Table of Contents
A Note from the Author x
Preface 1
Part 1
Chapter 1 Why New York? 11
Chapter 2 On the March 13
Chapter 3 Betrayal at Jamaica Pass 15
Chapter 4 A Miracle in the Mist 18
Part 2
Chapter 5 A Change in Strategy 25
Chapter 6 One Good Man 27
Chapter 7 On Assignment 29
Chapter 8 Failure on Long Island 32
Chapter 9 The March to New Jersey 35
Chapter 10 "There Will Be No Attack" 37
Chapter 11 A Waiting Game 40
Chapter 12 The Brilliant Young Major: Benjamin Tallmadge 42
Chapter 13 The Black Sheep: Abraham Woodhull 46
Chapter 14 Setting Up Aliases 48
Chapter 15 A Bull of a Man: Caleb Brewster 51
Chapter 16 The Tavern Keeper: Austin Roe 53
Chapter 17 Breaking from Tradition: A New Way to Work a Spy Ring 55
Chapter 18 The Reports Begin 57
Chapter 19 The Unbreakable Code 59
Chapter 20 Panic and a Traitor 61
Chapter 21 The Peaceable Man: Robert Townsend 62
Chapter 22 Washington's Orders 67
Chapter 23 The Cover Story: James Rivington 72
Chapter 24 The Mysterious Lady 75
Chapter 25 Eliding in Plain Sight 77
Chapter 26 Thwarting a Plot 81
Chapter 27 The Need for a New Route 85
Part 3
Chapter 28 The French Arrive 91
Chapter 29 Washington's Gamble 94
Chapter 30 The Most Powerful Man on the Hudson River: Benedict Arnold 97
Chapter 31 What Robert Townsend Saw 102
Chapter 32 Benjamin Tallmadge Figures It Out 104
Chapter 33 The Turncoat Escapes 108
Chapter 34 The Prisoner Is Executed 111
Chapter 35 The Ring in Peril 114
Part 4
Chapter 36 Closing in on the Ring 121
Chapter 37 Rivington Delivers Yorktown 123
Chapter 38 The Beginning of the End for the British 125
Chapter 39 Townsend's Last Letter 127
Chapter 40 … and a Reckoning 130
Afterword 133
Appendixes
Postwar Lives of the Culper Ring 138
Washington's Time as a Spy 142
The Significance of the Culper Ring 143
Communicate in Secret 144
Timeline 148
Selected Sources 154
Photo Credits 159
Index 160
