One important example of the intelligence it provided Washington was when British General Clinton in July 1780 planned to send a force from New York City to attack French forces that had just arrived in Newport, Rhode Island. Individual letters and numbers could also be swapped for other letters, with a word such as “silk” being disguised as “umco.” Lastly, correspondence could eventually also be written in invisible ink.ĭespite the constant threat of being uncovered and several near misses, the spy ring operated successfully for five years, with no agents’ identities revealed or correspondence intercepted. “George Washington,” for instance, was 711, “New York” was 634, and “doctor” was 126.
#GEORGE WASHINGTONS SPY NETWORK CODE#
Tallmadge created a numerical code book of 763 numbers that substituted for words.
The spies were assigned pseudonyms, with the network named after the ones for Abraham Woodhull (Samuel Culper Sr.) and Robert Townsend (Samuel Culper Jr.). Tallmadge took additional actions to maintain secrecy. Reply messages would return by the same route. In the ring’s most frequent movements, intelligence gathered in New York City would be sent by written message via courier to Setauket, then across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, and on to Washington’s headquarters. Born in 1754 on Long Island in the village of Setauket, Tallmadge recruited childhood friends and neighbors for his spy ring, including Caleb Brewster, Abraham Woodhull, and Austin Roe. In the summer of 1778 George Washington tasked Major Benjamin Tallmadge with gathering military intelligence on the British headquartered in New York City. The men were part of a spy network during the American Revolution which supplied George Washington with information on the activities of British troops then occupying the city of New York and Long Island. Acquired by the museum in December 1951, the handwritten double-sided letter measures 9 3/16” x 7 5/8”, is dated November 8, 1779, and is from Benjamin Tallmadge (using his alias, John Bolton) to Robert Townsend (alias, Samuel Culper Jr.). In August 2020 the Long Island Museum discovered an uncatalogued Culper Spy Ring letter in its collections.
0 kommentar(er)
