The Once and Future Spy

Hogan’s Heroes

Lovers of TV Land likely recall the hit TV comedy of the 1960s, Hogan’s Heroes. The premise was a team of spies get themselves shot down over Nazi Germany to set up a spy cell operating from a prison camp (Luft Stalag 13) in the heart of Germany. From there, Colonel Hogan and his eclectic band maintained radio contact with “London” while coordinating a host of activities from espionage to sabotage. Much of the show centered on gags at the expense of their hapless captors, Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz, but they often slipped out of the prison camp to nearby Hammelberg for clandestine missions. However, unlike other POWs—they would sneak back in.

POWs as Spies - but for laughs

Winter War

Something like this occurred during the height of the American War for Independence when General Washington needed intelligence following his victory at Trenton. Word had come that General Charles Cornwallis was leading an army south to exact revenge for the embarrassment. Washington ordered that someone be sent to Brunswick to determine the size of British forces, particularly the forces guarding recently captured General Charles Lee. The state of British supply trains was also of interest as Washington had a notion of marching north to seize their baggage and supplies for his under-supplied army.

Christmas 1776 Victory at Trenton

Daring Mission

Lieutenant Lewis Costigan of the 1st New Jersey Continental Line Regiment volunteered for the task. He was perfect for the mission, as he had been a merchant in that part of New Jersey and was most familiar with the area. Costigan’s mission is reminiscent of Lieutenant Jeremiah Creed’s spying in my novel, The Cavalier Spy. Costigan headed north over icy roads in a bitter-cold winter that chilled the soul. He evaded British patrols, sentries, and Loyalist informers, avoiding scrutiny. Costigan was gathering the intelligence required by Washington when British light dragoons swept in and took him captive. The gutsy officer was in uniform, so his captors did not treat him as a spy.

British dragoons foiled Costigan's first espionage venture

Prisoner on Parole

The British sent their new prisoner to New York City, where he was soon given parole, a fairly routine practice that let officers move about freely. Less fortunate prisoners, meaning enlisted men, were sent to the Sugar House or, even worse, the prison hulks (ships) to wither and die. However, with restrictions to which they pledged as gentlemen, officers fared better. Paroled officers were prohibited from involvement in military activity, communication with colleagues,  or criticizing the British war effort. Paroled officers agreed to report back to the British if so directed. Costigan led the humdrum life of a parolee, diddling about the garrison city, visiting taverns, and rubbing elbows with the locals. He was formally released as part of an exchange for a British officer in September 1778.

Prison Hulk HMS Jersey

Learning of this, Washington wrote his Commissary General for Prisoners, Colonel John Beatty, the man in charge of handling prisoner affairs, including exchanges. Washington pressed him to get Gostigan out expeditiously but not to appear too anxious to the British. His Excellency had plans for his once and future spy. General William Alexander, who called himself Lord Stirling, was to press Costigan to enter the breach once more. Costigan took a boat to New Brunswick, where he received a new mission from one of Stirling’s subordinates, Colonel Ogden, who pressed the exchanged parolee to return to New York for a few months longer and spy for the Continental Army! Washington must have been desperate for intelligence at the time, for the mission was highly unorthodox and packed with grave risk. For his part, Costigan must have had a brass pair and ice in his veins to agree.

Lord Stirling

Agent Z

What cover would Costigan use to slip past the British and lurk about a garrison brimming with enemy troops, Loyalists, and the dastardly Provost William Cunningham’s thugs? Why, none, actually. His handlers were betting the British prison bureaucracy would not realize he had returned, nor that they would have alerted the garrison regiments, Loyalist units, and Cunningham’s provosts when they exchanged prisoners. Stirling and Ogden were betting on the stovepipes not joining, and they were wagering Costigan’s life. Costigan was given the code name Agent Z for the unusual mission.

 

Agent Z would walk among the NY garrison that winter

Prisoner Spy

Cositgan made his way back and took up the subterfuge of hiding in plain sight—living as the prisoner on parole he had been. Since he was legally exchanged, his earlier parole restrictions no longer applied. Curiously, no one seemed to take much notice of Costigan as he roved the city, noting troop movements, living conditions, supply problems, and more. Word of his exchange had clearly not spread among the dockside dives nor the city’s many taverns and coffee houses. To all, he was just another parolee out and about. Using his code name, Agent Z, the volunteer prisoner sent his intelligence reports to Washington through Colonel Ogden and Lord Stirling.

Agent Z had the run of the City

Intelligence

Agent Z managed to get three reports out before he departed New York. The first was dated 7 December 1778. It contained intelligence on troop and ship movements, the whereabouts of the British commander, General Sir Henry Clinton, the state of supply (low on bread), the name of captured prize vessels, and the source of British provisions from sympathizers and profiteers in New Jersey. His correspondence referred to several other reports on troop strength, but it is unknown whether these ever made it through.

Sir Henry Clinton

A second report to Washington dated 13 December 1778 had many more details on British activity that amounted to  “indications and warning” on British forces sailing south for Georgia. Lord Sackville (George Germain), the British Secretary for the Colonies, had adopted his Southern Strategy, which would begin with seizing Savannah on 29 December. He spotted notorious former Royal Governor William Tryon and reported on the movement and promotion of other senior officers. 

Agent Z provided I&W on Germain's 

Southern Strategy

Costigan’s last report of 19 December provided details on British officers who had deserted in Florida and the status and size of “the Jamaica fleet,” which he estimated at 40 or 50 vessels. 

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

Agent Z clearly had a knack for observation and elicitation. There is no record of how he got his reports out. Did he coopt legal travelers? Send correspondence under an assumed name? Whatever he used must have hit a snag, for he left New York in mid-January 1779, presumably posing as an exchanged parolee. In March of 1779, General Washington queried Lod Stirling as to his reporting (or lack of). Stirling laconically replied that Agent Z was no longer active and believed to be “out” (presumably of the city and the intel game) and believed to be residing in Brunswick.

Lieutenant Lewis Costigan - Agent Z

Lieutenant Lewis Costigan’s activities show how Washington used multiple channels of collection, as he was not connected to the Culper Ring organized by Major Benjamin Tallmadge but reported through Colonel Ogden to Lord Stirling. His exploits provide a unique glimpse into espionage in the American Revolution. As Agent Z, he played the role destined for the unfortunate Nathan Hale, although his ingenious use of a “non-cover” provided an elegant twist. Hiding in plain sight seems to have been all the tradecraft he needed.

Defiant Doyenne

This leap-year edition of the Yankee Doodle Spies highlights the bold and brave housewife who played a hand in saving her home, her state, and her country. Meet the up-country distaff doyenne who stood up to British bullies like few men could.

Martha Bratton was  a patriot farmwife

Upcountry South Carolina saw some of the most vicious fighting of the American War for Independence. The rugged Scots-Irish settled on the rolling hills and fertile meadows north of Columbia. Among them were William and Martha Bratton, who, in 1766, bought 200 acres along the South Fork of Fishing Creek in what today is York County, South Carolina. William built a rough-hewn log home and, with the help of a few slaves, turned the land into a thriving, if modest, homestead.

The Bratton's built a log farmhouse on the frontier

The world changed when the Shot Heard Round the World was fired in April 1775. As South Carolina formed both militia and Continental Line regiments for the upcoming struggle, William Bratton did his bit and marched off to join. Martha was now the head of the household and responsible for keeping their plantation alive.

Shot Heard Round the World - Lexington Green

But in  May 1780, the British took Charleston and occupied a string of garrisons from the port city on the low country coast to the famous star fort at Ninety-Six, the last outpost along the South Carolina frontier. The governor of South Carolina had asked William Bratton, a militia commander, to use his house to store some of the patriot gunpowder, which was a precious commodity for both sides but mainly for the patriots. With William away, Martha, as head of the household, had responsibility for securing it.

Ruins of Ninety-Six

The Whig-Tory struggle in the Carolinas was brutal, with neighbors fighting neighbors and sometimes families being torn apart. Bands from both sides roamed the countryside, either supporting the Continentals and Regulars or acting as independent bands. Spies and traitors lurked everywhere. British gold easily bought information. Exactly how they found out that Martha held a store of the powder is unknown. What is known is they approached her farm to demand she turn it over or face reprisal.

But spies worked both ways, and someone raced to the Bratton farm to warn Martha of the approaching column. She knew she did not have time to move it—it filled a nearby shed. What to do?

Gunpowder was a valuable commodity

Martha ordered one of her slaves, named Watt, to bring her a flaming piece of wood from the kitchen stove. Before the British could arrive, Martha tossed the flaming faggot into the shed, and in seconds it blue sky high with a thunderous boom that sent chunks of burning logs into the air and thumping into the fields around them.

Gunpowder explosion

The explosion warned the British, who arrived to see the last charred timbers of the shed collapse into a smoking pile. She defiantly told them, "Let the consequence be what it will. I glory in having prevented the mischief contemplated by the cruel enemies of my country."

Martha had foiled them, but she was now marked as a rebel, and they would keep an eye on her and the Bratton farm.

By the summer of 1780, the war was setting York County ablaze. Columns of British Regulars, patrols of mounted dragoons, and bands of Tories and Loyalist Provincials scoured the land. This was the epic struggle between American partisans like Sumter and Marion and the likes of Banastre Tarleton and Patrick Ferguson. But the most hated enemy was the Loyalist officer of the British Legion, the German-born Captain Christian Huck. In a struggle that featured brutality on both sides, Huck stood tall. He rampaged across the state, destroying rebel property, burning homes, and killing his enemies.

Loyalist Dragoons rampaged the Carolinas

On 10 July, Huck set out to arrest rebel leaders in York County at the head of 120 determined men, But word spread like wildfire, sending most scurrying for safety. On Huck's list was the husband of the rebel whose wife had humbugged the British before—William Bratton. As they rode hell-bent for leather toward the plantation, Huck's men, true to form, took foodstuff, horses, and other valuables from the small farms along the way.

Fortunately, Colonel Bratton's militia regiment was on the Catawba River, where it had joined up with General Thomas Sumter's forces. Huck's troops arrived at the Bratton plantation as the sun was setting on 11 July. Knowing the threat Huck and his men posed, Martha Bratton sent Watt to warn her husband of their presence.

Martha sends Watt to warn her husband

Entering her log home, Huck demanded to know her husband's whereabouts.

Notorious Christian Huck

"You'll have to find him on your own, as I am not privy to his whereabouts, sir," she told the British commander.

An enraged officer reached for a reaping hook dangling from the wall and thrust the cutting edge to her throat. "Madam, you'll tell us what we want, or you'll not say anything again, as your pretty head will be shorn from your shoulders!"

Martha defied all threats

Martha straightened and glared defiantly. "Even if I knew where my husband and the militia were. I would not betray them or my country, sir. Do your worst!"

"Put that thing down," ordered Huck as he drew his saber and slammed its hilt into his hot-tempered officer, sending him tumbling to the heavy plank floor. Frustrated by her refusal, Huck angrily ordered Martha to fix a meal for him and his officers.

Once they had eaten their fill, the officers and their men mounted and rode off for their next destination—the nearby William plantation. The delay gave the patriots time to assemble a force that gathered at the plantation and launched a surprise attack as the sun rose. Lead flew in all directions, but the Loyalists were trapped. Huck leaped on his horse to escape but was struck by a hail of musket balls. The notorious raider fell out of the saddle, dead.

Huck's forces were surprised and destroyed at Williams Plantation

It did not take long to eliminate one of South Carolina's worst scourges. The battle was over in just a quarter-hour. The American Legion lost 30 killed and 50 wounded, with the rest taken prisoner. Almost poetically, some of the gravely injured Legionnaires were taken to the Bratton farm, where Martha herself ministered to their wounds.

Huck's defeat was just a minor skirmish, but it gave a considerable boost to patriot morale in the Carolina backcountry, and more and more men flocked to the cause. From it stemmed a chain of events that included the Overmountain Men crushing Fergusson's Loyalist brigade at King's Mountain and Dan Morgan smashing Tarleton at Cowpens. And finally, Nathanael Greene forced Cornwallis's abandonment of the Carolinas for the safety of Yorktown, Virginia. So, in no small way,  Martha Bratton's courage and craftiness played a pivotal role in the ultimate defeat of the British cause in the Carolinas.

The family expanded the farmstead after the war, with their son building a new home, which is now the site of a historic interpretation center called Brattonsville.

Historic Brattonsvile, South Carolina, commemorates 

the life and times of William & Martha 

 

 

 

 

The Lafayette Circle

I have a tradition of producing a blog post on the "back story" of most books I write. With the release of The Lafayette Circle, it is time to do it again.

A Friend in Need

About a year ago, a Xavier High School classmate, Peter Reilly, reached out to me with a suggestion that I get involved in helping celebrate the upcoming 200^th Anniversary of the Marquis de Lafayette's celebrated tour of America in 1824. Truth be told, I had never read or heard of the event, so I was caught off guard. Peter, a CPA who is a contributor to Forbes.com and Think Outside The Tax Box, is also chair of the Massachusetts committee for the Bicentennial of Lafayette's Farewell Tour 2024-2025. I wondered how to respond.

Lafayette by Bryon Line

Maybe I could repost items about the upcoming celebration on my social media platforms. Or write a book about life in America in 1824? I knew quite a bit about Marie-Jospeh-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, from my study of the American and French Revolutions but little of events after the fall of Napoleon in 1815. Most of what I remembered from that era came from Peter Neary's American History class when I attended Xavier High School in New York City—Jacksonian Democracy and all that.

Background

When in doubt, do some research. I started by re-reading two legacy books on Lafayette from my library and engrossing myself in a recently released biography. I also took the opportunity to join The Friends of Lafayette, and when I did, I got behind their paywall and found a trove of information on Lafayette's trip and the dynamics behind it. A review quickly drew me to the conclusion that this was more than a feel-good junket—although it certainly was that, too.

A World in Upheaval

Although the Congress of Vienna that convened with Napoleon Bonaparte's abdication in 1814 set up a framework for a much-needed fifty years of peace among the European powers, the world itself was shaking from the movement of the tectonic plates of liberty. The Spanish colonies in America looked to North America and, to some extent, to revolutionary France as examples. Liberation movements, some long-simmering, began to erupt into rebellion and wars of liberation.

Congress of Vienna

Names like Simon Bolivar and Bernardo O'Higgins would become examples equal to George Washington throughout most of the continent to our south. In Spain itself, the newly formed Asturian battalion, one of ten organized to sail to America to suppress the wars of liberation, revolted, led by its commander, Rafael del Riego y Flórez.

Rafael del Riego y Flórez

Other regiments joined. The soldiers demanded a return to the 1812 constitution. In March 1820, they surrounded the royal palace, and the king capitulated. A junta ruled Spain for several years until the autocrats of Europe pushed Royalist France to invade and put the king back in his rightful place of rule as an absolute monarch. Now, General de Riego was put on trial and hanged for treason.

Entry into Geopolitics

The long-isolationist United States grew concerned with the possibility of some European powers stepping into the void of Spanish authority in the New World. Britain felt the same, especially fearing Russia's incursions from the North and the threats to its holdings in South America and the West Indies. A suggestion made for a joint declaration of status quo ante in the New World resonated somewhat with President Monroe but not the Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams. After all, two wars were fought against Britain, one quite recently. America would render its own statement. Adams was the prime drafter of what became, many years later, called The Monroe Doctrine.

James Monroe

A  Birthday Celebration—and More

Monroe's administration was coming to a close as the nation approached its 50^th Anniversary. He would lawfully be out of office by April 1825, yet he wanted to do something celebratory prior to his departure. Inviting the last surviving Continental Army general to return to his adopted land seemed a great way to begin the party on his watch, underscore the arrival of the young republic on the world stage, and rebuild patriotic fervor. Lafayette was beloved in America and was a world-renowned figure for his lead role in two revolutionary movements.

Lafayette in Winter

The Plot Thickens

As I learned all this, I realized the tour was more than just a feel-good event but a tool to use in both internal and external politics. This was pretty slick. Others thought so, too. Among the others were the members of the Holy Alliance, a reactionary (and not so holy) pact among the  Empire of Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Empire of Russia aimed at curbing the spread of democracy and buttressing autocracy.

Holy Alliance?

Of course, I built on this by creating the fictional subcommittee of the Holy Alliance that I named the Aulic Council. The historical Aulic Council was an executive-judicial council for the Holy Roman Empire that started during the Late Middle Ages and ended when Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. I spin it into a Spectre-like organization run by villainous barons who harken to Austen Powers's Mr. Evil.

Mister Evil

Protecting the Man

How does a country with no Secret Service or FBI and a small military scattered in coastal forts and western outposts protect a dignitary during a highly publicized series of events? That's the central theme of the tale. An eclectic mix of characters in and out of government come together with just minimal help from the Federal and state governments. Catholic monks, diplomats, US naval officers, US Marines, the New York militia, and others all play a role in protecting the general. They call themselves The Lafayette Circle. 

New York Militia Guarding Lafayette

Boris and Natascha x Three

Three assassin teams, each consisting of one male and one female, are dispatched to seek out Lafayette and kill him. This is another eclectic cast of characters made intentionally evil but like famed "nogoodnik" Boris Badanoff and his sultry sidekick Natasha in the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, not totally unlikeable. Their struggle to "acquire" their target as they roam early 19^th-century America adds to the suspense.

Boris and Natasha

Who's Your President?

The fact that one of the most controversial presidential contests in America's history takes place in the middle of all this provided a subplot I could not resist. The events are proof that the more things change, the more they stay the same with backroom deals, fights for votes, and a "rigged election" that was also, curiously, legitimate. The events that deprived Andrew Jackson of the White House in the 1824 election are more obscure to most Americans than Julius Caesar's assassination, which at least was celebrated in a play by the Bard himself. 

1824 Election was Controversial

Yet the election took place during Lafayette's visit, and he was known by all the principals involved when the election was thrown to the House of Representatives for just the second time in America's history. Deals were struck, and John Quincy Adams went to the White House. The man with the most electoral votes went home to his estate, The Hermitage, outside Nashville. Lafayette would go out of his way to meet the war hero Jackson while he was home licking his wounds.

The Hermitage

Companions

Lafayette's journey was captured by his personal secretary Auguste Levasseur, who penned a personal account of the incredible journey, Lafayette en Amérique, en 1824 et 1825 ou Journal d'un voyage aux États-Unis. His son, Georges Washington Lafayette, also accompanied the general. Both are involved in fictionalized scenes meant to move the plot along while exposing us to different sides of the great man. Likewise, Fanny Wright, a socialist activist (and Lafayette's purported mistress) from Scotland and some thirty years younger than Lafayette, accompanies him on part of the trip.

Frances "Fanny" Wright

Glimpses

The novel has several flashback sections—scenes meant to put Lafayette back in his youth fighting the American Revolution, leading the French Revolution, and dealing with the consequences of both. These are intended to give a bit of historical perspective to those uninformed about his role in those earlier significant events that shaped the Western world.

Flashback: Lafayette's wounding at Brandywine 1777

The Ordeal

I also attempted to provide a look at America and the world in 1824. Travel was by wind, steam, and horse. It was slow and steady and always an ordeal culminating in hundreds of stops across a vast continent. Meetings with folks from all walks of life. Reminiscing with old comrades. Shaking thousands and thousands of hands around the clock. Lafayette's prodigious schedule of events and speeches were like MAGA tours of the day and bound to take a toll on a man approaching seventy. Yet he did it with aplomb and graciousness. One has to ask why, and the answer is simple. Indeed, he loved America and what it stood for. But even more than that, he loved its people.

The Lafayette Circle is available now!