Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose

Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose concerns itself with American espionage activities during the American Revolution. This is a great history book that expands from its base subject to shed light on various related aspects of the Revolution. This work is the basis for the very good television series TURN.

While Rose’s book touches upon much of the spy work that both sides engaged in during the war, its primary focus is a on a group that was known as The Culper Ring. This was a spy ring that was organized in Southern New York by American Officer Benjamin Tallmadge. During most of the war, New York City was the primary hub for British military operations. Rebel spies in the city passed information across Long Island through key ring member Abraham Woodhull. The information was then dispatched across the Long Island Sound to rebel-controlled Connecticut and eventually to George Washington himself. The activities and interactions of the members of the ring are related in fascinating detail.

A great deal of this book is local history for me. A large percentage of the activity that is described in this work takes place on Long Island, NY, which is also my home. Much of the political, social and religious culture of Long Island at the time is surveyed. In addition, a locally famous raid that was led by Tallmadge is detailed in the book. 

In 1780, spurred by intelligence supplied by the ring, Tallmadge led a small force from Connecticut to Long Island across the Long Island Sound. He landed near a beach that I often frequent. His mounted troops rode across Long Island to attack a fort and a supply depot. The resulting destruction of British provisions and supplies was a detriment to British forces operating in New Your City. His route is marked locally and known as The Tallmadge Trail. I live on this trail.  His small force proceeded down a road on which my house is now situated.

One aspect that makes this a history book of distinction is that it expands beyond its primary subject to provide intriguing and important insights into multiple aspects of the American Revolution and early America. Diverse subjects such as the brutal nature of some areas and subcultures of New York City, the religious aspects and conflicts relating to both Rebels as well as Loyalists, etc. are explored. As someone who is interested the American Revolutionary War period, I found this book to be a feast of interesting concepts.

As I am often known to do, I will focus a little upon just one of many points of this work. Rose argues that intelligence work in which both sides engaged was different from, and in many ways unique to, the American Revolution, as opposed to anything going on in Europe.

Rose explains how such spy craft was not as important on the battlefields of the Old World. On European conflicts he writes.

“collecting intelligence about the enemy’s movements was not of prime concern since there were only certain, defined routes along which an army could travel, and topographers could thus accurately predict how long a formation would take to reach its destination”

and later,

“In Europe, the mark of a great captain was not his talent for deception or for divining intentions, but his ability to outmaneuver opponents on known ground and defeating them in the field as they marched and wheeled in lines and columns.”

 Rose goes on to describe how the conflict in America was different,

 In America’s vast geographical spaces, however, armies (and guerrillas) could hide, live off the land, travel cross-country, appear out of nowhere, strike, and vanish. Possessing advance or intimate knowledge of what the enemy was doing, or was planning to do— the raison d’être of  espionage— became of vital importance. 

As the business of intelligence was distinctive in America, Rose goes on to describe all sorts of innovations employed by the Culper Ring and other rebel spies, as well as by their British opponents, including invisible ink, complex and innovative codes, economic sabotage through the use of counterfeiting, etc. This is but one of the many interesting and enlightening areas explored in this work.

 This is a suburb book. It is well written and researched. It tells an interesting story. It expands into a host of relevant and diverse subjects. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in the American Revolutionary War era, the history of New York City and Long Island, or spy craft in general.

For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions by James R. Gaines

For Liberty and Glory: Washington, Lafayette, and Their Revolutions by James R. Gaines is a parallel biography of both George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette with an emphasis on the relationship between the two men. The book also presents the author’s take on both the American and French Revolutions. At times, Gaines’s viewpoint is original and insightful. His writing is also very good. Where this work falls a bit short is in the relative scarcity of in-depth analysis on the relationship between both men as well as on both revolutions. While these connections are explored, I hungered for more. If the book had devoted fewer words to details that are generally known already and spent more words examining and discussing these facts, this would have been a stronger work.

For those unfamiliar with the details of Lafayette’s life, my summary is included along with my commentary on Lafayette by Harlow Giles Unger. For those unfamiliar with the details of Washington’s earlier life, before becoming the first President of the United States, he led the Continental Army for year after year in arduous battles against both the British and the natural elements. It was during the war years of the American Revolution that the teenage Marquis de Lafayette, having volunteered for service in the American Army, distinguished himself as one of America’s most capable generals as he engaged in vitally important diplomacy between the United States and France and established an extremely close, lifelong friendship with Washington.

On some of the incongruities of the relationship between the two men, Gaines writes,

“The friendship of Washington and Lafayette seems in some ways as implausible as the French-American one, almost like the setup to a joke: What does a Virginia frontiersman and grade-school dropout have in common with a moneyed French aristocrat who learned his horsemanship in the company of three future kings? Or what do you call a bumptious optimist whose best friend is a moody loner? Lafayette threw his arms around people and kissed them on both cheeks. Washington did not. “

Later, Lafayette became a pivotal player in the French Revolution. Though he was an early leader, he was later forced to flee its excesses and was later imprisoned in Prussia and then Austria, having been accused of being a dangerous revolutionary, for a period of five years. During most of this time, he and Washington engaged in a steady stream of correspondence.

As for the connections between the revolutions, Gaines touches upon numerous points. The American Founders and French Revolutionaries drew upon similar intellectual roots. Debt, incurred by France in its support of the American cause, was likely the primary spark that ignited the French Revolution. The ideals of the American Revolution spread to France and encouraged revolution there. French officers who served in the American Revolution helped bring revolutionary ideology to France. As the French Revolution raged, the two primary American political factions each took sides. At least in the early years, Thomas Jefferson’s Republicans strongly supported the French Revolution and its ideals as Alexander Hamilton’s Federalists vehemently opposed it.

When Gaines does dig deep, his analysis is very well thought out and perceptive. One of just several really interesting tracks he takes is a look into the motivations that drove both men. The author concludes that the lifelong inspiration for both of these figures can be boiled down to regard for their own reputations.

Gaines argues that both men were obsessed with what the public and what history thought about them. Of particular importance was to act in away as to be remembered as honorable and virtuous.

In the 18th century—in America, France and Britain alike—the ultimate test of personal success was called "fame," "glory" or "character," words that signified neither celebrity nor moral courage but referred to a person's reputation, which was also called his "honor." This sort of acclaim was not a cheap popularity divorced from achievement, as it would be in an age when people could become famous for being well known. Fame and its synonyms meant an illustrious eminence, a stature accrued from having led a consequential life.”

Later Gains goes on,

Washington and Lafayette started out by striving to create for themselves the image of the people that they wished to be, a lifelong endeavor to act well. If their motives for doing so were mixed, their commitment for doing so were not, and somewhere along the way, in a kind of political and moral alchemy, their urgings for fame and glory were transmuted into finer stuff, their lives became enactments of high principle. They lived such a life, did such deeds, even remained friends, in part, to stake their claim on immortality, which meant to have their story told; and the audience they cared must to hear it was posterity….”

I have read somewhat extensively about Washington. At least in terms of America’s first President, Gaines is right on the money (as is Washington). His argument that Lafayette’s motives were similar is also very convincing. The argument that certain men of this era were obsessively preoccupied with reputation and virtue is very much in line with the thinking and writings of Gordon Wood, who has written extensively on the American Revolutionary generation’s belief system concerning self-image. My commentary on Wood’s Radicalism and the American Revolution is here and his Revolutionary Characters is here.

It is fascinating to examine how Lafayette took this belief system into his later years when he was immersed in the tumultuous and, at times, morally ambiguous setting of the French Revolution. Lafayette consistently took a moderate position and advocated for a constitutional monarchy in France. As Harlow Giles Unger does, Gains concludes that had Lafayette acted more decisively against radicals when he had the chance, his popularity and control of military forces would have been enough to prevent the French Revolution from descending into chaos and mass executions (I do not have a thorough enough grasp of the French Revolution to have a serious opinion on the validity of this theory). Gaines actually points out that Napoleon Bonaparte also reached the same conclusion when writing about the events of the French Revolution. The Marquis’ hesitance to do so resulted from his revulsion against the use of military force as a means to reach political ends. Such action would have destroyed his reputation as a lover of liberty and revolution in a moderate form.

There are other very astute and worthwhile points made in this book. It is also a very engaging read. However, there are more complete biographies of both Washington and Lafayette and more complete histories of both Revolutions. Thus, this book is recommended, but only for those who are already interested in the subjects covered and are just hungry for more. Readers who fit this bill will, however, find this book very engaging.

Revolutionary Characters by Gordon Wood

Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different by Gordon Wood is a book for fairly serious American Revolutionary era history buffs. If one is indeed such an aficionado, this is a thought provoking and fun read.

Wood’s book consists of a series of essays, each concerning a different major American Founder. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and Aaron Burr are all covered. For the most part, the pieces are not biographical sketches; instead they are analyses of the public personas of each of the men. Therefore, I would not recommend this book to readers who have only a cursory interest in the men or the era. Some of the essays, particularly the one that covers John Adams and his political theories, dig into fairly intricate concepts and issues of the time.

In several linking essays, Wood explains that the public image of these men was of the utmost importance both to the men themselves as well as the public at large. All of these men considered themselves enlightened gentleman of their times. The author argues that in this era, society did not look to or esteem private personalities. Thus, a “constructed” public personality, as long as it was kept consistent in public, was not considered disingenuous or undesirable; in fact, to some degree, private or inner character was disregarded as unimportant.

These men all spent their early years striving to become part of the enlightened elite. They rejected what at the time were traditional conceptions of hereditary elitism of the old aristocracy. Instead, the conception of a “gentleman” involved reaching, through one’s own devices, a level of education, morality and manors that placed a man above the masses of society.

Wood writes,

“To be a gentleman was to think and act like a gentleman, nothing more, an immensely radical belief with implications that few foresaw. It meant being reasonable, tolerant, honest, virtuous, and “candid,” an important eighteenth-century characteristic that connoted being unbiased and just as well as frank and sincere. Being a gentleman was the prerequisite to becoming a political leader. It signified being cosmopolitan, standing on elevated ground in order to have a large view of human affairs, and being free of the prejudices, parochialism, and religious enthusiasm of the vulgar and barbaric. It meant, in short, having all those characteristics that we today sum up in the idea of a liberal arts education.”

In addition to striving to attain the status of a gentleman, Wood explains that the Founders highly valued the concept of “disinterestedness”.  A virtuous leader needed to be wealthy enough that they did not need to work or even concern themselves with making money. In theory, only a person who was rich enough not to have interest in the profit motive could be trusted with the reigns of government. Not all of the Founders disliked mercantilism (some, like Thomas Jefferson, despised it) but most believed that it was inappropriate for a businessperson to be a politician.

Wood describes this concept,

“We today have lost most of this earlier meaning. Even educated people now use disinterested as a synonym for uninterested, meaning “indifferent or unconcerned.” It is almost as if we cannot quite imagine someone who is capable of rising above a pecuniary interest and being unselfish or impartial where an interest might be present.

In the eighteenth-century Anglo-American world gentlemen believed that only independent individuals, free of interested ties and paid by no masters, could practice such virtue. It was thought that those who had occupations and had to work strenuously for a living lacked the leisure for virtuous public leadership.”

Within this framework of a disinterested gentleman, all of the Founders, either through their own machinations or through external impositions, had constructed public personas. These characters, how they came to be, what they represented, how they affected history, etc. are generally the subjects of Wood’s essays. Each piece digs fairly deep into the analysis of Wood’s subject. Having read fairly extensively on these men and the era previously, I feel that Wood’s essays provided depth as well as both familiar and unique perspectives, though I do not agree with all of Wood’s conclusions.

One of many interesting points here was that there were always exceptions to the rules. Wood argues that Paine’s public persona did not fit that of a gentleman and Burr’s persona did not appear to be “disinterested.”

As one final irony pointed out by Wood, the nation and society that these men helped to create, that of powerful mercantile interests, an economy propelled by the acquisition of material goods and common people (though only white males) participating in political and social discussion and debate, had little interest in electing disinterested gentleman as political leaders. Thus, Wood convincingly argues that all subsequent generations of American political leaders were of a very different breed from that of the Founders.

Though not an introduction to the American Founders, this work provides important and, at least for me, intriguing information on the personalities, philosophies, perceptions and accomplishments of these very important people. There are a lot of detailed and interesting musings within the essays that I cannot come close to delving into within a single blog post. Highly recommended for those interested in the period as well as in the history of government.

The Following Posts cover related subjects:

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph Ellis

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

Burr Verses Hamilton: Two Views

Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr by Nancy Isenberg

Thomas Jefferson:The Art of Power by John Meacham

Radicalism and the American Revolution by Gordon Wood

Reading Gordon Wood

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton is a massive and comprehensive account of this American Founder’s life. In this work the author presents a balanced account of Hamilton’s momentous existence. The narrative is interesting as it is detailed. This book spans over seven hundred pages of fairly dense writing and will satisfy all but the most serious scholar. For all its intricacies it is a page-turner that is difficult to put down if one has any interest in the subjects covered. Though sometimes a little too apologetic about Hamilton’s enormous character flaws and questionable actions, Chernow honestly illustrates the good, the bad and the in–between that encompassed Alexander Hamilton.

Of Scottish and French descent, Hamilton was born around 1755 in Charlestown, on the island of Nevis. He later spent most of his impoverished and tumultuous childhood on the nearby island of St. Croix. Hamilton experienced misery at a young age. His father abandoned his family and his mother died when Hamilton was only eleven, leaving the boy to be raised by relatives.

In 1772 Hamilton immigrated to America. After several years of college, he joined the Revolutionary Army in the war for independence against Britain. Though he saw combat, Hamilton’s most notable role in the conflict was as the secretary and aide to General George Washington. The association and friendship that developed during this period spanned the remainder of Washington’s life. During this time Hamilton also established relationships with such key personages as Henry Knox and the Marquis de Lafayette.

Hamilton possessed a vast intellect. Even during the war years he studied and became extremely versed in the subjects that we would label today as economics and finance. These interests would serve both himself as well as the young United States for years to come.

In the post war years Hamilton was elected to the pre-Constitution Congress under the Articles of Confederation and pursued a distinguished and successful legal career. During this period Hamilton, who was always a prolific writer, began to shine as a political and economic theorist and philosopher.

Hamilton really came into his own during the Constitutional Convention of 1787. A major architect of the blueprint of the American Government, Hamilton advocated for a more elitist and less democratic system. As one of the founders who recognized that America needed a strong central government, Hamilton helped to fashion much of the framework of the document. Of particular note, at the convention Hamilton distinguished himself as a fierce opponent of slavery and was arguably the most pro-abolitionist of the founders.

Ratification of the constitution by the individual states was not guaranteed after the Convention, as it faced stiff opposition by the Anti–Federalists. Perhaps the key factor in winning acceptance was Hamilton’s co–authorship of the Federalist Papers. These voluminous treatises were written as an argument in support of ratification. These documents serve as a great philosophical landmark that extolled the virtues and benefits of strong and balanced republican government.

After successful ratification, Hamilton once again served Washington as the young nation’s Treasury Secretary. In this position he established a new financial structure for the country. This included the establishment of a central bank, a credit system and a structured and planned national debt. He also strongly encouraged a market economy. During this time he engaged in bitter and, at times, personal debates with enemies of these policies. Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison led this opposition.

After leaving the Washington administration, Hamilton continued to exert influence. It was during this period that Hamilton’s actions became the most questionable. When war with France loomed in 1798, Hamilton was slated to be the de facto commander a newly organized American Army. It was during this phase that Hamilton, through his statements and actions, indicated that he had designs on suppressing political opposition in America using military force. He also began to engage in an unauthorized planning of the military conquest of Spanish territories using the reconstituted American army.  Around this time Hamilton became somewhat paranoid about his enemies. Hamilton’s scheming was halted when President John Adams, one of Hamilton’s bitter rivals, initiated an unexpected compromise with France that averted all-out war. Subsequently Adams ordered the new army disbanded, infuriating Hamilton.

Hamilton’s feud with President Adams, as well as revelations concerning an extramarital affair, eventually knocked the former Treasury Secretary from his position as leader of the Federalist Party. Though no longer the head of that faction, Hamilton continued to play a vigorous part in American political and economic debate.

Hamilton was extremely combative with political opponents. He often engaged in anonymous, personal and vituperative attacks on his rivals. He was involved in long running and bitter feuds with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and even his fellow Federalist John Adams. He nearly had a fistfight with James Madison. In 1804, his conflict with Aaron Burr ended in the duel where Hamilton was fatally wounded.

Chernow presents an account of Hamilton’s and Burr’s rivalry and subsequent duel that is very different from the account that Nancy Isenberg presented in her Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr. My commentary on that work is here. I will likely focus on this conflict and differing versions of it in a separate and upcoming blog post.

For of all his faults, it is worth contemplating the enormous influence Hamilton had on the history of American and Western economics and finance.  Beginning with his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton almost single handedly created the modern economic and mercantile United States that emerged in the nineteenth century and helped shape the concept of the capitalistic democratic state that eventually spread throughout the world.

Hamilton espoused various principles and structures that were extremely controversial in his time and afterwards. Starting with the economic and mercantile model of Great Britain, Hamilton fashioned an economic structure that propelled the United States into an economic and military empire. Over the strenuous objections, Republicans (not to be confused with the modern day American Republican Party, this early Republican Party has actually survived into present times and is now the modern day American Democratic Party) like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Hamilton created a national bank, a system of financial securities, organized the national debt and helped institute a national system of taxation. In complex economic treaties he postulated that such innovations were necessary for a modern commercial based republic.

Hamilton advocated for a strong capitalistic system and fiscal policy based upon manufacturing and trade, that was supported but also regulated by a strong, active and involved central government.

I observe that today, many Americans, particularly those on the far right as well as the far left of current political thinking, continue to vilify Hamilton’s policies. He was one of architects of the modern, trade based capitalistic world of activist governments and strong central banks. Currently on both sides of the American political spectrum, one often hears calls for the abolition of the United States Federal Reserve as well as the modern banking and finance system. While I consider myself a strong progressive who can be often heard excoriating the power and abuses of the world banking and financial structures, I believe this system, partially founded by Hamilton, has done more good then harm and I would be loath to abolish it. This system is a necessary part of the infrastructure of the contemporary world, without which poverty and misery would be much, much more prevalent. It has been one of the key drivers of human progress. (I grant that there is a strong argument, with technology and industrialization potentially threatening the very existence of humanity and civilization, that it would have been better had a technological-industrial society never developed. That argument is beyond the subject of this particular blog post). I advocate for major reform that curbs on the power and abuses perpetuated by this system. When I look at the policies that Hamilton advocated, I think that he would support such reforms.

In our time, many mistake Hamilton for a laissez-faire small government conservative. Hamilton would have recoiled at that description. He advocated a strong central government, with relatively high taxes, that was involved in all sorts of projects ranging from public infrastructure to public education. He championed a government that would take an active approach in both encouraging and regulating commerce. In other words, he established a blueprint for the modern, market-orientated democracies that include healthy doses of government intervention in their economies. Hamilton is often caricatured as an unabashed supporter of the wealthy and financial markets, Chernow points out that this depiction is inaccurate. In terms of a macroeconomic world view, I think that Hamilton got it just about right.

There is so much more to Chernow’s book and to Hamilton’s life than his economic theories and accomplishments. In meticulous detail Chernow explores Hamilton’s equally important contributions to Republican government, the American military cause during the Revolution, as well as his upbringing and personal life. For all of its detail, Alexander Hamilton is an engrossing read and should be of immense interest to anyone interested in the man, his time, or the world that he helped to create.

My commentary comparing Nancy Isenberg’s “Fallen Founder” and Ron Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton” can be found here.