Washington’s Spies

After reading George Washington’s Secret Six, I wanted to know more about this ring of spies that did so much for my country.  I didn’t know the story of these early Americans, which was almost unheard of outside of their individual families until the 1920s, when a guy with the interesting last name of Pennypacker recognized that the handwriting in some documents in his Long Island, New York, collection and in some letters in the George Washington collection were the same.  That led him to figuring out just who Samuel Culper was.  He wrote a book, but the story went back into relative obscurity until cable channel AMC decided to make it into a TV series.  As a mostly non-TV watcher, I’d much rather pick up the book.

Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose (ISBN: 978-0-307-41870-8) delves deep into the history of the Culper Ring.  It starts well before the two main Culper spies came onto the scene by giving the reader the full story of America’s first spy, Nathan Hale, who likely said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country,” before being hung, condemned as a traitor to the king.  Hale was friends in college with the first spymaster of the United States, Benjamin Tallmadge, and Hale’s untimely demise served as a very real warning to Tallmadge and others who were contemplating ways to undermine the British in America.  In similar, extremely detailed fashion, Rose takes the reader through the history of the ring from its very beginning to its disbanding as the Revolutionary War wound down.  He talks of its triumphs in warning Washington of various British plans ranging from diversionary marches to producing counterfeit money.  He discusses the struggles the ring had, which ranged from finding someone to shuttle messages back and forth to figuring out ways to encipher writing, all the while avoiding the heavy hand of military justice.  The book also provides a lot of detail on Benedict Arnold’s defection, the effects of which the Culper Ring diminished, and on the British spymaster, John André, who was involved in that unfortunate event, and therefore, hung by the Americans.

This was a book that I really enjoyed reading.  While more academic in nature than the first book I read on the subject (I even had to look up a few words in the dictionary), it was no less engrossing, and it easily captures one’s imagination, transporting the reader back in time and into the shops, taverns, and marshes of colonial New York.  It’s really no surprise this book and its author were relied on heavily by AMC’s producers.  I liked the high level of detail that gave a very complete picture of all the spies, the couriers, and the American and British officers involved in attempts to gather intelligence and to thwart such operations.  There were also detailed explanations of XVIII-century spy tradecraft such as invisible inks and codes and how to break them.  It made me think of some school and Cub Scout activities that I fondly recalled.  The book is a very solid piece of history that relied solely on well-researched history, including a large number of primary sources (The author also spends a few pages discussing some of the more popular theories about the Culper Ring, such as “Agent 355.”  The author jumps on no bandwagons and intelligently discusses the matter, noting that the somewhat popular theory of a woman intimately involved in the ring is unlikely.), on a thoroughly interesting chapter of Revolutionary War history and one that helped me appreciate those who sacrificed to make the United States of America.

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