23. The Spy Chain from Robert Townsend to George Washington
George Washington closed his instructions to Robert Townsend thus: “There can be scarcely any need of recommending the greatest caution and secrecy in a business so critical and dangerous. The following seem to be the best general rules: To entrust none but the persons fixed upon to transmit the business. To deliver the dispatches to none upon our side but those who shall be pitched upon for the purpose of receiving them and to transmit them and any intelligence that may be obtained to no one but the Commander-in-Chief“. Little did Washington know just how well Townsend would perform. Nor could the American commander in chief have predicted just how well-positioned Townsend was to come across some of the war’s most sensitive information.
Townsend used invisible ink to write his reports on seemingly blank reams of paper that were delivered to Culper Ring spy Abraham Woodhull in Setauket, NY. Woodhull delivered the intelligence to Caleb Brewster, who delivered it to their handler, George Washington’s aide in charge of intelligence, Benjamin Tallmadge, who in turn delivered it to Washington. The general read the reports after he developed the invisible ink with a chemical agent, and often responded to Townsend with invisible ink messages of his own.