George Washington, Spymaster

By J. M. Hochstetler

I’m currently toiling away on Refiner’s Fire, book 6 of my American Patriot Series set during the American Revolution. In this installment Elizabeth Howard has been whisked off to France to keep her out of the hands of British secret agents out to kill her. Meanwhile, Jonathan Carleton, also known as the Shawnee war chief White Eagle, is far out in Ohio Territory involved in frustrating negotiations with his tribe to support the Americans instead of the British or at least stay neutral in the war. As in previous volumes of the series, there’s lots of intrigue and spying—which was serious business on both sides during the Revolution, just as it is in all wars.

Nathan Hale by Frederick MacMonnies
City Hall Park, New York 

When George Washington took command of the rebel army besieging Boston after the battles of Lexington and Concord, he discovered that his new force was poorly trained, badly staffed, and lacking in supplies, equipment, and funds. To have any hope of beating the British, he would have to learn in advance as much of their military plans and movements as possible. In other words, he was going to need spies, double agents, and secret informants, and plenty of them. The British already had spy networks galore among the patriots, so he didn’t waste time setting things in motion. He took command at Cambridge on July 3, 1775, and on the 15th he paid an unidentified spy $333.33 “to go into the town of Boston; to establish a secret correspondence for the purpose of conveying intelligence of the Enemy’s movements and designs.”

Benjamin Tallmadge

Perhaps the most widely known spy of the Revolution was Nathan Hale, a Yale graduate and teacher who served in Knowlton’s Rangers. In September 1776 he volunteered for a mission ordered by Washington to slip behind enemy lines in New York City and gather much-needed intelligence—only to be quickly captured and hanged. Much more successful was another Continental officer Washington enlisted, Benjamin Tallmadge, who had been a close friend of Hale’s. If you’ve watched the series Turn on AMC, you’re familiar with the most famous of Washington’s spy rings—the Culper Ring—though facts are few and far between in this inventive re-imagination of history. Tallmadge was the mastermind behind the Culper Ring, recruiting both soldiers and civilians into what became one of the most effective espionage networks of the American Revolution. In 1780 its members uncovered British plans to ambush French troops en route to aid the Continentals, allowing Washington to prepare a defense that forced the British to change their plans. The ring also identified Major John Andre as a British spy and through him exposed the treachery of Benedict Arnold.

Culper Ring Code Book

The Culper Ring was only one of Washington’s spy networks, which involved merchants, ordinary laborers, farmers, and women, among others. Their success was crucial to the eventual defeat of the British. In addition, Congress passed resolutions that directed military intelligence operations in a number of directions as well. To maintain the greatest secrecy, spies were provided with code names and aliases, cipher codes, invisible ink, dead drops, and even such methods as posting “codes” on clotheslines and messages concealed in balls of knitting yarn. Washington also spread disinformation and fake intelligence about military movements and attacks on specific forts by sending messages via regular post so they could be intercepted and using “deserters” who offered “intelligence” to the British.

Washington essentially laid the groundwork for today’s intelligence organizations by recognizing that gathering information was just as important as building a powerful army. Without the efforts of Washington and his spies, our Revolution might have had a very different outcome. As Major George Beckwith, a British intelligence officer, noted: “Washington did not really outfight the British, he simply outspied us.”

I love tales of spies and intrigue, which is probably why I write them. But honestly, I have to wonder whether I’d have the courage to become a spy. Do you enjoy those kinds of stories too? Have you ever wondered what you would do if our country were under direct attack by an enemy and people you loved depended on you to protect them?

~~~

J. M. Hochstetler is the daughter of Mennonite farmers and a lifelong student of history. She is also an author, editor, and publisher. Her American Patriot Series is the only comprehensive historical fiction series on the American Revolution. Northkill, Book 1 of the Northkill Amish Series coauthored with Bob Hostetler, won Foreword Magazine’s 2014 Indie Book of the Year Bronze Award for historical fiction. Book 2, The Return, received the 2017 Interviews and Reviews Silver Award for Historical Fiction. One Holy Night, a contemporary retelling of the Christmas story, was the Christian Small Publishers 2009 Book of the Year.

The Secret History of US Spies

by Tamera Lynn Kraft


The United States has been in the spy business since before it became a nation. It all began with Nathan Hale, America's first spy. Now there are many spy organizations in the United States government with the CIA being the most well known.

America's First Spy: Nathan Hale is considered America's first spy. He wasn't really the first spy, but he was the first to be executed as a spy. He volunteered for a dangerous mission into New York City to spy upon the British. Unfortunately he was caught and hanged. Reportedly his last words were, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

Revolutionary Spies: Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere are amoung the most well-known spies of the Revolutionary War, but there were many spy rings. The biggest was the Culpepper Spy Ring in New York. Major Benjamin Tallmadge recruited Caleb Brewster and Abraham Woodhull (code name Samuel Culpepper) to gather intelligence on the British. Historians still don't know the identity of some of the spies in that ring, only their code names.  One piece of intellegence the Culpepper Ring gathered was the betrayal of Benedict Arnold and his secret meeting with John Andre.

Washington's Secret Service: George Washington, our first president understood the importance of intelligence gathering. One of his first acts as president was to work with the Congress to establish the Secret Service which comprised 10% of the federal budget. A few years later, Thomas Jefferson used the Secret Service to overthrow the government in a small North African country to stop Barbary pirate from raiding US ships. Madison used spies to influence the Spanish to relinquish Florida. Congress tried to oversee the secret fund, President Polk insisted that emergencies require oversight to be the prerogative of the president.

Civil War: During the Civil War, both Union and Confederate armies were involved in spying. They used the first spy satellites, hot air balloons, to record movements of the enemy troops. Neither side had an organized intelligence gathering organization run by their governments. The Union contracted
Allen Pinkerton and Lafayette Baker. The South had many individuals involved in spying including three infamous women: Rose Greenhow, Belle Boyd, and Nancy Hart.

First Formal Spy Agencies: The first formal US spy agencies were formed in the 1880s. They were the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Army’s Military Intelligence Division. They were involved heavily in the Spanish-American War in 1898. The Secret Service was still in operation but was in charge of domestic counter-intelligence only. The Secret Service broke up a Spanish spy ring in Montreal during the war.

World War I: US spy agencies had suffered greatly from budget cuts until World War I when the National Security Agency was established as a department of the US Army. The Secret Service, the New York Police Department, and military counterintelligence also were involved in intellegence and stopped German spying inside the United States. Another significant organization to be created during the First World War was the Justice Department's Bureau of Investigation (later called FBI) which enforced the first US Espionage Act of 1917.

World War II: As the Nazis rose in power, the US put it's energy into code breaking and intellegence gathering on Germany and Japan. The Black Chamber Organization was formed to do that.  As the war drew closer, President Roosevelt established a new spy organization in 1941 called the Office of the Coordinator of Information to organize the activities of the various spy organizations. After the failure to detect the Japanese plot to bomb Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt dissolved the OCI and established the wartime organization, the Office of Strategic Services. The OSS and FBI worked closely with the Armed Services spy organizations to do intelligence gathering throughout the war.

Cold War: The OSS was abolished when the war ended in October, 1945 by President Truman, but it soon became obvious another central intelligence organization was needed. In January, 1946, Truman and others planned out the new spy organization called the Central Intelligence Group. This group had access and oversight of all foreign intelligence gathering and spying. The CIG also functioned under the direction of a National Intelligence Authority, composed of a presidential representative and the secretaries of State, War, and the Navy. In 1947, the National Security Act disbanded the CIG and the National Intelligence Authority and replaced them with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency forming our modern day spying organizations.

Tamera Lynn Kraft has always loved adventures and writes Christian historical fiction set in America because there are so many adventures in American history. She has received 2^nd place in the NOCW contest, 3^rd place TARA writer’s contest, and was a finalist in the Frasier Writing Contest. Her novel Alice’s Notions and novellas Resurrection of Hope and A Christmas Promise are available on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble.