George Washington's Secret Spy War: The Making of America's First Spymaster
385
George Washington's Secret Spy War: The Making of America's First Spymaster
385eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
George Washington was America’s first spymaster, and his skill as a spymaster 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: | 9781250096821 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | St. Martin's Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 03/26/2024 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 385 |
| Sales rank: | 362,205 |
| File size: | 9 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
George Washington's Secret Spy War
The Making of America's First Spymaster
By John A. Nagy
St. Martin's Press
Copyright © 2016 John A. NagyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-09682-1
CHAPTER 1
FRENCH LESSONS
Once again George Washington ventured into the wilderness. It was October 1753 and he would be going deeper into the wilderness than he had ever gone before. He would be journeying into the disputed lands. Both England and France claimed the territory west of the Allegheny Ridge known as the Ohio Country. He was in his early twenties. He stood six feet three inches tall, weighed around 175 pounds, and suffered from a slight case of amblyopia or "wandering eye." He was the adjutant of the northern district of the Virginia militia. He had striven several years to obtain this position.
King George's War between the British and the French and their Indian allies, which was the North American phase of the War of the Austrian Succession (1744–1748), was over. It was fought between the northern British settlements in North America and the colony of New France. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored all colonial borders to their prewar status. The war, however, failed to resolve the territorial disputes between Britain, France, and their colonies in North America.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia had been in office only two years when in 1753, he learned that the French had built Fort Presque Isle near present-day Erie, Pennsylvania, and Fort Le Boeuf, which was about fifteen miles south of Lake Erie. The forts threatened Virginia's interests in the Ohio Valley. Dinwiddie was looking to send an emissary to the French in the Ohio Country to tell them they had to leave British soil. Washington, who was only twenty-one years old, volunteered to deliver the demand as well as spy on the French to determine their military capabilities in the region. There would not have been many (and may have not been any) other suitors for the position. Dinwiddie accepted his offer despite Washington's young age.
When George was fourteen years old, his older half brother, Lawrence, whom he admired, encouraged him to look to the sea for adventure and a career in the British navy. Mary Ball Washington, his domineering widowed mother, upon discovering his plan, humored him at first but then put an end to those dreams. Lawrence hired a professional surveyor to teach George the trade. It suited his talents, as he was proficient in mathematics and had a fondness for the outdoors. Augustine Washington, George's father, died on April 12, 1743, at age forty-nine when George was eleven years old. One of the possessions he left was a complete set of surveyor's instruments. Surveying was a good career path for a young man in which to rise in Virginia society. As more people arrived, more lands needed to be surveyed. It ensured there would be work and was a good source of income. It was a career that also allowed an observant surveyor, like George, to identify the choice lands to buy for himself, and he took advantage of the opportunities open to him in real estate.
With Augustine's death, Lawrence inherited the 2,500-acre estate on Little Hunting Creek, which he renamed Mount Vernon in honor of British Vice Admiral Edward Vernon. He married Ann Fairfax, eldest daughter of Colonel William Fairfax, who lived four miles down the Potomac River at Belvoir Plantation. It was a social coup for the Washingtons, as the Fairfax family was one of the most powerful in Virginia. They controlled the Fairfax Grant of 5,282,000 acres in the Northern Neck of Virginia between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. Lord Thomas Fairfax, the absentee proprietor of the Northern Neck, visited the colony in 1746 and moved there in 1747 to stay. He initially stayed at Belvoir Plantation. In 1752, Lord Fairfax, a lifelong bachelor, permanently moved to Greenway Court, near White Post, Clarke County, Virginia, where he died in 1781.
William Fairfax, cousin of Lord Thomas Fairfax, served as agent for the vast landholding. He appointed his son George William Fairfax, who was twenty-four years old, to sell the leaseholds in Lord Fairfax's western lands of the Fairfax Grant. In March of 1748, Washington accompanied his neighbor George William Fairfax across the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Virginia frontier of the Shenandoah Valley.
Washington put quill to paper and recorded a diary of his first adventure into the wilderness. He called it "A Journal of My Journey over the Mountains." It was a journey through the forest of chestnut, oak, pine, and sugar maple trees; of sleeping under the stars; traveling over the primitive rutted paths that served as roads; and navigating engorged whitewater streams in the driving rain. He slept on bearskins under the stars or in smoky tents. It was a new world to him, to which he adjusted remarkably quickly. It showed his ability to adapt to changing situations. He would put this skill to great use during the Revolution when he had to change his strategy for conducting his military campaigns after the fall of New York City and most of New Jersey to the British.
The surveying party stayed with a Captain Isaac Pennington at his lodging at present-day Berryville, Virginia. Saying it lacked the comforts to which George had been accustomed is a major understatement. After eating supper he was led to a room where he undressed and got into a rustic bed, discovering it to be "nothing but a little straw, matted together without sheets or anything else, but only one threadbare blanket with double its weight of vermin, such as lice, fleas, etc." As soon as the light bearer left the room, he shot out of the bed, brushed off his body an immeasurable number of critters, and put on his clothes. When the surveying party arrived at Fredericktown (now known as Winchester, Virginia), he got a feather bed with clean sheets, which was more to his liking. He said he fumigated the lice he had picked up along the way.
Washington's performance in the field impressed William Fairfax, the proprietor, who secured him a commission as surveyor for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. In 1749 he received the patronage appointment as surveyor for the newly formed Culpeper County.
Lawrence Washington held the post of adjutant general with the rank of major of the Virginia militia. When he died in 1752, Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie and the Virginia House of Burgesses decided to divide the post into four positions. George immediately campaigned for the post of the Northern District, which included Mount Vernon and Belvoir Plantation. He was instead given the position of adjutant of the Southern District with the rank of major in the Virginia militia, a less desirable post. George was told by William Nelson that he was third in line for the position of adjutant of the Northern District. When the Northern District became vacant again, he succeeded in getting appointed to the position in November 1753. He appears to have obtained the position because of his knowledge of the western lands of the Fairfax Grant from surveying them, having impressed William Fairfax, who held a position of importance in Virginia, and few if any wanted the job. He was described as "a youth of great sobriety, diligence, and fidelity."
Land west of the Allegheny Ridge and into the Ohio Valley was disputed between the French and the British colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia. All three claimed it belonged to them. Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie discovered that the French, England's archenemy, had built their forts in the Ohio Country; he saw it as a French invasion threatening Virginia's interests in the area. It threatened the Ohio Company, a land venture with a claim to a half-million acres of frontier land, of which the portly Dinwiddie was a stockholder, thus putting his personal fortune at risk. Washington was to lead an expedition to warn the French to withdraw and deliver a letter from Dinwiddie to the French commandant at Fort Le Boeuf. The letter requested that the bearer be sent back with a reply. It called for a peaceful departure of French forces from the lands upon the Ohio River in the western parts of the colony of Virginia. Washington began planning for his expedition, and while in Fredericksburg he enlisted Jacob Van Braam, a Dutchman, as his French interpreter. Two weeks later he enlisted Christopher Gist, a skilled guide.
Washington and his party set out in mid-November. This time he would be traveling beyond the Fairfax Stone, which was marked on November 13, 1746, with an "FX." It indicated the source of the Potomac River and the end of Lord Fairfax's grant. He recalled that he traveled 250 miles through an uninhabited wilderness country covered in a sheet of white and ice to within fifteen miles of Lake Erie to reach Fort Le Boeuf. The weather was excessively bad for travel through the impenetrable forests, but they pushed on. They found some relief when they were taken into the rustic cabin of John Fraser, a fur trader, at the junction of the Monongahela River and Turtle Creek at present-day Braddock, Pennsylvania. The Monongahela was impassible for their horses because of the rain and snow. Some of the baggage was removed from their packhorses and taken north downstream by canoe. They continued moving north and reached the Forks of the Ohio, now known as Pittsburgh. The Allegheny River was a frigid, fast-flowing obstacle. Washington, however, was an expert horseman. Relying on his skill and his horse, he was able to traverse the dangerous river. One misstep by his horse, or an error in judgment on his part, could have easily thrown him into the frigid waters. Others were more cautious as they dismounted and crossed the icy waters by canoe. One of Washington's assignments was to evaluate locations for forts, and in his report he gave his approval for a fort at the Forks of the Ohio, as it had command of both rivers.
Continuing eighteen miles westward from the Forks, they arrived at Logstown on the north bank of the Ohio River (near present-day Ambridge, Pennsylvania), where George met with the sachems of the Six Nations to enlist their support of his mission by providing him with an escort. He met Chief Shingas of the Delaware Indians. At a parley at Logstown, he interrogated four French deserters. He was able to extract from them confirmation of the current suspicion in Williamsburg that the French had plans to connect their Louisiana and Canadian lands, thereby blocking the British from extending their control inland from the east coast.
Indian leader Tanacharison was in his fifties and was known as Half King. He returned to Logstown on November 25 from a hunting trip. He had a strong hatred of the French. He claimed they had killed, cooked, and eaten his father. He also believed the British were there to trade with the Indians while the French wanted their land. The Indians provided Washington with just four of their number as escorts. Washington suspected that the Indians were not as strongly on the British side as he had hoped or had been led to believe.
The party traveled north for five days in unrelenting rain. Soaked to the bone and slowed by their wet clothes, they reached Venango (which is today the city of Franklin), at the juncture of the Allegheny River and French Creek. There they met French Captain Philippe Thomas de Joncaire. He invited Washington to have dinner with him and some French officers. The alcohol flowed freely and the French officers drank their fill. Once inebriated they lost their inhibitions. They bragged about taking control of the Ohio Country and they divulged the locations of the French forts in the area. The next day the French were hungover but still had their wits about them as they got Washington's Indians so falling-down drunk they became too intoxicated to continue their journey with Washington. Joncaire had outmaneuvered the inexperienced Washington, who now had to delay his trip.
After three days' delay at Venango, the expedition was ready to continue. He had not only lost time but he now had French monitors traveling with him. Joncaire, an experienced political agent for New France, would have sent an advance notice of Washington's expedition to Fort Le Boeuf. The group ventured north despite the bad weather for the forty-mile journey to the fort.
They had to navigate a multitude of streams and swamps. Shortly after beginning their journey, the weather changed to freezing rain and snow. The top of the snow gained a crusty cover of ice. The rain on top of the crusty snow turned it slippery. Each step was agonizing as they either crunched through the crusted snow or slid across its surface.
The temperature continued its downward fall and it had now turned bitterly cold. The kind of cold that goes right to the bone. The party's progress had slowed considerably. It was moving way too slow for the impatient Washington. He and Gist pushed on alone, leaving the rest of the expedition to meet them at Fort Le Boeuf. The two of them traveled an incredible eighteen miles in one day in absolutely horrendous conditions. It was the dark of night of December 11 when after 5 p.m. he and Gist reached the fort. Fort Le Boeuf was a primitive assemblage of four buildings constructed of planks and covered with bark to keep out the cold, rain, and snow.
The next morning he was received by Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, commandant, a gray-haired elderly man with one eye and with "much the air of a soldier." Washington delivered the sealed letter, which contained the message telling the French to pack up their belongings and leave. Saint-Pierre requested several days to prepare his response.
While Washington was waiting at Fort Le Boeuf he took on the role of spy. He wrote in his diary, "The chief officer retired to hold a Council of War, which gave me an opportunity of taking the dimensions of the fort." Being a surveyor he knew the length of his pace, which made it easy for him to take measurements as he casually walked the fort. He learned firsthand what it would feel like to be a spy. He now knew the anxious fear of being discovered, the tingling feeling under the surface of your skin as your blood pressure rises. It made him aware of what he would be asking so many men, women, and children to do for him in the future during the Revolution. He observed the fort's military capabilities. He had the people who were with him get an exact count of the canoes. He reported 50 birch-bark and 170 pine-bark canoes along French Creek. They were there for use by the French army to move quickly down the river deeper into the Ohio Country.
Saint-Pierre gave Washington his response. He advised that he was not intimidated by the British and had a right to be on French soil. He would arrest any English traders who came upon French territory. "As to the summons you send me to retire. I do not think myself obliged to obey it." Three days later on the 14th, Saint-Pierre gave Washington a letter to deliver to Lieutenant Governor Dinwiddie. The letter instructed Dinwiddie to send his demand to the major general of New France at Quebec City.
Saint-Pierre stocked a canoe with supplies for Washington's return journey. It was only then that he discovered Saint-Pierre during the delay had bribed his Indians with guns and alcohol to stay behind. Washington had been outmaneuvered once again by the rascally French. He thought Saint-Pierre had plotted "every scheme that the devil and man could invent to set our Indians at variance with us to prevent their going till after our departure." He then confronted Half King and accused him of a prodigious betrayal. He was able to convince the Indians to depart with him and Gist.
These experiences with the French caused Washington in the future to go beyond due diligence in providing detailed instructions to his subordinates to ensure they were not outmaneuvered by the enemy as he was. He also learned the value of deception in getting the upper hand.
Washington and his entourage set off for Murthering Town, a Delaware Indian village near present-day Harmony, Pennsylvania. Gist's and Washington's horses gave out and could not travel any farther and had to be abandoned. They then proceeded by canoe. At the first resting place the Indians had killed a bear and would not leave until they consumed every last morsel of the animal. Not willing to wait, and wanting to avoid more delays, Gist and Washington struck out alone.
The cold weather had turned worse. At Murthering Town they picked up some Indians aligned with the French who were going to take them to the Forks of the Ohio. Washington trusted the Indians but Gist was smarter in the ways of the wilderness. The Indians had departed except for one who was carrying Washington's backpack. When they got to a clearing the Indian dashed out in front, turned quickly, and fired his weapon at them but missed. Gist caught the Indian and was about to kill him when Washington pleaded for his life. Gist reluctantly relented. They held him prisoner and released him after dark. Fearing that the Indian would return with others and attack them, they traveled all night to get distance from him.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from George Washington's Secret Spy War by John A. Nagy. Copyright © 2016 John A. Nagy. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Abbreviations in the Notes
Introduction
1. French Lessons
2. Drinking, Flashing the Ladies, and Grave Robbing
3. Desperate Times
4. Pools of Blood
5. Quaker Chicanery
6. We Danced the Minuet
7. Double Agents
8. Traitors and Licensed Spies
9. Black Chambers and the Medicine Factory
10. Petite Guerre
11. Deception Battle Plan: The Objective
12. Deception Battle Plan: Enemy Objectives
13. Deception Battle Plan: Method
14. Deception Battle Plan: The Sting – Executing the Plan
15. Deception Battle Plan: Exploitation
16. Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements