"There is nothing more necessary than good Intelligence to frustrate a designing Enemy, and nothing requires greater pains to obtain." George Washington
As commander in chief of the Continental Army, George
Washington was much more than a general. He was the undeclared head of the
United States with concerns beyond the usual man, equip and train mandate of
commanding generals. He was a figurehead but also influenced the Continental
Congress and state policies through persuasion. His concerns involved every
aspect of the aforementioned mandates, making him the Army's chief logistician,
personnel director, organizer, and trainer in many ways. And he was the chief
strategist and operational planner for all the Continental Army's departments.
It must be remembered that military staffs were not the
robust teams of highly skilled planners and actions officers that developed in
the French and Prussian armies of the next century—just a few aides de camp and
orderlies reviewed and prepared correspondence on a day-to-day basis. For big
decisions, Washington consulted with Congress and senior military officers. But
the daily management, often via "Orders of the Day" and "General
Orders," rested with Washington and a handful of men around him.
So it is no surprise that Washington added to his burden by
serving as the Continental Army's spymaster. It was a job he took most
seriously. And why not? He was a trained and practiced surveyor, a profession
requiring an understanding of terrain – knowing the land, waters, fields,
forests, and mountains. He traveled deep into the American frontier and
understood the time and space considerations needed to plan ventures
successfully. And most importantly, his career was launched by a spy mission.
In 1753, Virginia's Governor Robert Dinwiddie sent a young
Major Washington to spy on the French outposts deep in the upper
Ohio River valley. Washington honed his recruiting skills by engaging the
services of experienced guides and interpreters, one of whom was an explorer
named Christopher Gist. In the densely forested mountains near the French Fort
Duquesne (today's Pittsburgh), he met a Seneca chief named Half-King, who guided
Washington to a meeting with the French.
Washington elicited a trove of data such as fort locations,
numbers of canoes and bateaux, etc. But the essential element of information,
Dinwiddie's purpose for the expedition, was discovering French intentions. These
were to control the entire Ohio Valley and surrounding territory to maintain a monopoly
with the tribes in the interior. After eighty days of slogging through
snow-filled mountains and canoeing along icy rivers with Gist, the young spy
arrived in Williamsburg and gave the governor a detailed written report.
Ironically, his professional work resulted in Dinwiddie
sending him back out the following year at the head of a military contingent
aimed at buttressing Virginia's claim to the territory. Lieutenant Colonel Washington's second expedition was a
disaster that led to the French and Indian War in America and the Seven Years' War in Europe. Indeed, the French
and Indian War provided Washington with the springboard to command the
Continental Army in 1775.
By the time Washington assumed command at Cambridge, Massachusetts,
he had the skills and experience to plan and implement intelligence activities. He spent the latter years of the war commanding the Virginia Militia Regiment, which was charged with protecting the Shenandoah Valley from French-inspired Indian
incursions.
The weakness of Washington's Army for most of the war forced
him to wage a war of so-called Fabian tactics, which relied on accurate intelligence,
military security, and tactical deception to level the playing field with the British. The Boston campaign provides a helpful example.
On taking command, he learned the Continental Army was
dangerously low on gunpowder. Washington employed strict security to protect
the new Army's biggest secret. He took great pains to cloak this from the
British until he had an adequate supply. He sought intelligence on the British
activities in Boston, but his critical knowledge requirement was their
knowledge of the gunpowder problem.
During that period, a spy was discovered at the highest
levels – Doctor Benjamin Church, Chief Surgeon of the American Army. Secret
correspondence with the British commander, General Gage, revealed Church's
double game. Church claimed he was actually trying to convince the British of
the Americans' large stocks of gunpowder. If true, this might have been an
excellent deception operation. But a military court convicted him. Was that too
a ruse? Church disappeared at sea after his conviction, but many years later,
historians discovered secret British files that proved his espionage. But was it
espionage or just a good double agent operation? This affair may have prompted
his obsession with enemy spies in his camp, a fixation that continued
throughout the eight year war.
During the remainder of the war, George Washington kept a
tight hand on the spies and spy networks that swirled around the Continental
Army: Nathan Hale's strained mission, the tactical collection activities of
Knowlton's Rangers, and later the 2nd Continental Dragoons. Others
include Hercules Mulligan reporting from occupied New York, Lydia Darragh doing the same from Philadelphia,
and of course, the Culper Ring in New York City and on Long Island. And there
were many other spies and networks that still go undiscovered.
Counterespionage was another area of Washington's personal attention. He was greatly vexed by Loyalists spying for the British such as New Jersey's
James Moody. The Sergeant Hickey Affair resulted in the breaking up of a ring
and a potential assassination plot. The most notorious espionage challenge was
posed by British Major John Andre's recruiting of arguably America's greatest
war hero- Major General Benedict Arnold. Washington was there when Arnold was
uncovered and personally directed the countermeasures, which included a parley
to exchange Andre for Arnold, dispatching an agent, a Virginia Sergeant named
John Champe, to kidnap the treasonous general, and appointing Andre's court martial
and approving his death sentence.
Washington employed deception and military (or operations)
security throughout the war. He had to deceive the British about his Army's
strength (or lack of it) and its intentions. There were many successes and
failures as both sides engaged in deception and counter-deception. The stakes
were high – the war's outcome could turn on their successful implementation.
The most celebrated of these activities was Washington's
leveraging his well-known and long-standing desire (some might say obsession)
to capture New York City. In the summer of 1783, Washington finally agreed to
French General Rochambeau's plan to join a French fleet on its way to the
Chesapeake Bay and attack General Charles Cornwallis's Army on Virginia's
Yorktown peninsula.
For it to work, the British needed to be dissuaded from sending aid to Yorktown. He orchestrated a series of intelligence measures to
plant the idea of an imminent Franco-American attack on the New York garrison. Feints by bodies of troops, deliberately lost dispatches, and the whispers of spies
convinced British General Henry Clinton long enough to delay sending
reinforcements to beleaguered Cornwallis in Yorktown.
Even as the French and Americans marched south, their route
was designed to appear like an envelopment of the city until the very last
minute. When Clinton realized he had been humbugged, it was too late to help Cornwallis. By the end of October, the British had surrendered in
Yorktown. Clinton's military options were dwindling, and the British government
fell, bringing in an administration more sympathetic to negotiations.
The great spymaster succeeded in leveraging an early form of
gray zone warfare. Most of these activities were kept secret long after the war,
and very few official records were maintained – for obvious reasons. In a
nation of divided loyalties, the lives of spies are always in peril. The 18th-century zeitgeist that emphasized "honor" held spies in great disdain. Yet
Washington occasionally mused about those who risked lives and reputations for
little reward or acclaim. They could not receive pensions or fame. The case of
Nathan Hale is a possible exception, and that was for propaganda purposes.
The shadow war waged during the American Revolution was critical to its success. George Washington realized that. It is said he visited random citizens
for some quiet conversation during his post-war travels around the country
while President. Ultimately, all he could reward them with was his personal
thanks. For the shadow warriors who risked life and honor, a tip of the hat
from the most extraordinary man of the century was enough.
