James Fenimore Cooper published his wildly popular second novel, The Spy: a Tale of the Neutral Ground, in 1821. The book tells the story of Harvey Birch, a Patriot spy operating in the “Neutral Ground,” an uncontrolled region north of New York City that included Westchester County. Not long after Cooper published his novel, a […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Charles Dewey, contributor and military intelligence officer in the US Army National Guard, about espionage and double agents during the American Revolution and how some of those recruited to spy did so against their will. As your host Brady Crytzer says, “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the interview. . […]
“But while a confidence trickster, a play actor or a gambler can return from his performance to the ranks of his admirers, the secret agent enjoys no such relief. For him, deception is first a matter of self-defense.”—John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Throughout the Revolution, the American intelligence apparatus […]
Henry Defendorff enlisted as a sergeant in Christopher P. Yates’s Tryon County company of the 2nd New York Provincial Battalion commanded by Col. Goose Van Schaick, on July 20, 1775. The position of his name on the company muster roll indicates he was the company’s second sergeant.[1] The original company didn’t exist for long; shortly […]
On July 15, 1775, less than two weeks after he arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take command of the Continental Army, Gen. George Washington penned this entry in his expense notebook: To 333 1/3 Dollars give to —— ——* to enduce him to go into the Town of Boston; to establish a secret correspondence for […]
One of the things that make human intelligence operations so interesting is that you never know how, and for that matter whether, an operation will work out as planned. Lt. Lewis J. Costigin’s mission as a spy for George Washington did eventually work out. But, not the first time he tried in early 1777. In […]
In the late summer of 1776, Nathan Hale was a handsome, tall, charismatic twenty-one-year-old school teacher from Coventry, Connecticut with no battle experience but eager to do his duty for his country’s rebellion. “I owe to my country the accomplishment of an object so important…”[1] His accomplishment is well known, but not in the way […]
Good Revolutionary War commanders understood the value of intelligence on their adversaries. The great eighteenth century military theorist Marshal de Saxe, who was on every good general’s reading list, wrote that to win in battle “nothing more is required than to keep good intelligence, to acquire a knowledge of the country, and to assume the […]
Battles are complicated events where conflicting or unclear information can confuse even good generals. Here are some examples of when American intelligence systems failed, usually with terribly tragic results. Quebec In late 1775 the Continental Congress planned to neutralize threats from Canada by seizing Montreal. Gen. George Washington, commanding the Continental Army at Boston, decided […]
Danger, secrets, intrigue and revenge were all part of the Culper spy ring, and the new AMC series “Turn,” premiering April 6 (Sundays 9/8 central), offers a fascinating look into how these intrepid American spies helped win the Revolutionary War. AMC provided Journal of the American Revolution an early screening of the first three episodes. […]
As the struggle between Great Britain and her colonists in the thirteen North American colonies entered a state of armed resistance against British military power, the delegates to the Second Continental Congress began to ponder the need for foreign assistance. With blood on both sides having been shed at Lexington and Concord, a siege in […]
