Espionage & the American War for Independence

A successful military campaign requires the collection of information and the denial of like information to your enemy. George Washington at the head of a nascent army, without such skills, relied heavily upon many clever and entrepreneurial men. To help us shine a light on the murky world of secret communications, Damien Cregeau, scholar and frequent contributor to the Journal of the American Revolution talks with us about espionage in the American War for Independence.

Transcript

WEBVTT
 
 00:00:00.811 --> 00:00:01.530
 Hello, everyone.
 
 00:00:01.732 --> 00:00:04.092
 Welcome to the Revolution 250 podcast.
 
 00:00:04.213 --> 00:00:05.493
 I am Bob Allison.
 
 00:00:05.554 --> 00:00:07.355
 I chair the Rev 250 advisory group,
 
 00:00:07.415 --> 00:00:09.856
 also teach history at Suffolk University.
 
 00:00:10.256 --> 00:00:12.518
 We are a consortium of some
 
 00:00:12.518 --> 00:00:13.298
 75 organizations in
 
 00:00:13.339 --> 00:00:14.480
 Massachusetts planning ways
 
 00:00:14.500 --> 00:00:15.080
 to commemorate the
 
 00:00:15.119 --> 00:00:17.060
 beginnings of American independence.
 
 00:00:17.582 --> 00:00:20.163
 And our guest today is Damian Krugo.
 
 00:00:20.323 --> 00:00:22.425
 Damian Krugo is a scholar
 
 00:00:22.464 --> 00:00:24.606
 who focuses on the American Revolution.
 
 00:00:25.025 --> 00:00:26.007
 You've had lots of different
 
 00:00:26.047 --> 00:00:27.268
 things you've done over the
 
 00:00:27.307 --> 00:00:29.208
 course of your work in history.
 
 00:00:29.838 --> 00:00:30.760
 You have a book coming out,
 
 00:00:30.820 --> 00:00:31.881
 Portraits of Patriots,
 
 00:00:31.981 --> 00:00:33.262
 on the revolutionary lives
 
 00:00:33.302 --> 00:00:35.024
 of five patriots from Connecticut.
 
 00:00:35.884 --> 00:00:36.326
 And, Damian,
 
 00:00:36.345 --> 00:00:37.286
 we're here to actually talk
 
 00:00:37.326 --> 00:00:38.768
 about your work on spies
 
 00:00:38.848 --> 00:00:40.429
 and espionage in the revolution.
 
 00:00:40.450 --> 00:00:41.350
 So thanks for joining us.
 
 00:00:42.152 --> 00:00:43.793
 Well, thanks for having me, Bob.
 
 00:00:43.933 --> 00:00:44.975
 It's an honor to be on this
 
 00:00:45.034 --> 00:00:47.758
 show and get to talk kind
 
 00:00:47.798 --> 00:00:50.039
 of free format about this
 
 00:00:50.079 --> 00:00:50.941
 fascinating topic.
 
 00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:51.619
 It is.
 
 00:00:52.100 --> 00:00:52.320
 I mean,
 
 00:00:52.341 --> 00:00:53.240
 you've written about other
 
 00:00:53.301 --> 00:00:54.701
 fascinating topics on
 
 00:00:55.061 --> 00:00:56.063
 historic houses in
 
 00:00:56.082 --> 00:00:58.204
 Connecticut pertaining to the Revolution.
 
 00:01:00.045 --> 00:01:01.945
 And you give a talk called Spies,
 
 00:01:02.085 --> 00:01:05.447
 Lies and Alibis, focusing on this period.
 
 00:01:05.487 --> 00:01:07.429
 So who are some of your
 
 00:01:07.489 --> 00:01:08.689
 favorites in this world of
 
 00:01:08.769 --> 00:01:10.049
 espionage in the Revolution?
 
 00:01:10.771 --> 00:01:10.971
 Sure.
 
 00:01:11.876 --> 00:01:12.936
 Well, interestingly,
 
 00:01:13.158 --> 00:01:14.858
 because I'm married to a psychologist,
 
 00:01:14.918 --> 00:01:15.718
 I guess I have to say,
 
 00:01:15.778 --> 00:01:16.838
 where did this all begin?
 
 00:01:17.179 --> 00:01:18.159
 Yeah, that's a good question.
 
 00:01:18.400 --> 00:01:21.320
 Psychological formative imprint, right?
 
 00:01:21.941 --> 00:01:22.480
 I grew up during the
 
 00:01:22.521 --> 00:01:24.281
 bicentennial in Fairfield, Connecticut,
 
 00:01:24.682 --> 00:01:25.762
 and that served as one of
 
 00:01:25.781 --> 00:01:26.822
 the fulcrum points for the
 
 00:01:26.862 --> 00:01:27.983
 Culper spy ring in the
 
 00:01:28.022 --> 00:01:29.084
 American Revolution,
 
 00:01:29.884 --> 00:01:30.603
 which a lot of your
 
 00:01:30.683 --> 00:01:32.144
 audience is familiar with.
 
 00:01:32.444 --> 00:01:32.605
 Yeah.
 
 00:01:33.236 --> 00:01:34.977
 a lot of popularity about the Culver Ring.
 
 00:01:35.978 --> 00:01:36.739
 Caleb Brewster,
 
 00:01:37.219 --> 00:01:38.981
 the prominent courier in
 
 00:01:39.022 --> 00:01:40.582
 that ring who would row
 
 00:01:40.623 --> 00:01:41.763
 back and forth across Long
 
 00:01:41.823 --> 00:01:43.704
 Island Sound following what
 
 00:01:43.765 --> 00:01:45.126
 is the modern day route of
 
 00:01:45.367 --> 00:01:46.548
 the Port Jefferson Ferry,
 
 00:01:47.268 --> 00:01:48.688
 he's buried in a cemetery
 
 00:01:49.030 --> 00:01:49.930
 basically down the street
 
 00:01:49.969 --> 00:01:50.911
 from my childhood home.
 
 00:01:52.251 --> 00:01:54.054
 And I'm watching also the
 
 00:01:54.073 --> 00:01:55.555
 reenactment of the British
 
 00:01:55.736 --> 00:01:56.817
 and Hessian burning of
 
 00:01:56.878 --> 00:02:01.703
 Fairfield circa 1779, which means 1979.
 
 00:02:01.703 --> 00:02:03.305
 And I'm saying to my mom and dad,
 
 00:02:03.885 --> 00:02:04.766
 why are there hay bales
 
 00:02:04.805 --> 00:02:05.968
 catching fire out in front
 
 00:02:05.987 --> 00:02:07.549
 of our house on Old Post Road?
 
 00:02:07.569 --> 00:02:08.890
 And we lived across from
 
 00:02:08.911 --> 00:02:10.233
 this place called the Burr Mansion.
 
 00:02:10.293 --> 00:02:11.334
 It's not Aaron Burr,
 
 00:02:11.394 --> 00:02:12.895
 but a cousin named Thaddeus Burr.
 
 00:02:13.962 --> 00:02:15.864
 And beautiful place to live
 
 00:02:15.903 --> 00:02:18.286
 and grow up and have a sense of place,
 
 00:02:18.406 --> 00:02:19.627
 you know, connected to history.
 
 00:02:20.546 --> 00:02:21.807
 And that's what got me hooked.
 
 00:02:22.008 --> 00:02:22.229
 You know,
 
 00:02:22.248 --> 00:02:23.930
 when you're seeing living history
 
 00:02:24.129 --> 00:02:25.050
 and the beautiful
 
 00:02:25.251 --> 00:02:25.950
 architecture in the
 
 00:02:25.971 --> 00:02:26.771
 neighborhood and some of
 
 00:02:26.792 --> 00:02:28.233
 the trauma that the town
 
 00:02:28.252 --> 00:02:30.174
 had gone through and part
 
 00:02:30.193 --> 00:02:31.074
 of this culprit ring.
 
 00:02:31.655 --> 00:02:33.675
 And so that was the portal
 
 00:02:33.716 --> 00:02:34.977
 into my interest in history
 
 00:02:35.157 --> 00:02:37.338
 and this topic of spies in the war.
 
 00:02:38.079 --> 00:02:38.939
 That's great.
 
 00:02:39.020 --> 00:02:39.240
 And now.
 
 00:02:39.883 --> 00:02:41.766
 You've looked into others.
 
 00:02:41.826 --> 00:02:43.971
 I know you've read the piece
 
 00:02:43.991 --> 00:02:45.933
 you did on the series of 10, I think,
 
 00:02:46.215 --> 00:02:48.479
 of the prominent spies that
 
 00:02:48.538 --> 00:02:50.562
 you have chosen for different reasons.
 
 00:02:50.662 --> 00:02:51.364
 Before we get to it,
 
 00:02:51.704 --> 00:02:53.347
 how accurate is the show turned?
 
 00:02:54.479 --> 00:02:55.620
 It's a great question, Bob.
 
 00:02:55.639 --> 00:02:57.920
 And I knew as soon as the show aired,
 
 00:02:58.061 --> 00:02:58.841
 it was going to be the most
 
 00:02:58.901 --> 00:03:01.822
 commonly question I get asked.
 
 00:03:02.681 --> 00:03:03.723
 When I gave a talk to the
 
 00:03:03.842 --> 00:03:05.962
 FBI's New York office in 2014,
 
 00:03:05.962 --> 00:03:06.943
 that was a wonderful
 
 00:03:06.984 --> 00:03:07.943
 experience to talk to
 
 00:03:07.984 --> 00:03:09.044
 people who do it in real
 
 00:03:09.084 --> 00:03:10.944
 life in the five boroughs
 
 00:03:11.004 --> 00:03:11.645
 of New York City.
 
 00:03:12.526 --> 00:03:13.765
 And I had agents and
 
 00:03:13.825 --> 00:03:15.467
 analysts coming to me saying,
 
 00:03:15.546 --> 00:03:17.127
 what do you think of the TV show Turn?
 
 00:03:17.187 --> 00:03:19.008
 And my cryptic answer was, well,
 
 00:03:19.027 --> 00:03:19.687
 what do you think of the
 
 00:03:19.807 --> 00:03:21.247
 FBI and how they're
 
 00:03:21.288 --> 00:03:23.088
 depicted on TV shows and movies?
 
 00:03:23.588 --> 00:03:25.389
 Yeah, that's a good question.
 
 00:03:25.468 --> 00:03:26.188
 You know,
 
 00:03:26.209 --> 00:03:27.830
 and you can say that about the CIA.
 
 00:03:28.889 --> 00:03:29.949
 You've spoken to both the
 
 00:03:30.030 --> 00:03:31.371
 FBI as well as to intelligence,
 
 00:03:31.591 --> 00:03:32.450
 retired intelligence
 
 00:03:32.531 --> 00:03:34.510
 officers and others who see
 
 00:03:34.570 --> 00:03:35.330
 a real value in
 
 00:03:35.372 --> 00:03:37.412
 understanding the revolutionary world.
 
 00:03:38.763 --> 00:03:39.343
 Exactly.
 
 00:03:39.463 --> 00:03:39.883
 In fact,
 
 00:03:39.943 --> 00:03:41.205
 the Association of Former
 
 00:03:41.245 --> 00:03:42.507
 Intelligence Officers
 
 00:03:42.727 --> 00:03:44.108
 actually published a book
 
 00:03:45.049 --> 00:03:46.389
 called Secret New England.
 
 00:03:47.211 --> 00:03:49.312
 And that's their publication.
 
 00:03:49.353 --> 00:03:50.735
 It's a paperback book about
 
 00:03:51.215 --> 00:03:52.156
 all the operations that
 
 00:03:52.175 --> 00:03:53.296
 took place in Boston,
 
 00:03:53.336 --> 00:03:54.177
 Newport and elsewhere.
 
 00:03:55.915 --> 00:03:57.938
 So to answer your question about TURN,
 
 00:03:59.020 --> 00:04:00.262
 we can look at it the same way.
 
 00:04:00.282 --> 00:04:01.223
 I've spoken quite a bit
 
 00:04:01.242 --> 00:04:02.463
 about Alexander Hamilton.
 
 00:04:03.145 --> 00:04:04.706
 It's the same thing with the musical.
 
 00:04:05.048 --> 00:04:06.308
 It's a portal that ignites
 
 00:04:06.329 --> 00:04:08.391
 people's interest to a broader audience.
 
 00:04:09.152 --> 00:04:10.014
 The problem is the
 
 00:04:10.093 --> 00:04:11.836
 historical accuracy challenges.
 
 00:04:13.098 --> 00:04:14.620
 The biggest challenge on TURN
 
 00:04:16.494 --> 00:04:18.115
 was that Abraham Woodhull
 
 00:04:19.156 --> 00:04:20.596
 never committed adultery.
 
 00:04:21.557 --> 00:04:22.797
 And so the way he was
 
 00:04:22.836 --> 00:04:24.237
 depicted was unfortunate
 
 00:04:24.798 --> 00:04:26.658
 because he was such an honorable man,
 
 00:04:26.939 --> 00:04:28.699
 a gentleman to his wife.
 
 00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:30.081
 He hadn't even married until
 
 00:04:30.120 --> 00:04:30.740
 I think it was 1782 anyway.
 
 00:04:32.482 --> 00:04:34.002
 As operations were winding down.
 
 00:04:34.201 --> 00:04:34.401
 Yeah,
 
 00:04:34.682 --> 00:04:38.802
 that for me was the personal liberty
 
 00:04:38.862 --> 00:04:40.663
 with history Now the nice
 
 00:04:40.704 --> 00:04:42.144
 thing about the show was
 
 00:04:42.204 --> 00:04:43.204
 that the costuming was
 
 00:04:43.244 --> 00:04:44.185
 wonderful particularly
 
 00:04:44.365 --> 00:04:45.524
 women and the lighting and
 
 00:04:45.564 --> 00:04:46.764
 the settings None of the
 
 00:04:46.805 --> 00:04:47.845
 show was filmed of course
 
 00:04:47.944 --> 00:04:49.985
 on Long Island it was
 
 00:04:50.365 --> 00:04:51.406
 primarily filmed in
 
 00:04:51.485 --> 00:04:52.745
 Virginia places like
 
 00:04:52.805 --> 00:04:53.887
 Fredericksburg Colonial
 
 00:04:53.906 --> 00:04:55.887
 Williamsburg and Shirley plantation and
 
 00:04:56.367 --> 00:04:57.648
 So the settings were gorgeous.
 
 00:04:58.809 --> 00:04:59.569
 I think they just didn't
 
 00:04:59.608 --> 00:05:00.168
 have the right kind of
 
 00:05:00.250 --> 00:05:02.571
 places maybe to do it.
 
 00:05:02.990 --> 00:05:05.372
 But it's an interesting show.
 
 00:05:05.452 --> 00:05:06.473
 And some of the dynamics,
 
 00:05:06.512 --> 00:05:07.613
 I think the important thing,
 
 00:05:07.994 --> 00:05:08.894
 and I've discussed this
 
 00:05:08.954 --> 00:05:11.216
 with some FBI agents and others,
 
 00:05:11.896 --> 00:05:13.497
 is the dynamics,
 
 00:05:13.516 --> 00:05:15.237
 the risks that these people took.
 
 00:05:16.598 --> 00:05:17.980
 That is definitely depicted.
 
 00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:20.261
 These were risky operations.
 
 00:05:20.682 --> 00:05:21.422
 They definitely were.
 
 00:05:22.331 --> 00:05:24.853
 You happen to be right now in New Jersey,
 
 00:05:24.913 --> 00:05:25.593
 and one of the people
 
 00:05:25.634 --> 00:05:27.495
 you've written about is the
 
 00:05:27.915 --> 00:05:30.156
 Mercero family in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
 
 00:05:30.177 --> 00:05:30.877
 I wonder if we could talk a
 
 00:05:30.918 --> 00:05:32.778
 little bit about that group
 
 00:05:32.819 --> 00:05:33.620
 and what they were up to.
 
 00:05:34.379 --> 00:05:34.759
 Sure.
 
 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:36.882
 So that's kind of been one
 
 00:05:36.901 --> 00:05:38.822
 of my goals as a scholar on
 
 00:05:38.862 --> 00:05:41.826
 these individual agents or
 
 00:05:42.346 --> 00:05:43.226
 espionage rings,
 
 00:05:43.266 --> 00:05:44.286
 that there's more than just
 
 00:05:44.346 --> 00:05:45.228
 the Culper ring.
 
 00:05:45.848 --> 00:05:47.009
 And so I try to shed light
 
 00:05:47.069 --> 00:05:47.829
 on some of the others.
 
 00:05:47.930 --> 00:05:48.571
 And one of them that you're
 
 00:05:48.591 --> 00:05:50.192
 bringing up is the Mercero ring.
 
 00:05:51.175 --> 00:05:52.596
 which was basically a father
 
 00:05:52.636 --> 00:05:53.656
 and his two sons.
 
 00:05:54.939 --> 00:05:56.399
 There were two brothers and
 
 00:05:56.740 --> 00:05:58.201
 the father was operating in
 
 00:05:58.242 --> 00:05:59.983
 a stagecoach line between
 
 00:06:00.043 --> 00:06:01.725
 Philadelphia and New York City.
 
 00:06:02.305 --> 00:06:03.607
 So that provided the perfect
 
 00:06:03.646 --> 00:06:05.908
 cover for communication
 
 00:06:06.988 --> 00:06:08.211
 That they could send letters
 
 00:06:08.350 --> 00:06:09.232
 without it looking as
 
 00:06:09.271 --> 00:06:11.555
 suspicious through the stagecoach line.
 
 00:06:11.995 --> 00:06:14.800
 And it basically operated out of Elizabeth,
 
 00:06:15.141 --> 00:06:15.762
 New Jersey,
 
 00:06:15.961 --> 00:06:17.625
 Perth Amboy and Staten Island.
 
 00:06:17.704 --> 00:06:18.505
 Kind of a triangle.
 
 00:06:18.865 --> 00:06:19.107
 Right.
 
 00:06:19.206 --> 00:06:20.288
 Because the only thing
 
 00:06:20.329 --> 00:06:21.110
 that's separating New
 
 00:06:21.149 --> 00:06:22.290
 Jersey from Staten Island
 
 00:06:22.372 --> 00:06:23.192
 is the Arthur Kill.
 
 00:06:23.612 --> 00:06:26.113
 a Dutch word for basically a little river,
 
 00:06:26.754 --> 00:06:27.033
 you know,
 
 00:06:27.093 --> 00:06:28.653
 that is a channel nowadays for
 
 00:06:29.274 --> 00:06:30.654
 freighters and tankers.
 
 00:06:30.875 --> 00:06:32.154
 But, you know, it's, what,
 
 00:06:32.394 --> 00:06:33.334
 a quarter mile wide,
 
 00:06:33.355 --> 00:06:34.675
 so you can row back and forth.
 
 00:06:35.456 --> 00:06:38.576
 And so the Mercerows, just by proximity,
 
 00:06:38.877 --> 00:06:39.797
 were picking up a lot of
 
 00:06:39.857 --> 00:06:41.117
 information from British
 
 00:06:41.216 --> 00:06:42.958
 headquarters that were in Perth Amboy,
 
 00:06:43.697 --> 00:06:44.718
 and any time they were
 
 00:06:44.757 --> 00:06:45.999
 taking up residence in one
 
 00:06:46.019 --> 00:06:48.278
 of the taverns on Staten Island,
 
 00:06:48.298 --> 00:06:49.959
 and of course coming
 
 00:06:49.980 --> 00:06:50.939
 through Elizabeth at the time.
 
 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:51.180
 So
 
 00:06:52.136 --> 00:06:52.757
 In different ways,
 
 00:06:52.836 --> 00:06:53.797
 they were able to provide
 
 00:06:53.857 --> 00:06:54.918
 information that gets
 
 00:06:54.978 --> 00:06:56.338
 overshadowed by the Culver Ring.
 
 00:06:57.060 --> 00:07:00.322
 And it started as early as
 
 00:07:00.322 --> 00:07:02.064
 1776 when they would be
 
 00:07:02.244 --> 00:07:04.225
 informing Israel Putnam and
 
 00:07:04.264 --> 00:07:05.865
 some other generals who
 
 00:07:05.887 --> 00:07:06.747
 were coming through that
 
 00:07:06.807 --> 00:07:08.067
 part of New Jersey.
 
 00:07:08.848 --> 00:07:09.930
 And then it gets more
 
 00:07:10.069 --> 00:07:11.831
 organized under Colonel,
 
 00:07:11.911 --> 00:07:14.333
 later Brigadier General Elias Dayton.
 
 00:07:15.194 --> 00:07:16.233
 And so it kind of gets a
 
 00:07:16.274 --> 00:07:17.795
 hyphenated name of the
 
 00:07:17.875 --> 00:07:19.776
 Dayton slash Mercero Ring.
 
 00:07:19.817 --> 00:07:20.057
 Right.
 
 00:07:20.697 --> 00:07:20.838
 Yeah.
 
 00:07:22.007 --> 00:07:22.629
 So it's interesting.
 
 00:07:22.649 --> 00:07:23.350
 So, you know,
 
 00:07:24.011 --> 00:07:25.153
 all of these are interesting stories.
 
 00:07:25.213 --> 00:07:25.673
 Now, go on.
 
 00:07:25.692 --> 00:07:26.654
 You look like you're about
 
 00:07:26.675 --> 00:07:27.555
 to say something else.
 
 00:07:28.317 --> 00:07:28.557
 Yes.
 
 00:07:28.617 --> 00:07:28.918
 Thank you.
 
 00:07:29.158 --> 00:07:30.701
 I just realized the thing,
 
 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:31.762
 one of the reasons it gets
 
 00:07:31.822 --> 00:07:33.824
 overshadowed understandably is that
 
 00:07:34.903 --> 00:07:35.485
 Um, you know,
 
 00:07:35.524 --> 00:07:36.545
 there's no invisible ink
 
 00:07:36.605 --> 00:07:38.146
 letters like you get, um,
 
 00:07:38.187 --> 00:07:39.047
 with a Culper ring.
 
 00:07:39.427 --> 00:07:39.588
 Yeah.
 
 00:07:39.987 --> 00:07:40.168
 Um,
 
 00:07:40.788 --> 00:07:43.331
 and we don't know how many letters were
 
 00:07:43.370 --> 00:07:44.130
 actually produced.
 
 00:07:44.170 --> 00:07:44.372
 I mean,
 
 00:07:44.391 --> 00:07:45.692
 we have some that survived in the
 
 00:07:45.733 --> 00:07:48.894
 George Washington papers, but, um,
 
 00:07:49.154 --> 00:07:50.096
 there's understandable
 
 00:07:50.156 --> 00:07:51.656
 reasons why it gets overshadowed,
 
 00:07:51.737 --> 00:07:52.278
 but this,
 
 00:07:52.398 --> 00:07:53.879
 this is a demonstration or an
 
 00:07:53.918 --> 00:07:54.920
 example of George
 
 00:07:55.000 --> 00:07:56.841
 Washington wanting to
 
 00:07:56.882 --> 00:07:57.822
 deliberately have
 
 00:07:58.502 --> 00:08:00.745
 redundancy that he could get information,
 
 00:08:00.764 --> 00:08:00.805
 um,
 
 00:08:01.464 --> 00:08:03.086
 from basically two different
 
 00:08:03.225 --> 00:08:04.266
 flanks you know they're
 
 00:08:04.286 --> 00:08:05.668
 over basically new jersey
 
 00:08:05.708 --> 00:08:06.629
 and staten island whereas
 
 00:08:06.649 --> 00:08:07.410
 the culver ring is
 
 00:08:07.509 --> 00:08:09.730
 operating um initially out
 
 00:08:09.750 --> 00:08:10.971
 of long island and adding
 
 00:08:11.031 --> 00:08:12.252
 it from what would become
 
 00:08:12.312 --> 00:08:13.473
 south street seaport so
 
 00:08:13.514 --> 00:08:14.394
 it's a different angle
 
 00:08:14.814 --> 00:08:16.415
 right so he could as some
 
 00:08:16.435 --> 00:08:17.958
 would say trust but verify
 
 00:08:17.978 --> 00:08:19.298
 you know the information
 
 00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:20.579
 that he's receiving yeah
 
 00:08:20.600 --> 00:08:21.259
 because there's always a
 
 00:08:21.319 --> 00:08:22.300
 chance that someone's being
 
 00:08:22.360 --> 00:08:24.021
 fed misinformation too sure
 
 00:08:24.101 --> 00:08:26.403
 so yeah yeah um
 
 00:08:26.805 --> 00:08:27.846
 Which I think might bring us
 
 00:08:27.887 --> 00:08:28.867
 to Edward Bancroft,
 
 00:08:29.026 --> 00:08:31.387
 the interesting character
 
 00:08:31.528 --> 00:08:33.969
 who was Franklin's secretary.
 
 00:08:33.989 --> 00:08:36.169
 But then it turns out he was
 
 00:08:36.210 --> 00:08:37.150
 also a double agent.
 
 00:08:38.010 --> 00:08:38.250
 Yes.
 
 00:08:39.392 --> 00:08:39.591
 Yeah,
 
 00:08:39.631 --> 00:08:41.373
 so Edward Bancroft grew up in the
 
 00:08:41.432 --> 00:08:44.234
 Hartford, Wethersfield, Connecticut area.
 
 00:08:44.714 --> 00:08:46.615
 He's a student of Silas Dean,
 
 00:08:48.096 --> 00:08:50.716
 the future diplomat who's a
 
 00:08:50.736 --> 00:08:52.378
 member of the First Continental Congress.
 
 00:08:53.238 --> 00:08:54.479
 and who has a house museum
 
 00:08:54.538 --> 00:08:55.440
 in weathersfield to this
 
 00:08:55.480 --> 00:08:57.660
 day and that's one
 
 00:08:57.721 --> 00:08:59.302
 connection that's one door
 
 00:08:59.381 --> 00:09:00.883
 opener for edward bancroft
 
 00:09:01.222 --> 00:09:02.624
 but the other is that
 
 00:09:03.184 --> 00:09:04.445
 edward bancroft had become
 
 00:09:04.505 --> 00:09:06.486
 a doctor he was I believe a
 
 00:09:06.527 --> 00:09:07.847
 physician a scientist a
 
 00:09:07.888 --> 00:09:09.889
 very talented one and that
 
 00:09:10.149 --> 00:09:11.169
 uh gives him provides an
 
 00:09:11.230 --> 00:09:12.510
 introduction to of course
 
 00:09:13.331 --> 00:09:14.672
 uh benjamin franklin
 
 00:09:14.932 --> 00:09:16.913
 another scientist and inventor
 
 00:09:18.168 --> 00:09:20.211
 so that it's really a
 
 00:09:20.291 --> 00:09:22.192
 triangle of connections here.
 
 00:09:22.692 --> 00:09:23.894
 And he's basically the
 
 00:09:23.974 --> 00:09:26.015
 private secretary at
 
 00:09:26.056 --> 00:09:27.998
 different times for Dean
 
 00:09:28.177 --> 00:09:30.559
 and or Franklin for the
 
 00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:32.581
 American Commission in Paris.
 
 00:09:33.783 --> 00:09:37.407
 So this is the diplomatic espionage and
 
 00:09:39.191 --> 00:09:39.772
 Apparently,
 
 00:09:39.912 --> 00:09:41.833
 Franklin knew that he had
 
 00:09:41.874 --> 00:09:43.335
 strong suspicions, I guess,
 
 00:09:44.015 --> 00:09:45.657
 that Bancroft was, in fact,
 
 00:09:45.756 --> 00:09:46.758
 a double agent who was
 
 00:09:46.798 --> 00:09:48.620
 providing information back to London.
 
 00:09:49.159 --> 00:09:49.379
 Yeah,
 
 00:09:49.880 --> 00:09:51.381
 because sometimes things that the
 
 00:09:51.481 --> 00:09:52.543
 Americans were talking
 
 00:09:52.602 --> 00:09:53.884
 about would get to London
 
 00:09:53.923 --> 00:09:54.945
 before they were actually
 
 00:09:55.686 --> 00:09:56.687
 told at the French court.
 
 00:09:57.447 --> 00:09:57.567
 Yes.
 
 00:10:00.774 --> 00:10:01.014
 Right,
 
 00:10:01.214 --> 00:10:02.914
 and so there were times when
 
 00:10:02.995 --> 00:10:04.816
 Franklin could provide
 
 00:10:04.855 --> 00:10:05.797
 misinformation
 
 00:10:05.856 --> 00:10:07.538
 intentionally through Bancroft.
 
 00:10:07.957 --> 00:10:08.538
 Yeah, yeah.
 
 00:10:09.359 --> 00:10:10.980
 Franklin was a genius at that,
 
 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:11.900
 and that often gets
 
 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:13.280
 overshadowed by all the
 
 00:10:13.321 --> 00:10:13.981
 other things that he
 
 00:10:14.042 --> 00:10:16.702
 accomplished in life as a
 
 00:10:16.743 --> 00:10:17.604
 Renaissance man.
 
 00:10:17.844 --> 00:10:18.063
 Yeah.
 
 00:10:18.183 --> 00:10:19.865
 But so many different talents,
 
 00:10:20.404 --> 00:10:22.746
 and he was a larger-than-life character.
 
 00:10:23.206 --> 00:10:23.787
 But some of his
 
 00:10:23.826 --> 00:10:26.149
 counter-espionage efforts
 
 00:10:26.389 --> 00:10:27.590
 in this diplomatic channel
 
 00:10:28.350 --> 00:10:29.671
 were pretty effective, apparently.
 
 00:10:29.711 --> 00:10:29.811
 Yeah.
 
 00:10:30.253 --> 00:10:30.533
 They were,
 
 00:10:30.552 --> 00:10:31.173
 and it's something that
 
 00:10:31.214 --> 00:10:32.735
 infuriated John Adams.
 
 00:10:33.695 --> 00:10:33.934
 Yes.
 
 00:10:34.355 --> 00:10:35.035
 Lots of things about
 
 00:10:35.076 --> 00:10:36.456
 Franklin infuriated Adams.
 
 00:10:37.197 --> 00:10:37.457
 Yes.
 
 00:10:38.118 --> 00:10:38.317
 Yeah,
 
 00:10:38.337 --> 00:10:40.139
 John Adams was quite the firebrand and,
 
 00:10:40.259 --> 00:10:42.721
 you know, went, you know,
 
 00:10:43.142 --> 00:10:44.543
 marched to the beat of his own drummer,
 
 00:10:44.682 --> 00:10:44.942
 right?
 
 00:10:45.182 --> 00:10:45.763
 Right, right.
 
 00:10:46.283 --> 00:10:49.025
 And as we see that in a very, I think,
 
 00:10:49.145 --> 00:10:51.147
 predominantly accurate historical show,
 
 00:10:51.167 --> 00:10:52.988
 the HBO series ad, the ad John Adams.
 
 00:10:53.489 --> 00:10:54.109
 Yes, yes.
 
 00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:56.720
 Yeah, we're talking with Damien Crago,
 
 00:10:56.840 --> 00:10:58.321
 who is the author of
 
 00:10:58.380 --> 00:10:59.402
 numerous pieces about the
 
 00:10:59.442 --> 00:11:00.761
 spies of the revolution and
 
 00:11:00.822 --> 00:11:02.802
 other bits of the other
 
 00:11:02.842 --> 00:11:04.724
 pieces of the story of the revolution.
 
 00:11:06.024 --> 00:11:07.125
 Now, a lot of these guys, you know,
 
 00:11:07.145 --> 00:11:08.206
 we mentioned the Merceros
 
 00:11:08.225 --> 00:11:09.326
 who were in New Jersey.
 
 00:11:10.006 --> 00:11:11.687
 Is Connecticut unusual in
 
 00:11:11.727 --> 00:11:14.649
 having so many spies in it?
 
 00:11:14.669 --> 00:11:16.009
 It was just because of where
 
 00:11:16.070 --> 00:11:17.671
 it was in relation to New York?
 
 00:11:18.491 --> 00:11:19.432
 Or is there some other
 
 00:11:19.471 --> 00:11:22.092
 reason we know so much about Connecticut?
 
 00:11:24.160 --> 00:11:25.760
 I don't think it was unusual
 
 00:11:25.801 --> 00:11:27.062
 in the sense that you were
 
 00:11:27.081 --> 00:11:28.542
 going to get a high number,
 
 00:11:29.302 --> 00:11:30.923
 a higher concentration of
 
 00:11:31.543 --> 00:11:33.783
 espionage networks or
 
 00:11:33.844 --> 00:11:36.105
 individual agents in close
 
 00:11:36.164 --> 00:11:38.065
 proximity to any large city
 
 00:11:38.225 --> 00:11:39.426
 that was fitting into
 
 00:11:39.625 --> 00:11:40.405
 either British grand
 
 00:11:40.426 --> 00:11:42.687
 strategy at the time and
 
 00:11:42.726 --> 00:11:43.986
 yet usually met George
 
 00:11:44.027 --> 00:11:45.246
 Washington's main army,
 
 00:11:45.986 --> 00:11:47.048
 their grand strategy would be.
 
 00:11:48.038 --> 00:11:50.220
 So initially, of course, that's Boston.
 
 00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:52.261
 And we can think of Dr. Benjamin Church.
 
 00:11:52.282 --> 00:11:52.501
 Sure.
 
 00:11:52.682 --> 00:11:52.841
 Yeah.
 
 00:11:53.042 --> 00:11:54.602
 And and I'll get back to
 
 00:11:54.643 --> 00:11:55.524
 Connecticut momentarily.
 
 00:11:55.604 --> 00:11:56.125
 But, you know,
 
 00:11:56.144 --> 00:11:57.446
 you have Dr. Benjamin Church,
 
 00:11:57.505 --> 00:11:59.366
 who was the most notorious
 
 00:11:59.447 --> 00:12:01.928
 traitor for the Americans
 
 00:12:01.948 --> 00:12:02.710
 to have to deal with the
 
 00:12:02.750 --> 00:12:04.692
 Patriots until Benedict
 
 00:12:04.772 --> 00:12:06.293
 Arnold comes along years
 
 00:12:06.352 --> 00:12:07.573
 later from Connecticut.
 
 00:12:08.193 --> 00:12:08.394
 Yeah.
 
 00:12:08.674 --> 00:12:08.894
 But.
 
 00:12:10.615 --> 00:12:12.677
 So initially it's Boston concentration.
 
 00:12:12.738 --> 00:12:14.700
 Then it shifts once the
 
 00:12:14.740 --> 00:12:16.201
 British have set up
 
 00:12:16.321 --> 00:12:17.663
 operations in New York City
 
 00:12:18.462 --> 00:12:19.745
 with initially Howe and
 
 00:12:19.764 --> 00:12:20.804
 then Sir Henry Clinton and
 
 00:12:20.826 --> 00:12:21.326
 everybody else.
 
 00:12:22.486 --> 00:12:22.826
 Obviously,
 
 00:12:22.866 --> 00:12:24.028
 George Washington becomes
 
 00:12:24.087 --> 00:12:26.210
 infatuated with New York City.
 
 00:12:27.171 --> 00:12:28.211
 And what's happening,
 
 00:12:28.412 --> 00:12:29.331
 not necessarily just
 
 00:12:29.412 --> 00:12:30.552
 attacking it and whether
 
 00:12:30.592 --> 00:12:32.433
 that was a wise move to make or not,
 
 00:12:32.934 --> 00:12:34.355
 but what are the British thinking?
 
 00:12:34.434 --> 00:12:35.655
 What is going to be their next move?
 
 00:12:35.755 --> 00:12:36.476
 Are they going to move up
 
 00:12:36.496 --> 00:12:37.456
 the Hudson River or not?
 
 00:12:37.496 --> 00:12:38.177
 Are they going to move up
 
 00:12:38.217 --> 00:12:40.479
 Long Island Sound to attack
 
 00:12:40.499 --> 00:12:41.440
 the French at Newport?
 
 00:12:41.860 --> 00:12:43.321
 And then the third major
 
 00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:45.581
 fulcrum in the Northeast is Philadelphia.
 
 00:12:46.022 --> 00:12:47.003
 So Philadelphia gets
 
 00:12:47.062 --> 00:12:48.764
 overshadowed quite a bit by
 
 00:12:48.783 --> 00:12:49.804
 the Culver Ring as well.
 
 00:12:49.845 --> 00:12:50.945
 But there's any time
 
 00:12:51.024 --> 00:12:53.187
 Washington is in Philadelphia, of course,
 
 00:12:53.226 --> 00:12:53.947
 the fall of 77.
 
 00:12:53.947 --> 00:12:54.388
 Yeah.
 
 00:12:55.288 --> 00:12:56.168
 Philadelphia campaign.
 
 00:12:57.182 --> 00:12:57.802
 There are significant
 
 00:12:57.861 --> 00:12:59.081
 operations going on there.
 
 00:12:59.442 --> 00:13:00.503
 But back to the Mercerville
 
 00:13:00.543 --> 00:13:01.363
 Ring for a second,
 
 00:13:01.702 --> 00:13:02.822
 that illustrates that there
 
 00:13:02.863 --> 00:13:04.682
 was a lot going on also on
 
 00:13:04.722 --> 00:13:06.283
 the Jersey side of New York City,
 
 00:13:06.344 --> 00:13:07.144
 just like Connecticut.
 
 00:13:07.163 --> 00:13:08.764
 They were kind of mirroring each other.
 
 00:13:08.783 --> 00:13:10.624
 Right, right.
 
 00:13:11.985 --> 00:13:12.784
 Suburbs, you know,
 
 00:13:12.884 --> 00:13:13.625
 are falling under the
 
 00:13:13.644 --> 00:13:15.205
 influence of New York City's importance.
 
 00:13:16.465 --> 00:13:18.946
 And did we know a lot about
 
 00:13:18.985 --> 00:13:21.245
 Washington and his use of spies?
 
 00:13:21.326 --> 00:13:21.446
 Now,
 
 00:13:21.466 --> 00:13:23.886
 were other generals I'm thinking about
 
 00:13:23.947 --> 00:13:24.907
 in the Southern campaign,
 
 00:13:24.927 --> 00:13:26.326
 Benjamin Lincoln, were they also
 
 00:13:27.325 --> 00:13:28.966
 using espionage but maybe
 
 00:13:29.246 --> 00:13:30.327
 less effectively than
 
 00:13:30.427 --> 00:13:32.610
 washington was great
 
 00:13:32.630 --> 00:13:33.812
 question bob they
 
 00:13:33.871 --> 00:13:35.813
 definitely were I mean I
 
 00:13:35.933 --> 00:13:37.034
 quickly gave an example
 
 00:13:37.134 --> 00:13:37.816
 early in the war with
 
 00:13:37.855 --> 00:13:39.157
 mercero you have israel
 
 00:13:39.216 --> 00:13:41.158
 putnam of connecticut being
 
 00:13:41.198 --> 00:13:42.600
 in new jersey and you know
 
 00:13:42.640 --> 00:13:43.581
 getting information from
 
 00:13:43.621 --> 00:13:44.643
 the mercero family
 
 00:13:45.816 --> 00:13:46.716
 But absolutely,
 
 00:13:46.856 --> 00:13:48.919
 no matter what general you were,
 
 00:13:49.181 --> 00:13:51.644
 if you were a major general, a two-star,
 
 00:13:51.744 --> 00:13:53.505
 or even often a one-star
 
 00:13:53.525 --> 00:13:54.187
 brigadier general,
 
 00:13:54.548 --> 00:13:56.910
 you had at least several informants.
 
 00:13:57.490 --> 00:13:58.533
 And a lot of these people
 
 00:13:58.613 --> 00:14:00.274
 have disappeared into...
 
 00:14:00.975 --> 00:14:02.918
 the cloud of history because
 
 00:14:03.278 --> 00:14:04.739
 there wasn't a paper trail on them,
 
 00:14:04.879 --> 00:14:06.921
 or if there was, it was limited.
 
 00:14:08.062 --> 00:14:10.524
 But definitely Nathaniel Green and others.
 
 00:14:10.604 --> 00:14:11.264
 I'm not sure.
 
 00:14:12.245 --> 00:14:13.005
 There doesn't seem to be a
 
 00:14:13.046 --> 00:14:14.167
 whole lot of information on
 
 00:14:14.226 --> 00:14:16.548
 informants from General Benjamin Lincoln,
 
 00:14:16.908 --> 00:14:18.190
 but I'm sure they existed
 
 00:14:18.429 --> 00:14:19.932
 because he would have been so important.
 
 00:14:21.373 --> 00:14:22.494
 But there's more evidence
 
 00:14:22.693 --> 00:14:23.654
 for Nathaniel Green.
 
 00:14:24.274 --> 00:14:25.897
 And yes, they were effective.
 
 00:14:26.317 --> 00:14:27.577
 I mean, it was brutal down there.
 
 00:14:27.597 --> 00:14:28.519
 It was a totally different
 
 00:14:28.538 --> 00:14:30.000
 kind of war where it was...
 
 00:14:30.179 --> 00:14:31.440
 more of a pronounced civil
 
 00:14:31.480 --> 00:14:33.821
 war um and uh
 
 00:14:34.041 --> 00:14:35.361
 counterinsurgency and
 
 00:14:35.802 --> 00:14:36.861
 asymmetric warfare
 
 00:14:36.922 --> 00:14:38.722
 guerrilla warfare uh with
 
 00:14:38.783 --> 00:14:39.883
 francis marion and others
 
 00:14:39.942 --> 00:14:41.062
 but yes green definitely
 
 00:14:41.082 --> 00:14:42.823
 made use of it when we get
 
 00:14:42.923 --> 00:14:44.504
 to the yorktown campaign
 
 00:14:44.683 --> 00:14:46.424
 late in the war 1781 um
 
 00:14:47.524 --> 00:14:48.625
 marquis de lafayette as I
 
 00:14:48.666 --> 00:14:52.167
 recall uses um a black by
 
 00:14:52.206 --> 00:14:53.787
 the name of james armistead
 
 00:14:54.147 --> 00:14:56.528
 I believe right right dominant informant
 
 00:14:57.248 --> 00:15:00.188
 and gets recognition among many others.
 
 00:15:00.288 --> 00:15:01.249
 And, you know,
 
 00:15:01.269 --> 00:15:02.649
 that's an interesting point to bring up,
 
 00:15:02.708 --> 00:15:05.568
 too, is the diversity in espionage,
 
 00:15:05.889 --> 00:15:06.909
 that it wasn't always
 
 00:15:06.990 --> 00:15:10.570
 necessarily a certain demographic.
 
 00:15:10.610 --> 00:15:13.711
 It wasn't always civilian
 
 00:15:13.990 --> 00:15:14.870
 males that were providing
 
 00:15:14.890 --> 00:15:15.410
 the information.
 
 00:15:15.451 --> 00:15:16.171
 Predominantly was,
 
 00:15:16.211 --> 00:15:17.730
 but occasionally you could have women.
 
 00:15:17.931 --> 00:15:19.231
 There was a woman outside of
 
 00:15:19.292 --> 00:15:20.711
 Philadelphia who provided,
 
 00:15:22.111 --> 00:15:23.251
 I might be mispronouncing her name,
 
 00:15:23.292 --> 00:15:25.332
 but it's Lydia Daragh, D-A-R-A-G-H.
 
 00:15:27.489 --> 00:15:28.068
 Yeah.
 
 00:15:28.389 --> 00:15:29.649
 There were probably other women.
 
 00:15:30.070 --> 00:15:30.571
 Right.
 
 00:15:31.191 --> 00:15:31.451
 Yeah.
 
 00:15:31.951 --> 00:15:32.130
 Yeah.
 
 00:15:32.291 --> 00:15:33.532
 Anna Smith Strong is kind of
 
 00:15:33.572 --> 00:15:36.033
 the famous one who may or may not, again,
 
 00:15:36.092 --> 00:15:37.214
 getting the pulper ring.
 
 00:15:38.032 --> 00:15:38.392
 Right.
 
 00:15:38.692 --> 00:15:39.732
 Yeah, with her,
 
 00:15:40.634 --> 00:15:42.514
 it's been refuted by the
 
 00:15:42.554 --> 00:15:43.855
 people who are most familiar,
 
 00:15:43.936 --> 00:15:45.777
 the local historians in and
 
 00:15:45.817 --> 00:15:46.717
 around Setauket.
 
 00:15:47.658 --> 00:15:48.940
 This legend that she hung
 
 00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:51.240
 her laundry in a certain pattern,
 
 00:15:51.601 --> 00:15:52.902
 it makes for a great story.
 
 00:15:53.602 --> 00:15:54.524
 It's family history,
 
 00:15:54.624 --> 00:15:56.125
 but there's no way to corroborate it.
 
 00:15:56.865 --> 00:15:57.885
 So most of the local
 
 00:15:57.926 --> 00:15:59.746
 historians will tell the story,
 
 00:15:59.846 --> 00:16:01.749
 but put it in quotes and say,
 
 00:16:01.889 --> 00:16:03.450
 just be aware it's more legend.
 
 00:16:03.830 --> 00:16:05.671
 There's no actual indication
 
 00:16:05.730 --> 00:16:06.312
 that she used that.
 
 00:16:06.331 --> 00:16:06.652
 Right.
 
 00:16:07.052 --> 00:16:07.511
 Yeah.
 
 00:16:07.552 --> 00:16:08.773
 But you played some kind of role,
 
 00:16:08.832 --> 00:16:09.332
 probably.
 
 00:16:09.352 --> 00:16:10.052
 Yeah.
 
 00:16:10.153 --> 00:16:12.594
 The courier or connector in some way.
 
 00:16:12.754 --> 00:16:13.134
 Sure.
 
 00:16:13.695 --> 00:16:15.095
 And I know with deserters,
 
 00:16:15.134 --> 00:16:16.375
 there often was a suspicion
 
 00:16:16.436 --> 00:16:18.037
 that these guys had been sent out.
 
 00:16:18.216 --> 00:16:19.596
 Not they weren't actually deserters,
 
 00:16:19.616 --> 00:16:20.517
 but they had been sent out
 
 00:16:20.557 --> 00:16:21.878
 to bring disinformation.
 
 00:16:22.278 --> 00:16:23.198
 But sometimes it would be
 
 00:16:23.259 --> 00:16:25.219
 sources of what was going
 
 00:16:25.318 --> 00:16:26.440
 on on the other side.
 
 00:16:27.341 --> 00:16:30.361
 yes absolutely so one
 
 00:16:30.402 --> 00:16:32.263
 example is that washington
 
 00:16:32.462 --> 00:16:34.543
 intentionally had someone
 
 00:16:34.745 --> 00:16:37.586
 leak um basically a false
 
 00:16:37.745 --> 00:16:39.326
 dispatch you know from his
 
 00:16:39.386 --> 00:16:40.466
 headquarters written up by
 
 00:16:40.506 --> 00:16:41.788
 an aide like an alexander
 
 00:16:41.827 --> 00:16:43.489
 hamilton yeah to say that
 
 00:16:43.808 --> 00:16:44.609
 you know this is our
 
 00:16:44.649 --> 00:16:46.269
 disposition of forces these
 
 00:16:46.350 --> 00:16:47.269
 are our numbers and this is
 
 00:16:47.311 --> 00:16:47.990
 what we're planning to do
 
 00:16:48.191 --> 00:16:50.091
 this is in the lead up to the americans
 
 00:16:51.283 --> 00:16:53.004
 leaving roughly what is
 
 00:16:53.083 --> 00:16:55.004
 Westchester County and
 
 00:16:55.183 --> 00:16:56.485
 heading into New Jersey,
 
 00:16:56.585 --> 00:16:57.524
 and they wanted to throw
 
 00:16:57.644 --> 00:16:59.086
 off Sir Henry Clinton and
 
 00:16:59.125 --> 00:17:00.005
 the British as to what
 
 00:17:00.046 --> 00:17:01.025
 their next move was.
 
 00:17:01.606 --> 00:17:04.728
 So some farmer, some other local,
 
 00:17:04.867 --> 00:17:07.167
 is assigned to provide this,
 
 00:17:07.868 --> 00:17:09.548
 look what I found on the roadside,
 
 00:17:09.568 --> 00:17:11.990
 and bring it to British headquarters.
 
 00:17:12.849 --> 00:17:14.111
 And did Clinton fall for it?
 
 00:17:15.272 --> 00:17:17.694
 Yes, it did cause a delay, you know,
 
 00:17:17.835 --> 00:17:19.517
 and there were several
 
 00:17:19.557 --> 00:17:23.098
 times where the British
 
 00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:24.661
 were thrown off by the
 
 00:17:24.721 --> 00:17:26.321
 effectiveness of George Washington.
 
 00:17:26.342 --> 00:17:27.123
 Because with Washington,
 
 00:17:27.163 --> 00:17:27.843
 you're talking about
 
 00:17:27.883 --> 00:17:30.404
 someone who wasn't always
 
 00:17:30.464 --> 00:17:31.767
 perfect in his American, you know,
 
 00:17:31.787 --> 00:17:33.907
 his style of gathering.
 
 00:17:34.429 --> 00:17:35.450
 But he did have experience
 
 00:17:35.470 --> 00:17:36.390
 going all the way back to
 
 00:17:36.430 --> 00:17:37.811
 when he was a young officer
 
 00:17:37.852 --> 00:17:39.153
 in the Virginia Provincial Army.
 
 00:17:40.752 --> 00:17:42.114
 out there in the French and Indian War,
 
 00:17:42.534 --> 00:17:45.795
 that circa 1754.
 
 00:17:45.795 --> 00:17:47.075
 So he had had some prior
 
 00:17:47.115 --> 00:17:48.275
 experience and understood.
 
 00:17:48.515 --> 00:17:49.836
 There's great quotes in his
 
 00:17:49.935 --> 00:17:51.256
 correspondence with both
 
 00:17:52.215 --> 00:17:53.395
 Colonel Elias Dayton of the
 
 00:17:53.455 --> 00:17:54.277
 Mercer Row Ring,
 
 00:17:54.336 --> 00:17:55.376
 but also the Culver Ring.
 
 00:17:55.557 --> 00:17:57.297
 He says in several letters,
 
 00:17:57.336 --> 00:17:59.478
 they're wonderful quotes
 
 00:17:59.778 --> 00:18:00.617
 about the importance of
 
 00:18:00.678 --> 00:18:01.598
 intelligence and how
 
 00:18:01.638 --> 00:18:02.618
 important it is to be
 
 00:18:02.858 --> 00:18:05.459
 careful so that if these
 
 00:18:05.859 --> 00:18:07.259
 letters are somehow discovered,
 
 00:18:07.660 --> 00:18:08.579
 that they can protect the
 
 00:18:08.680 --> 00:18:10.540
 identity of the individuals
 
 00:18:10.820 --> 00:18:12.501
 so no one is captured and tortured.
 
 00:18:13.082 --> 00:18:14.261
 He always kept Nathan Hale
 
 00:18:14.301 --> 00:18:15.362
 in the back of his mind.
 
 00:18:15.962 --> 00:18:17.063
 Right, right.
 
 00:18:17.383 --> 00:18:17.583
 You know,
 
 00:18:17.603 --> 00:18:18.803
 there's nothing in writing
 
 00:18:19.022 --> 00:18:20.523
 specifically from Washington,
 
 00:18:21.084 --> 00:18:22.904
 but circumstantially,
 
 00:18:22.944 --> 00:18:24.045
 it seems to indicate that
 
 00:18:24.085 --> 00:18:25.525
 it really bothered him that
 
 00:18:26.846 --> 00:18:28.766
 they couldn't train Nathan Hale.
 
 00:18:28.865 --> 00:18:29.146
 You know,
 
 00:18:29.186 --> 00:18:30.346
 he didn't go through any official
 
 00:18:30.406 --> 00:18:31.406
 training as an agent.
 
 00:18:31.886 --> 00:18:33.307
 And when he went across,
 
 00:18:34.284 --> 00:18:35.064
 He volunteers.
 
 00:18:35.663 --> 00:18:36.724
 I think it's interesting to
 
 00:18:36.785 --> 00:18:38.625
 note the role of military
 
 00:18:38.664 --> 00:18:40.306
 intelligence that Nathan
 
 00:18:40.326 --> 00:18:41.685
 Hale is seen as a civilian,
 
 00:18:41.806 --> 00:18:43.426
 but he's actually holding
 
 00:18:43.467 --> 00:18:45.047
 the rank of captain in
 
 00:18:45.467 --> 00:18:46.788
 Lieutenant Colonel Thomas
 
 00:18:46.827 --> 00:18:48.067
 Knowlton's Rangers,
 
 00:18:49.048 --> 00:18:52.489
 which had just formed earlier that year,
 
 00:18:52.509 --> 00:18:55.441
 the famous summer of 1776.
 
 00:18:55.441 --> 00:18:55.701
 Well,
 
 00:18:55.961 --> 00:18:56.980
 the interesting thing about
 
 00:18:57.000 --> 00:18:59.321
 Knowlton's Rangers is that
 
 00:18:59.362 --> 00:19:01.903
 their creation year of 1776
 
 00:19:01.903 --> 00:19:03.643
 is on the official seal for
 
 00:19:03.844 --> 00:19:04.983
 US Army Intelligence.
 
 00:19:04.983 --> 00:19:07.345
 1776 is on there because
 
 00:19:07.384 --> 00:19:09.265
 they see Knowlton's Rangers
 
 00:19:09.444 --> 00:19:12.465
 as the official forefather unit,
 
 00:19:12.506 --> 00:19:14.707
 if you will, of Army Intelligence.
 
 00:19:15.606 --> 00:19:16.906
 And initially,
 
 00:19:17.007 --> 00:19:18.867
 no one volunteers to be a
 
 00:19:18.948 --> 00:19:21.308
 spy at Washington's request
 
 00:19:21.348 --> 00:19:22.348
 through Thomas Knowlton,
 
 00:19:22.828 --> 00:19:24.670
 and eventually Neil Hale steps forward.
 
 00:19:25.829 --> 00:19:27.411
 But when this is the problem,
 
 00:19:27.730 --> 00:19:28.971
 this was some of the
 
 00:19:29.010 --> 00:19:30.771
 clumsiness of American intelligence.
 
 00:19:30.791 --> 00:19:31.711
 You know, we were amateurs.
 
 00:19:32.652 --> 00:19:33.593
 He decides he's going to
 
 00:19:33.633 --> 00:19:35.113
 bring his Yale diploma with
 
 00:19:35.173 --> 00:19:37.673
 him and pose as a Dutch schoolmaster.
 
 00:19:37.814 --> 00:19:37.953
 Well,
 
 00:19:37.973 --> 00:19:39.515
 the problem is he doesn't speak Dutch.
 
 00:19:40.055 --> 00:19:41.234
 Yeah, that would be a problem.
 
 00:19:42.016 --> 00:19:42.236
 Right.
 
 00:19:42.675 --> 00:19:44.016
 And he's not using an alias.
 
 00:19:44.056 --> 00:19:46.017
 He's going as Nathan Hale, you know,
 
 00:19:46.037 --> 00:19:48.117
 and he's bringing the diploma with him.
 
 00:19:48.238 --> 00:19:49.337
 So he doesn't have a way to
 
 00:19:49.377 --> 00:19:50.498
 protect his identity.
 
 00:19:50.817 --> 00:19:51.118
 Wow.
 
 00:19:51.858 --> 00:19:52.098
 Yeah.
 
 00:19:52.479 --> 00:19:52.598
 Yeah.
 
 00:19:52.877 --> 00:19:55.159
 Hale isn't exactly a Dutch name either.
 
 00:19:55.538 --> 00:19:56.259
 No, it's not.
 
 00:19:56.499 --> 00:19:57.519
 And it's too bad he didn't
 
 00:19:57.559 --> 00:19:58.960
 come up with some kind of
 
 00:19:59.141 --> 00:20:00.280
 alias and just skip the
 
 00:20:00.300 --> 00:20:01.340
 whole Yale diploma and
 
 00:20:01.361 --> 00:20:03.422
 Dutch schoolmaster identity
 
 00:20:03.461 --> 00:20:04.663
 and go with something else.
 
 00:20:06.182 --> 00:20:07.663
 So he's captured on Long Island.
 
 00:20:08.703 --> 00:20:10.704
 But that can lead into the
 
 00:20:10.744 --> 00:20:12.405
 importance of military intelligence.
 
 00:20:12.445 --> 00:20:12.605
 Right.
 
 00:20:12.925 --> 00:20:13.486
 It really does.
 
 00:20:13.526 --> 00:20:15.247
 We learn from mistakes like that.
 
 00:20:16.251 --> 00:20:16.751
 We do.
 
 00:20:17.153 --> 00:20:17.553
 We do.
 
 00:20:17.853 --> 00:20:19.714
 And so some others that get
 
 00:20:19.775 --> 00:20:21.316
 overshadowed who are more
 
 00:20:22.176 --> 00:20:23.198
 people who had served in
 
 00:20:23.218 --> 00:20:25.619
 the Continental Army, like Nathan Hale,
 
 00:20:25.799 --> 00:20:26.780
 who eventually, by the way,
 
 00:20:26.840 --> 00:20:27.781
 the state of Connecticut,
 
 00:20:27.801 --> 00:20:30.103
 I think it's in 1985,
 
 00:20:30.103 --> 00:20:31.484
 officially make him the
 
 00:20:31.525 --> 00:20:32.705
 Connecticut state hero.
 
 00:20:33.286 --> 00:20:34.787
 And so, of course, in the meantime,
 
 00:20:34.846 --> 00:20:35.748
 over the past century,
 
 00:20:35.807 --> 00:20:37.249
 plus there are statues of Hale,
 
 00:20:37.670 --> 00:20:39.070
 not only all over Connecticut.
 
 00:20:39.631 --> 00:20:41.532
 but out at the Chicago Tribune building,
 
 00:20:42.633 --> 00:20:43.594
 the Tribune newspaper,
 
 00:20:43.713 --> 00:20:45.394
 but also the CIA headquarters.
 
 00:20:45.414 --> 00:20:47.297
 They put one up in the
 
 00:20:47.797 --> 00:20:49.557
 bicentennial in the 1970s
 
 00:20:50.138 --> 00:20:51.160
 at their headquarters there.
 
 00:20:51.640 --> 00:20:54.721
 But other military agents,
 
 00:20:55.041 --> 00:20:56.403
 and speaking of the CIA,
 
 00:20:56.844 --> 00:20:57.884
 one of my professional
 
 00:20:57.944 --> 00:20:59.546
 colleagues and friends, Ken Daigler,
 
 00:21:00.321 --> 00:21:03.444
 author of a wonderful book on spies,
 
 00:21:03.464 --> 00:21:04.286
 the American Revolution.
 
 00:21:04.346 --> 00:21:07.229
 He had served in the CIA for
 
 00:21:07.249 --> 00:21:08.089
 around 30 years.
 
 00:21:08.470 --> 00:21:09.912
 And one of the things he
 
 00:21:09.971 --> 00:21:11.173
 indicates is some of these
 
 00:21:11.232 --> 00:21:14.537
 important military personnel.
 
 00:21:14.596 --> 00:21:16.519
 So examples are Sergeant
 
 00:21:16.558 --> 00:21:18.661
 Daniel Bissell of Connecticut.
 
 00:21:19.181 --> 00:21:19.422
 Right.
 
 00:21:20.102 --> 00:21:22.144
 Receive the badge of military merit.
 
 00:21:22.845 --> 00:21:26.105
 for going behind enemy lines,
 
 00:21:26.105 --> 00:21:28.547
 1781 into 1782.
 
 00:21:28.547 --> 00:21:30.527
 For over six to nine months,
 
 00:21:30.646 --> 00:21:33.248
 he's running around trying
 
 00:21:33.288 --> 00:21:34.548
 to gather information about
 
 00:21:34.587 --> 00:21:35.588
 the British and the Hessians,
 
 00:21:35.989 --> 00:21:37.548
 primarily on Staten Island.
 
 00:21:38.128 --> 00:21:39.230
 And Washington found the
 
 00:21:39.269 --> 00:21:41.430
 information so important, so valuable,
 
 00:21:41.830 --> 00:21:42.750
 that he's one of the three
 
 00:21:42.810 --> 00:21:44.010
 recipients of the badge of
 
 00:21:44.050 --> 00:21:46.551
 military merit that he receives.
 
 00:21:48.030 --> 00:21:48.891
 And then there's a wonderful
 
 00:21:48.931 --> 00:21:50.652
 guy that was brought to my
 
 00:21:50.672 --> 00:21:51.771
 attention years ago when
 
 00:21:51.811 --> 00:21:52.912
 Ken Daigler published his
 
 00:21:52.992 --> 00:21:54.452
 book and a scholarly
 
 00:21:54.512 --> 00:21:55.553
 article about it with
 
 00:21:55.573 --> 00:21:56.614
 Journal of the American Revolution.
 
 00:21:56.634 --> 00:21:58.713
 And that was Louis Costigan,
 
 00:21:58.733 --> 00:22:00.775
 whose code name was Agent
 
 00:22:00.855 --> 00:22:02.134
 Z. And the fun part that
 
 00:22:02.174 --> 00:22:03.476
 your viewers will love is
 
 00:22:03.516 --> 00:22:04.576
 that Louis Costigan
 
 00:22:05.355 --> 00:22:08.618
 He's from where Rutgers is now, Brunswick,
 
 00:22:08.659 --> 00:22:09.460
 New Jersey.
 
 00:22:10.279 --> 00:22:12.061
 And he winds up getting captured.
 
 00:22:13.083 --> 00:22:14.864
 And while he is an officer
 
 00:22:14.923 --> 00:22:16.546
 under house arrest in New York City,
 
 00:22:16.846 --> 00:22:18.847
 he's able to go around in
 
 00:22:18.907 --> 00:22:20.028
 his army uniform.
 
 00:22:20.088 --> 00:22:21.250
 And nobody's suspicious of
 
 00:22:21.349 --> 00:22:22.510
 why he's wearing his uniform,
 
 00:22:22.530 --> 00:22:23.692
 but he's in full uniform.
 
 00:22:24.251 --> 00:22:25.353
 So if he gets caught,
 
 00:22:26.253 --> 00:22:27.394
 he's not going to be hanged
 
 00:22:27.714 --> 00:22:29.116
 like Nathan Hale, right?
 
 00:22:29.217 --> 00:22:29.317
 Right.
 
 00:22:29.817 --> 00:22:31.499
 or later John Andre.
 
 00:22:31.739 --> 00:22:32.618
 And he's wandering around
 
 00:22:32.679 --> 00:22:33.779
 and he's dispatching
 
 00:22:33.819 --> 00:22:35.259
 information back to George
 
 00:22:35.359 --> 00:22:36.320
 Washington through some
 
 00:22:36.421 --> 00:22:37.621
 unknown courier saying,
 
 00:22:38.040 --> 00:22:39.021
 this is what the British
 
 00:22:39.082 --> 00:22:40.162
 and Hessians are up to.
 
 00:22:40.201 --> 00:22:41.103
 And he's able to do it while
 
 00:22:41.143 --> 00:22:44.284
 he's right there in broad
 
 00:22:44.344 --> 00:22:45.403
 uniform and everything.
 
 00:22:45.443 --> 00:22:46.224
 And there's a portrait of
 
 00:22:46.285 --> 00:22:48.384
 him that people can see.
 
 00:22:48.445 --> 00:22:49.806
 Louis Costigan, a.k.a.
 
 00:22:49.945 --> 00:22:51.767
 Agent Z. Interesting.
 
 00:22:51.967 --> 00:22:52.366
 Interesting.
 
 00:22:53.067 --> 00:22:54.488
 Another character, I mean,
 
 00:22:54.968 --> 00:22:56.189
 you mentioned the musical
 
 00:22:56.249 --> 00:22:58.269
 Hamilton in Hercules Mulligan appears.
 
 00:22:58.890 --> 00:22:59.450
 He's also...
 
 00:23:01.382 --> 00:23:04.963
 one of your espionage people in New York.
 
 00:23:04.983 --> 00:23:05.763
 Can you talk a little bit
 
 00:23:05.804 --> 00:23:07.025
 about Hercules Mulligan and
 
 00:23:07.085 --> 00:23:08.125
 his role in this?
 
 00:23:09.086 --> 00:23:09.666
 Sure, yeah,
 
 00:23:09.686 --> 00:23:11.508
 because Hercules Mulligan has
 
 00:23:11.528 --> 00:23:12.048
 been brought to my
 
 00:23:12.087 --> 00:23:13.729
 attention through two different portals.
 
 00:23:13.890 --> 00:23:14.009
 One,
 
 00:23:14.029 --> 00:23:15.250
 when I've spoken about Alexander
 
 00:23:15.289 --> 00:23:17.092
 Hamilton from a military perspective,
 
 00:23:17.551 --> 00:23:18.432
 but also because of my
 
 00:23:18.472 --> 00:23:20.054
 interest in espionage in this era.
 
 00:23:20.933 --> 00:23:22.214
 So Hercules Mulligan winds
 
 00:23:22.295 --> 00:23:23.835
 up being a bit of a mentor
 
 00:23:24.015 --> 00:23:25.175
 to Alexander Hamilton when
 
 00:23:25.215 --> 00:23:26.317
 he initially arrives in New
 
 00:23:26.336 --> 00:23:28.037
 York City to be a student
 
 00:23:28.156 --> 00:23:29.018
 at King's College,
 
 00:23:29.038 --> 00:23:30.657
 which later becomes known as Columbia.
 
 00:23:30.979 --> 00:23:31.719
 That's why there's a
 
 00:23:31.759 --> 00:23:33.140
 Hamilton Hall at Columbia,
 
 00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:34.319
 because he attended there.
 
 00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:35.500
 He never officially
 
 00:23:35.540 --> 00:23:36.540
 graduates because war
 
 00:23:36.601 --> 00:23:38.461
 breaks out in the American Revolution,
 
 00:23:38.801 --> 00:23:39.722
 but he's a star student.
 
 00:23:40.883 --> 00:23:41.923
 And at one point he takes up
 
 00:23:41.983 --> 00:23:43.025
 residence with Hercules
 
 00:23:43.085 --> 00:23:44.926
 Mulligan and his wife in Lower Manhattan.
 
 00:23:46.067 --> 00:23:46.848
 That's where New York City
 
 00:23:46.868 --> 00:23:48.651
 is all confined to the tip at that point.
 
 00:23:49.531 --> 00:23:52.054
 And Mulligan had been a
 
 00:23:52.114 --> 00:23:53.556
 member of the Sons of Liberty.
 
 00:23:54.155 --> 00:23:55.277
 And so we always think about
 
 00:23:55.297 --> 00:23:56.417
 the Sons of Liberty up in
 
 00:23:56.478 --> 00:23:58.519
 Boston and the Tea Party and all of that,
 
 00:23:58.980 --> 00:24:00.561
 which took place 250 years ago.
 
 00:24:01.042 --> 00:24:02.704
 But there's a very robust,
 
 00:24:02.765 --> 00:24:04.665
 vibrant chapter in New York.
 
 00:24:05.470 --> 00:24:09.573
 under John Lamb and a
 
 00:24:09.613 --> 00:24:11.234
 general whose name I'll think of a few,
 
 00:24:11.474 --> 00:24:12.234
 Alexander McDougal.
 
 00:24:12.776 --> 00:24:13.916
 He's eventually a prominent
 
 00:24:13.936 --> 00:24:16.018
 two-star general, but he's very involved,
 
 00:24:16.439 --> 00:24:18.079
 as is Hercules Mulligan and many others.
 
 00:24:18.740 --> 00:24:19.500
 And they are the New York's
 
 00:24:20.422 --> 00:24:21.021
 Sons of Liberty.
 
 00:24:22.123 --> 00:24:23.784
 And so I think that he
 
 00:24:23.845 --> 00:24:26.226
 helped guide Hamilton there initially,
 
 00:24:26.266 --> 00:24:27.827
 and they built up a strong friendship.
 
 00:24:28.582 --> 00:24:29.782
 And eventually Mulligan
 
 00:24:29.823 --> 00:24:31.383
 winds up becoming an informant.
 
 00:24:32.304 --> 00:24:34.203
 He's doing some spying on his own.
 
 00:24:35.125 --> 00:24:36.444
 Sometimes he'll link up with
 
 00:24:36.605 --> 00:24:37.645
 elements of the Culper Ring
 
 00:24:37.705 --> 00:24:39.646
 because of his geographic proximity.
 
 00:24:40.287 --> 00:24:41.387
 But predominantly,
 
 00:24:41.748 --> 00:24:42.887
 it's his own independent
 
 00:24:43.387 --> 00:24:45.669
 operation when he can to
 
 00:24:45.709 --> 00:24:46.650
 provide information.
 
 00:24:47.627 --> 00:24:48.648
 And it's interesting because
 
 00:24:48.709 --> 00:24:50.009
 he has a Jewish merchant
 
 00:24:50.048 --> 00:24:51.470
 friend named Chaim Solomon.
 
 00:24:52.211 --> 00:24:54.811
 And Chaim Solomon is at least trilingual.
 
 00:24:54.852 --> 00:24:55.972
 I think Chaim could speak
 
 00:24:56.532 --> 00:24:57.874
 German so he can understand
 
 00:24:58.413 --> 00:25:01.215
 Hessians and other German units, but also,
 
 00:25:01.455 --> 00:25:01.935
 I believe,
 
 00:25:02.757 --> 00:25:04.196
 another language besides English.
 
 00:25:04.738 --> 00:25:06.159
 And so he was great at his
 
 00:25:06.259 --> 00:25:07.338
 eavesdropping skills and
 
 00:25:07.358 --> 00:25:08.299
 being an informant.
 
 00:25:08.803 --> 00:25:10.103
 Does Mulligan stay in New
 
 00:25:10.143 --> 00:25:11.804
 York during the British occupation?
 
 00:25:12.223 --> 00:25:12.584
 Does who?
 
 00:25:12.963 --> 00:25:14.364
 Mulligan stay in New York
 
 00:25:14.463 --> 00:25:15.785
 during the British occupation?
 
 00:25:15.984 --> 00:25:16.244
 Yes.
 
 00:25:16.325 --> 00:25:16.744
 In fact,
 
 00:25:17.605 --> 00:25:19.046
 he's arrested several times
 
 00:25:20.445 --> 00:25:21.605
 because they're aware that
 
 00:25:21.625 --> 00:25:22.926
 there's strong suspicion.
 
 00:25:23.067 --> 00:25:24.267
 There's nothing ever caught.
 
 00:25:24.727 --> 00:25:26.047
 He's never caught with anything on him.
 
 00:25:26.067 --> 00:25:26.807
 There's no evidence.
 
 00:25:27.188 --> 00:25:28.307
 He was very good that way.
 
 00:25:28.867 --> 00:25:29.067
 Yes,
 
 00:25:29.107 --> 00:25:30.448
 he gets jailed a couple of different
 
 00:25:30.488 --> 00:25:30.848
 times,
 
 00:25:31.328 --> 00:25:32.929
 including after Benedict Arnold
 
 00:25:32.949 --> 00:25:33.749
 commits his treachery.
 
 00:25:33.848 --> 00:25:34.890
 Arnold has him arrested.
 
 00:25:35.789 --> 00:25:36.369
 They round up.
 
 00:25:36.710 --> 00:25:37.930
 Oh, gosh, I don't know,
 
 00:25:37.970 --> 00:25:39.069
 like 20 different people
 
 00:25:39.109 --> 00:25:39.990
 who they suspect.
 
 00:25:40.270 --> 00:25:41.990
 Haim Solomon had been arrested as well.
 
 00:25:42.270 --> 00:25:43.431
 They could never nail them.
 
 00:25:43.830 --> 00:25:44.570
 And there's also this
 
 00:25:44.632 --> 00:25:47.392
 interesting courier of Haim
 
 00:25:47.412 --> 00:25:49.092
 Solomon and Hercules Mulligan,
 
 00:25:49.491 --> 00:25:51.053
 a black slave named Cato.
 
 00:25:51.732 --> 00:25:52.992
 And he apparently would make
 
 00:25:53.032 --> 00:25:54.373
 his way across what was
 
 00:25:54.413 --> 00:25:55.493
 then called the North River,
 
 00:25:55.554 --> 00:25:56.173
 the Hudson River,
 
 00:25:56.273 --> 00:25:57.953
 to New Jersey to try to get
 
 00:25:58.013 --> 00:25:59.834
 word to Washington and his
 
 00:25:59.854 --> 00:26:01.414
 headquarters as to what was
 
 00:26:01.454 --> 00:26:02.275
 going on in New York.
 
 00:26:02.674 --> 00:26:03.494
 Wow, fascinating.
 
 00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:05.461
 We're talking with Damien Crego,
 
 00:26:05.560 --> 00:26:07.442
 who is an author, historian,
 
 00:26:07.882 --> 00:26:08.862
 focusing on the
 
 00:26:08.902 --> 00:26:10.262
 revolutionary period and
 
 00:26:10.722 --> 00:26:11.923
 spies in the revolution.
 
 00:26:11.943 --> 00:26:12.784
 You have a book coming out,
 
 00:26:12.864 --> 00:26:14.025
 Portraits of Patriots,
 
 00:26:14.065 --> 00:26:15.306
 The Revolutionary Lives of
 
 00:26:15.705 --> 00:26:17.487
 Five Patriots from Connecticut.
 
 00:26:19.627 --> 00:26:21.929
 Thinking about another, well,
 
 00:26:22.469 --> 00:26:24.069
 you mentioned Invisible Ink,
 
 00:26:24.130 --> 00:26:25.530
 and you've written about James Jay,
 
 00:26:25.631 --> 00:26:27.171
 the brother of Don Jay,
 
 00:26:27.531 --> 00:26:28.311
 and who's an interesting
 
 00:26:28.352 --> 00:26:30.113
 character in his own right.
 
 00:26:30.792 --> 00:26:31.153
 James Jay,
 
 00:26:31.173 --> 00:26:31.913
 I wonder if we could talk a
 
 00:26:31.953 --> 00:26:32.433
 little bit about
 
 00:26:33.492 --> 00:26:36.433
 James Jay and Invisible Inc.
 
 00:26:38.414 --> 00:26:40.316
 Yeah, it's a great topic.
 
 00:26:41.016 --> 00:26:43.196
 So John Jay had written to
 
 00:26:43.497 --> 00:26:47.638
 George Washington sometime late in 1778,
 
 00:26:47.638 --> 00:26:48.638
 saying that for several
 
 00:26:48.699 --> 00:26:49.740
 years he had had a
 
 00:26:49.799 --> 00:26:50.819
 successful secret
 
 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:52.601
 correspondence with his own brother,
 
 00:26:53.121 --> 00:26:54.981
 the lesser known Sir James Jay.
 
 00:26:56.021 --> 00:26:57.041
 uh interesting that he had
 
 00:26:57.061 --> 00:26:58.742
 been knighted james j the
 
 00:26:58.762 --> 00:27:00.022
 brother of john j the
 
 00:27:00.063 --> 00:27:01.723
 founding father james had
 
 00:27:01.763 --> 00:27:03.104
 been knighted by none other
 
 00:27:03.144 --> 00:27:05.944
 than king george iii uh for
 
 00:27:06.025 --> 00:27:09.645
 his work as a scientist and
 
 00:27:09.865 --> 00:27:11.986
 so james j had moved from
 
 00:27:12.006 --> 00:27:13.326
 britain and was over here
 
 00:27:13.346 --> 00:27:14.686
 uh living in close
 
 00:27:14.707 --> 00:27:15.926
 proximity with his brother
 
 00:27:15.946 --> 00:27:17.307
 in the hudson river valley
 
 00:27:17.327 --> 00:27:19.627
 um part of the time it was
 
 00:27:19.868 --> 00:27:22.128
 in fishkill uh you know the
 
 00:27:22.148 --> 00:27:24.710
 mid hudson river valley and uh
 
 00:27:25.490 --> 00:27:26.890
 John indicated in a letter
 
 00:27:26.930 --> 00:27:27.931
 that survives in the
 
 00:27:27.971 --> 00:27:29.790
 Washington papers to
 
 00:27:29.830 --> 00:27:30.851
 Washington that they had
 
 00:27:30.871 --> 00:27:31.971
 communicated using this
 
 00:27:32.011 --> 00:27:33.172
 invisible link that his
 
 00:27:33.211 --> 00:27:35.071
 brother had supposedly invented.
 
 00:27:35.752 --> 00:27:37.353
 And what made it special,
 
 00:27:37.712 --> 00:27:38.952
 there were a lot of invisible links.
 
 00:27:38.992 --> 00:27:40.094
 The common things were
 
 00:27:40.193 --> 00:27:41.574
 anything that had acid in it.
 
 00:27:41.634 --> 00:27:42.554
 You could use milk,
 
 00:27:43.094 --> 00:27:44.355
 you could use lemon juice
 
 00:27:44.434 --> 00:27:45.414
 or something like that,
 
 00:27:45.474 --> 00:27:46.815
 and you would develop it with heat.
 
 00:27:46.875 --> 00:27:48.615
 So a candle or a fireplace
 
 00:27:48.675 --> 00:27:49.715
 or something would develop it.
 
 00:27:50.316 --> 00:27:51.416
 But what made this ink
 
 00:27:51.616 --> 00:27:54.679
 unusual was its chemical compound,
 
 00:27:56.040 --> 00:27:57.321
 which has never been fully
 
 00:27:57.442 --> 00:27:58.702
 figured out by anyone.
 
 00:27:59.563 --> 00:28:01.964
 And it was some kind of acid.
 
 00:28:03.145 --> 00:28:04.366
 The person who got closest
 
 00:28:04.386 --> 00:28:05.528
 to figuring out was a
 
 00:28:05.567 --> 00:28:07.409
 scholar who passed away of
 
 00:28:07.469 --> 00:28:08.769
 cancer a few years ago,
 
 00:28:08.891 --> 00:28:10.511
 John Nagy of New Jersey,
 
 00:28:10.771 --> 00:28:11.692
 who had written three or
 
 00:28:11.712 --> 00:28:12.894
 four books about espionage
 
 00:28:12.913 --> 00:28:14.055
 in the American Revolution.
 
 00:28:14.115 --> 00:28:14.855
 One of his books,
 
 00:28:15.315 --> 00:28:16.115
 I think it's the one that's
 
 00:28:16.195 --> 00:28:17.237
 entitled appropriately enough,
 
 00:28:17.297 --> 00:28:17.998
 Invisible Ink,
 
 00:28:19.002 --> 00:28:21.624
 um that it was from the gall
 
 00:28:21.784 --> 00:28:23.124
 of oak trees so you'd have
 
 00:28:23.144 --> 00:28:25.065
 these you know appendages
 
 00:28:25.125 --> 00:28:26.005
 growing on the sides of
 
 00:28:26.065 --> 00:28:27.345
 these trees and you could
 
 00:28:27.424 --> 00:28:28.925
 take the acids and extract
 
 00:28:28.965 --> 00:28:30.865
 it from there so something
 
 00:28:31.246 --> 00:28:32.787
 related to to the oak trees
 
 00:28:32.846 --> 00:28:34.527
 would allow this liquid
 
 00:28:35.267 --> 00:28:36.548
 that you would you know
 
 00:28:36.688 --> 00:28:37.688
 write it with and it would
 
 00:28:37.708 --> 00:28:38.807
 disappear and the only
 
 00:28:38.867 --> 00:28:39.989
 thing that would develop it
 
 00:28:40.429 --> 00:28:41.628
 is if you had this other
 
 00:28:41.689 --> 00:28:42.990
 liquid that james j had
 
 00:28:43.089 --> 00:28:44.730
 also created a special con
 
 00:28:44.930 --> 00:28:47.590
 interesting chemical compound well
 
 00:28:48.393 --> 00:28:49.453
 the article I write about
 
 00:28:49.534 --> 00:28:50.816
 goes into how George
 
 00:28:50.875 --> 00:28:53.398
 Washington and the Culper ring used, um,
 
 00:28:53.459 --> 00:28:54.701
 this special invisible link
 
 00:28:55.442 --> 00:28:56.923
 because they realized there
 
 00:28:56.963 --> 00:28:58.526
 had been a close call with
 
 00:28:58.566 --> 00:29:00.528
 Benjamin Talmadge this time of year.
 
 00:29:00.548 --> 00:29:01.589
 I think it was in the spring
 
 00:29:01.630 --> 00:29:04.353
 of 79 where Talmadge and his, uh,
 
 00:29:05.134 --> 00:29:07.035
 Dragoon's unit had been raided,
 
 00:29:07.115 --> 00:29:09.977
 surprisingly, in the Pound Ridge,
 
 00:29:10.017 --> 00:29:10.517
 New York area.
 
 00:29:10.537 --> 00:29:11.576
 This is just over the line
 
 00:29:11.616 --> 00:29:12.998
 from Duquesne and in Ridgefield,
 
 00:29:13.077 --> 00:29:13.617
 Connecticut.
 
 00:29:14.098 --> 00:29:16.099
 They've been raided by the
 
 00:29:16.140 --> 00:29:19.101
 famous Major Simcoe of the British,
 
 00:29:19.141 --> 00:29:20.142
 the Queens Rangers.
 
 00:29:21.082 --> 00:29:22.542
 And his papers are stolen.
 
 00:29:22.863 --> 00:29:24.263
 And he realizes, oh, my God,
 
 00:29:24.284 --> 00:29:25.565
 what if there had been more
 
 00:29:25.605 --> 00:29:26.565
 incriminating evidence?
 
 00:29:26.585 --> 00:29:28.385
 So I'd better come up with
 
 00:29:28.586 --> 00:29:30.227
 additional layers of security.
 
 00:29:30.527 --> 00:29:31.788
 So he and Washington had
 
 00:29:31.867 --> 00:29:32.907
 worked with James Jay to
 
 00:29:32.948 --> 00:29:33.709
 have the invisible link.
 
 00:29:34.308 --> 00:29:35.609
 and in the meantime talmage
 
 00:29:35.710 --> 00:29:36.770
 also creates what's
 
 00:29:36.810 --> 00:29:38.832
 considered a code book but
 
 00:29:38.852 --> 00:29:39.692
 it's actually only about
 
 00:29:39.752 --> 00:29:42.075
 six pages long yeah yeah
 
 00:29:42.775 --> 00:29:44.036
 those codes are interesting
 
 00:29:44.135 --> 00:29:45.457
 the ciphers they would
 
 00:29:45.477 --> 00:29:47.358
 develop and ways of
 
 00:29:47.618 --> 00:29:49.220
 transmitting messages these
 
 00:29:50.421 --> 00:29:52.281
 yeah yeah and so this
 
 00:29:52.402 --> 00:29:53.462
 article I recommend you
 
 00:29:53.482 --> 00:29:54.384
 know if I made this just
 
 00:29:54.423 --> 00:29:55.744
 say it's a military history
 
 00:29:55.825 --> 00:29:58.027
 quarterly article from from
 
 00:29:58.086 --> 00:30:01.409
 last fall and um it's james
 
 00:30:01.608 --> 00:30:03.290
 sir james jane and it's
 
 00:30:04.050 --> 00:30:05.111
 george washington and his
 
 00:30:05.211 --> 00:30:06.392
 use of the invisible link
 
 00:30:07.031 --> 00:30:07.692
 and there's all these
 
 00:30:07.752 --> 00:30:08.972
 fascinating little behind
 
 00:30:08.992 --> 00:30:10.394
 the scenes stories of how
 
 00:30:10.413 --> 00:30:12.394
 to get these you know files
 
 00:30:12.575 --> 00:30:14.815
 little vials of of liquids
 
 00:30:15.036 --> 00:30:17.115
 little glass bottles to the
 
 00:30:17.215 --> 00:30:18.156
 agents I mean you can
 
 00:30:18.196 --> 00:30:18.957
 imagine they're trying to
 
 00:30:18.977 --> 00:30:20.738
 get it over to talk at long island
 
 00:30:21.258 --> 00:30:24.740
 Abraham is senior and then
 
 00:30:24.779 --> 00:30:25.800
 to Robert towns and.
 
 00:30:26.461 --> 00:30:28.343
 Basically down what is South
 
 00:30:28.363 --> 00:30:30.223
 street seaport area and how
 
 00:30:30.443 --> 00:30:32.325
 tricky that is to get them there.
 
 00:30:32.986 --> 00:30:34.207
 And of course, as you can imagine,
 
 00:30:34.707 --> 00:30:36.807
 during the success of using those.
 
 00:30:38.654 --> 00:30:40.836
 volumes or files of ink,
 
 00:30:41.175 --> 00:30:42.596
 that they're running low on supplies.
 
 00:30:42.656 --> 00:30:43.596
 So there's several times
 
 00:30:43.656 --> 00:30:44.636
 where Washington and the
 
 00:30:44.696 --> 00:30:45.857
 agents are saying, we're running out,
 
 00:30:45.897 --> 00:30:46.557
 we need more.
 
 00:30:46.597 --> 00:30:48.558
 And James Jay is saying, okay, well,
 
 00:30:48.578 --> 00:30:50.819
 then I need to set up a laboratory.
 
 00:30:50.839 --> 00:30:53.160
 And that laboratory is the
 
 00:30:53.200 --> 00:30:54.901
 place where he'll develop more.
 
 00:30:55.721 --> 00:30:58.182
 And that also takes place in Fishkill,
 
 00:30:58.201 --> 00:30:58.541
 New York.
 
 00:30:59.383 --> 00:31:00.182
 Are any of these places
 
 00:31:00.222 --> 00:31:01.442
 still standing where these
 
 00:31:01.503 --> 00:31:02.243
 things were happening?
 
 00:31:03.121 --> 00:31:04.321
 no he uses a little
 
 00:31:04.382 --> 00:31:06.762
 laboratory um building
 
 00:31:06.782 --> 00:31:07.624
 that's temporarily built
 
 00:31:07.663 --> 00:31:08.423
 for him you know it's like
 
 00:31:08.443 --> 00:31:09.664
 the man cave if you have
 
 00:31:10.005 --> 00:31:12.185
 yeah building and that was
 
 00:31:12.487 --> 00:31:13.787
 on and I i mentioned this
 
 00:31:13.866 --> 00:31:14.847
 in one of my articles on
 
 00:31:14.867 --> 00:31:15.468
 the journal america
 
 00:31:15.488 --> 00:31:17.169
 revolution how it was uh
 
 00:31:17.328 --> 00:31:18.410
 unfortunately a small
 
 00:31:18.450 --> 00:31:21.010
 building that was probably
 
 00:31:21.172 --> 00:31:22.632
 demolished soon after the
 
 00:31:22.652 --> 00:31:23.873
 american revolution just
 
 00:31:23.913 --> 00:31:25.134
 meant to be temporary the
 
 00:31:25.193 --> 00:31:25.973
 house that he had been
 
 00:31:25.993 --> 00:31:27.174
 living in part of the time
 
 00:31:27.234 --> 00:31:28.115
 with his more famous
 
 00:31:28.155 --> 00:31:29.817
 brother john jay that was
 
 00:31:29.896 --> 00:31:31.096
 on the property in what is
 
 00:31:31.136 --> 00:31:32.097
 now east fishkill
 
 00:31:33.179 --> 00:31:35.221
 that wound up on the campus of IBM.
 
 00:31:35.280 --> 00:31:37.083
 And IBM, unfortunately, demolished it,
 
 00:31:37.143 --> 00:31:38.743
 I believe, in the 1970s.
 
 00:31:38.844 --> 00:31:40.065
 So unfortunately,
 
 00:31:40.085 --> 00:31:41.946
 just in time for the bicentennial,
 
 00:31:42.307 --> 00:31:43.489
 they demolished his house.
 
 00:31:43.588 --> 00:31:45.990
 So there's very little that survives.
 
 00:31:46.030 --> 00:31:48.753
 The closest thing is Robert
 
 00:31:48.794 --> 00:31:51.316
 Townsend's and the Townsend family,
 
 00:31:51.416 --> 00:31:54.199
 Raymond Hall, there in Setauket.
 
 00:31:54.358 --> 00:31:56.480
 That's kind of one of the fulcrums and the
 
 00:31:57.122 --> 00:31:58.923
 the the best museum or
 
 00:31:59.104 --> 00:32:00.384
 concentration of of
 
 00:32:00.586 --> 00:32:02.567
 artifacts and public
 
 00:32:02.948 --> 00:32:04.549
 discourse right who are
 
 00:32:04.829 --> 00:32:05.730
 fascinated by the Culver
 
 00:32:05.750 --> 00:32:07.813
 ring sure yeah yeah we're
 
 00:32:07.853 --> 00:32:09.054
 talking with Damien Crago
 
 00:32:09.094 --> 00:32:10.776
 historian author of the
 
 00:32:10.796 --> 00:32:12.877
 forthcoming uh portraits of
 
 00:32:12.938 --> 00:32:13.999
 Patriots as well as many
 
 00:32:14.078 --> 00:32:15.800
 articles in the Journal of
 
 00:32:15.840 --> 00:32:17.202
 the American Revolution as
 
 00:32:17.242 --> 00:32:19.244
 well as the military historical quarterly
 
 00:32:20.086 --> 00:32:21.006
 um really talking about
 
 00:32:21.086 --> 00:32:22.426
 spies and spy rings in fact
 
 00:32:22.487 --> 00:32:23.406
 one of the reasons that
 
 00:32:23.426 --> 00:32:24.528
 these guys were effective
 
 00:32:24.587 --> 00:32:25.428
 is because they don't leave
 
 00:32:25.488 --> 00:32:29.609
 a lot of paper um so it's a
 
 00:32:29.650 --> 00:32:30.690
 fortunate thing one of the
 
 00:32:30.710 --> 00:32:32.691
 most famous of course is um
 
 00:32:32.810 --> 00:32:34.592
 enoch crosby who's kind of
 
 00:32:34.672 --> 00:32:36.152
 the protagonist then of
 
 00:32:36.311 --> 00:32:39.153
 cooper's novel the spy um
 
 00:32:39.693 --> 00:32:41.094
 so what uh what can we tell
 
 00:32:41.134 --> 00:32:42.575
 us tell us about enoch crosby
 
 00:32:43.720 --> 00:32:44.559
 I'm glad you brought up
 
 00:32:44.579 --> 00:32:46.101
 being a Crosby because, again,
 
 00:32:46.161 --> 00:32:47.201
 he's another one of these
 
 00:32:47.300 --> 00:32:49.402
 who gets overshadowed by others.
 
 00:32:50.001 --> 00:32:51.843
 He's working as an independent agent.
 
 00:32:53.163 --> 00:32:55.183
 And this has a nice connection, actually,
 
 00:32:55.223 --> 00:32:56.423
 Bob, with John Jay.
 
 00:32:56.443 --> 00:32:58.444
 It's John Jay who does
 
 00:32:58.585 --> 00:33:01.265
 incredible things for counterintelligence,
 
 00:33:01.346 --> 00:33:02.705
 especially as it pertains
 
 00:33:02.786 --> 00:33:04.405
 to New York City and the
 
 00:33:04.445 --> 00:33:05.467
 Hudson River Valley.
 
 00:33:06.166 --> 00:33:07.087
 And it's for that reason
 
 00:33:07.127 --> 00:33:08.488
 that there is a John Jay
 
 00:33:08.808 --> 00:33:10.409
 conference room at the CIA
 
 00:33:10.449 --> 00:33:11.789
 headquarters at Langley.
 
 00:33:12.971 --> 00:33:14.751
 So people don't realize that
 
 00:33:14.791 --> 00:33:15.832
 John Jay was very important
 
 00:33:15.872 --> 00:33:17.492
 for efforts in counterintelligence.
 
 00:33:17.913 --> 00:33:19.074
 And his most successful
 
 00:33:19.213 --> 00:33:21.194
 agent is Enid Crosby.
 
 00:33:21.296 --> 00:33:22.875
 And Enid Crosby had grown up
 
 00:33:22.955 --> 00:33:24.797
 on the Connecticut-New York state line.
 
 00:33:25.238 --> 00:33:26.959
 He enlisted in the Continental Army.
 
 00:33:27.838 --> 00:33:29.019
 And so you can think that
 
 00:33:29.140 --> 00:33:30.441
 Brewster-Danbury area.
 
 00:33:31.381 --> 00:33:33.964
 And eventually he strikes up
 
 00:33:34.806 --> 00:33:36.548
 some kind of relationship with John Jay,
 
 00:33:36.607 --> 00:33:37.249
 who says, look,
 
 00:33:37.348 --> 00:33:40.073
 I need you to go out as an individual,
 
 00:33:40.093 --> 00:33:42.096
 you know, solitary person.
 
 00:33:42.797 --> 00:33:44.578
 And I need you to wander in
 
 00:33:45.380 --> 00:33:46.942
 among these loyalists.
 
 00:33:47.923 --> 00:33:49.244
 and potentially British
 
 00:33:49.904 --> 00:33:53.729
 units and poses a deserter, you know,
 
 00:33:53.769 --> 00:33:54.950
 and depending on the situation,
 
 00:33:55.009 --> 00:33:56.471
 maybe just poses a loyalist
 
 00:33:57.051 --> 00:33:58.773
 and gather any information you can.
 
 00:33:58.854 --> 00:33:59.074
 Well,
 
 00:33:59.273 --> 00:34:00.836
 he does that very successfully and
 
 00:34:00.875 --> 00:34:01.455
 amazing.
 
 00:34:02.517 --> 00:34:03.278
 As far as we know,
 
 00:34:03.298 --> 00:34:05.319
 four times successfully.
 
 00:34:05.339 --> 00:34:08.523
 And each of those four times, amazingly,
 
 00:34:08.543 --> 00:34:09.364
 he gets arrested.
 
 00:34:09.384 --> 00:34:10.445
 And then, hmm.
 
 00:34:11.362 --> 00:34:14.684
 He's released by somebody on the blue team,
 
 00:34:14.764 --> 00:34:16.724
 on George Washington's Patriot side.
 
 00:34:17.184 --> 00:34:17.985
 And obviously that's
 
 00:34:18.025 --> 00:34:20.126
 eventually going to raise suspicion.
 
 00:34:20.686 --> 00:34:21.786
 But this was happening
 
 00:34:21.847 --> 00:34:23.186
 predominantly out of the
 
 00:34:23.246 --> 00:34:25.108
 Fishkill and Beacon area.
 
 00:34:25.188 --> 00:34:26.927
 I know there was a Beacon
 
 00:34:26.967 --> 00:34:28.509
 church that still exists there.
 
 00:34:29.849 --> 00:34:32.010
 He was put on a sham trial.
 
 00:34:32.989 --> 00:34:33.911
 That's where he had briefly
 
 00:34:33.971 --> 00:34:34.630
 been imprisoned.
 
 00:34:35.338 --> 00:34:37.340
 But what's interesting, as you alluded to,
 
 00:34:37.420 --> 00:34:39.260
 was that in 1821,
 
 00:34:39.260 --> 00:34:41.702
 to kind of kick off how
 
 00:34:41.782 --> 00:34:43.202
 Americans became familiar
 
 00:34:43.222 --> 00:34:44.563
 with the efforts of spies
 
 00:34:44.704 --> 00:34:45.664
 in the American Revolution,
 
 00:34:46.204 --> 00:34:47.405
 this is almost 50 years
 
 00:34:47.485 --> 00:34:48.025
 after the American
 
 00:34:48.045 --> 00:34:48.925
 Revolution had occurred,
 
 00:34:49.365 --> 00:34:50.646
 the famous James Fenimore
 
 00:34:50.686 --> 00:34:52.726
 Cooper produces the first
 
 00:34:52.967 --> 00:34:54.407
 best-selling novel in U.S.
 
 00:34:54.427 --> 00:34:56.028
 history, The Spy.
 
 00:34:56.708 --> 00:34:58.170
 And it's based off of his
 
 00:34:58.269 --> 00:34:59.791
 dinnertime conversations with
 
 00:35:00.311 --> 00:35:02.233
 Somebody he became friends with, John Jay,
 
 00:35:02.893 --> 00:35:04.215
 who's telling him all these
 
 00:35:04.275 --> 00:35:06.496
 stories about these operations.
 
 00:35:07.177 --> 00:35:08.818
 And so that's why we credit
 
 00:35:08.918 --> 00:35:10.679
 Enoch Hosby as being the
 
 00:35:10.719 --> 00:35:12.702
 inspiration for the main character,
 
 00:35:12.782 --> 00:35:15.324
 Harvey Birch, in that bestselling novel.
 
 00:35:15.945 --> 00:35:17.125
 The interesting thing, of course,
 
 00:35:17.164 --> 00:35:18.646
 is that the book does very well.
 
 00:35:19.106 --> 00:35:21.206
 When Enid Crosby comes out
 
 00:35:21.865 --> 00:35:23.387
 with his own autobiography,
 
 00:35:23.927 --> 00:35:25.467
 The True Story Behind the Spy,
 
 00:35:25.927 --> 00:35:26.487
 unfortunately,
 
 00:35:26.507 --> 00:35:28.007
 it doesn't sell nearly as well.
 
 00:35:28.347 --> 00:35:29.148
 And that's unfortunate.
 
 00:35:29.467 --> 00:35:30.168
 The good news,
 
 00:35:30.188 --> 00:35:31.347
 you were asking about what's
 
 00:35:31.449 --> 00:35:32.509
 left of the Culper Ring
 
 00:35:33.028 --> 00:35:34.409
 architecture and sites.
 
 00:35:34.688 --> 00:35:35.969
 In the case of Enid Crosby,
 
 00:35:36.789 --> 00:35:39.570
 his house still stands.
 
 00:35:40.010 --> 00:35:40.190
 Yep.
 
 00:35:40.250 --> 00:35:42.170
 And it was for sale about eight years ago.
 
 00:35:42.590 --> 00:35:43.831
 I can't think of the name of the town,
 
 00:35:43.851 --> 00:35:45.494
 but it's near Brewster, New York.
 
 00:35:45.994 --> 00:35:46.994
 And then I've been to his
 
 00:35:47.195 --> 00:35:48.076
 cemetery site where they
 
 00:35:48.096 --> 00:35:49.717
 have a nice large monument for him.
 
 00:35:50.177 --> 00:35:52.360
 Interesting, because in the Cooper novel,
 
 00:35:52.380 --> 00:35:53.780
 he's a despised figure,
 
 00:35:53.840 --> 00:35:55.362
 but then he carries around
 
 00:35:55.402 --> 00:35:56.603
 this letter he has from
 
 00:35:56.684 --> 00:35:58.706
 Washington testifying to his service.
 
 00:35:59.306 --> 00:36:01.567
 yes yes and you know there
 
 00:36:01.626 --> 00:36:02.967
 were a number of of
 
 00:36:03.306 --> 00:36:05.168
 patriots who wanted to keep
 
 00:36:05.208 --> 00:36:06.389
 their identity concealed
 
 00:36:06.409 --> 00:36:07.449
 that they had truly worked
 
 00:36:07.728 --> 00:36:09.889
 for the patriot side and so
 
 00:36:09.949 --> 00:36:11.150
 that harvey birch character
 
 00:36:11.170 --> 00:36:12.490
 he just summarized where
 
 00:36:12.710 --> 00:36:13.670
 they're despised by the
 
 00:36:13.731 --> 00:36:15.512
 locals they felt that was
 
 00:36:15.572 --> 00:36:16.672
 the best thing for them to
 
 00:36:16.731 --> 00:36:18.172
 do to keep their right
 
 00:36:18.413 --> 00:36:21.253
 identity yeah yeah it's fascinating um
 
 00:36:21.791 --> 00:36:22.873
 Now we know John Jay, of course,
 
 00:36:22.952 --> 00:36:24.414
 becomes Governor of New York,
 
 00:36:24.454 --> 00:36:25.255
 Chief Justice,
 
 00:36:25.356 --> 00:36:26.818
 Minister of Foreign Affairs.
 
 00:36:27.699 --> 00:36:28.619
 What about James Jay?
 
 00:36:29.039 --> 00:36:32.483
 He comes back to the US, or to the US,
 
 00:36:32.585 --> 00:36:34.367
 and what happens to him after the war?
 
 00:36:35.110 --> 00:36:36.331
 He actually eventually goes
 
 00:36:36.431 --> 00:36:38.233
 back to England again for a
 
 00:36:38.353 --> 00:36:40.655
 second round and kind of
 
 00:36:40.735 --> 00:36:42.335
 drifts off into obscurity.
 
 00:36:42.416 --> 00:36:44.958
 At one point after the American Revolution,
 
 00:36:44.978 --> 00:36:46.438
 I don't remember the year off,
 
 00:36:46.478 --> 00:36:47.519
 but circa 1785,
 
 00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:49.780
 he's trying to get some
 
 00:36:49.820 --> 00:36:51.422
 kind of recognition for his
 
 00:36:51.603 --> 00:36:52.824
 patriotic service.
 
 00:36:53.284 --> 00:36:54.204
 I guess maybe when he felt
 
 00:36:54.264 --> 00:36:56.865
 it was safe to do so or needed a little,
 
 00:36:57.085 --> 00:36:57.427
 you know.
 
 00:36:57.987 --> 00:37:00.568
 Coins, some kind of compensation.
 
 00:37:01.168 --> 00:37:02.547
 And I don't know if he had success with it,
 
 00:37:02.588 --> 00:37:04.849
 but he made an appeal to Washington,
 
 00:37:05.789 --> 00:37:08.469
 who did recognize him in
 
 00:37:08.590 --> 00:37:10.050
 kind of a cryptic way for
 
 00:37:10.769 --> 00:37:11.889
 patriotic service.
 
 00:37:12.530 --> 00:37:12.751
 Yeah.
 
 00:37:13.190 --> 00:37:14.150
 And of course, you know,
 
 00:37:14.411 --> 00:37:15.610
 during the revolution itself,
 
 00:37:15.710 --> 00:37:16.612
 as the Culper Ring and
 
 00:37:16.652 --> 00:37:18.211
 other agents are operating,
 
 00:37:18.711 --> 00:37:19.012
 Obviously,
 
 00:37:19.052 --> 00:37:20.572
 what comes up time and again is
 
 00:37:21.373 --> 00:37:22.213
 when are we getting paid?
 
 00:37:22.653 --> 00:37:22.853
 Right.
 
 00:37:23.094 --> 00:37:23.273
 Right.
 
 00:37:23.293 --> 00:37:24.673
 Can we have some coins given
 
 00:37:24.693 --> 00:37:25.934
 to us instead of worthless
 
 00:37:25.974 --> 00:37:26.954
 continental currency?
 
 00:37:26.974 --> 00:37:28.596
 We would like some actual
 
 00:37:29.715 --> 00:37:31.336
 pounds and shillings if possible.
 
 00:37:31.536 --> 00:37:33.217
 And that happened intermittently.
 
 00:37:33.538 --> 00:37:33.858
 Okay.
 
 00:37:34.038 --> 00:37:34.217
 Yeah.
 
 00:37:34.257 --> 00:37:35.719
 So some of them do get paid.
 
 00:37:35.778 --> 00:37:36.398
 That's a little different.
 
 00:37:36.619 --> 00:37:37.778
 Yes, yeah, the culprit ring,
 
 00:37:37.818 --> 00:37:40.099
 Robert Townsend and Abraham Woodhull.
 
 00:37:41.079 --> 00:37:42.380
 I would assume that the couriers,
 
 00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:45.360
 Caleb Brewster and Austin Rowe as well.
 
 00:37:46.121 --> 00:37:47.681
 I'm less familiar with some of the others.
 
 00:37:47.920 --> 00:37:50.101
 How often did the Mercer ring get paid?
 
 00:37:50.282 --> 00:37:51.242
 Not sure.
 
 00:37:51.601 --> 00:37:52.942
 And the paper trail is sporadic.
 
 00:37:52.981 --> 00:37:54.302
 Let's just go back to the
 
 00:37:54.342 --> 00:37:55.242
 Invisible Ink articles,
 
 00:37:56.322 --> 00:37:57.083
 letters for a second.
 
 00:37:58.063 --> 00:37:58.663
 Unfortunately,
 
 00:37:58.742 --> 00:38:00.563
 most of the actual letters
 
 00:38:00.583 --> 00:38:01.304
 that were written and
 
 00:38:01.364 --> 00:38:03.184
 developed using the Invisible Ink
 
 00:38:03.664 --> 00:38:05.043
 unfortunately were destroyed.
 
 00:38:05.864 --> 00:38:06.605
 The letters that we're
 
 00:38:06.664 --> 00:38:07.864
 seeing at the Washington
 
 00:38:07.925 --> 00:38:10.106
 papers located at the Library of Congress,
 
 00:38:10.846 --> 00:38:12.405
 those are transcriptions of
 
 00:38:12.425 --> 00:38:13.106
 the original letters.
 
 00:38:13.146 --> 00:38:14.347
 These are transcriptions by
 
 00:38:14.427 --> 00:38:15.407
 Washington's aides,
 
 00:38:15.527 --> 00:38:17.706
 like Alexander Hamilton or Tench Tillman.
 
 00:38:18.188 --> 00:38:18.748
 So unfortunately,
 
 00:38:18.768 --> 00:38:19.788
 we're not actually able to
 
 00:38:19.867 --> 00:38:21.568
 see that many examples of
 
 00:38:21.628 --> 00:38:23.489
 how the invisible ink was used.
 
 00:38:24.648 --> 00:38:25.889
 Now, it does raise a question,
 
 00:38:25.929 --> 00:38:27.210
 not about the invisible ink,
 
 00:38:27.230 --> 00:38:28.489
 but about getting paid,
 
 00:38:28.690 --> 00:38:29.269
 is what is it that
 
 00:38:29.329 --> 00:38:31.190
 motivates them to take on
 
 00:38:31.210 --> 00:38:32.550
 this very dangerous role
 
 00:38:33.291 --> 00:38:34.293
 where they're going to be
 
 00:38:34.313 --> 00:38:35.719
 hanged or seen as
 
 00:38:35.739 --> 00:38:37.965
 duplicitous by those they're aiding.
 
 00:38:38.527 --> 00:38:38.827
 You know,
 
 00:38:38.907 --> 00:38:40.786
 what is it to motivate someone like,
 
 00:38:40.806 --> 00:38:44.407
 you know, Enid Crosby or the Merceros?
 
 00:38:46.568 --> 00:38:47.108
 Good question.
 
 00:38:47.168 --> 00:38:48.648
 A lot of it is that proximity,
 
 00:38:48.668 --> 00:38:49.869
 the necessity that they are
 
 00:38:49.929 --> 00:38:51.349
 living in contested areas,
 
 00:38:51.389 --> 00:38:52.210
 that they are living in
 
 00:38:52.289 --> 00:38:53.570
 areas that are occupied by
 
 00:38:53.630 --> 00:38:56.230
 British and or Hessians or loyalists.
 
 00:38:56.429 --> 00:38:56.931
 And of course,
 
 00:38:56.951 --> 00:38:57.791
 when we're thinking loyalists,
 
 00:38:57.811 --> 00:38:58.570
 you're thinking more of a
 
 00:38:59.050 --> 00:39:00.510
 civil war like dynamic.
 
 00:39:00.670 --> 00:39:00.911
 Right.
 
 00:39:01.070 --> 00:39:03.532
 Very dangerous juxtaposition for them.
 
 00:39:04.692 --> 00:39:05.773
 In some cases,
 
 00:39:07.152 --> 00:39:09.353
 like the Townsend and Strong
 
 00:39:09.414 --> 00:39:10.494
 families that were involved
 
 00:39:10.554 --> 00:39:12.235
 in the Culper spy ring,
 
 00:39:12.835 --> 00:39:14.056
 it's the loss of a family
 
 00:39:14.117 --> 00:39:15.097
 member who had served in
 
 00:39:15.117 --> 00:39:16.077
 the Patriot cause.
 
 00:39:17.177 --> 00:39:18.338
 One of several examples is
 
 00:39:18.458 --> 00:39:19.518
 that Major Benjamin
 
 00:39:19.539 --> 00:39:21.239
 Talmadge had a brother who
 
 00:39:21.300 --> 00:39:23.521
 had died on the infamous prison ship,
 
 00:39:23.641 --> 00:39:24.942
 the HMS Jersey.
 
 00:39:26.181 --> 00:39:27.023
 So that's going to motivate him.
 
 00:39:27.063 --> 00:39:28.242
 He lost, of course,
 
 00:39:28.302 --> 00:39:29.684
 his best friend at Yale,
 
 00:39:29.704 --> 00:39:30.965
 his classmate Nathan Hale
 
 00:39:30.985 --> 00:39:31.804
 had already been hanged.
 
 00:39:32.224 --> 00:39:34.266
 So that motivates Talmadge in several ways,
 
 00:39:34.766 --> 00:39:35.686
 but others as well.
 
 00:39:36.246 --> 00:39:37.407
 And the same difference for
 
 00:39:37.628 --> 00:39:38.869
 Ina Crosby and the others,
 
 00:39:38.989 --> 00:39:40.528
 that they're motivated by a
 
 00:39:40.568 --> 00:39:41.949
 strong sense of patriotism
 
 00:39:41.989 --> 00:39:42.891
 and personal loss,
 
 00:39:42.911 --> 00:39:44.351
 that they're willing to take the risks.
 
 00:39:44.911 --> 00:39:45.532
 I have to say,
 
 00:39:46.052 --> 00:39:47.333
 time and again in the letters,
 
 00:39:48.072 --> 00:39:49.434
 both Townsend and Woodhull
 
 00:39:49.454 --> 00:39:50.755
 are constantly nervous that
 
 00:39:50.775 --> 00:39:51.934
 they're going to be caught.
 
 00:39:52.556 --> 00:39:54.336
 And they know they're taking risks,
 
 00:39:54.536 --> 00:39:56.338
 and they don't want to push the envelope.
 
 00:39:56.358 --> 00:39:58.358
 So there are times where they go dark,
 
 00:39:59.059 --> 00:40:00.380
 for several weeks and are
 
 00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:01.760
 hiding especially after
 
 00:40:02.001 --> 00:40:03.061
 obviously understandably
 
 00:40:03.101 --> 00:40:04.842
 when benedict arnold uh
 
 00:40:04.943 --> 00:40:07.503
 switches sides in oh yeah
 
 00:40:07.503 --> 00:40:10.405
 1780 towns is completely uh
 
 00:40:10.826 --> 00:40:12.027
 you know thrown off course
 
 00:40:12.106 --> 00:40:13.547
 because he knows totally he
 
 00:40:13.568 --> 00:40:16.789
 knows who's um who's doing this yeah
 
 00:40:18.208 --> 00:40:19.148
 Well, it's interesting, you know,
 
 00:40:19.269 --> 00:40:19.829
 thankfully,
 
 00:40:19.849 --> 00:40:22.213
 the information had been siloed enough,
 
 00:40:22.514 --> 00:40:23.856
 maybe as a way to word it,
 
 00:40:24.336 --> 00:40:26.380
 that Washington knew, obviously,
 
 00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:27.340
 the existence of the ring,
 
 00:40:27.382 --> 00:40:29.224
 but he didn't know the individual agents.
 
 00:40:29.264 --> 00:40:31.407
 He only knew them by their code names,
 
 00:40:31.507 --> 00:40:32.949
 Culper Senior, Culper Junior.
 
 00:40:33.010 --> 00:40:33.490
 So that was...
 
 00:40:34.050 --> 00:40:34.291
 Yeah,
 
 00:40:34.331 --> 00:40:36.673
 the tradecraft had Washington ever
 
 00:40:36.733 --> 00:40:38.715
 been captured that that was
 
 00:40:38.775 --> 00:40:40.257
 attempted a couple of different times.
 
 00:40:40.518 --> 00:40:41.940
 Interesting, including in 1776.
 
 00:40:42.159 --> 00:40:42.721
 In fact,
 
 00:40:42.880 --> 00:40:45.043
 if you don't mind to go back to John Jay,
 
 00:40:45.063 --> 00:40:46.184
 one of the great
 
 00:40:46.224 --> 00:40:47.666
 accomplishments of John Jay
 
 00:40:48.226 --> 00:40:48.907
 and others in
 
 00:40:48.947 --> 00:40:50.329
 counterintelligence is
 
 00:40:50.389 --> 00:40:51.349
 fairly early in the war.
 
 00:40:51.630 --> 00:40:52.311
 It's before.
 
 00:40:53.476 --> 00:40:55.416
 the infamous Battle of New
 
 00:40:55.456 --> 00:40:57.858
 York in August of 1776.
 
 00:40:57.858 --> 00:41:00.181
 This is actually in the early summer.
 
 00:41:00.201 --> 00:41:01.260
 This is June of 76.
 
 00:41:02.121 --> 00:41:04.983
 And there's a plot by the
 
 00:41:05.063 --> 00:41:06.224
 Royal Governor of New York
 
 00:41:07.489 --> 00:41:09.751
 Governor Tryon and the mayor
 
 00:41:09.891 --> 00:41:11.474
 of New York City, David Matthews.
 
 00:41:11.534 --> 00:41:13.396
 He's a loyalist and some
 
 00:41:13.436 --> 00:41:15.538
 British officers to try to
 
 00:41:16.338 --> 00:41:17.960
 capture and potentially
 
 00:41:17.981 --> 00:41:19.242
 even kill both George
 
 00:41:19.322 --> 00:41:21.505
 Washington and General Israel Putnam.
 
 00:41:22.766 --> 00:41:26.610
 And what leads to this plot
 
 00:41:26.650 --> 00:41:27.271
 being thwarted?
 
 00:41:28.213 --> 00:41:30.096
 is the arrest of a person
 
 00:41:30.135 --> 00:41:31.677
 who had actually grown up in,
 
 00:41:31.876 --> 00:41:32.416
 not grown up,
 
 00:41:32.476 --> 00:41:33.757
 he was living as a young
 
 00:41:33.777 --> 00:41:35.480
 adult in Wethersfield.
 
 00:41:35.539 --> 00:41:37.141
 So just like Silas Dean and
 
 00:41:37.181 --> 00:41:38.242
 just like Edward Bancroft
 
 00:41:38.262 --> 00:41:38.822
 and some others.
 
 00:41:39.302 --> 00:41:40.543
 And his name was Thomas Hickey.
 
 00:41:41.304 --> 00:41:42.945
 And he was in an American
 
 00:41:42.985 --> 00:41:44.586
 Revolution since the
 
 00:41:44.626 --> 00:41:46.628
 equivalent of a secret service agent.
 
 00:41:46.849 --> 00:41:47.688
 He was a member of
 
 00:41:47.748 --> 00:41:50.010
 Washington's lifeguards and
 
 00:41:50.050 --> 00:41:50.650
 he's a sergeant.
 
 00:41:50.911 --> 00:41:53.112
 And he was a notorious,
 
 00:41:53.132 --> 00:41:54.534
 he had been a criminal who
 
 00:41:54.574 --> 00:41:55.896
 had been doing some counterfeiting
 
 00:41:56.909 --> 00:41:58.530
 And that's what he gets arrested for.
 
 00:41:58.630 --> 00:42:00.172
 But it comes out as he's
 
 00:42:00.233 --> 00:42:01.494
 boasting in jail of this
 
 00:42:01.614 --> 00:42:03.074
 plot to capture or kill
 
 00:42:03.175 --> 00:42:05.295
 Washington and Putnam that
 
 00:42:05.516 --> 00:42:06.536
 authorities who were
 
 00:42:06.577 --> 00:42:07.577
 operating this prison in
 
 00:42:07.597 --> 00:42:09.179
 New York City alert John
 
 00:42:09.239 --> 00:42:12.282
 Jay and his committee of early Congress.
 
 00:42:12.981 --> 00:42:14.143
 And so John Jay and his
 
 00:42:14.202 --> 00:42:17.204
 colleagues do a cross-examination.
 
 00:42:17.324 --> 00:42:18.445
 They interrogate Hickey.
 
 00:42:18.947 --> 00:42:19.686
 And that leads to the
 
 00:42:19.726 --> 00:42:20.967
 exposure of the plot and
 
 00:42:21.768 --> 00:42:23.449
 arguably saving George
 
 00:42:23.510 --> 00:42:24.831
 Washington and Israel Putnam.
 
 00:42:25.311 --> 00:42:26.052
 Fascinating, isn't it?
 
 00:42:26.918 --> 00:42:28.840
 We've been talking with Damien Krigal.
 
 00:42:28.920 --> 00:42:30.501
 I think we've just actually
 
 00:42:30.541 --> 00:42:31.521
 scratched the surface of
 
 00:42:31.561 --> 00:42:34.224
 this story of espionage and
 
 00:42:34.744 --> 00:42:36.045
 look forward to hearing more.
 
 00:42:36.085 --> 00:42:37.306
 So thank you so much for joining us,
 
 00:42:37.347 --> 00:42:37.726
 Damien.
 
 00:42:37.766 --> 00:42:39.748
 And look forward to your book,
 
 00:42:39.789 --> 00:42:40.949
 Portraits of Patriots,
 
 00:42:41.030 --> 00:42:42.411
 The Revolutionary Lives of
 
 00:42:42.490 --> 00:42:43.632
 Five Patriots from
 
 00:42:43.692 --> 00:42:45.414
 Connecticut and further
 
 00:42:45.474 --> 00:42:47.054
 work on this and other topics.
 
 00:42:47.094 --> 00:42:48.135
 Thank you so much for joining us.
 
 00:42:48.748 --> 00:42:49.469
 Well, thank you, Bob.
 
 00:42:49.510 --> 00:42:50.710
 And I'm glad I could provide
 
 00:42:50.771 --> 00:42:53.193
 an appetizer and future food for thought.
 
 00:42:53.233 --> 00:42:53.773
 This is great.
 
 00:42:53.853 --> 00:42:54.032
 Yeah.
 
 00:42:54.614 --> 00:42:55.414
 And so thank you.
 
 00:42:55.474 --> 00:42:56.876
 And thank you to Jonathan Lane,
 
 00:42:56.976 --> 00:42:57.815
 our producer,
 
 00:42:57.876 --> 00:43:00.157
 and to our listeners around the world,
 
 00:43:00.177 --> 00:43:01.219
 around the country.
 
 00:43:01.559 --> 00:43:01.739
 You know,
 
 00:43:01.759 --> 00:43:02.900
 initially we thought we'd have a
 
 00:43:02.940 --> 00:43:05.181
 few of our friends tuning in periodically,
 
 00:43:05.242 --> 00:43:06.103
 but actually we have a very
 
 00:43:06.710 --> 00:43:09.251
 loyal following around the world.
 
 00:43:09.331 --> 00:43:10.150
 And so every week I
 
 00:43:10.190 --> 00:43:11.132
 acknowledge folks in
 
 00:43:11.172 --> 00:43:12.672
 different places who are tuning in.
 
 00:43:12.711 --> 00:43:13.353
 And if you're one of these
 
 00:43:13.393 --> 00:43:14.512
 places and want some of our
 
 00:43:14.532 --> 00:43:16.153
 Revolution 250 swag,
 
 00:43:16.574 --> 00:43:18.014
 send Jonathan Lane an email,
 
 00:43:18.054 --> 00:43:20.394
 jlane at revolution250.org.
 
 00:43:20.755 --> 00:43:21.735
 Or if you have a topic you'd
 
 00:43:21.775 --> 00:43:23.757
 like us to talk about on the podcast.
 
 00:43:24.637 --> 00:43:25.257
 So this week,
 
 00:43:25.277 --> 00:43:26.458
 I want to thank folks in
 
 00:43:26.518 --> 00:43:28.458
 Santa Rosa and San Jose in
 
 00:43:28.518 --> 00:43:30.059
 California and St.
 
 00:43:30.119 --> 00:43:32.440
 Paul, Minnesota, Coolidge, Arizona,
 
 00:43:32.960 --> 00:43:34.161
 Old Bridge, New Jersey,
 
 00:43:34.903 --> 00:43:36.586
 Orleans and Alston here in
 
 00:43:36.626 --> 00:43:37.347
 the Commonwealth of
 
 00:43:37.387 --> 00:43:39.090
 Massachusetts and Redditch
 
 00:43:39.170 --> 00:43:39.891
 in Worcestershire.
 
 00:43:39.911 --> 00:43:41.735
 So thank you to folks there
 
 00:43:41.815 --> 00:43:43.597
 and in places between and beyond.
 
 00:43:43.777 --> 00:43:45.820
 And now we will be piped out
 
 00:43:45.940 --> 00:43:46.802
 on the road to Boston.