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Enoch Crosby was an American soldier and spy during the Revolutionary War. His life may have been the basis for the character Harvey Birch in James Fenimore Cooper's novel The Spy.

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Lydia Darragh was an American woman said to have crossed British lines during the British occupation of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War, delivering information to George Washington.

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Lydia Darraghnot a spy that was meant to be under Washington's control. She was ordered to be in her room by General Howe, but she sneaked out and listened in on a meeting from a near by closet. When she heard that the British General, Howe, was planing on making a surprise attack on George Washington and his men at a near by camp, she stealthily hurried back to her room and minutes later an officer knocked on her door, though she acted as if she were asleep. He believed her too! The next day she came up with a plan to get the message to George Washington. The plan was for her to go to the four mill to refill her bags of flour and give the message to a fellow patriot, then the patriot will give the message to George Washington.
Lydia Barrington Darragh was born on 1729 in Dublin, Ireland and died on Dec. 28, 1789, in Philadelphia, Pa, U.S. She was 60 years old when she died. Lydia was a nurse for George Washington army. She did not patch up men when they were wounded but spied for General George Washington. At the age of 24 she married a accomplished young man named William Darragh. William Darragh was a home tutor and a respected young man becuse he was a son of a clergyman. Not long after there marriage they move over seas to America. William and Lydia soon settled down in Philadelphia and had 5 kids (plus another four that didn't make it past infancy). Lydia and her family are ageist war because they are Quakers. Their oldest son joined the revolutionary war, despite that.

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Lydia Darragh was a not a spy that was meant to be under Washington's control. She was ordered to be in her room by General Howe, but she sneaked out and listened in on a meeting from a near by...

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The Culper Ring was a spy ring organized by American Major (later Colonel) Benjamin Tallmadge under orders from General George Washington in the summer of 1778 during British occupation of New York City at the height of the American Revolutionary War.

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Find and save recipes, parenting hacks, style inspiration and other ideas to try.

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Benjamin Tallmadge was an American military officer, spy master, and politician. He is best known for his service as an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

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Benjamin Tallmadge (February 25, 1754 - March 7, 1835) was an American military officer, spy master, and politician. He is best known for his service as an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. In this conflict, he acted as leader of the Culper Ring, a celebrated network of spies in British-occupied New York. He also led a successful raid across Long Island that culminated in the Battle of Fort St. George. Following the war, Tallmadge was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Federalist Party.

Tallmadge was born February 25, 1754, the son of Susannah Smith (1729-1768) and Rev. Benjamin Tallmadge Sr. (1725-1786), a clergyman in Setauket, New York, a hamlet in the Town of Brookhaven on Long Island. He graduated from Yale in 1773 and was a classmate of American Revolutionary War spy Nathan Hale. He was the father of New York City Police Commissioner Frederick A. Tallmadge. He remained in Connecticut and served as the superintendent of Wethersfield High School from 1773 to 1776.

Tallmadge was a major in the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons. He was initially commissioned on June 20, 1776. Eventually, he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel as the chief intelligence officer for George Washington. He organized the Culper Spy Ring based out of New York City and Long Island during the American Revolutionary War, using the code name John Bolton. The Culper Ring is thought by some to have revealed the betrayal of Benedict Arnold, though this is disputed.

Benedict Arnold's British contact John André was caught and was taken to North Castle, where commander Colonel Jameson ordered lieutenant Allen to take the incriminating documents found with André to their commander Benedict Arnold at West Point. Tallmadge suspected André to be a spy and Benedict Arnold to be his accomplice, and he tried to have Jameson reverse his orders. He was unsuccessful, but did convince Jameson to send a rider and take Andre to Salem, eight miles east of the Hudson River and to send the documents to George Washington. Allen still reported to Benedict Arnold with Jameson's note outlining the events. Later, Jameson was chastised by Washington for warning Arnold and allowing his escape. André was placed in Tallmadge's custody awaiting execution.

On November 21, 1780, Tallmadge and his dragoons rowed across the Long Island Sound from Fairfield, Connecticut to Cedar Beach in present-day Mount Sinai, New York. The next day, they proceeded to the south shore where they captured and burned down Manor St. George. On their march back to Mt. Sinai, Tallmadge stopped in Coram and ordered the burning of 300 tons of hay which the British had been stockpiling for the winter. George Washington, on hearing the news, sent the following letter to Tallmadge:

I have received with much pleasure the report of your successful enterprise upon fort St. George, and was pleased with the destruction of the hay at Coram, which must be severely felt by the enemy at this time. I beg you to accept my thanks for your spirited execution of this business.

Tallmadge served at Washington's headquarters from March 1781 until the Continental Army was disbanded in November 1783. He was breveted to the rank of lieutenant colonel on September 30, 1783.

On March 4, 1801, Tallmadge succeeded William Edmond as a Federalist Party member of the United States House of Representatives representing Connecticut's at-large congressional district. He served until March 3, 1817 when he was succeeded by Thomas Scott Williams.

In 1829, Tallmadge was among a group of Federalists who defended the honor of the late Connecticut Senator Uriah Tracy against accusations by John Quincy Adams and William Plumer that Tracy, beginning in early 1804, was a leader of a conspiracy to separate the New England states into a distinct confederacy. Said Tallmadge to his neighbor and Tracy's son-in-law James Gould: "General Tracy never conferred with me on the subject of forming a separate government in New England; nor have I any reason to believe that such a project ever seriously entered into his mind. Although Messrs. Adams and Plumer assert their belief that certain leaders of the Federal party from New England actually entertained the idea of forming a separate New England government, and that a combination was actually formed for that purpose, I have no belief that such combination or project was formed (unless the aforesaid Adams and Plumer, then passing for Federalists, will allow that they entertained the idea); nor can I suppose that General Tracy would have countenanced such a nefarious conspiracy for one moment."

Tallmadge was the first president of the Phoenix Branch Bank and an original member, and later president, of the New York Society of the Cincinnati.

On March 18, 1784, Tallmadge married Mary Floyd (1764-1805), daughter of Maj. Gen. William Floyd, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Governor of New York. His children included:

William Smith Tallmadge (1785-1822), a Lt. Col. of the 46th United States Infantry in the War of 1812, he died unmarried in Moscow, New York

Henry Floyd Tallmadge (1787-1896), who married Maria Andrews Canfield (b. 1800), daughter of Andrew Adams

Maria Jones Tallmadge (1790-1878), who married John Paine Cushman (1784-1848), a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 10th congressional district

Benjamin Tallmadge (1792-1831), who died unmarried near Gibraltar while a lieutenant in the United States Navy

Frederick Augustus Tallmadge (1794-1869), who married Elizabeth H. Canfield (1793-1878), daughter of Judson Canfield

Harriet Wadsworth Tallmadge (1797-1856), who married John Delafield (1786-1853), brother of Edward Delafield and Richard Delafield

George Washington Tallmadge (1803-1838), who married Laura Pease (1807-1893), daughter of Calvin Pease

In 1808, after his first wife's death in 1805, Tallmadge married Maria Hallett (d. 1838), daughter of his friend, Joseph Hallett.

The Tallmadge Trail is marked along the route that Tallmadge and his dragoons took from Mt. Sinai to Mastic Heights.

Tallmadge Hall at Fort Huachuca, Arizona (home of U.S. Army military intelligence) is named in honor of Tallmadge and his distinguished leadership role in the service of Continental Army intelligence.

Tallmadge, Ohio is also named after Tallmadge.

The Benjamin Tallmadge District is named after Tallmadge, serving the north shore of Eastern Long Island.

Benjamin Tallmadge is portrayed in the video game Assassin's Creed III as head of the Culper Ring. In the game, he is the son of a former member of the Assassin Brotherhood and comes seeking the Brotherhood's aid in stopping Thomas Hickey from assassinating General George Washington. The game's protagonist Connor follows Tallmadge to New York in order to foil the plot. Interestingly, though he is present in the main story, he is not present in the Benedict Arnold downloadable content missions which focus on Arnold being exposed as a traitor.

Tallmadge is also a main character in the AMC series Turn: Washington's Spies. He is played by Seth Numrich and holds the rank of captain until the sixth episode, where he is promoted to major by General Washington.

Additionally, Tallmadge appears as a recurring character in the webcomic and graphic novel series, The Dreamer created by Lora Innes. He first appears in Issue #12 of Act I as a lieutenant in the Continental Army and a friend of Captain Nathan Hale.

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Benjamin Tallmadge - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

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Benjamin Tallmadge (February 25, 1754 - March 7, 1835) was an American military officer, spy master, and politician. He is best known for his service as an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. In this conflict, he acted as leader of the Culper Ring, a celebrated network of spies in British-occupied New York.

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Anna Smith Strong of Setauket, New York, was an American Patriot and a possible member of the Culper Spy Ring during the American Revolution.

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Anna's father was Colonel William Smith, son of Henry Smith and grandson of Colonel William Smith, a justice of the supreme court established in New York in 1691. He was clerk of Suffolk County, New York and judge of the Common Pleas court for the county for several years before the American Revolution. Anna's mother was Margaret Lloyd Smith, daughter of Henry Lloyd of Lloyd's Neck. Anna was described in an 1839 book by Benjamin Franklin Thompson on the history of Long Island as "a lady of much amiability and worth."

Anna's husband Selah Strong (December 25, 1737 - July 4, 1815) was related through his mother Hannah to General Nathaniel Woodhull and Abraham Woodhull, the "Samuel Culper " of the Culper Ring of American spies during the revolutionary war. He was a delegate to the first three provincial congresses in New York, which convened on May 22 and December 6 in 1775 and in May 1776. He also was a captain in the New York militia in 1776. According to Rivington's Gazette of January 3, 1778, Selah Strong was imprisoned in the sugar house at New York City as a presumed spy. Family tradition has him later imprisoned on the prison ship HMS Jersey. Later works mention only his imprisonment on the prison ship. Tradition says that Anna brought him food. Author Ryan Ann Hunter states that Anna eventually got Selah paroled through the influence of Tory relatives. Upon his release, he spent the rest of the war in Connecticut with the family's younger children while Anna stayed on Long Island. Anna Smith's step-mother, Ruth Smith, was Tabitha Smith's sister. Tabitha was mother to Ruth Floyd, wife of Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Woodhull.

The Strongs' children were Keturah S. (a daughter who married James W. Woodhull), Thomas Shepherd, Margaret, Benjamin, Mary, William Smith, Joseph, George Washington, and another Joseph. Mary and the first Joseph both died young, while Thomas later became a judge.

On August 25, 1778, Continental Army Major Benjamin Tallmadge convinced General George Washington that Abraham Woodhull of Setauket on Long Island would make a good agent to gather intelligence in New York City, the British Army's headquarters and base of operations during the American Revolutionary War. For a short time, Washington continued to support Tallmadge's superior Brigadier General Charles Scott as chief of intelligence. Contrary to Tallmadge, Scott favored single missions by agents, usually officers, across enemy lines.

One of Scott's intelligence missions to New York City failed when three Continental Army officers were discovered and executed in September 1778. After this, Washington gave Tallmadge the assignment to set up a network of spies and couriers in New York City. Scott soon went on furlough and was replaced by Tallmadge as chief of intelligence. In October 1778, Tallmadge started the New York City operation; Woodhull began to make trips into New York under the pretext of visits to his sister Mary Underhill, who operated a boarding house with her husband Amos Underhill. Woodhull's reports were written under the alias "Samuel Culper" (later "Samuel Culper Sr."); Tallmadge was called "John Bolton". On October 31, 1778, Woodhull was questioned threateningly at a British checkpoint. He hoped to pass on the work in New York to Amos Underhill but Underhill was unable to make clear or useful reports. Woodhull was obliged to continue his visits, although he became increasingly anxious that he might be discovered as time passed.

In June 1779, Woodhull engaged Robert Townsend ("Samuel Culper, Jr.") to gather intelligence in New York City. Townsend was engaged in business there and his presence was expected to arouse less suspicion than Woodhull had. He also had access to British officers through the authorship of a society column in a Loyalist newspaper and his tailoring business, as well as his interest in a coffeehouse with Tory newspaper owner James Rivington, also a secret member of the ring.

A network was then established in which Townsend would pass intelligence to a courier, Jonas Hawkins or Austin Roe, who would take it 55 miles (89 km) to Setauket and pass it on to Woodhull, usually via dead drop. Woodhull would evaluate and comment on it and pass it to Caleb Brewster, who took it across Long Island Sound to Tallmadge, who would then usually add a cover letter with comments. Tallmadge found that personally taking the message to Washington was too time consuming, so he eventually began to send these reports to Washington via dragoons and then by relays of dragoons.

According to widely accepted local and family tradition, Anna Strong's role in the ring was to signal Brewster that a message was ready, as he ran regular trips with whaleboats across the Sound on a variety of smuggling and military missions. She did this by hanging a black petticoat on her clothesline at Strong Point in Setauket, which was easily visible by Brewster from a boat in the Sound and by Woodhull from his nearby farm after he began to operate almost exclusively from home. She would add a number of handkerchiefs for one of six coves where Brewster would bring his boat and Woodhull would meet him. Historian Richard Welch writes that the tradition of the clothesline signal is unverifiable, but it is known that the British suspected a woman of disloyal activities at Setauket who fit Anna's profile.

In a less scholarly treatment, authors Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger speculate that she had motive to work against the crown but she also had reason not to. British law said that lands could be confiscated if left abandoned, which forced Anna to remain behind when her husband left for Connecticut. For this reason, they suggest, it is possible Anna would not have wanted to risk losing their home. Her children were also with her, so her arrest would have left those children parentless. Additionally, her family was already under close scrutiny since her husband was a known dissident. They offer no facts about Strong and her activities in support of these opinions or anything to contradict other sources noted here.

Woodhull had to continue to visit New York for meetings with Townsend, who occasionally needed to be encouraged to continue his work or to discuss instructions or information. In October 1779, Woodhull was attacked by four armed men who searched his clothes, shoes and saddle but did not find the letter from Townsend that he was carrying. Woodhull told Tallmadge that this occurred and asked him to keep it secret so that others in the ring would not be intimidated. He also wrote to Tallmadge that he would soon be visiting New York again and "...by the assistance of a 355 [lady] of my acquaintance, shall be able to outwit them all."

Historians Alexander Rose, Mark Anthony Phelps and Kenneth Daigler write that the lady identified only as "a 355", 355 being Tallmadge's substitution code for "lady", was Anna Strong. Men traveling alone might come under suspicion as spies and be stopped and searched but a man traveling with a wife drew less suspicion and might not even be stopped, much less searched. Anna had her own reason to visit New York to visit her husband aboard the prison ship where he was confined and to bring him food if possible. Her main service on their trips would have been to divert attention from Woodhull.

On one of his trips to Setauket, Brewster was waiting for Woodhull in Strong's back garden. While waiting, he surprised a passing British lieutenant, pulled him off his horse and had the opportunity to capture or kill him. He refrained from doing so in order to avoid drawing suspicion on Anna by leaving the impression that Brewster and his men were thieves.

On February 4, 1781, the double agent, or simple self-dealing mercenary, William Heron told British intelligence chief Major Oliver De Lancey of the Seventeenth Light Dragoons that private dispatches were being sent from New York City by some traitors to Seutaket "where a certain Brewster received them near a certain woman's." Since the British were never able to catch Brewster and get him to disclose the woman's name, Anna's identity remained secret.

Selah Strong was on Washington's list of persons to be reimbursed for expenses that they incurred in connection with their activities for the Culper Ring. Rose and Phelps state that the reimbursement must have been for expenses incurred by Anna since Selah was imprisoned for much of the relevant time period.

After the war, Selah Strong was a state senator in New York between 1792 and 1800 and a member of Council of Appointment in 1794. He was the first judge of Suffolk County between 1783 and 1793 and county treasurer between 1786 and 1802. He was a supervisor between 1784 and 1794 and President of Board of Trustees of Brookhaven, 1780-1797 (1780 is almost certainly a typo for a later date).

No information has been found concerning Anna's activities after the end of the war other than that she and Selah lived quietly in Setauket for the rest of their lives. She died on August 12, 1812.

In AMC's Revolutionary War spy thriller period drama series, TURN: Washington's Spies, based on Alexander Rose's historical book Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring (2007), Heather Lind plays Anna Strong.

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Anna Strong (spy) - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

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Anna's father was Colonel William Smith, son of Henry Smith and grandson of Colonel William Smith, a justice of the supreme court established in New York in 1691. He was clerk of Suffolk County, New York and judge of the Common Pleas court for the county for several years before the American Revolution.

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James Armistead Lafayette was an African American slave who served the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War as a double agent.

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slaves fighting in the revolutionary war

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ralph abernathy     james armistead     ida bell wells-barnett  daisy bates     geoffrey canada     angela davis   frederick douglass     medgar evers    louis farrakhan   marcus garvey  fannie lou hamer   eleanor holmes    roy innis    jesse jackson    malcolm x     coretta scott king    martin luther king jr.     john lewis   kweisi mfume   floyd b mckissick    james meredith  anne moody   elijah muhammad    huey newton     rosa parks    philip randolph     dred scott    bobby seale    al sharpton     percy sutton  sojourner truth    harriet tubman     nat turner    denmark vesey  booker t washington       walter francis white     myrlie evers-williams    andrew young

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African American War Heroes- James Armistead

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Complete biography and photos of the top African American war heros in the United States history including James Armistead

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Nathan Hale was an American soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British and executed.