In Courting the Devil and The Partisan’s Wife (Books 2 & 3 of “The Serpent’s Tooth” trilogy), a major plot thread involves espionage during the American Revolution. One of the oldest occupations, spying on an organized level has been around for as long as men have waged wars. While in no way possessing the skills and training of a modern-day spy, covert agents played a vital role on both sides of the conflict.
George Washington relied heavily on gathering and exchanging information about enemy strengths, movements, and supply lines. He also expended time and resources in disseminating misleading information. But during the first few years of the war, American intelligence efforts were no match for their British counterparts.
Under the auspices of The Committee of Secret Correspondence, created during the Second Continental Congress in November of 1775, Washington availed himself of an assortment of alpha-numeric codes—with several kinds of secret ink and several ways to employ them—as well as novel methods of transporting and exchanging these communiqués. In addition to hiding messages in canteens and false heels of shoes, another clever method was to tear the message into narrow strips, roll them up small, and stuff the slivers into the hollow stem of a goose quill pen.
The accompanying photographs (of a dispatch from General Sir Henry Clinton to General John Burgoyne) present an example of one of the coding methods employed by the British. The “Code Mask” was placed over a seemingly innocent letter—or one filled with misinformation, such as the one to the right. The words revealed (below) contained the message.
People from all walks of life served as eyes and ears for their respective causes. Among their numbers were women. Although a few names have come down to us through history—Lydia Darragh, Anna Strong, Ann Bates, to name but a few—no one knows exactly how many women worked behind the lines, selling food and other necessaries in the camps and meeting places frequented by Rebels, British, and Tories. In many cases, such as that of Agent 355 of the “Culper Ring,” we don’t even know their real names. It’s safe to assume we may never know.
In the Courting the Devil, the treatment of my protagonist Anne by Loyalists who have been misled to think she’s a spy is in no way far-fetched. In fact, I saved her from a far worse fate—that suffered by the Canadian Tory, “Miss Jenny,” at the hands of French soldiers serving under Lafayette in 1778. Under the pretense of seeking her father in their camp, she aroused suspicions and was arrested. Not only did her captors try to beat the truth out of her, they raped her. If that wasn’t despicable enough, they cut off her hair—an act considered the height of humiliation at the time. (Miss Jenny, however, did not relent and successfully completed her mission. After returning to the British camp with her intelligence, she vanished from history.) It is also interesting to note that women, in general, were considered too “simple” to understand the complexities of a military campaign, and for the most part, were not taken seriously by either side.
Excerpt from Courting the Devil
