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Nathan Hale was sent on a mission by General George Washington to spy on the location of the British Army. Although spying was considered not gentlemen like, Hale still offered to do this task despite the danger. He traveled to places like Connecticut and New York while impersonating a school teacher to gather information on the whereabouts and plans of the British troops. Nathan Hale was captured and questioned by British General William Howe and was hanged for espionage on September 22nd, 1776. Perhaps he is most well known for his last words "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country". Hale is considered to be an American hero for sacrificing his life for his country.

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Nathan Hale was an American soldier during the Revolutionary War and was hanged by the British for espionage in 1776.

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Were there British spies?

Jon Andre is the best known British spy and was eventually hanged by the colonists after assisting Benedict Arnold in his historic betrayal at West Point. Jon Andre was born in Britain and a bad breakup led him to join the British military. His ability to speak english, french, italian, and german allowed him to climb the ranks quickly and he became very popular among the british. When taken as a prisoner of war he was allowed to stay with a colonial family who ended up taking a liking to him. Once returned to Britain he became a major but kept close relations to Arnold. Andre played an influential role in Arnold’s decision to betray the Continental Army, but did not seem to have any actual intelligence gathering operations like an American spy would. Actually, I don’t think he is a spy at all but he is the only man that came up in my search for famous british spies in the revolutionary war.

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John Andre -- handsome, artistic, beloved by the Loyalists, admired by Washington ... a spy brave and cunning ... convinced Benedict Arnold to sell out West Point ... hanged at age 31.

John Andre was born in London in 1750 to French Protestant (Huguenot) parents. His father was a merchant, born in Geneva, Switzerland; his mother was born in France and moved to England when she was young. He attended school in Geneva, returning to London in 1767, two years before his father died.

The young Andre was a charismatic and charming man whose manners and advanced education set him apart from his contemporaries in England. He was fluent in English, French, German, and Italian. He drew and painted, wrote lyric and comic verse, and played the flute.

The glamour of military life appealed to Andre, but coming from the merchant class and of limited means, he would not be able to advance in the British army, where a purchase system almost always governed promotions.

After his father's death, in 1769, Andre felt obliged to financially care for his family and entered his father's counting house.

That same year, Honora Sneyd declared her love for him -- all he had to do to obtain her guardian's approval and win her hand in marriage was to grow rich. Andre strove to succeed, but before too long Honora found that her feelings for him had cooled. Andre decided now to follow his dream and join the army.

Driven by a Broken Heart

Anna Seward, the English poet and foster sister of Honora, asserted that Andre was driven to join the army by a broken heart. Thus, he was commissioned on March 4th, 1771, and selected for special training in Germany, where he spent two years. In 1774 he went to America as lieutenant in the Royal English Fusileers traveling to Canada by way of Philadelphia and Boston.

As a British lieutenant in Canada, Andre was involved in the defense of St. Johns which was taken by American forces on November 2, 1775, after a two-month siege.

Captured...Copes

He became a prisoner of war and was transferred to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It was not uncommon for officers who were prisoners of war to be entertained en route to their places of detention, and Andre had dinner in Haverstraw, New York, at the home of a Mr. Hays. Also present was Mr. Hays's brother-in-law, Joshua Hett Smith. Five years afterwards, Andre and Smith would meet again, apparently without recognition on either side; in 1780 it was Joshua Hett Smith who set Andre on the road to capture and death.

In Lancaster, the enlisted prisoners were kept in barracks, while captured officers were housed at their own expense in local inns. Andre was among those officers allowed to reside with a local family. He moved in with the Caleb Cope family. The Copes developed a real affection for Andre, who gave art lessons to their eldest son. Further, in this German-speaking Lancaster community, Andre's fluency added to his popularity.

At the close of 1776, as part of a prisoner exchange, Andre was returned to Howe, now wintering in New York. Andre presented Howe a memoir he had compiled from his observations in "the colonies." Impressed by the young man's abilities, Howe first gave him a captaincy in the 26th Regiment and recommended him as an aide to Major-General Charles Grey.

In August, 1777, serving under Grey, Andre was among the 17,000 British who landed at Head of Elk, Maryland, which led to the occupation of Philadelphia. Andre was present at the Battle of Brandywine, Grey's bloody night raid, known as the Paoli Massacre, the Battle of Germantown, the British occupation of Philadelphia, the Battle of Monmouth, and Grey's brutal raids of 1778 in Massachusetts and New Jersey. One of the most reliable sources for the history of the war from the British side is Andre's Journal.

During the Winter 1777-78 British occupation of Philadelphia, while Washington endured at Valley Forge, Andre wrote poetry for the Tory women, including Peggy Shippen, and took center stage in making the otherwise boring days entertaining. He planned the notorious Mischianza extravaganza of May 18, 1778, in honor of Howe's impending departure.

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John Andre -- handsome, artistic, beloved by the Loyalists, admired by Washington ... a spy brave and cunning ... convinced Benedict Arnold to sell out West Point ... hanged at age 31. John Andre was born in London in 1750 to French Protestant (Huguenot) parents.

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The Culper Spy Ring had many accomplishments that aided in the American Victory during the Revolution. They exposed plans to assassinate George Washington many times as well as constantly uncovered British movement plans which in turn created multiple opportunities for ambush. The most significant accomplishment I believe they made was the discovery of an incoming British naval fleet to rescue General Cornwallis from Yorktown in one of the last major battles of the Revolution. This discovery allowed the American forces to tip off the French navy and defeat Cornwallis.

https://thehistoryjunkie.com/culper-spy-ring-facts/

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https://www.founderoftheday.com/founder-of-the-day/robert-townsend : Robert Townsend was an American Spy during the Revolution, and he was able to infiltrate many levels of society, and kept his guise of a Loyalist up by writing for a Loyalist paper. This article goes into further depth about the accomplishments of Robert Townsend, known at the time as Culper Jr. It talks about how he never revealed his identity, and how his espionage was able to inform the Patriots of the British plan to destroy the colonies’ economy by counterfeiting American currency.

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Jacqueline Young- invisible ink and secret forms of communication

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Jacqueline Young- invisible ink and secret forms of communication

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Invisible Ink was one of the ways messages were passed between spies without the British noticing. People wrote in Lemon Juice and then applied heat to reveal the secret messages. Additionally, complex liquids and chemicals were used to do the same thing. Besides Invisible ink, people would write in secret codes and then the recipient would have to decipher the code. This was not easy to do. Messages with masks over them were also passed from spy to spy and the receiving spy would have to use a matching mask to be able to read it. Spies would nonchalantly pass the messages to one another until it reached Washington or the desired person. One spy who was caught passing a secret message was Nathan Hale. He was immediately killed and his last words were “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” I am interested to know as to how he was caught spying. However This quote demonstrates how patriotic the spies were and that they did a remarkable job of covering it up.

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Lafayette was born into slavery and served as a Virginian Slave, until his owner, William Armistead, allowed him to join the revolution. Armistead became close with the General Cornwallis and was able to sneak information to the Americans that would help them win the Battle of Yorktown and end the War. I am very curious how African Americans played an important role in the army and which sides they joined. I am also curious how many Slave owners let their slaves join the army.

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Enoch Crosby was a colonial shoemaker who's spy career started with mistaken identity. A group of loyalist mistook him for a loyalist and invited him to a meeting where he later reported his findings back to the patriot leader John Jay. To sell his new identity John Jay arranged for him to be arrested as a loyalist and later staged his escape to the Hudson River Valley. He then reunited with the British loyalist and reported there movements.

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James Armistead was an African American slave who was playing the part of a runaway slave who gained access to General Cornwallis's headquarters without suspicion. He accomplished what little spies were able to accomplish, he got direct access to the center of the British War department. He is also known for letting George Washington of an attack by the British before it happened so they were able to build blockades to keep the British at bay, leading to the surrendering of Cornwallis in the Battle of Yorktown. Armistead eventually gained his freedom and gained a 40  acre plot in Virginia and raised a family and died peacefully in 1832.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/james-armistead-lafayette

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Jackson Stahl- James Armistead Lafayette

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Jackson Stahl- James Armistead Lafayette

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Lafayette was a  slave who pretended to defect to the British army, when in actuality he was an agent for General Washington. He gained the trust of both Benedict Arnold and Lord Cornwallis, providing essential information that would lead to the battle of Yorktown. He lead 1000 troops away from Yorktown that allowed for a British surrender. As a a slave, no one suspected Lafayette to be a spy; the British in general treated slaves better than the Americans. This advantage let Lafayette gain crucial information that no other spy could get.

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I was researching women who were spies during the revolution, and helped to extract information for both sides. Other than Anna Smith Strong, who we talked about in class today, Lydia Barrington Darragh was a spy. British soldiers would often have meetings near her estate, so she would listen in to the conversations and pass the information to her son, who fought in the Continental Army. In 1777, she overheard an important piece of information, that the soldiers were planning a surprise attack on Washington's army. She was able to relay the message fast enough to the army so that they were prepared for the attack. Ann Bates was also a famous Loyalist spy who would disguise herself as a peddler and infiltrate Washington's camps.
https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/revolutionary-spies

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Benjamin Tallmadge was one of the founders of the Culper Spy Ring, working to organize the group upon George Washington’s request. Tallmadge’s spy name was “John Bolton”. He recruited friends and neighbors in British occupied regions of New York who communicated intel through complex communication systems. The spring ring communicated through coded messages and even in invisible ink. Tallmadge collected the information and helped Washington to make strategic military decisions. The information gathered helped the Continental army to ambush British forces and give them the upper hand.
http://www.ouramericanrevolution.org/index.cfm/people/view/pp0057

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James Armistead was a slaves who served in the Continental army as a spy. James' owner, William Armistead, managed the military supplies for the state of Virginia, and when they moved to Richmond William let him join the army. Instead of joining the fight with arms he was assigned to Marquis De Lafayette, a french commander, as a spy. Armistead worked as a double agent, British believed he was a runaway slave and order him to spy on the colonies, when in reality he was spying on the British.

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Benjamin Tallmadge and the Culper Spy RIng-
Tallmadge was the mastermind behind the Culper Spy ring. He helped to communicate information from Long Island, which was then controlled by Britain. He used spy tactics such as invisible ink to send coded messages. The Culper ring was very successful for 5 years, and only one spy was discovered and punished by the British. The Culper Spy Ring allowed the Continetal Army under the leadership of George Washington to gather intelligence. Most noteably, information was gathered that helped to save French forces from British attack at Newport, RI in July 1780.

https://www.history.com/news/5-patriot-spies-of-the-american-revolution

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One of the successes of the Culper spy ring other than being accountable for cancelling the British attack in Rhode Island was that they discovered a high-ranking American officer, Benedict Arnold, was a traitor helping the British army and was plotting with British Major John Andre to turn over the American Fort at West Point. Benedict Arnold became a traitor because he thought that he never got the recognition that he deserved from his crucial role in American Revolutionary events such as bringing about the surrender of British General John Burgoyne’s army at Saratoga. John Andre was hanged as a spy after his plot was discovered.

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Benedict Arnold's Early Life

Benedict Arnold was born on January 14, 1741, in Norwich, Connecticut. His mother came from a wealthy family, but his alcoholic father squandered their estate. As a young man, Arnold apprenticed at an apothecary business and served in the militia during the French and Indian War.

In 1767, Arnold, who became a prosperous trader, married Margaret Mansfield. The couple had three children before Margaret's death in 1775.

Arnold at Fort Ticonderoga

When the Revolutionary War broke out between Great Britain and its 13 American colonies in April 1775, Arnold joined the Continental Army. Acting under a commission from the revolutionary government of Massachusetts, Arnold partnered with Vermont frontiersman Ethan Allen and Allen's Green Mountain Boys to capture the unsuspecting British garrison at Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York on May 10, 1775.

Later that year, Arnold led an ill-fated expedition on a harrowing trek from Maine to Quebec. The purpose of the expedition was to rally the inhabitants of Canada behind the Patriot cause and deprive the British government of a northern base from which to mount strikes into the 13 colonies.

Battle of Quebec

With the enlistments of many of his men expiring on New Year's Day, Arnold had no choice but to launch a desperate attack against well-fortified Quebec City through a blizzard on December 31, 1775.

Early in the battle, Arnold received a grave wound to his leg and was carried to the back of the battlefield. The assault continued, but the Battle of Quebec failed miserably. Hundreds of American soldiers were killed, wounded or captured, and Canada remained in British hands.

By the later part of 1776, Arnold had recovered sufficiently from his wound to once again take the field. He played a crucial role in hindering a British invasion from Canada into New York in the autumn of that year. Correctly predicting that British General Guy Carleton would sail an invading force down Lake Champlain, Arnold supervised the hasty construction of an American flotilla on that lake to meet Carleton's fleet.

Valcour Island

On October 11, 1776, the American fleet surprised its foe near Valcour Bay. Although Carleton's flotilla drove the Americans away, Arnold's action delayed Carleton's approach long enough that, by the time the British general reached New York, the battle season was near an end, and the British had to return to Canada. Arnold's performance at Valcour Island rescued the Patriot cause from potential disaster.

Despite his military successes, Arnold felt he did not receive the recognition he deserved. Indeed, many of his fellow officers reportedly found General Arnold to be vain, emotional and greedy. One officer presciently stated that "Money is this man's God, and to get enough of it he would sacrifice his country."

He resigned from the Continental Army in 1777 after Congress promoted five junior officers above him. General George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, urged Arnold to reconsider.

Battle of Bemis Heights

Arnold rejoined the army in time to participate in the defense of central New York from an invading British force under General John Burgoyne in the fall of 1777.

In the battles against Burgoyne, Arnold served under General Horatio Gates, an officer whom Arnold came to hold in contempt. The antipathy was mutual, and Gates at one point relieved Arnold of his command. Nonetheless, at the pivotal Battle of Bemis Heights on October 7, 1777, Arnold defied Gates' authority and took command of a group of American soldiers whom he led in an assault against the British line.

Arnold's attack threw the enemy into disarray and contributed greatly to the American victory. Ten days later, Burgoyne surrendered his entire army at Saratoga. News of the surrender convinced France to enter the war on the side of the Americans.

Did you know? In an unusual tribute to an ex-hero, a statue near the Saratoga battlefield commemorates Benedict Arnold's leg, which he wounded badly both there and in Quebec in combat against the British. The statue shows nothing of Arnold's body but his leg, and doesn't mention him by name.

Once again, Arnold had brought his country a step closer to independence. However, Gates downplayed Arnold's contributions in his official reports and claimed most of the credit for himself.

Meanwhile, Arnold seriously wounded the same leg he had injured at Quebec in the battle. Rendered temporarily incapable of a field command, he accepted the position of military governor of Philadelphia in 1778. While there, his loyalties began to change.

Benedict Arnold's Wife

During his term as governor, rumors-not entirely unfounded-circulated through Philadelphia accusing Arnold of abusing his position for his personal profit. Questions were also raised about Arnold's courtship and marriage to the young Peggy Shippen, the daughter of a man suspected of Loyalist sympathies.

Arnold and his second wife, with whom he would have five children, lived a lavish lifestyle in Philadelphia, accumulating substantial debt.

The debt and the resentment Arnold felt over not being promoted faster were motivating factors in his choice to become a turncoat. He concluded that his interests would be better served assisting the British than continuing to suffer for an American army he saw as ungrateful.

What Did Benedict Arnold Do?

In 1779, Arnold was appointed commander of the American fort at West Point, New York. But by the end of 1779, Arnold had begun secret negotiations with the British to surrender, in return for money and a command in the British army.

Arnold's chief intermediary was British Major John André. André was captured in September 1780, while crossing between British and American lines, disguised in civilian clothes.

Papers found on André incriminated Arnold in treason. Learning of André's capture, Arnold fled to British lines before the Patriots could arrest him. West Point remained in American hands, and Arnold only received a portion of his promised bounty. André was hanged as a spy in October 1780.

Arnold soon became one of the most reviled figures in U.S. history. Ironically, his treason became his final service to the American cause. By 1780, Americans had grown frustrated with the slow progress toward independence and their numerous battlefield defeats. However, word of Arnold's treachery re-energized the Patriots' sagging morale.

What Happened to Benedict Arnold?

After fleeing to the enemy side, Arnold received a commission with the British army and served in several minor engagements against the Americans. In one battle, he captured Richmond, Virginia, for the British.

After the war, which ended in victory for the Americans with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Arnold resided in England. The British regarded him with ambivalence, while his former countrymen despised him."Judas sold only one man," Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Arnold three million."

After years of suffering from gout and other health conditions, Arnold died in London on June 14, 1801, at age 60. Following his death, Arnold's memory lived on in the land of his birth, where his name became synonymous with the word "traitor."

Sources

Why Benedict Arnold Turned Traitor Against the American Revolution. Smithsonian Magazine.
Benedict Arnold. George Washington's Mount Vernon.
Benedict Arnold. American Battlefield Trust.

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Benedict Arnold: Traitor, Wife & West Point | HISTORY

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Benedict Arnold, an American colonist, was a Revolutionary War hero who later became a despised traitor when he schemed to turn West Point over to the British.

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James Armistead Lafayette was a very impressive Colonial spy who played a very significant role in gaining information for the Colonies. He was a slave who was given permission to aid the colonial armies by his master. He was used to relay information until he eventually posed as a runaway slave loyal to the British. He was so convincing that Lord Cornwallis decided to use him as a British spy. This allowed for him to funnel information to the Colonial armies without any repercussions.
https://www.history.com/news/5-patriot-spies-of-the-american-revolution

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I was searching around for the techniques of spies. One technique I found really interesting was how they would roll up letters extremely tight and stuff them in hollowed out feathers. Another technique was using mask letters. These letters would be hidden in a shape template over another letter. https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolutionary-war/spying-and-espionage/spy-techniques-of-the-revolutionary-war/#:~:text=Hidden%20Letters,a%20tightly%20rolled%20up%20letter.

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AGENT 335
The numeric code "335" was utilized by the Setauket Spy Ring to represent the word woman. The Setauket Spy Ring was a popular spy ring alongside the Cupler Spy Ring that employed both female and male spies. Agent 335, a notable member of the Setauket Spy Ring, remains unidentifiable today, only known by her three digit number. She was elected to remain anonymous as to keep her domestic and social life protected from the scandal of engaging in espionage. This agent played an integral role in the espionage of the Revolutionary War as she was said to have aided in the uncovering of Benedict Arnold's treason, help in the arrest of a British major general (who was head England's Intelligence Operations based in New York), as well as consistently relay accurate information to General Washington himself.

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Women accomplished extraordinary things to advance their cause during the revolution.

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Throughout the revolutionary war, American spies used many different tactics to hide information and spread it amongst their colleagues. Some of my favorite that i found were the use of invisible ink that could only be dissolved by a special chemical that the Americans created. The second of these tactics was the use of hidden codes, where the Americans would create almost their own language to distribute information to each other. The last tactic I found interesting was masked letters, where to the average person it would appear as a normal letter, but there was a secret message encoded in the letter that only the Americans could understand.

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On this Padlet, share with us something cool that you learned about spies/espionage or women or slaves during the Revolutionary War. Include pics, links, videos, etc. where appropriate.

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On this Padlet, share with us something cool that you learned about spies/espionage or women or slaves during the Revolutionary War. Include pics, links, videos, etc. where appropriate.

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THEN, take a look at everyone else's discoveries. Ask some questions...what do you want to know?

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The Spies: The Characters of TURN: Washington's Spies