Tempermental North Shore Weather Served General Washington Well, Local Historian Says

George Washington as chief disinformation officer? The boy who could not tell a lie turning into the general who ran a war effort and won by spreading false information?

Historian Elizabeth Kahn Kaplan presented a compelling case to support the idea of George Washington as spymaster of the American Revolution at a talk Monday night. About 120 people attended her lecture at the Huntington Public Library on Washington's birthday.

Washington at the time of her story was a tall, muscular, athletic man, an experienced horseman and a natural leader. He was the only man in Congress wearing a uniform when he was chosen to run the fledgling war effort in 1775, Kaplan noted.

His service had been as a British officer during the French and Indian War, which gave him valuable lessons in fighting a guerilla style of warfare as he led the inexperienced, under-funded and woefully under-trained American troops some 13 years later during the early days of the American Revolution.

By spring of 1776, Washington and the army were on the move from Boston to New York City, where he set up headquarters outside the city on what was then largely farmland. He knew he couldn't hold the city against the British -- by Aug. 27, 1776, there were 20,000 well-trained and well-equipped British and Hessian troops in western Brooklyn, where the Battle of Long Island was about to begin against 8,800 of Washington's troops.

It was bad weather during the Battle of Long Island on Aug. 27-28, 1776, that saved the American Revolution, Kaplan told her audience. "After losing the battle to the British and Hessians, Washington and the survivors of his army were saved by the heaviest rainstorm that people could remember," she said. "There were two days of heavy rains in Brooklyn. The enemy couldn't fire their muskets." All the diaries and letters of the time, many of which, she noted, are available online through the Library of Congress, indicated "the fog was so thick you couldn't see more than five feet, and sound was muffled."

That cover allowed Washington to orchestrate one of his most strategic military moves, she said. "The surviving soldiers could escape in the dark under cover of rain and fog." Today, Kaplan said, that retreat is regarded as one of Washington's greatest military achievements, with no loss of men or matériel.

The army lost New York City but lived to fight other battles and ultimately win the war. The British occupied New York City and Long Island for the next seven years.

"There were fewer Loyalists as the years went by," Kaplan said, as the British quartered soldiers in Long Island houses and supplied their soldiers. "We were gorgeous," Kaplan said of Long Island. "The Hessians said it was the healthiest place in their letters home, with enough food."

By mid-1777, many Long Islanders had tired of the British occupation. It is estimated that 8,000 residents fled to Connecticut across Long Island Sound.

The Culper Spy Ring came about because Washington needed intelligence about British troop movements. His Chief of Intelligence, Maj. Benjamin Tallmadge, then 23, had been born in Setauket and told Washington he knew trustworthy school friends there who could gather intelligence and get it to Washington. Thus the spy ring got under way.

Tallmadge wrote letters referring to people by number and alias, a level of protection in case the British intercepted the letters, Kaplan said. He christened George Washington as 711. "Every time I go into a 7-Eleven, guess who I think of?" she asked to appreciative chuckles from her audience.

From his headquarters in Stratford, Conn., Tallmadge crossed the Sound and recruited people he knew and trusted to help gather information.

Among them:

* Abraham Woodhull. He was a cousin of Gen. Nathaniel Woodhull, who was mortally wounded in Jamaica, Queens, following the Battle of Long Island. Abraham Woodhull "had British solders quartered in his house but despite constant fear he was willing to head the spy ring in large part because of what they did to his cousin, Nathaniel," Kaplan said.

* Robert Townsend. He was a Quaker from Oyster Bay who ran a dry goods store in Manhattan. He also wrote for a newspaper that was on the side of the British, so he was able to gather information from British soldiers and Loyalists who knew and trusted him. He wasn't suspected because of his Loyalist associations. His shop was close to what is now the South Street Seaport near the East River at Peck Slip.

* Austin Roe, a tavern owner in Setauket, who is known as Long Island's Paul Revere. Roe would ride his horse 55 miles across the Hempstead Plain to the East River, take the ferry from Brooklyn to Manhattan, ride six blocks to Townsend's shop to collect information and ride back home. To avoid detection, he hid the written information in a locked box buried in a field on Abraham Woodhull's farm. Woodhull would check in the wee hours while the British were asleep in his house.

* Caleb Brewster, a whaleboat captain, who sailed back and forth to Setauket across the Sound. Brewster waited in one of six coves, depending on a pre-arranged code, for Woodhull to meet him with the information from Townsend.

* Anna Smith Strong, a farmer and wife of Patriot Selah Strong. She remained on her property to protect it for her family while British soldiers were quartered in her house after her husband and seven children went to Connecticut. According to legend, which Kaplan said is unverified, she would hang out a black petticoat with the laundry as a signal to Woodhull that Brewster was waiting nearby. The number of white handkerchiefs on the laundry line indicated in which cove he was waiting. This way, Woodhull would know where to deliver Townsend's information to Brewster.

Once Brewster returned to Connecticut, Tallmadge sent the messages via horseback to wherever George Washington was headquartered.

Anna Smith Strong, like many Americans, had within her family both Loyalists and Patriots who did not agree with each other about independence from Great Britain. "Make no mistake, the American Revolution was a civil war," Kaplan said.

Washington's desire for information "early and true" paid off. While he disbanded the spy ring in May 1780, he then reversed his decision in July 1780. He needed the Culpers to inform him as soon as the British had information that the French fleet, bringing much-anticipated help, had arrived in Rhode Island.

On July 20, 1780, Townsend learned that the British knew the French had arrived and that the British fleet was going to leave New York and sail to Rhode Island to attack the French fleet and army while they were still recovering from the sea journey. Townsend wrote an urgent message for George Washington. Luckily, Austin Roe rode into the city that day, took the message from Townsend's shop, rode back to Setauket and brought it to Woodhull, who met up with Brewster. On July 21, 1780, Washington got the information from the Culpers that 8,000 British troops and the British fleet were coming to Rhode Island.

"George Washington got the British to turn back by planting false information that he was going to attack the British in New York with 12,000 men," she said.

"Fires all along the North Shore to Montauk told the British to turn around and go back," Kaplan said.

The war ended in 1781, and so did the spy ring. Years later, after he was serving as the country's first president, Washington rode around Long Island to thank Long Islanders for their support while living under British occupation.

Washington never wanted to know the names of those in the spy ring during the war, Kaplan said. It wasn't until the 1930s when the truth came out. "Being a spy was a contemptible profession. Most kept it a secret from their families and went to their graves without letting people know," she said. They asked for their expenses to be covered, and Washington got them some funds, but it wasn't a paid job. "They were doing it because they loved their country."

Kaplan's talk brought anecdotes and questions from the audience, as well as a demonstration of a period costume by Christopher Garvey, a member of the Huntington Militia, who dressed as a working man or sailor would have.

And Michael Goudket, a teacher and also a Huntington Militia member, explained the "sympathetic stain" the spies used when writing their messages on the flyleaf of a book or in between other words in regular letters. Washington received the stain and the developer from John Jay, who would later be his first Secretary of State. Jay's brother, James, a physician in London and an amateur chemist, had given it to him. Washington gave some to Tallmadge to pass along to Woodhull and Townsend. "They wrote with the ink and then he used the developer to bring [the message] up," Goudket said.

It's no wonder that Washington used to complain about not being able to read their writing, Goudket said. "They were writing with a quill pen using an ink that disappeared. They'd have to dip the quill often and then would forget where they had been writing."

Kaplan's talk was co-sponsored by the New York Council for the Humanities.

Editor's note: To learn even more about Huntington history during the Revolutionary War, visit the Town Clerk's Archives. Items from the Revolutionary War collection include receipts for supplies and books, oaths of loyalty and town accounting records.

The Archives is located in Town Hall and is open on weekdays, except holidays, from 9a.m.- 4p.m. For additional information, call (631) 351-3035 or e-mail Town Archivist  Antonia S. Mattheo at amattheou@town.huntington.ny.us. Town Clerk Jo-Ann Raia is the records management officer for the Archives and  Stacy H. Colamussi is the records administrator.