George Washington's Secret Spy War: The Making of America's First Spymaster

by John A. Nagy

Overview

George Washington was America’s first spymaster, and his skill as such won the war for independence.

George Washington’s Secret Spy War is the untold story of how George Washington took a disorderly, ill-equipped rabble and defeated the best trained and best equipped army of its day in the Revolutionary War. Author John A. Nagy has become the nation’s leading expert on the subject, discovering hundreds of spies who went behind enemy lines to gather intelligence during the American Revolution, many of whom are completely unknown to most historians.

Using George Washington’s diary as the primary source, Nagy tells the story of Washington’s experiences during the French and Indian War and his first steps in the field of espionage. Despite what many believe, Washington did not come to the American Revolution completely unskilled in this area of warfare. Espionage was a skill he honed during the French and Indian war and upon which he heavily depended during the Revolutionary War. He used espionage to level the playing field and then exploited it on to final victory.

Filled with thrilling and never-before-told stories from the battlefield and behind enemy lines, this is the story of how Washington out-spied the British. For the first time, readers will discover how espionage played a major part in the American Revolution and why Washington was a master at orchestrating it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250144928
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/03/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	532,391
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

JOHN A. NAGY was a Scholar-in-Residence at Saint Francis University and a consultant on espionage to The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington and the William L. Clement Library. He was the program director for the American Revolution Round Table of Philadelphia and was awarded a Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies fellowship to study Thomas Jefferson and cryptology. John was an award-winning author of four books on the American Revolution. He passed away in 2016 after completing George Washington's Secret Spy War.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 French Lessons 9

2 Drinking, Flashing the Ladies, and Grave Robbing 40

3 Desperate Times 60

4 Pools of Blood 79

5 Quaker Chicanery 102

6 We Danced the Minuet 123

7 Double Agents 149

8 Traitors and Licensed Spies 172

9 Black Chambers and the Medicine Factory 178

10 Petite Guerre 190

11 Deception Battle Plan: The Objective 214

12 Deception Battle Plan: Enemy Assumptions 226

13 Deception Battle Plan: Method 232

14 Deception Battle Plan: The Sting- Executing the Plan 241

15 Deception Battle Plan: Exploitation 251

16 Conclusion 266

Acknowledgments 275

Appendix: Major General Edward Braddock's Cipher 277

Notes 279

Bibliography 345

Index 357

Editorial Reviews

08/22/2016
Drawing on Washington’s correspondence and diary, the late Nagy (Dr. Benjamin Church, Spy), an American Revolution specialist, follows Washington from his participation in the French and Indian Wars, where he cut his teeth in the ways of espionage, to his great deception in the American Revolution that secured colonial victory. Having learned in his 1758 campaign in Ohio that “there is nothing more necessary than good intelligence to frustrate a designing enemy,” Washington used several methods with great success to deceive his enemy in almost every military encounter in which he engaged. He created false troop information; he standardized the means by which his spies gathered information; he and his forces regularly intercepted and read mail; and he used invisible ink in his letters to his own leaders, who had various ways of making the ink visible. According to Nagy, Washington’s greatest tool was the “Deception Battle Plan”: Washington fooled the British into thinking that he would attack the British front line in New York City when instead he moved his troops to Virginia, attacking the British rear flank and securing Cornwallis’s surrender and American victory. Nagy’s fast-paced chronicle reveals a little-known side of America’s Revolutionary War hero. Photos. Agent: Don Fehr, Trident Media. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"One intriguing, little-known facet of the first general of the Continental Army: his wholehearted embrace of the art of deception against the British. A cryptology specialist of the Colonial period, Nagy, who died this year, found that the Founding Father famed for his inability to tell a lie actually embarked on wartime espionage 'with childlike glee.' . . . A knowledgeable study of Washington's extensive 'bag of tricks' to secure victory." —Kirkus Reviews

"Nagy’s fast-paced chronicle reveals a little-known side of America’s Revolutionary War hero." —Publishers Weekly

"John A. Nagy, fellow historian and revolutionary War scholar extraordinaire!” —David McCullough, New York Times bestselling author of The Wright Brothers

“John A. Nagy knows more about American Revolutionary War espionage than anyone in history.” —Brad Meltzer, New York Times bestselling author

"John A. Nagy, the premier historian of espionage in the Revolution, has written his masterpiece. Readers will be dazzled by the revelations, which range from the siege of Boston, where spies operated as fishermen with a permit from a British admiral as cover, to Yorktown's "Deception Battle Plan." Best of all we learn how and where young Washington learned the art and science of the deadly game. A must for everyone's library." —Thomas Fleming, author of The Great Divide: The Conflict Between Washington and Jefferson that Defined a Nation

“Based on deep archival research and an unrivalled knowledge of spy networks in the American Revolution, John Nagy has uncovered a neglected dimension of the leadership of George Washington as a master of deception and the creator of a highly effective espionage system against the British. Nagy makes the case that he did not have as many spies as his opponents but that his success was due to his abilities to select and interpret evidence. This is an important work both for specialists and lay readers." —Andrew O'Shaughnessy, author of The Men Who Lost America, and Professor of History, University of Virginia

From the Publisher

08/01/2016
This contribution follows recent books and the TV series TURN, based on Alexander Rose's 2007 book, Washington's Spies. The author of three previous books about spying during the American Revolution, here Nagy argues that George Washington, the premier spy master, developed his skill for deceiving the enemy during the French and Indian War, and that Washington enjoyed the deception and was skilled at applying intelligence to his advantage. The narrative delves beyond well-known spies—Nathan Hale, Benjamin Church, Benedict Arnold, and Benjamin Tallmadge—though much of the discussion centers on intelligence activity in New York and New Jersey. Nagy reveals the roles that spies on both sides played to provide information about troop numbers, movements, supplies, morale, etc., which would determine the course of military actions. The most riveting chapters describe the intricate, risky sequence of schemes Washington employed while stealthily moving the American and French armies past New York toward Yorktown to capture Charles Cornwallis. VERDICT Incredibly similar to Nagy's Invisible Ink, which focused on the tricks and tools of Revolutionary War espionage, this book covers much of the same subject matter, and many passages are identical, causing one to wonder if this latest effort was necessary.—Margaret Kappanadze, Elmira Coll. Lib., NY

Library Journal

2016-07-04
One intriguing, little-known facet of the first general of the Continental Army: his wholehearted embrace of the art of deception against the British.A cryptology specialist of the Colonial period, Nagy (Dr. Benjamin Church, Spy: A Case of Espionage on the Eve of the American Revolution, 2013, etc.), who died this year, found that the Founding Father famed for his inability to tell a lie actually embarked on wartime espionage “with childlike glee.” Working with a ragtag army that was no match for the professionalism of the enemy, Washington used espionage to “level the playing field and then exploit it to the best advantage possible.” He honed these skills as a young lieutenant colonel working for Gen. Edward Braddock in the war against the French, rebuffing French raiding parties and making allies with the Indians. As war against Britain became inevitable by 1775, Washington, now the Virginia “gentleman farmer” chosen by the Continental Congress to “lead the mob of Massachusetts malcontents surrounding Boston,” needed spies to infiltrate British ranks in Boston so he could be prepared for their attacks. One of his methods was to use the observances of local fisherman. Uncovering spies for the British presented another problem—e.g., the revelation of Massachusetts revolutionary leader Dr. Benjamin Church Jr.’s traitorous cipher; he had apparently been playing both sides. On the other hand, an important seeker of intelligence on British positions in New York, young Nathan Hale was caught and hanged by the British as a spy. Washington fed false information to British spies, prepared a standardized set of questions to root out real spies, used misdirection in attacking the British, and promoted the ingenious fabrication of invisible ink. Over several chapters, Nagy effectively lays out Washington’s “Deception Battle Plan”—i.e., obscuring where exactly he would attack New York City in 1781, a plan similarly executed so many years later in Operation Overlord (1944) and in Operation Desert Storm (1990-1991). A knowledgeable study of Washington’s extensive “bag of tricks” to secure victory.

Kirkus Reviews