexington ride. In 
December 1774, Revere rode to the Oyster River in New Hampshire with a 
report that the British, under General Gage, intended to seize Fort 
William and Mary. Armed with this intelligence, Major John Sullivan of the 
colonial militia led a force of four hundred men in an attack on the fort. 
The one hundred barrels of gunpowder taken in the raid were ultimately 
used by the Patriots to cover their retreat from Bunker Hill. 


MARTYRS AND HEROES

Nathan Hale is probably the best known but least successful American agent 
in the War of Independence. He embarked on his espionage mission into 
British-held New York as a volunteer, impelled by a strong sense of 
patriotism and duty. Before leaving on the mission he reportedly told a 
fellow officer: "I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or 
pecuniary award; I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary 
to the public good becomes honorable by being necessary. If the exigencies 
of my country demand a peculiar service, its claims to perform that 
service are imperious." 

But dedication was not enough. Captain Hale had no training experience, no 
contacts in New York, no channels of communication, and no cover story to 
explain his absence from camp-only his Yale diploma supported his 
contention that he was a "Dutch schoolmaster." He was captured while 
trying to slip out of New York, was convicted as a spy and went to the 
gallows on September 22, 1776. Witnesses to the execution reported the 
dying words that gained him immortality (a paraphrase of a line from 
Joseph Addison's play Cato: "I only regret that I have but one life to 
lose for my country." 

The same day Nathan Hale was executed in New York, British authorities 
there arrested another Patriot and charged him with being a spy. Haym 
Salomon was a recent Jewish immigrant who worked as a stay-behind agent 
after Washington evacuated New York City in September 1776. Solomon was 
arrested in a round-up of suspected Patriot sympathizers and was confined 
to Sugar House Prison. He spoke several European languages and was soon 
released to the custody of General von Heister, commander of Hessian 
mercenaries, who needed someone who could serve as a German-language 
interpreter in the Hessian commissary department. While in German custody, 
Salomon induced a number of the German troops to resign or desert. 

Eventually paroled, Salomon did not flee to Philadelphia as had many of 
his New York business associates. He continued to serve as an undercover 
agent, and used his personal finances to assist American patriots held 
prisoner in New York. He was arrested again in August of 1778, accused 
this time of being an accomplice in a plot to burn the British fleet and 
to destroy His Majesty's, warehouses in the city. Salomon was condemned to 
death for sabotage, but bribed his guard while awaiting execution and 
escaped to Philadelphia. There he came into the open in the role for which 
he is best known, as an important financier of the Revolution. It is said 
that when Salomon died in bankruptcy in 1785, at forty-five years of age, 
the government owed him more than $700,000 in unpaid loans. 

Less than a year after Nathan Hale was executed, another American agent 
went to the gallows in New York. On June 13, 1777, General Washington 
wrote the President of Congress: "You will observe by the New York paper, 
the execution of Abm. [Abraham] Patten. His family deserves the generous 
Notice of Congress. He conducted himself with great fidelity to our Cause 
rendering Services and has fallen a Sacrifice in promoting her interest. 
Perhaps a public act of generosity, considering the character he was in, 
might not be so eligible as a private donation." 

"Most accurate and explicit intelligence" resulted from the work of 
Abraham Woodhull on Long Island and Robert Townsend in British-occupied 
New York City. Their operation, known as the Culper Ring from the 
operational names used by Woodhull (Culper, Sr.) and Townsend (Culper, 
Jr.), effectively used such intelligence tradecraft as codes, ciphers and 
secret ink for communications; a series of couriers and whaleboats to 
transmit reporting; at least one secret safe house, and numerous sources. 
The network was particularly effective in picking up valuable information 
from careless conversation wherever the British and their sympathizers 
gathered. 

One female member of the Culper Ring, known only by her codename "355," 
was arrested shortly after Benedict Arnold's defection in 1780 and 
evidently died in captivity. Details of her background are unknown, but 
355 (the number meant "lady" in the Culper code) may have come from a 
prominent Tory family with access to British commanders and probably 
reported on their activities and personalities. She was one of several 
females around the debonaire Major Andre, who enjoyed the company of 
young, attractive, and intelligent women. Abraham Woodhull, 355's 
recruiter, praised her espionage work, saying that she was "one who hath 
been ever serviceable to this correspondence." Arnold questioned all of 
Andre's associates after his execution in October 1780 and grew suspicious 
when the pregnant 355 refused to identify her paramour. She was 
incarcerated on the squalid prison ship Jersey, moored in the East River. 
There she gave birth to a son and then died without disclosing that she 
had a common-law husband-Robert Townsend, after whom the child was named. 

One controversial American agent in New York was the King's Printer, James 
Rivington. His coffee house, a favorite gathering place for the British, 
was a principal source of information for Culper, Jr. (Townsend), who was 
a silent partner in the endeavor. George Washington Parke Custis suggests 
that Rivington's motive for aiding the patriot cause was purely monetary. 
Custis notes that Rivington, nevertheless, "proved faithful to his 
bargain, and often would provide intelligence of great importance gleaned 
in convivial moments at Sir William's or Sir Henry's table, be in the 
American camp before the convivialists had slept off the effects of their 
wine. The King's printer would probably have been the last man suspected, 
for during the whole of his connection with the secret service his Royal 
Gazette piled abuse of every sort upon the cause of the American general 
and the cause of America." Rivington's greatest espionage achievement was 
acquiring the Royal Navy's signal book in 1781. That intelligence helped 
the French fleet repel a British flotilla trying to relieve General 
Cornwallis at Yorktown. 

Hercules Mulligan ran a clothing shop that was also frequented by British 
officers in occupied New York. The Irish immigrant was a genial host, and 
animated conversation typified a visit to his emporium. Since Mulligan was 
also a Patriot agent, General Washington had full use of the intelligence 
he gathered. Mulligan was the first to alert Washington to two British 
plans to capture the American Commander-in-Chief and to a planned 
incursion into Pennsylvania. Besides being an American agent, Mulligan 
also was a British counterintelligence failure. Before he went underground 
as an agent, he had been an active member of the Sons of Liberty and the 
New York Committees of Correspondence and Observation, local Patriot 
intelligence groups. Mulligan had participated in acts of rebellion and 
his name had appeared on Patriot broadsides distributed in New York as 
late as 1776. But every time he fell under suspicion, the popular Irishman 
used his gift of "blarney" to talk his way out of it. The British 
evidently never learned that Alexander Hamilton, Washington's aide-de-
camp, had lived in the Mulligan home while attending King's College, and 
had recruited Mulligan and possibly Mulligan's brother, a banker and 
merchant who handled British accounts, for espionage. 

Another American agent in New York was Lieutenant Lewis J. Costigin, who 
walked the streets freely in his Continental Army uniform as he collected 
intelligence. Costigin had originally been sent to New York as a prisoner, 
and was eventually paroled under oath not to attempt escape or communicate 
intelligence. In September 1778 he was designated for prisoner exchange 
and freed of his parole oath. But he did not leave New York, and until 
January 1779 he roamed the city in his American uniform, gathering 
intelligence on British commanders, troop deployments, shipping, and 
logistics while giving the impression of still being a paroled prisoner. 

On May 15, 1780, General Washington instructed General Heath to send 
intelligence agents into Canada. He asked that they be those "upon whose 
firmness and fidelity we may safely rely," and that they collect "exact" 
information about Halifax in support of a French requirement for 
information on the British defense works there. Washington suggested that 
qualified draftsmen be sent. James Bowdoin, who was later to become the 
first president of the American Academy of Arts and Science, fulfilled the 
intelligence mission, providing detailed plans of Halifax harbor, 
including specific military works and even water depths. 

In August 1782, General Washington created the Military Badge of Merit, to 
be issued "whenever any singularly meritorious action is performed... not 
only instances of unusual gallantry, but also of extraordinary fidelity 
and essential service in any way." Through the award, said Washington, 
"the road to glory in a Patriot army and a free country is thus open to 
all." The following June, the honor was bestowed on Sergeant Daniel 
Bissell, who had "deserted" from the Continental Army, infiltrated New 
York, posed as a Tory, and joined Benedict Arnold's "American Legion." For 
over a year, Bissell gathered information on British fortifications, 
making a detailed study of British methods of operation, before escaping 
to American lines. 

Dominique L'Eclise, a Canadian who served as an intelligence agent for 
General Schuyler, had been detected and imprisoned and had all his 
property confiscated. After being informed by General Washington of the 
agent's plight, the Continental Congress on October 23, 1778, granted $600 
to pay L'Eclise's debts and $60, plus one ration a day "during the 
pleasure of Congress," as compensation for his contribution to the 
American cause. 

Family legend contributes the colorful but uncorroborated story of Lydia 
Darragh and her listening post for eavesdropping on the British. Officers 
of the British force occupying Philadelphia chose to use a large upstairs 
room in the Darragh house for conferences. When they did, Mrs. Darragh 
would slip into an adjoining closet and take notes on the enemy's military 
plans. Her husband, William, would transcribe the intelligence in a form 
of shorthand on tiny slips of paper that Lydia would then position on a 
button mold before covering it with fabric. The message-bearing buttons 
were then sewn onto the coat of her fourteen-year-old son, John, who would 
then be sent to visit his elder brother, Lieutenant Charles Darragh, of 
the American forces outside the city. Charles would snip off the buttons 
and transcribe the shorthand notes into readable form for presentation to 
his officers. Lydia Darragh is said to have concealed other intelligence 
in a sewing-needle packet which she carried in her purse when she passed 
through British lines. Some espionage historians have questioned the 
credibility of the best-known story of Darragh's espionage-that she 
supposedly overheard British commanders planning a surprise night attack 
against Washington's army at Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, on the 4th and 5th 
of December 1777. The cover story she purportedly used to leave 
Philadelphia-she was filling a flour sack at a nearby mill outside the 
British lines because there was a flour shortage in the city-is 
implausible because there was no shortage, and a lone woman would not have 
been allowed to roam around at night, least of all in the area between the 
armies. 

Many other heroic Patriots gathered the intelligence that helped win the 
War of Independence. Their intelligence duties required many of them to 
pose as one of the enemy, incurring the hatred of family members and 
friends-some even having their property seized or burned, and their 
families driven from their homes. Some were captured by American forces 
and narrowly escaped execution on charges of high treason or being British 
spies. Many of them gave their lives in helping establish America's 
freedom. 

[image caption: Triumph of Patriotism]