Intelligence in the War of Independence Intelligence in the War of Independence A Bicentennial Publication of the Central Intelligence Agency Washington D C Original sketches for this publication are based on portraits courtesy of the following collections Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History Inc Bowdoin College Museum of Art Dover Pictorial Archive Georgetown University News Service Independence National Historical Park Library of Congress South Carolinia Library University of South Carolina The Washington letter is from the Pforzheimer Collection of Intelligence Literature the silver bullet and secret message are courtesy of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum Two hundred years ago fifty-six brave men pledged to each other their lives their fortunes and their sacred honor in a bold document proclaiming our nation's independence In the seven years that followed equally brave men and women served their land proudly and with honor in gaining the hard-sought freedom we honor in this Bicentennial Year Much has been written to memorialize those who served so courageously in the armed conflicts of the War of Independence Less has been written and is known of the equally courageous group of patriots who served quietly and without recognition in a more secret war -- the battle for intelligence on the enemy's designs and motions It is to those silent heroes and to the successive generations who have upheld the best traditions of American intelligence that this pamphlet is respectfully dedicated Director of Central Intelligence 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 zs 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 J 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 Benjamin Franklin William Hooper Phillip Livingston Robert Livingston Richard Henry Lee 8 Thomas Johnson Thomas Heyward William Whipple John Witherspoon William Churchill Houston John Dickinson Robert Morris Benjamin Harrison John Jay The Committee of Secret Correspondence Recognizing the need for foreign intelligence and foreign alliances the Second Continental Congress created the Committee of Secret Correspondence by a resolution of November 29 1775 RESOLVED That a committee of five be appointed for the sole purpose of corresponding with our friends in Great Britain Ireland 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 five Committee members-America's first foreign intelligence directorate-were Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania Benjamin Harrison of Virginia John Jay of New York John Dickinson of Pennsylvania 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 Thomas Paine author of Common Sense was briefly the secretary of the Committee but was discharged for divulging information from Committee files The Committee employed secret agents abroad established a courier system and developed a maritime capability apart from that of the Navy It met secretly in December of 1775 with a French intelligence agent who visited Philadelphia under the cover of a Flemish merchant and engaged in regular communications with Britons and Scots who were sympathetic to the patriots' cause On April 17 1777 the Committee of Secret Correspondence was renamed the Committee of Foreign Affairs but continued 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 9 Th omas Willing S ilas Deane Phillip Livingston 10 Benjamin Fra nklin John Alsop John Dickinson Robert M orris Th omas M ckean John La ngdon Samue l Ward 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 the intermediaries so as to conceal the fact that the Continental Congress was the true purchaser With and without permission the Secret Committee used foreign flags to protect its vessels from the British fleet The members of the Continental Congress appointed to the Committee were among the most influential and responsible members of the Congress The Committee on Spies On June 5 1776 the Congress appointed John Adams Thomas Jefferson Edward Rutledge James Wilson and Robert Livingston to cons1der 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 Director General of Hospitals had already been seized and imprisoned as a British agent but could not be tried and never would be because there was no espionage act 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 of the Conwess of the 24th of June last who shall be found lurking as spies in or about the fortifications 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 other 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 John Ada ms Edwa rd Rut ledge Th omas J efferson Ja mes Wilson 11 Political Action Comte de Vergennes Louis XVI Marquis de Lafayette Beaumarchais 14 While the Committee of Secret Correspondence was meeting secretly in Philadelphia with agents of France Dr 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 repeatedJy 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 tor 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 FrancoAmerican 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 Dr 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 On February 6 1778 the FrenchAmerican 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 twelve thousands 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 Pollocksoon to be appointed the agent of the Secret Committee at 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 revolutionists 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 Eustatius Island in the West Indies A Dutch freeport set in midst of English French Danish and Spanish colonies St Eustatius became-in the words of a British intelligence document of the period- the rendezvous of everything and everybody Bernardo de Galvez 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 The Continental Congress sensitive to the vulnerability of its covert allies respected Conrad Alexandre Gerard 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 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 Johann Baron de Kalb 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 15 Covert Action Samuel Chase Benjamin Franklin Bishop John Carroll Charles Carroll of Carrollton 16 In July of 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 of 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 Foreign Intelligence Patience Mehitabel Lovell Wright an American sculptress served as a valuable patriot intelligence agent in London at the outbreak of hostilities A confidant of B njamin Franklin Mrs Wright had achieved fame for her creation of life-like wax portrayals of prominent persons Her studios were a fashionable lodging-place for the nobility and distinguished men of England and the King and Queen-with whom she dealt on a democratic first name basis-often visited her workrooms With this access she gathered many facts and secrets important to the American cause and communicated them to Franklin before she was forced to flee London early in 1776 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 For use in his communications Dumas created a unique cipher which cryptographers declared to be almost unbreakable 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 Another agent selected by the Committee of Secret Correspondence and enlisted by Deane under its instruction was Dr Edward Bancroft of London Bancroft unfortunately was a principal agent of the British Secret Service His duplicity was not learned until some ninety years after his death Other agents of the Committee of Secret Correspondence included Stephen Sayre an American banker implicated in 1775 in a plot to seize George Ill William Bingham who served first in France and then in Martinique where he had once been British Consul Major Jonathan Loring Austin Ralph Izard William Carmichael and William Hodge Patience Lovell Wright '- -- Art ur ee - Ji William Bingham Ralph Izard 17 Wartime Special Operations After Benedict Arnold turned traitor several special operations none successful were mounted in an effort to capture him In September of 1780 Major Henry LightHorse 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 Champa 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 bona fides He was appointed sergeant major of Benedict Arnold's socalled American Legion which was made up of deserters Champa 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 Unfortunately Arnold's legion embarked Henry Lee Light Horse Harry 18 John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg for Virginia on the night the operation was to take place and the plan was aborted In March of 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 II 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 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 dilnot 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 Success in intercepting these 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 Aitken going to England without giving him or suffering him any hindrance but on the contrary giving every aid and assistance mat ne 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 onehundred-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 John Paul Jones James Aitken 19 Counterintelligence Probably the first patriot organization created for counterintelligence purposes was the Committee later called a Commission for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies It was made up of a series of groups established in New York between June of 1776 and January of 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 John Jay has been called the first chief of American counterintelligence because of his role in directing this Committee's work Nathaniel Sackett and Colonel William Duer were particurlarly 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 John Jay 20 Enoch Crosby 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 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 patriotic 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 crossquestion 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 d John Andre Benedict Arnold 21 Deception Operations James Armistead 22 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 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 With elaborate deception Washington masked his movement toward Chesapeake Bay-and victory at Yorktownby 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 Hessians 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 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 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 Franklin also produced a newspaper 23 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 And on May 20 1776 when the Committee's proceedingswith 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 shall 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 26 violate this agreement he shall be expelled from 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 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 Gulper Junior When 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 Cul per 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 Legend has it that Pompey Lamb a black man visited the British strong point at Stony Point New York under the cover of selling fruits and vegetables and that the British provided Lamb with their password so he could make his deliveries after dark It was said that on the night of General Mad Anthony Wayne's successful assault on the fort the British had opened the gates in response to the password called out by Pompey Lamb Another American agent who operated under the cover of selling produce to British soldiers was Sarah Sally Salter who in 1781 entered an enemy camp at Elizabethtown North Carolina in the guise of selling eggs In addition to gathering intelligence about the layout of the camp Sally took egg orders which when analyzed revealed the approximate number of enemy troops there Based on the intelligence she gathered the patriots launched a surprise attack and defeated the enemy force 27 Disguise During the campaign in the winter of 177576 to capture Quebec American forces became badly depleted and needed reinforcement Aaron Burr volunteered to cross enemy lines with a request for more troops Disguising himself as a priest Burr obtained a guide and cart from a monastery and traveled from church to church through British-patrolled territory until he reached General Montgomery's lines and delivered the request In January of 1778 Nancy Morgan Hart 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 of 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 28 Aaron Burr Nancy Morgan Hart Secret Writing While serving in Paris as an agent of the Committee of Secret Correspondence Silas Deane is known to have used a heatdeveloping 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 111 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 Cul per 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 Silas Deane 29 Intercepting Communications 30 James Wilson George Wythe William Hooper John Adams Thomas Johnson Thomas Lynch Edward Rutledge Samuel Adams Elbridge Gerry William Livingston 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 James Lovell is credited with breaking British ciphers but perhaps the first to do so was the team of Elbridge Gerry Elisha Porter and the Rev Samuel West who successfully decoded the intercepted intelligence reports written to the British by Dr Benjamin Church the Director General of Hospitals for the Continental army When Moses Harris reported that the British had recruited him as a courier to carry messages for their Secret Service General Washington proposed that General Shuyler 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 but 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 watchworktimed 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 Unfortunately 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 secret weapon would almost certainly have achieved success 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 Sir Henry Clinton's· Dispatch and The Silver Bullet David Bushnell's Turtle 31 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 32 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 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 was a skilled propagandist As an intelligence manager Washington insisted that the terms of an agent's employment and his instructions be precise and in writing Washington wrote 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 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 34 The Intelligence Officers Although he regularly urged all his officers to be more active in collecting intelligence General 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 Commanderin-Chief's intelligence operations including developing reports received in secret writing When Elias Boudinot was appointed Commissary 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 resign Washington appointed Colonel David Henley to the post temporarily and then assigned it to Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge Tallmadge combined reconnaissance with clandestine visits into British territory to recruit agents and attained distinction for his conduct of the Cul per ring operating out of New York 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 for a short period Aaron Burr Joseph Reed Elias Boudinot Benjamin Tallmadge 35 Paul Revere and the Mechanics Paul Revere Dr Joseph Warren 36 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 organized resistance to British authority and gathered intelligence In the words of one of its members Paul Revere In the Fall of 177 4 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 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 John Adams and John Hancock at Lexington that they were the probable targets of the enemy operation Revere arranged for the warning lanterns to be placed 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 incrim inating 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 Fortunately when interrogated by the British Revere did not have his travel orders from Dr Warren the authorization was not issued to him until two weeks later And when Paul Revere filed a travel voucher for his famous ride it was not until August some four months later that it was approved-and when it was approved his per diem payment was reduced from five shillings a day to four 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 of 1774 Revere rode to the Oyster river with the intelligence 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-all in civilian clothing rather than militia uniform-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 or 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 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 a recent Jewish immigrant involved in the cause of independence was confined to Sugar House Prison Fortunately he spoke several European languages and was soon released to the custody of General Heister who needed someone who could serve as a German-language interpreter in the Hessian commissary department Even while in German custody Salomon's patriotism could not be repressed he is credited with inducing 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 the financier of the revolution It is said that when Salomon died in bankruptcy in 1785 at forty-five years of age his 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 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 Nathan Hale Haym Salomon 37 James Rivington 38 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 Their operation known as the Gulper Ring from the operational names used by Woodhull Gulper Sr and Townsend Gulper 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 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 Cul per Jr Townsend who was a silent partner in the endeavor George Washington Parke Curtis suggests that Rivington's motive for aiding the revolutionists' cause was purely monetary Curtis notes that Rivington nevertheless proved faithful to his bargain and often would 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 literally piled abuse of every sort upon the cause of the American general and the cause of America 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 Fortunately so for Mulligan was the first to alert Washington to two British plans to capture the American Commanderin-Chief Mulligan was more than an American agent he 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-decamp had lived in the Mulligan home while attending King's College and had recruited Mulligan and possibly Mulligan's brother for espionage Another American agent in New York was Lieutenant Lewis J Costigan who walked the streets freely in his Continental Army uniform as he collected intelligence Costigan 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 of 1778 he was designated for prisoner exchange and freed of his parole oath But he did not leave New York and until January of 1779 he roamed the city in his American uniform gathering intelligence 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 of 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 Israel Bissell who had 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 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 fourteenyear-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 Ja mes Bowdoin 39 intelligence in a sewing-needle packet which she carried in her purse when she passed through British lines 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 to establish America's freedom Time has obscured many of their names and their exploits but all have joined the ranks of those whose achievements we honor during the nation's bicentennial 40