Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring

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Primarily based on exceptional new analysis, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary Struggle. For the primary time, Rose takes us past the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double brokers and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the brave, flawed males who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors—together with the spymaster on the coronary heart of all of it.

In the summertime of 1778, with the warfare poised to show in his favor, Basic George Washington desperately wanted to know the place the British would strike subsequent. To that finish, he unleashed his secret weapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged with discovering the enemy’s battle plans and navy technique.

Washington’s small band included a younger Quaker torn between political precept and household loyalty, a swashbuckling sailor hooked on the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, a Yale-educated cavalryman and pal of the doomed Nathan Hale, and a peaceable, sickly farmer who begged Washington to let him retire however who all the time got here by means of in the long run. Personally guiding these imperfect on a regular basis heroes was Washington himself. In an period when officers have been gents, and gents didn’ t spy, he possessed a rare expertise for deception—and proved an adept spymaster.

The boys he mentored have been dubbed the Culper Ring. The British secret service tried to hunt them down, however they escaped by the closest of shaves due to their ciphers, useless drops, and invisible ink. Rose’s thrilling narrative tells the unknown story of the Revolution–the murderous intelligence warfare, gunrunning and kidnapping, defectors and executioners—that has by no means appeared within the historical past books. However Washington’s Spies can also be a spirited, touching account of friendship and belief, concern and betrayal, amid the darkish and silent world of the spy.