Washington Went to Great Lengths to Ensure That He Was Informed
George Washington was disappointed with espionage operations in 1777. His frustration with the inability to set up a reliable intelligence pipeline continued into 1778. Then in August, 1778, a Connecticut lieutenant named Caleb Brewster offered to furnish intelligence from behind enemy lines. By the end of the month, Brewster had sent in accurate reports about British troop movements, as well as the condition of Royal Navy ships after a storm and battles with the French. Encouraged by Brewster’s success, Washington ordered a General Charles Scott to handle the new intelligence pipeline, and assigned him Major Tallmadge as an assistant. Scott had a full plate, however, and was uninterested in espionage. So Tallmadge ended up as the de facto spy master in charge of Brewster’s activities.
Tallmadge’s responsibilities grew when Washington ordered him to recruit more New York spies. He recruited Abraham Woodhull, a friend and neighbor with whom he had grown up in Setauket, a Long Island small community. Woodhull gathered the intelligence and delivered it to Brewster, who then delivered it to Tallmadge and thus to George Washington. Washington, who was exceptionally hands-on for a general when it came to espionage, gave Woodhull the codename “Samuel Culper” – a play on Culpeper County, Virginia. With its key players in place and its tasks defined, the Culper Ring was now operational and ready to shape events and make history.