WEBVTT
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Hello, everyone.
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Welcome to the Revolution 250 podcast.
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I am Bob Allison.
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I chair the Rev 250 advisory group,
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also teach history at Suffolk University.
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We are a consortium of some
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75 organizations in
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Massachusetts planning ways
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to commemorate the
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beginnings of American independence.
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And our guest today is Damian Krugo.
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Damian Krugo is a scholar
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who focuses on the American Revolution.
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You've had lots of different
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things you've done over the
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course of your work in history.
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You have a book coming out,
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Portraits of Patriots,
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on the revolutionary lives
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of five patriots from Connecticut.
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And, Damian,
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we're here to actually talk
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about your work on spies
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and espionage in the revolution.
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So thanks for joining us.
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Well, thanks for having me, Bob.
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It's an honor to be on this
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show and get to talk kind
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of free format about this
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fascinating topic.
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It is.
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I mean,
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you've written about other
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fascinating topics on
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historic houses in
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Connecticut pertaining to the Revolution.
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And you give a talk called Spies,
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Lies and Alibis, focusing on this period.
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So who are some of your
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favorites in this world of
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espionage in the Revolution?
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Sure.
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Well, interestingly,
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because I'm married to a psychologist,
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I guess I have to say,
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where did this all begin?
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Yeah, that's a good question.
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Psychological formative imprint, right?
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I grew up during the
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bicentennial in Fairfield, Connecticut,
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and that served as one of
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the fulcrum points for the
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Culper spy ring in the
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American Revolution,
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which a lot of your
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audience is familiar with.
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Yeah.
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a lot of popularity about the Culver Ring.
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Caleb Brewster,
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the prominent courier in
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that ring who would row
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back and forth across Long
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Island Sound following what
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is the modern day route of
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the Port Jefferson Ferry,
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he's buried in a cemetery
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basically down the street
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from my childhood home.
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And I'm watching also the
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reenactment of the British
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and Hessian burning of
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Fairfield circa 1779, which means 1979.
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And I'm saying to my mom and dad,
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why are there hay bales
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catching fire out in front
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of our house on Old Post Road?
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And we lived across from
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this place called the Burr Mansion.
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It's not Aaron Burr,
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but a cousin named Thaddeus Burr.
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And beautiful place to live
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and grow up and have a sense of place,
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you know, connected to history.
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And that's what got me hooked.
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You know,
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when you're seeing living history
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and the beautiful
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architecture in the
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neighborhood and some of
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the trauma that the town
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had gone through and part
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of this culprit ring.
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And so that was the portal
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into my interest in history
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and this topic of spies in the war.
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That's great.
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And now.
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You've looked into others.
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I know you've read the piece
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you did on the series of 10, I think,
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of the prominent spies that
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you have chosen for different reasons.
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Before we get to it,
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how accurate is the show turned?
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It's a great question, Bob.
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And I knew as soon as the show aired,
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it was going to be the most
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commonly question I get asked.
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When I gave a talk to the
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FBI's New York office in 2014,
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that was a wonderful
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experience to talk to
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people who do it in real
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life in the five boroughs
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of New York City.
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And I had agents and
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analysts coming to me saying,
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what do you think of the TV show Turn?
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And my cryptic answer was, well,
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what do you think of the
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FBI and how they're
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depicted on TV shows and movies?
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Yeah, that's a good question.
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You know,
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and you can say that about the CIA.
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You've spoken to both the
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FBI as well as to intelligence,
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retired intelligence
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officers and others who see
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a real value in
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understanding the revolutionary world.
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Exactly.
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In fact,
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the Association of Former
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Intelligence Officers
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actually published a book
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called Secret New England.
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And that's their publication.
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It's a paperback book about
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all the operations that
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took place in Boston,
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Newport and elsewhere.
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So to answer your question about TURN,
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we can look at it the same way.
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I've spoken quite a bit
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about Alexander Hamilton.
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It's the same thing with the musical.
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It's a portal that ignites
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people's interest to a broader audience.
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The problem is the
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historical accuracy challenges.
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The biggest challenge on TURN
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was that Abraham Woodhull
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never committed adultery.
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And so the way he was
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depicted was unfortunate
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because he was such an honorable man,
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a gentleman to his wife.
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He hadn't even married until
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I think it was 1782 anyway.
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As operations were winding down.
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Yeah,
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that for me was the personal liberty
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with history Now the nice
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thing about the show was
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that the costuming was
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wonderful particularly
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women and the lighting and
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the settings None of the
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show was filmed of course
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on Long Island it was
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primarily filmed in
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Virginia places like
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Fredericksburg Colonial
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Williamsburg and Shirley plantation and
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So the settings were gorgeous.
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I think they just didn't
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have the right kind of
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places maybe to do it.
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But it's an interesting show.
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And some of the dynamics,
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I think the important thing,
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and I've discussed this
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with some FBI agents and others,
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is the dynamics,
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the risks that these people took.
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That is definitely depicted.
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These were risky operations.
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They definitely were.
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You happen to be right now in New Jersey,
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and one of the people
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you've written about is the
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Mercero family in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
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I wonder if we could talk a
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little bit about that group
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and what they were up to.
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Sure.
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So that's kind of been one
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of my goals as a scholar on
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these individual agents or
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espionage rings,
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that there's more than just
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the Culper ring.
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And so I try to shed light
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on some of the others.
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And one of them that you're
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bringing up is the Mercero ring.
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which was basically a father
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and his two sons.
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There were two brothers and
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the father was operating in
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a stagecoach line between
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Philadelphia and New York City.
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So that provided the perfect
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cover for communication
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That they could send letters
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without it looking as
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suspicious through the stagecoach line.
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And it basically operated out of Elizabeth,
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New Jersey,
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Perth Amboy and Staten Island.
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Kind of a triangle.
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Right.
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Because the only thing
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that's separating New
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Jersey from Staten Island
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is the Arthur Kill.
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a Dutch word for basically a little river,
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you know,
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that is a channel nowadays for
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freighters and tankers.
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But, you know, it's, what,
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a quarter mile wide,
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so you can row back and forth.
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And so the Mercerows, just by proximity,
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were picking up a lot of
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information from British
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headquarters that were in Perth Amboy,
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and any time they were
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taking up residence in one
00:06:46.019 --> 00:06:48.278
of the taverns on Staten Island,
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and of course coming
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through Elizabeth at the time.
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So
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In different ways,
00:06:52.836 --> 00:06:53.797
they were able to provide
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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.
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Thank you.
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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.