powder horns. we know they used out ours. one was found in sandusky ohio with a message inside apparently dropped by the spy. and choose, there are a number of instances where shoes, false eels were used there is a case in virginia that we know of. there's also a spy who carried messages from london to paris, the benjamin franklin. used false eels. on his boots to carry the message. washington's deception. now the one thing i do have to say about washington. assembly who never told a lie, he certainly stretched the truth an awful lot. [laughter] >> up in cambridge when he first takes over the american army, they were down to actually nine rounds per min. nine shots, that was it.

as far as the game under and gunpowder they had in him in him. he knew there were british spies going around the american camp, so what he did is he had a shipment of barrels brought up from providence, rhode island, mark don bauder. the only problem is inside the barrels was and. so the british spies would go back and report that the americans had plenty of gunpowder, and they be able to keep the sea shepherd for a long time. he also did a thing called a troop multiplication at morristown, when after the battles of trenton and princeton, the american army goes up and he can set more than. and while there, normally you would put most of your troops, cluster them in houses tried to keep as many together as you could. washington with the exact opposite way. he would put one or two people, soldiers, and the house so that

the area that his troops had to occupy was much greater than the amount of troops he had. so the spies are reporting back to british headquarters here in new york that washington's army extends over such a great area. so they reported back that he has three and four times more soldiers than he actually had. to me, one of the best ones are cursed by general putnam at princeton, new jersey. again, after the battles of trenton and princeton. he is there. you have the british army in new brunswick and the rest of the american army is at moorestown. so the bulk of the british army could come down and squash him in an instant, if they wanted to. there is a british officer who was wounded very badly at the battle of princeton, was not expected to live. asked for permission to have a british officer come out of new brunswick to take his last will and testament.

they agree but insisted had to be done at night. what putnam did was in all the empty houses, he put candles to make them look like they were occupied. he then had his 50 soldiers march passed the house where the last will and testament was being taken, sometimes one, two out of time, sometimes six at a time. sometimes he doesn't, sometimes all 50. when the british officer goes back to new brunswick, he reports that putnam is at princeton with 4000 soldiers. [laughter] >> instead of the 50 euro ahead. -- he really had. washington like to make up fake reports. and send them in to british headquarters here in new york. he did so well that after the battle of brandywine in pennsylvania, the british army captured and original american

report, but were absolutely convinced it was fake. because they were getting so many fake reports they refuse to believe it. now, another one is what washington's deception was that he needed to steal a march in 1781 to move the american army and the french army from north jersey and basically westchester and putnam county, past the british, across the delaware river and eventually down to yorktown to hook up with lafayette down there and attack cornwall is. so washington uses, it's called a deception battle plan. and the deception balls plan is also used in world war ii for the land that nobody. it's also used in desert storm by general schwarzkopf to do an end around on the republican guard. they used washington's plan.

all right. first thing you need is a clear objective. and a clear objection was he needed to steal a march across new jersey by stealth without being attacked by the british who were relocated in new york and in staten island. you have to know the enemies assumptions. and washington originally was planning to attack new york with the french. the british in new york believes that, and so what you have to do is come once you know what the enemy believes, you then have to reinforce their belief that that is what you're going to do. so the next thing what the method selection. the options they used, one of the things he did is since they were using the french army, the french army, a bulk of their diet is bread. he had brick ovens being built, and they were built in chatham, new jersey. he issued orders for the preparation of building others at the highlands, right near

sandy hook. and he also was issuing orders for supplies to be brought to the french ovens at the highlands. once the french troops arrived, the french troops were going there, he could ride as many orders as he would want because none of these contracts would ever take place. the other thing he did is he a troops assigned to go to, to go down by the waters and. and he wanted the british to observe them collecting bricks. you had a two gun artillery unit, which spent their time sitting there watching 82 canon unit does across on staten island and these two units that the entire war just observing each other. so he knew that this unit was going to be there. so he sent them down there and they did so well and being

obnoxious and making those and collecting the bricks as the ovens in chatham were being built that they were actually fired upon. so that helps -- oh, well. it's not cooperating. but what we wind up happening is the last part is the exploitation of it. and washington is able to steal a march but what he does is he has 30 boats put on characters that are brought to springfield, new jersey, for the anticipated attack on staten island. there would be no other reason to bring the votes there because they were going to agenda. so he has gone and convince the british that is going to be an attack on staten island.

and then the eventual result is the fact that his army and the french army are able to move across new jersey without being attacked, and as i'm sure most of your aware, they make it down to virginia and cornwallis surrendered at yorktown. okay, that gives you pretty much of a run-through on the spy craft that was used during the american revolution. there's many more codes and ciphers that are in the book. and at this point, i would like to open it up to some questions and hopefully i have some answers. we have one back there. wait for the mike, please. >> could you comment on nathan hale?

>> nathan hale was absolutely a very poor spy. i don't know if you're familiar with what's been found out. british general, scottish general by the name of brands, papers were found, and just become recently available. and there he identifies that robert rogers actually got hailed to tell him that he was a spot and what his mission was. and hale should have kept his mouth shut. he thought rogers was also an american spy, and because he actually outed himself, you wind up getting himself hung. >> and can you comment on

washington getting his troops out of brooklyn into manhattan, and almost like a goucher out of the movies, where the built-up fives mac like the army was still there? >> yes, he also uses that after downing trend, where he had the fires built to deceive the british, that they were still in position. but at the battle of brooklyn, he uses men to get his troops across the east river back to manhattan. and by the fact that the british were convinced that come morning, that they would have a victory over an american army that was ensconced on long island. and yeah, it was another one of

his the sections. as i said, for somebody who never told the truth, he certainly stretched it an awful lot. we have one there. >> can you comment upon hercules mulligan at perhaps his relationship to our dinner hambleton? >> okay. when hamilton first comes to new york, he actually wind up living with mulligan at one point at the beginning. and that's how they get to know each other. mulligan, there is one book on mulligan that was published years ago. and identifies that mulligan had been using a black servant, probably a slave, to carry the messages over to new jersey to hamilton, who would have been at moorestown at the time. and that's really all that we know exactly how the system

worked. this is one of the problems in working with, researching spies, which i've been doing for the last 18 years, is that it's like playing 500 test matches at one time. pieces advance very slightly when you find another clue, and in the case that mulligan, we know he was sending messages. we know how he got the messages. it appears that he was operating for most of the war. he, being a closer, the british officers would go to him to get their new uniforms or their fancy attire. and naturally while they are there waiting and being fitted, he would entice them into talking and extract information that way. okay.

>> could you talk about the newspaper and lower manhattan? >> okay. one of the things, he appears as which side about 1781. in an appendix in the book, i go into the correspondence that appears to exist between remington and colonel allen. the american goes over to long island and picks up the british naval signals. there is a series in remington's newspaper that seems to imply that he is requesting someone to come over and pick up the intelligence by means of ads that appear in the newspaper. and i give you the chronology that i have appeared to have

found. and it's very interesting that the name used is the name of a person who wrote a book on codes and ciphers. and so some of the references that he used would have been references, if you go back to the period would have been understood by somebody who is in the military line. and he also, the last add that i mentioned, he is indicating he is having a problem with paper for his newspaper. now, his paper mill is on long island, which happens to be where he turns over the codes. okay? and he also says he's going to be there. and he gives a specific time period. when he is going to be there and be available. so if you follow this, we don't have an exact proof, but it's

the closest thing that i could ever find of any documents, and anyway, that might indicate how the connection was made. okay. yeah, that took a lot of hunting and reading a lot of pages to find that one. yes? >> can you go back one of the code you had there for benedict arnold, was that the ones he gave for the designs at west point? or is that some -- >> the letter? >> the letter. >> the letter is what he offered west point for 20,000 pounds. >> that's not the one where a major was hung in upstate new york? >> no. no, the letters that entrée was carrying, if i remember correctly, are currently the property of the state of new york. that letter came from the

general sir henry clinton papers which are out in clements library at university of michigan. [inaudible] >> yes. absolutely. because it was offered to turn over west point. the british then would have to accept the offer. then you get to the point where they then have to agree to meet, which all that follows after. and then you get andre going up after that. [inaudible] >> no, they were just drawings. there would be no reason to put it in code because it was face to face. one of the problems that you have is that spies coming out of new york, they would come either across to basically jersey city area, and then across the marsh lands over to newark. they're actually exist a map that has the spy route marked on

it through the marshes. it is in, came out of the british headquarters newspapers, which i found absolutely interesting that they actually mark it. and the other route was they would go to staten island, and then go over to elizabeth. which, if you go over the bridge now, it is such a short area, and the channel has been and since the 18th century. one of the spies tells us how he used to do it. is to take a rowboat. he would row across to the other side and then sink the boat below the water line, go do his business, come back. the one person wrote will come he would raise the bow, wrote across the other side, and sink it again. the spy was james moody. anti-operated mostly from staten island down nearly cotton fell

and across to the woodbridge creek, and he would hide his robe -- rowboat. >> are any of the ciphers still used today by the government? and if not, what other types of technology have taken over, you know, hiding secrets. >> computers. actually, you can use your computer and encode messages far superior than what was used in the american revolution. yeah, no. computers today, if you design the code, and where i talked about one letter shift, that is one transaction. they would then take the one letter shift, which actually they were just different combinations, and then make multiple shifts. and if you get into reading about the enigma machine and the

japanese purple code, you will see that they go into multiple layers of transcriptions. and the only way to decode the stuff is using a computer. and, you know, if you would need to be a mathematician today to be doing codes and ciphers at that level. there's also, one of the things i didn't mention that we actually use here in new york that was used at one broadway wasn't a thing called the language of flowers. there was a young girl who was at putnam's headquarters, and up on the top of one broadway was a widow's watch and should go up there and observe the american troops and then come down and draw paintings. paintings of flowers. the last real book written on the subject is about 1835. but by using flowers, you could give a description as to how many troops were there, whether they're going to be just a mast

on the border, whether they're going to attack. there is one individual who claims that in a u.k. of flowers, he could put the equivalent of eight pages of text. so yeah, there are other systems that it didn't go into. i just touched on some of them. >> could you list a few of the documented female spies the? >> okay. there is and eight, british by who is going into the american camps and then coming back. and reporting. there is a message any. we know she is a seamstress that the british sent of into the french can't. she is suspected. the french arrester.

she is sent over, interrogated by one of washington's command. she is sent back to north castle. and she is then had her head shaved and forced to write out a camp backward on horse and told if she ever comes back again she will be done. by the way, you hang spies, you normally don't shoot them. only a gentleman is shot in the 18th century. a spy is not a gentleman. so a spy is not shot, which is what andre was on. he asked to be shot, which would indicate he was a gentleman. and if you as a gentleman he could have been a spy and they should be executing them. so they had hanging. they could not shoot him. its 18th century etiquette. [laughter] >> general washington had many camps. was one of these aides to camp in charge of the spy?

>> you had different case agents running spies. you had tom ridge who was running spies on long island. you have dayton who is running spies out of elizabeth. a lot more is made of the golfers, mainly because they are so well documented. and they are so well documented because they operated over a long distance. when spies operate at a close distance, depositions are taking rather than original documents maintained. and their reports tend to be summarized. so what happens is that those reports from the spies who were nearby tend to be summarize in general ports because it is word of mouth that you're not doing that much in codes and ciphers for new by spies.

is only spies that are coming from a distance. his thighs were in new york coming back where he would then do the coding based upon its codebook, which is one of the appendix items in my book. there are other copies around. he would then send the transcribed message. some of the original messages went on when he was out of position. as well. so it tends to be whoever is the case agent is the one that is going to be doing the decoding. not necessarily be a two camps. they may be collecting the information, taking down the orders from washington, sending them out, but they are really not running the operation that they're more like a secretary.

>> so back in the days, what is the name for the spies? how much was a typical payday? >> i'm sorry? >> how much money for the spies paid in that period? >> they were paid based upon what the perceived danger. so it all depends on what the assignment is. and the one thing you can be certain is that spies got paid. if you are doing research and you see somebody claiming to be a spy, and they did not get paid, they were actually a scout. you always paid your spies, no matter which side you're on. because if you didn't pay them, than the other side will pay them and they will be working for the other side. so spies tend to get paid even before the generals took their money. okay? also, the terms by in 18th century has different meanings behind, besides a we think of. we think of spies, we think of a james bond type spy going into

company built behind enemy lines. the 18th century, the term spy also meant the scout on the frontier. in used interchangeably. they would refer to my spies, but when you go find out what they were doing, they were just doing reconnaissance. they never went behind enemy lines. also on the frontier, you would see terms like indian spy, eagle spy, you know, any kind as a modifier. be very careful because usually what it means if somebody was given a job to go up on top of a mountaintop and count the number of people in which direction they're going. they're not doing anything more than just taking a traffic goal. >> we have one back there. >> do you have any specifics on

the chemistry that was used in some of the hidden messages? it's more sophisticated than vinegar or lemon juice. and would they actually do have something else on the page that they could wash off? >> okay. one of the form is used is not chemically available today. the americans, the original supply came from sir james j. in london, who claims to have invented it. although it was, the formula was known by the british for 100 years before. so he probably may have taken a liberal license and claiming he invented it or he may have tweaked it a bit. the americans later on the setup, john jay, his brother, sets up a laboratory of around the skill, no, to manufacture

the agent and we agent that are used. so once the laboratory is actually established, the americans have a plentiful supply. the potter at the time was available to any medical slide. so anyplace that there was a surge they would have had it. >> this will be our last question. >> okay. >> in your research and in your book, how many of these individual spies had to come across as i assume these are the ones that have surfaced again i'm curious kind of how many have surfaced, how many were hung and how many were actually suspected that never discovered, the best spies of the al. >> many were never discovered many because they operated one time.

what i have found -- when i started doing this 18 years ago, there may be was about 40 spies, stories that were pretty much around, the number that were there. after doing it over the last 18 years, i have identified in my computer database between four and 500 people who actually went behind enemy lines to collect intelligence. many would only go for one trip get cold feet and decide that's it. or they do it the one trip just to get the money and that incident. some actually continue on for the majority of the war. so there's all different scenarios. the first book i wrote, "rebellion in the ranks," "mutinies of the american revolution," there are 30 spies in there and many of them were never identified. and i have a series of other books that are coming up, been working on that will identify

spies by state. [applause] >> thank you. john naisbitt is the author of "mutinies of the american revolution" and "rebellion in the ranks." he is a scholar in residence at saint francis university in insulin you. and a founding member of the american revolution roundtable of philadelphia. for more information visit fraunces tavern museum.org. . .