Revolutionary Heroes, and Other Historical Papers | Page 7

in a

freshet. He preferred gold as being the "most portable." He wrote in
1778 from White Plains:
"I have always found a difficulty in procuring intelligence by the means
of paper money, and I perceive that it increases."
It continued to increase, until, I suppose, an offer of a million dollars in
paper would not have induced a spy to enter the enemy's lines. In fact,
the general himself says as much. In acknowledging the receipt of five
hundred guineas for the secret service, he says that for want of a little
gold he had been obliged to dispense with the services of some of his
informers; and adds:
"In some cases no consideration in paper money has been found
sufficient to effect even an engagement to procure intelligence; and
where it has been otherwise, the terms of service on account of the
depreciation have been high, if not exorbitant."
The time was not distant when paper money ceased to have any value,
and Governor Jefferson of Virginia paid his whole salary for a year (a
thousand pounds) for a second-hand side-saddle.
During the later years of the war, the city of New York was the chief
source of information concerning the designs and movements of the
enemy. General Washington, as early as 1778, had always two or three
correspondents there upon whose information he could rely if only they
could send it out to him. Sometimes, when his ordinary correspondents
failed him, he would send in a spy disguised as a farmer driving a small
load of provisions, and who would bring out some family supplies, as
tea, sugar, and calico, the better to conceal his real object. Often the spy
was a farmer, and sometimes quite illiterate. As it was unsafe for him
to have any written paper upon his person, he was required to learn by
heart the precise message which he was to deliver in the city, as also
the information which he received from the resident correspondent.
The messenger frequently entered the city in the disguise of a peddler, a
fact which suggested to Horace Greeley, when he was a printer's
apprentice in Vermont, the idea of a story which he called "The
Peddler- Spy of the Revolution." I once had in my hand a considerable
package of his manuscript of this tale; but even as a boy he wrote so
bad a hand that I could not read much of it. It is possible that this
manuscript still exists.
These methods of procuring intelligence in New York were all abused

by real peddlers, who, when they were caught selling contraband goods
to the enemy, pretended to be spies, and so escaped the penalty. At
length the general chiefly depended upon two persons, one called
"Culper Senior," and the other "Culper Junior," who may have been
father and son, but whose real names and qualities have never been
disclosed. General Washington's secrecy was perfect. His most
confidential officers, except one or two who had to be in the secret,
never knew enough of these men to be able to designate them
afterwards. When Benedict Arnold fled to New York after his treason,
the American spies there were panic-stricken, as they very naturally
concluded that Arnold must have been acquainted with their names and
residences. General Washington was able to assure them that such was
not the fact, and it is even probable that only one individual besides
himself knew who they were. This was Major Benjamin Tallmadge, a
native of Long Island, who frequently received the dispatches from
New York and forwarded them to headquarters. The letters were
commonly taken across the East River to Brooklyn; thence to a point
on the Sound about opposite to Rye or Portchester; and were thence
conveyed to camp.
The dispatches from the Culpers were generally written in invisible ink,
which was made legible by wetting the paper with another liquid. It
was a matter of no small difficulty to keep the spies in New York
supplied with the two fluids, and also with the guineas which were
requisite for their maintenance. At first the spies wrote their letters on a
blank sheet of paper; but that would never do. General Washington
wrote:
"This circumstance alone is sufficient to raise suspicions. A much
better way is to write a letter in the Tory style, with some mixture of
family matters, and, between the lines and on the remaining part of the
sheet, communicate with the stain (the invisible ink) the intended
intelligence."
The Culpers served faithfully to the end of the war, and finally had the
happiness of sending to the general the glorious news that the British
army, the fleet, and the Tories were all evidently preparing to depart
from the city, which they had held for seven years.