Customer Reviews

Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring

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As the title above indicates, I'm a collector of books set in Revolutionary America as well as the author of a frontier novel. I usually take my time reading a book because I like to savor it as I read. However, much to my wifes surprise, I finished the book in only a few days. I enjoyed the book so much that I wanted to keep on reading when I usually would have paused. The book reads like a novel and Mr. Rose has a unique talent for being able to transport the reader to the time of the revolution and put an entire conflict into perspective. He did a terrific job of capturing the pace of life, which can be a difficult thing to do with the written word. I have literally read over a thousand books on the revolution, and this book is in my top 5. Best of all the book can be trusted to be true to history and is not an attempt at revisionism. You won't go wrong by ordering this book.

Rose obviously did an incredible amount of work on this book. I finished it last night. All I can say is Wow, the pages just flew by.. I have whole bookshelves loaded down with volumes on the Revolution, so it's not often I'm surprised by anything I read about it but I was this time! I recommend Washington's Spies to anyone with even a passing interest in military history, George Washingto, espionage, or just great history writing.

Being a devoted history buff with special interest in 18th century American history, I consider myself pretty well versed in that area. I didn't really think there was much I hadn't read yet about the Revolutionary War. But then I picked up WASHINGTON'S SPIES: THE STORY OF AMERICA'S FIRST SPY RING by Alexander Rose and discovered a whole portion of the fight for independence that I knew very little about.

I was originally drawn to this book wanting to research more on the life of Capt. Nathan Hale, which is certainly an integral part of Rose's work, but it goes much farther than that. What I discovered was a most enlightening look at a world within the mechanisms of war in the field of intelligence and espionage. I had never really considered the importance of the role played by these characters.

Rose's finished product is gruelingly meticulous in presenting us a valuable look into the inner workings of America's first spy ring. It is well written, flows well and presents the war effort from a perspective largely overlooked in the annals of American history. The note section is unbelievably comprehensive composing 80 of the 360 pages of this book.

If you're seeking a look into the Revolutionary War from a new angle, you will not want to miss reading this one. It's probably not for everyone. If you don't already have a pretty sound understanding of the war's events, this book may drag on a bit for you, but I believe it would be well worth the effort and will certainly render insight into the war from a largely untapped venue.

Monty Rainey
www.juntosociety.com

The Culper Ring was a secret spy network run by General George Washington during the War of Independence which operated in New York City. It had five members: Abragham Woodhull, Robert Townsend, Caleb Brewster, Austin Roe and Benjamin Tallmadge (who was Nathan Hale's best friend at Yale University). Together they (as Rose says) "spied the daylights out of the British." The author does more than tell their story, but goes deeper and examines the whole "secret world" of the Revolution, the one you dn't read about in the history books. Including smuggling, gun-running, kidnapping, piracy, and even the British attempt to destroy the Continental dollar by flooding us with counterfeits. I wish I had this back in college. A fascinating eye-opener and wonderfully written.

What should have been an interesting, illuminating history of a little known aspect of the Rev War becomes a plodding bore here. The author digresses incessantly, and concerns himself with a lot of local history of families, relatives, etc. The actual work of the Culper Spy Ring in New York City during the British occupation seems to get lost in the process. The book suffers from too much excessive detail without a clear annalysis.

The author often repeats information throughout the course of the book. I distinctly recall re-reading passages about Arnold, Andre and others several times during the story. The narrative jumps around a lot and is difficult to follow at times. The author should have organized his information better. As it stands now it seems what he did here was merely expand what was a Master's Thesis of some sort into a full length book. This is ok to do, but the end result should be more coherrent than what we have here. After plodding through 384 pages of rambling history I was left with one essential question: What did the Culper Ring accomplish for Washy and and the Rebel cause?

So much of the book spends time talking about the emotional condition of the main characters, their feelings and the back and forth efforts of communication that much of the actual accomplishment of this so-called first American espionage effort gets lost in the process. The interesting parts of the book are probably the on-going Petit Guerre that occurs on Long Island and parts about. There was a significant amount of this activity especially in the stalmate years of the war after the British consoldiated back into New York in 1778. Still, after a while even this runs a bit dry with constant raids back and forth over the Long Island Sound and nearby areas.

The author should have organized his story better, and given us a clearer idea of what these indivduals actually accomplished. I am a Rev War buff and I found much of this book redundant and tiring with too much local detail and not enough emphasis on how these efforts actually helped Washy's war effort. Those who like local New York history will enjoy it somewhat, but a lot of that info. has already been presented in other books about the city during the war. Those seeking how these early spies might have influenced the military aspects of the war will be disappointed. Perhaps a few souls interested in the development of espionage both in the US and Europe during the 18th century may find this work of some value. The author spends a whole chapter on how codes were made and broken in this period. Perhaps Da Vinci Code people may like that! It did little for me. An interesting topic, but a slow and tedious read.

Did the above reviewer -- "M.Purvis" -- read the same book I did? Far from being listless and boring, I thought it was gripping and exciting. Rose dug up hundreds of undiscovered documents from the Revolution and formed them into a brilliant narrative about "Washington's Spies." I'd never seen any of this stuff in other history books. Like I said, the other reviewer must have read some other book.

If you've slogged through some of Edmund Morris' or David McCullough's work and said, "That was good...but long..." then Mr. Rose's book may be for you.
I've always wondered why there's never been a well-known movie or book about the tragic, heroic Nathan Hale. The first chapter explains why!
My only critique of Mr. Rose's work is that at some points he throws a dizzying amount of names and places at you, and you have to flip back to review the introduction of recurring characters in the text.

Alexander Rose's book entitled Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring is a fascinating and vivid account of the lives of ordinary colonists who were overtaken by the maelstrom of a confusing war, not of one nation with another,but more similar to the American war between the states, with brothers, cousins, other relatives and close neighbors opposed to one another, torn apart by strong yet conflicting loyalties. While New England was predominantly pro-Independence,the inhabitants of New York were greatly divided. In Mr. Rose's well researched book we learn how individuals reacted to the terrible choices presented to them by the realities of this new war. Our nation's first spy ring was made up of men who were serving out of a desire to help our country, and their own idealism at times led to their deaths. I couldn't put this book down: the history is well researched and the stories are fascinating. I highly recommend this book.
Mary Jo Neyer

What an excellent read. Alexander Rose creates an entirely new perspective on the Revolutionary War by thoroughly examining Washington's development of human intelligence known as the Culper Spy Ring. The author succeeds at placing the well-researched details in the context of time, place, and interpersonal relationships so the reader not only understands the motives and decisions made by the principles, but is able to empathize and relate to them as history unfolds.

Rarely do we have a chance to share the anxieties of intelligence operatives in contemporary times, let alone those of people who functioned over two hundred years before. Yet, Alexander Rose has brought us into a milieu in which we can appreciate the sensitivities that plague every intelligence consumer or decision maker, control officer, mission security officer, agent handler, and the source himself. His work should be a guide for every intelligencer henceforth.
The greatest intrigues in agent handling; the empathies, the insecurities, welfare, motivations and mutual trusts, can overwhelm the dramatics of the missions themselves.
Rose has more than adequately portrayed these factors in all the personalities he has touched upon. From Washington to Tallmadge, Caleb Brewster (a favorite personality of mine), Woodhull, Roe, Underhill, the community of Setauket, and Towsend himself, we are invited into the all the variables of HUMINT (human intelligence) operations that existed during the American Revolutionary War to the present day.
Washington had to rely upon, trust in and depend upon sources as any person must rely upon, trust in and depend upon his pulse beating, his breathing maintaining itself. The difference being that the functions of intelligence operation's have to be regularly re-inforced, encouraged and rewarded.
Among motivations that have to be considered in agent recruitment fall into a an anacronym, MICE (money, ideology, sompromise and ego). Determining the suitablity when a man like Townsend acts with ideology and his ethos actually raises the motivation. For Townsend was not just a nodding Quaker apart from a world of politics.
In this case Rose opens up the dynamics of a man history seems to hide behind noble manuscripts, Thomas Paine. Townsend was duly touched by Paine's argument that Quaker pacificism can only survive and abide in a community of freeedom and democracy.
Considering this, the confessional commitment of Townsend as a Quaker, explained for this reader the fragility of dealing with a man, often engaged in bouts of depression, and the various presonality types who were stationed along the process. Though Paine is only one of the peripheral players, his influence surpasses that of the Mulligans, Jays and deservedly cited others.
Rose has taken us into the dynamic mystery of HUMINT from the 1770's to beyond the date these comments.