Intelligence in the American War of Independence Recommended Websites and Reading Material

1. Intelligence in the American War of IndependenceRecommended Websites and Reading Material Websites: • Loyola Strategic Intelligence: http://www.loyola.edu/departments/academics/political-science/strategic-intelligence/index.html • Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/index.html • Spy Letters of the American Revolution, University of Michigan: http://www2.si.umich.edu/spies/index-about.html

2. Intelligence in the American War of IndependenceRecommended Websites and Reading Material Books and Scholarly Articles: • Ashcraft, Major Allan C., "General George Washington and the Evolution of a Military Intelligence Service During the American Revolution" Section One, "A History of Military Intelligence in the United States Army." Research project. (837th M.I.D., 511 Carson Street, Bryan, Texas 77801, 1969) • Alsop, Susan Mary, Yankees at the Court: The First Americans in Paris (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1982) • Andrew, Christopher, For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York: Harper Collins, 1995) • Augur, Helen, The Secret War of Independence (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1955) • Bakeless, John E., Turncoats, Traitors and Heroes (Philadelphia: J.B.Lippincott Company, 1959)

3. Intelligence in the American War of IndependenceRecommended Websites and Reading Material Books and Scholarly Articles: • Bakeless, Katherine and John, Spies of the Revolution (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1962) • Barch, Dorothy C. (Editor), Minutes of the Committee and First Commission for Detecting Conspiracies (New York: The New York Historical Society, 1924) • Bidwell, Bruce W., History of the Military Intelligence Division, Department of Army General Staff, 1775 - 1941 (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1986) • Butterfield, Lyman, "Psychological Warfare in 1776: The Jefferson-Franklin Plan to Cause Hessian Desertions" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 94, No.3, June 1950 • Central Intelligence Agency, "Intelligence in the War of Independence" (Washington: CIA Office of Public Affairs, 1976) • Clark, William Bell: Ben Franklin's Privateers (New York: Greenwood Press, 1956) • Crosby, Enoch, Deposition dated 15 October 1832 to the Clerk of Putnam County, as reprinted in Barnum, H.L., The Spy Unmasked (Harrison, New York: Harbor Hill Books, 1975)

4. Intelligence in the American War of IndependenceRecommended Websites and Reading Material Books and Scholarly Articles: • Crary, Catherine Snell, "The Tory and the Spy: The Double Life of James Rivington" William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 16, No.1 (January 1959)  • Davidson, Philip, Propaganda and the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1941) • Flexner, James Thomas, George Washington in the American Revolution, 1775-1783 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967) • Ford, Corey, A Peculiar Service: A Narrative of Espionage in and Around New York During the American Revolution (Boston, Little Brown, 1965) • Groh, Lynn, The Culper Spy Ring (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1969) • Hall, Charles S., Benjamin Tallmadge: Revolutionary Soldier and American Statesman (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943) • Johnston, Henry P., "The Secret Service of the Revolution" The Magazine of American History, Vol. 8, No. 2, February 1882.

5. Intelligence in the American War of IndependenceRecommended Websites and Reading Material Books and Scholarly Articles: • Kitman, Marvin, George Washington's Expense Account (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1970). • Kleber, Louis C., "Jones Raids Britain" History Today, Vol. XIX, No. 4, April 1969 • Lawson, John L., "The Remarkable Mystery of James Rivington, Spy" Journalism Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 3, Summer 1958. • Monaghan, Frank, John Jay (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1935) • Morris, Richard B., Editor, "John Jay: The Making of A Revolutionary" Unpublished papers, 1745-1780 (New York: Harper & Row, 1975) • O'Brien, Michael J., Hercules Mulligan: Confidential Correspondent of General Washington (New York: P.J. Kennedy, 1937). • O'Toole, G.J.A., Honorable Treachery (New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991) • Patrick, Louis S., "The Secret Service of the American Revolution" Journal of American History, Vol. I, 1907.

6. Intelligence in the American War of IndependenceRecommended Websites and Reading Material Books and Scholarly Articles: • Pearl, Nathalie, "Long Island's Secret Agents of General Washington During the Revolutionary War" The Nassau County Historical Journal, Vol. VIII, No. 1, 1945. • Pennypacker, Morton, General Washington's Spies on Long Island and in New York, Vol. II (Garden City, New York: Country Life Press Corp., 1948) • Pickering, James H., "Enoch Crosby, Secret Agent of the Neutral Ground: His Own Story" New York History, Vol. XLVII, No. 1, January 1966 • Powe, Marc B., and Wilson, Edward E., "The Evolution of American Military Intelligence" (Fort Huachuca, Arizona: US Intelligence Center and School, 1973) • Tallmadge, Benjamin, "Memoir of Col. Benjamin Tallmadge" (New York: 1858; reprinted by New York Times and Arno Press, 1968) • Thompson, Edmund R., Secret New England: Spies of the American Revolution (Kennebunk, Maine chapter, Association of Former Intelligence Officers, 1991) • Van Doren, Carl, Secret History of the American Revolution (New York: Viking, 1941) Also Benjamin Franklin (New York: Viking, 1938)

7. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) The Unanimous Declarationof the Thirteen United States of America When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

8. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) • We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. • That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

9. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) • Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

10. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) • He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. • He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. • He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. • He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. • He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. • He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

11. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) • He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. • He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. • He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. • He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. • He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature. • He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

12. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) • He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation: 13a) For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: 13b) For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: 13c) For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: 13d) For imposing taxes on us without our consent: 13e) For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: 13f) For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses: 13g) For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies: 13h) For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments: 13i) For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

13. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) • He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. • He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. • He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. • He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. • He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. • In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

14. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. • We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. • We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. • We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. • We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

15. The American Declaration of IndependenceAmerica’s First Statement to the World(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776) We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; • that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and • that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. • And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

16. Intelligence in the American War of Independence 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

17. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Personalities • George Washington • John Jay • Benjamin Franklin • Washington's Intelligence Officers • Paul Revere and the Mechanics • Martyrs and Heroes

18. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Organization of Intelligence • The Secret Committee • The Committee of Secret Correspondence • The Committee on Spies

19. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Intelligence Operations • Political Action • Covert Action • Foreign Intelligence • Wartime Special Operations • Counterintelligence • Deception Operations • Propaganda

20. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Intelligence Techniques • Secrecy and Protection • Cover • Disguise • Secret Writing • Codes and Ciphers • Intercepting Communications • Technology • Intelligence Analysis and Estimates

21. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Personalities • In 1997 the CIA opened its new Liaison Conference Center, consisting of three newly refurbished meeting rooms for hosting foreign liaison visitors. Agency officials decided to name the rooms after past practitioners of three key elements of the intelligence discipline--collection of foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, and covert action. Historical research resulted in the selection of three Revolutionary War leaders--all of whom are much more famous for their other exploits and achievements during the revolutionary period than for their impressive intelligence accomplishments.

22. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Personalities • George Washington was the obvious choice for acquisition of foreign intelligence. The Father of our Country was an adroit spymaster. Over the course of his long military career, he directed numerous agent networks, provided comprehensive guidance in intelligence tradecraft to his agents, and used their intelligence effectively when planning and conducting military operations.

23. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Personalities • John Jay--who later became Chief Justice of the United States--is considered the Founding Father of American counterintelligence. Jay is seldom cited for his achievements in this arena; his historical reputation stems largely from his political and judicial accomplishments. But he clearly deserved to be considered the first national-level American counterintelligence chief.

24. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Personalities • Benjamin Franklin was the American icon after whom the remaining room was named. His efforts in what is known today as covert action were wide-ranging and usually successful. During the Revolutionary War period, Franklin engaged in propaganda operations and agent-of-influence activities and directed paramilitary operations against British property.

25. Intelligence in the American War of Independence 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. • Was adept at deception operations and tradecraft and was a skilled propagandist. • 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. • Emphasized his desire for receiving written, rather than verbal, reports. • 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. • 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."

26. Intelligence in the American War of Independence 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.

27. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Washington's Intelligence Officers • 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.

28. Intelligence in the American War of Independence 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.

29. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Paul Revere and the Mechanics • 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 Charlestown, 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."

30. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Paul Revere and the Mechanics • 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.

31. Intelligence in the American War of Independence 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.

32. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

33. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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."

34. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • "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.

35. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

36. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

37. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

38. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

39. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

40. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

41. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

42. Intelligence in the American War of Independence Martyrs and Heroes • 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.

43. Organization of Intelligence The Secret Committee • Created by the Second Continental Congress 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. • Secret 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. • kept its transactions secret, and destroyed many of its records to assure the confidentiality of its work. • employed agents overseas, often in cooperation with the Committee of Secret Correspondence. • gathered intelligence about Tory secret ammunition stores and arranged to seize them. • sent missions to plunder British supplies in the southern colonies. • arranged the purchase of military stores through intermediaries so as to conceal the fact that the Continental Congress was the true purchaser. • used foreign flags to protect its vessels from the British fleet. • 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.

44. 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.

45. Organization of Intelligence The Committee of Secret Correspondence • Among the Committee members-America's first foreign intelligence directorate-were: • Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, • Benjamin Harrison of Virginia • 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.

46. Organization of Intelligence The Committee of Secret Correspondence • 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.

47. Organization of Intelligence The Committee of Secret Correspondence • 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. • January 10, 1781 - creation of a Department of Foreign Affairs-the forerunner of the Department of State: • 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."

48. Organization of Intelligence The Committee on Spies • June 5, 1776 Congress created the Committee on Spies" to consider what is proper to be done with persons giving intelligence to the enemy or supplying them with provisions." • Members: • John Adams, • Thomas Jefferson, • Edward Rutledge, • James Wilson and • Robert Livingston • Committee on Spies also was charged with revising the Articles of War in regard to espionage directed against the patriot forces. • 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.

49. Organization of Intelligence The Committee on Spies • 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.

50. 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)- 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."