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Monday, May 29, 2023

The Indispensable Spymaster



 "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.



The Indispensable Spymaster


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.

Planning operations 


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.

Surveying - the handmaiden of intelligence


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.

Robert Dinwiddie


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.


Lieutenant Colonel Washington


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.


Washington's map of Ohio Valley 1754

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.


The Continental Army outside Boston was initially weak


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.


Low supplies of gunpowder threatened the Army


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.



Doctor Benjamin Church


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.


The capture of Major Andre


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.


Military patrol in winter


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. 


General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, 
comte de Rochambeau 

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.


Spy at work


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.


Washington's deception steals a march on Yorktown


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.


Execution of Nathan Hale


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.


The Indispensable Man met many of his spies


 

 

 

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