American Revolutionary War: American Spies

"The Setauket Spy Ring began in 1778 and operated for six years.  The spies were never found out by the British soldiers.  In fact, their identities were kept a secret for over one-hundred years, until the historian Morton Pennypacker broke their code."

From: Redcoats and Petticoats by Katherine Kirkpatrick  J FICTION KIRKPATRICK

The map below was on the Setauket Spy Ring was found on:  blackrockhistory.org

While serving as George Washington's secretary of state (1790-1793), Thomas Jefferson devised an ingenious and secure method to encode and decode messages: the wheel cipher. During the American Revolution, Jefferson had relied primarily on messengers to hand-carry sensitive letters, but codes became an essential part of his correspondence when he was America's minister to France (1784-1789) since European postmasters opened and read all letters passing through their command.

To learn more about the Jefferson Wheel Cypher & US M-94 Cipher Wheel, click on

the following website: 

http://ciphermachines.com/ciphermachines/jefferson.html

James Armistead Lafayette

I was born James Armistead. Out of admiration for General Lafayette, I adopted his name. Although I'm not as famous as others, I'm proud of my role in American history. When Americans were fighting for independence from England, I was a slave in Virginia. When they say spies come from the most unlikely places, they are right. I got permission to join General Lafayette at Yorktown. I had a feeling Yorktown was going to be important to the war, a turning point or an ending.

Tricks of the Trade
Since it was known that our Commander in Chief, General Washington, was a genius at deception, I figured my services would fit that area, too. I offered to pretend to be an escaped slave. I crossed enemy lines and Britain's General Cornwallis recruited me to spy! I returned to the Americans, and we planned how to fool him. We forged a false order for a large regiment of patriot soldier replacements. Lafayette and Washington thought it was a good idea, so I told Cornwallis I had found the crumpled, dirty piece of paper on the road during my "spy mission," and he believed me. Because of this note, he thought the Americans were much stronger than they were. He never knew he was tricked after the Battle of Yorktown.

I did a lot of spying during the war, and, in appreciation for my work, the Virginia Legislature granted me my freedom from slavery after the Revolutionary War.

Sources
Kaplan, Sidney. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. New York: New York Graphic Society, Ltd., 1973.

Intelligence in the War of Independence. The Central Intelligence Agency, 1997.

 
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The International Spy Museum opened in Washington, DC on July 19, 2002. It is the only public museum in the United States solely dedicated to espionage and the only one in the world to provide a global perspective on an all-but-invisible profession that has shaped history and continues to have a significant impact on world events.

Learn how a group of Long Island Patriots helped George Washington win the Revolutionary War.