How I spent my Summer Vacation - Part II

Let me say upfront this is the first summer that I have been able to go on two different trips - one north - one south. However, both took me to coastal beaches. And both took me back in time...at least notionally. Part two took me to North Carolina.  I briefly lived in North Carolina many years ago but my Army duties and other interests kept me from truly exploring the state.  This trip convinced me of the error of my ways. I stayed at Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks.  My place was within sight of the place where the Wright brothers changed the world forever and about twenty-five yards from the beach.




Driving down to the Banks took me through some notable places during the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies.  I took Highway 15 and then 17 instead of the interstate. The route took me through the Virginia Piedmont to Fredericksburg, which was an operating seaport during the 18th century. There begins a trip through the upper tidewater region. Mary Washington's last home, purchased for her by her son in 1772, is in Fredericksburg, Va.

American field guns at Yorktown

Highway 17 takes you through Gloucester, which is across the York River from the famous town of that name. Crossing the York River you find yourself at historic Yorktown. The National Park Service maintains a fabulous battlefield center there and the park extends into part of the town itself. As most know, a combined French-American force besieged General Cornwallis there and caused his surrender in 1781, forcing the British to begin negotiations with the rebels and the French.

My GPS routed me through Yorktown, Newport News, Smith Island, and finally to Portsmouth and meandered south. At that point, I left 17 for the more traditional (and traffic-laden) approach to the Banks. Had I stayed on 17 I would have passed near the Great Dismal Swamp, a hundred-mile square area of marsh connected by a series of small streams - all heavily wooded at the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies.  George Washington and many of his Virginia peers lost a bit of money in a venture aimed at developing the swamp as an inland waterway.

Great Dismal Swamp

Little of this has anything to do with the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies but geography often dictates history.  And so I expand on that idea a bit. The British government's main advantage over their rebellious colonies was the Royal Navy. They had the largest and best navy in the world and the Americans had none at the war's start. However, navies need ports to make them most effective - and North Carolina had few of note. To that end, the Outer Banks served as a more than 100-mile long barrier against British naval supremacy in North Carolina. This limited British operations from the sea and thus no naval actions of note took place there. Late in the war, when the British invaded North Carolina, they did so over land, and the series of events leading to Yorktown ensued.

Fort George marker 

But further, down the coast from the Banks, there was an attempt to maintain a coastal base at New Bern, Wilmington, and Bald Head Island, which guards the mouth of the Cape Fear River. The main British forts were Fort George (on Bald Head itself) and Fort Johnston. The British clung to these but never found a way to exploit them, thanks to aggressive patriot actions that continued throughout the war.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

New York - resort?

I took my annual summer resort vacation...in New York City! Now many folks wouldn't think of New York City as a resort and certainly not as a summer resort. But for most of its history, New York was precisely that - especially for the poor and middle class that make/made up so much of the city's populace. Why? Because they couldn't afford the time or the money to reach out to the numerous lakes in the mountains north of town or the expansive beaches of eastern Long Island. Nope, hundreds of thousands made do with the likes of the Bronx's Orchard Beach and City Island. The trolley and later the subway brought droves to Brooklyn's Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Plum Beach, and Brighton Beach. Sheepshead Bay (it looks like a sheep's head from the air) offers deep-sea fishing at a reasonable price. And the prime resort area remains the Rockaways.  Queens's seven mile-plus stretch of sand from Far Rockaway to Rockaway Point with views of New Jersey's Atlantic Highlands provides some of the finest beaches on the east coast.

Some work - some play

Although I was in Rockaway, this year my resort activity was somewhat curtailed.  I was under a deadline to get the edited manuscript of The Cavalier Spy reviewed and back to the publisher (done). So my summer fun in the sun was restricted to a one day visit to the beach. However, I took advantage of a special deal set up by NYC as a result of Hurricane Sandy.  Because of Sandy's impact on mass transit in the Rockaways, the city contracted a fast boat to go from Beach 108th Street and Jamaica Bay around the end of the Rockaways and up New York bay to lower  Manhattan. Readers of The Patriot Spy know Manhattan was called The Island of New York during the time of the American Revolution. The trip takes an average of 38 minutes each way for the round trip cost of $4! Like that, badabing, you are staring up at the lofty buildings of New York's financial district.  So what the heck does this have to do with the American Revolution? Well, the boat ride passed many of the critical points of the British invasion of New York back in the summer of 1776.

Sailing into the past

British cross the harbor towards Gravesend Bay

As the boat eased out of Jamaica Bay and turned into New York's impressive lower harbor, I could look to the southwest and see Sandy Hook, New Jersey. But back in 1776, the Sandy Hook included a sand bar that blocked the lower harbor, preventing large British warships from crossing over it except during extreme high tide. A few minutes later we were approaching the Verrazano Narrows. The British went through the narrows and landed an army of twenty-four thousand or so on Staten Island, then a Tory stronghold. After recovering for a few weeks they launched barges and longboats across the narrows and landed troops at Gravesend Bay. This was on my right (starboard side) just before I reached the narrows, not far from today's Fort Hamilton. The few American defenders there ran off at the sight of the British. We continued on another ten minutes with Bayonne on our port and Bay Ridge, then Red Hook, on our starboard. Near Red Hook is the Gowanus Canal: the remnant of the Gowanus Creek that played such a critical role in Washington's defenses on Long Island. The boat soon approached Governor's Island, where the Royal Governors resided during colonial times.  The last  Royal Governor of colonial New York, nasty William Tryon, evacuated a year earlier but returned in 1776 with the British armada.

The Sea Streak sails from the Rockaway peninsula on the lower right and up
the harbor to the lower extreme of Manhattan. Note the narrows and
 Governors Island. The Sandy Hook is just off the bottom of the photo,

The final heading

The Gloucester Regiment evacuates Washington's army from its defenses
near the Heights of Brooklyn

Passing the narrow channel between Governor's Island and Brooklyn, the boat entered the waters of the lower East River. To our starboard front lay Brooklyn Heights, just south of the famed Brooklyn Bridge. This was the location of Washington's headquarters during the battle for Long Island, and the point from which the Gloucester seamen evacuated the beleaguered army on a stormy night with the British front lines not more than a few hundred yards distant! The crossing from Brooklyn to New York was considerably wider than it is today, as the Manhattan's expansive use of landfill has narrowed the river by almost a quarter-mile.

The (old) City of New York

We arrived at lower New York, which during the time of the Yankee Doodle Spies extended not too far beyond today's Wall Street. We landed in the lower central portion of this image of early colonial New York. Note how the city abruptly ends at the Wall Street, it extended past Chambers Street by the mid-1700s.

Pearl Street was a contemporary thoroughfare about a half-mile north of where we landed. It probably looked little different from this image from the Dutch era, although the docks and buildings would be more extensive as the city had grown. I will do a future blog on some of the revolutionary war era sites that still remain in the city.  Of course, the march of history (not progress) has limited them to only a few.

Dutch-style buildings still dominated New York during the
time of the Yankee Doodle Spies

I

Espionage: Born on the 4th of July

Thomas Jefferson

The birth of our nation is rightly celebrated on the 4th of July, although the actual signing was not on the fourth and Thomas Jefferson drafted what is perhaps the most famous document in the world between the 21st and 28th of June, 1776.  But, as of the 4th of July, the British colonies in North America were no longer fighting for their rights as Englishmen, but for their independence as a sovereign nation.



What has this to do with espionage and the Yankee Doodle Spies?  Well, everything. The Yankee Doodle Spies are stories of action and espionage during the American Revolution. Counterintelligence plays no small role in the stories and its prime purpose is to root out spies to be prosecuted for treason.  Espionage is a legal term for treason acted out by passing a nation's secrets to a foreign power.  So, you have to have a nation to have treason, and by extension, you have to have a nation to have espionage.



Intelligence gathering was a little known but widespread activity by both sides throughout the eight year war that was the American Revolution. One famous (or infamous) spy during the war was Doctor Benjamin Church.  In the environs of Boston, this chief medical officer for the rebel army passed secrets to the British high command through his mistress in Boston.  His mistress betrayed him. Exposed and convicted at court martial - he could not be found guilty of treason (espionage) because as British subjects, the rebels came under British law and treason (espionage) could only be committed against the King.  The irony was rich!

Church was nonetheless kept under arrest for some years and finally exchanged in 1778.  He died when the ship he was returning to England in was lost in a storm at sea.



Had Church been identified after July 4th 1776, however, he would have been traitor to a nation and thus guilty of treason (espionage).  The states had committees for detecting spies, but these were informal and poorly coordinated efforts that often confused misplaced loyalty with treason.  As Americans celebrate the birth of our nation with the usual parades, fireworks and barbecues, we should keep in mind that the Declaration of Independence, which birthed the world's first modern republic and set the precedent that ideas can challenge dynasties...created the political and military conditions for a counterintelligence service that could ultimately bring charges of espionage against traitors to the Glorious Cause.

Signing the Declaration of Independence