artillery unit, which spent their time sitting there watches a two-cannon unit that was across on staten island, and these two units spent 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 in being obnoxious and making noise and collecting the bricks as the ovens in chatham were being built, that they were actually fired upon. so that helped to -- oop. get there. oh. it's not cooperating. but -- what we wind up happening, is the last part, the exploitation of it, and washington is able to steal the march, but what he does is, he has 30 boats put on carriages

that are brought to springfield, new jersey, to, for the anticipated attack on staten island. there would be no other reason to bring the boats there, because they weren't going to virginia. so he's gone and convinced the british that there's 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 you are aware, they make it down to virginia and corn wallace surrenders at yorktown. okay? that gives you pretty much of a run-through on the spycraft that was used during the american revolution. there's many more codes and ciphers. they 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. >> a comment on nathan haile? >> nathan haile 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 grant. his papers were found and just became recently available. in there he identifies that robert rodgers actually got haile to tell him that he was a spy and what his mission was. and haile should have kept his mouth shut.

he thought rodgers was also an american spy, and because he actually outed himself, he winds up getting himself hung. next question? >> -- can you comment on washington getting his troops out of brooklyn into manhattan, and the old -- almost like a cliche out of the movies except too early. built up the fires and made it seem like the army was still there. >> yeah. that was -- he also used that after, down in trenton, where the, he had the fires built to deceive the british that they were still in position, and, but at the battle of brooklyn, he uses the clever marvelmen to get

his troops across the east river back to manhattan, and, you know, by the fact that the british can were convinced 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 deceptions. as i said, for somebody who never told a lie, he certainly stretched it an awful lot. we have one there. >> could you comment upon herk cue l hercules mulligan? >> when he comes to new york he ends up living with mulligan and that's how they get to know each other. mulligan, there's 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 morristown 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 chess matches at one time. pieces advance very slightly when you find another clue, and in the case of 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 clothier, the

british officers would go to him to get their new uniforms or r there fancy attire and naturally while there waiting and being fitted, he would entice them into talking, and extract information that way. okay. >> [ inaudible ]. >> -- speak to the involvement possibly of the newspaper, norman hutton and -- >> okay. one of the things that remington -- he appears to switch sides about 1781. in an appendix in the book i go into the correspondence that appears to exist between remington and colonel island. 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's 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 appear to have found, and it's very interesting that the main use is a -- the name of a person who wrote a book on codes and ciphers, lemuel noun. so some of the references use wod have been references would to, if you go back to the period works have been understood by somebody who's in the military line, and he also -- and the last ad that i mentioned, he's indicating that he's having a problem with paper for his newspaper, and 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's going to be there, and be available. so if you follow this 2, we don don't have exact proof but it's the closest thing i could ever find of any documents in any way that would indicate how the connection was made. jock yeah. that took a lot of hunting and reading a lot of pages to find that one. yes? >> the -- well, i think -- can you hear me? can you go back and -- one code you had there for benedict arnold? was that the one he gave for the designs of west point, or was that some -- >> oh. the letter? >> the letter. >> the letter is where he offered west point for 20,000

pounds. >> that's not the one that -- where the major was hung in upstate new york. >> no. no. the letters that andre 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 paper, which are out at the clements library at the university of michigan. >> proceeded the -- >> 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. yeah. 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 -- they would come either across to basically new jersey city area, and then acrokrocross the marsh over to newark. there actually exists a map that has the spy routes marked on it through the marshes. it came out of the british head quarter papers, which i found absolutely interesting that they actually plashged it marked it, and the other route was, they would go over to staten island and then go over to elisabetli which if you go over the bridge now it's such a short area and the channel has been widened since the 18th century. one of the spies tell us how we used to do it, you would take a rowboat, row across to the other

side and then sink the boat. below the waterline. go do his business, come back. a one-person rowboat. you'd raise the boat. row across to the other side, sink it again. the spy was james moody. and he operated mostly from staten island down near the tauntonville end, across to the woodbridge creek and he would hide his rowboat next to the creek, and next to amboy and c. warren. >> are any of the ciphers sill used today by the government and if not what other sorts of technology have taken over, hiding secrets and -- >> computers. >> computers? okay. >> actually, you can use your computer and encode messages far superior than what was used in the american revolution. yeah. no.

computers today, design the codes, and where i talked about a one-letter shift, that's one transaction. they would then take the one-letter shift, which actually they would use different combinations and then make multiple shifts, and if you get into reading about the enigma machine and the japanese purple codes, you'll see that they go into multiple layers of transxrikzs, a tran transcriptions and the only way to decode the stuff is using a computer. and, you know, you really need to be a mathematician to, today, to be doing codes and ciphers at that level. there's also, one of the things i didn't mention that we actually used here in new york, that was used at 1 broadway was a thing calmed the language of flowers. there was a young girl who was at putnam's headquarters, and up in the top of 1 broadway was a

widow's watch and she would go up there and observe the american troops, and then come down and draw painings. draw paintings of flower. the last book written on this subject is about 1835, but by using flowers, you could give a description as to how many troop was there. whether they were going to be just maamassed on the border. whether they going to attack. there is one individual who claims that in a bouquet of flowers, he could put the equivalent of eight pages of text. so, yeah. there are other systems that i didn't go into. i just touched on some of them. >> could you list a few of the documented female spies? >> okay.

there's ann bates. a british spy, who was going into the american camps and then coming back and reporting. there is a ms. jenny. we know she is a french seamstress that the british sent up into the french camp. she is suspected. the french arrest her. she is sent over, interrogated by one of washington's commands. she is sent back to north castle, and she is then, had her head shave and forced to ride out of camp backwards on a horse, and told if she ever comes back again, she'll be hung. and, by the way, you hang spies. you normally don't shoot them. only a gentleman is shot in the 18th century pap spy is not a gentleman. so a spy is not shot, which is why andre was hung. he has to be shot, which would ind kapt he was a gentleman and if he was a? he couldn't have ban spy and

they shouldn't be executing him. so they had to hang him. they could not shoot him. 18th century etiquette. >> i -- washington had many aides in camp. was one in charge of the spying and the decoding? >> you had different case agents running spies. you had tom mitch, who was running spies on long island. you had dayton who was running spies out of elizabeth. a lot more is made of tcalpers, who are so well documented, so well documented because they operated over a long distance. when spies operate at a close distance, depositions are taken rather than original documents

maintained. and their reports tend to be summarized. so what happens is that those reports from these spies who are nearby tend to be summarized in general's reports, because it's word of mouth. you're not doing that much in codes and ciphers for nearby spies. it's only spies who are coming a distance. in the case of talmidge, up to connecticut where he would then do the coding based upon his code book, which is one of the appendix items of my book. there's other copies around, and he would then send the transx p transcribed messages. some of the original messages went on when he was out of position as well. so it tends to be, whoever's the case agent, is the one that's going to be doing the decoding. not necessarily the aide to

camps. they may be collecting the information, taking down the orders from washington, sending them out, but they're really not running the operation. they're more like a secretary. >> thank you. so back in the days what is the main motivation? and i guess since it was -- how much was a typical pay day? >> i'm sorry? >> how much money were the spies paid for their activities? >> oh. they were paid based upon what the perceived danger was. depended on the assignment. you could be certain spies got paid. it you're doing research and claim somebody claiming to about spy that did not get paid, they were actually a scout. you always paid your spies, no

matter which side you were on, because you didn't pay them, then the other side's going to pay them and they're going to be working for the other side. so spies tend to get paid even before the generals get their money. okay? also, the apparent spy in the 18th century has different means besides what we think of. we think of spies, we think of the james bond-type spy going incognito behind enemy lines. in the >> -- 18th century the term spy also meant scout on the frontier. and 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 time it has a modifier, be very careful,

because usually what it means is, somebody was given the job to go up on top of a mountaintop, and count the number of people and in which direction they're going. they're not doing anything more than just taking a traffic toll. >> okay. >> one back there. >> do you have any specifics on the chemistry wthat was used in some of the hidden messages that's more sophisticated than the vinegar and lemon juice and add heat? and would they actually then have something else on the page that they could wash off? >> okay. one of the formulas uses oak wall, which is not chemically available today. the americans, their original supply came from sir james jay 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 -- a liberal license in claiming it, that he invented it, or he may have tweaked it a bit. the americans later on set up up -- jon jay sets, his brother, sets up a laboratory around pea peakskill, new york to manufacture the agent and reagent that are used. so once the laboratory is actually established, the americans have a plentiful supply. the oak-all powder at the time was available through any medical supply. so any place that there was a surgery, they would have had it. >> this will be our last question. >> okay. >> in your research in your book, how many of these

individual spy stories or spy lives have you come across? and i assume these are the ones that have surfaced. and i'm curious, how many have surfaced, how many were hung, and how many actually you suspect that were never discovered i guess were the best spies of all, or never confessed after the war? >> many were never discovered. mainly because they operated one time. what i have found -- when i started doing this 18 years ago, there maybe was about 40 spies that -- stories that were pretty much around as to number that were there. after doing it over the last 18 years, that identifieses -- in my computer database between 4 and 500 people who went behind enemy lines to collect intelligence. many who only go for one trip, get cold feet and decide that's it. or do the one trip just to get the money and that ends it. some actually, you know, continue on for the majority of the war.

so there's all different scenarios. the first book i wrote, the rebellion in the ranks, mutiny of the american revolution, there's 30 spies in there, and many of those were never identified before. and i have a series of other books that are coming up that i'm working on that will identify spies by state. okay. thank you. next weekend on history bookshelf, an interview with columnist and author, robert novak from his home in washington, d.c. mr. novak talked about his memoir, the "the prince of darkness,:50 years reporting in washington." robert novak died in 2009 due to come any occasions from brain cancer. history bookshelf airs three times each weekend on american history tv, including saturday at noon eastern. when immigrants start to show up in significant numbers,

which is somewhat the case in the 1820s and 1830s, but really very much is the case in the 1840s and afterwards, they're showing up into a political environment in which they're already qualified to vote as soon as they become citizens. just to give a sense of the kind of politics we're talking about, this is an image from "harper's weekly", 1858, just after election time and it shows a saloon and a polling place. if you wanted to vote -- you can see the doorway all the way in the back. you had to go in there to vote. >> this weekend on lectures in history, from money muncie, indiana, professor james conley explains immigration, voting and the roots of pluralism in the united states. tonight at 8:00 eastern, part of american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. >> when people are saying to him, don't take the vice presidency, right now you are the most -- you are a powerful majority leader. don't take the vice presidency.

you won't have any power. johnson says, power is where power goes. meaning, i can make power in any situation. his whole life i say, nothing in his life previously makes that seem like he's most -- because that's exactly what he had done. all his life. >> sunday night, the conclusion of our conversation with robert caro on "the passage of power." his multivolume biography of the 36th president, sunday night on c-sp c-span's "q and a." >> american artifacts visits museums and historic places. next, join us for a visit to milwaukee for a look inside the restored gilded age mansion of german american beer barron, captain frederick pabst. >> i'm john eastburg, senior historyion for the pabst

mention. this was the most formal room in the house and probably the least used room in the house. what's interesting about the pabst mansion to me is that this is truly an expression of the american gilded age in that an american family is really kind of taking all of the best ideals from europe over a period of about 300 years, and compacting them under one roof. and so you have each of these rooms expressing an individual architectural thought. and so this room, designed in the french roque style popular in the 18th century finds itself in 19th century milwaukee. now, we're very fortunate that most of the furnishings and the panelling and everything in this house were done here in milwaukee by the matthews brothers. and so this house, while it could have been all of imported materials, actually, again, is an expression of what was

capable in milwaukee in the 1890s. we're fortunate that when the pabst family sold the house to the archdiocese in 1908, they sold the house with the majority of the original furnishings on the first floor. so those items have been purchased again from the archdiocese, and have once again returned to their original rooms. using period photographs, we're very fortunate that the pabst family had a commercial photographer come into the house in 1897. he shot two or three plates of several of the principle rooms in the house. and so we have an excellent idea of what was in the house originally. and so we use those photographs today, not only in our restoration work, but also with my work with the pabst family to help bring original items back to the house. when we executed the restoration of this room in the early 1990s, we returned all of the woodwork back to its original enamelled

finish with gold leaf. the silk wall conversation, which we'll see behind me were actually remilled for us inially own, france, based on the original pattern based on the photographs. as we enter the front hall, this was really a place where your guests would have been wowed by the entrance into the house. and this room was meant to make the biggest statement. this room which was designed in the german renaissance style of the 17th century, was executed in a way that's -- would exhibit the finest works of art in the collection, and really give a sense of ba ronnial elegance with the chandelier in the front hall. this is a bust of captain

frederick pabst. fr frederick pabst was born in germany in 1836 and emigrated with his parents when he was 12, 1848. they came to milwaukee, but milwaukee was such a small town at that point, that they really felt their chances were better for success in chicago. and so they went down to chicago, and that's where captain pabst's mother died in the cholera epidemic of 1849, so frederick when he was a teenager, was interested in a maritime career, and so he joined the great lakes steam ship company as a cabin boy and then worked his way up to captain. and so that's what we have, the title of captain. and it was while he was serving on a ship on lake michigan in the 1860s that he actually met his future father-in-law, who was phillip bess best of the best brewing company. phillip had an eldest daughter,

maria, so maria and frederick pabst courted for two years and then were married in 1862. now, frederick pabst enjoyed his career on the great lakes, and so he remained a captain for another two years until he finally retired and bought an equal half interest in his father-in-law's brewing company. for $21,000. again, a large sum of money, especially when one considers we were in the middle of the civil war. so at that point, he starts his career as a beer barron. but it was a very small brewing company, because phillip best brewing company was only making about 3,000 barrels of beer a year. he took that company from this very modest start to a brewing company that was considered the world's largest lauger brewing company, and brewing in excess of a million bottles a year. >> you can watch this