Spying during the Revolutionary War

 "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country" - Nathan Hale

Thousands of years after the Roman Empire crumbled, America was beginning to oppose the British rule. To truly gain freedom from the British, they needed to outgun and outsmart them. To outsmart the British, Americans used great spy tactics. Spies could be anyone, ranging from African Americans to children. Because of this, it was hard to figure out whether someone was spying on you or just being a friendly neighbor. Unlike the Romans, the spy network in America was formal, and formed by the government. The beginning of the spy network was created by the Second Continental Congress back in 1775. It was simply known as "The Secret Committee". The society were originally created to snag weapons and ammunition undercover, which would help the Americans gain firepower and know where the British store their weapons. Other than snagging weaponry and ammunition, battle plans and strategies were vital for Americans to find out from the British. Lydia Darragh was a women whose husband owned an inn. In a room above the inn, British generals would gather and talk about various battle plans and actions they would take to steal something from the Americans or attack them. Darragh would listen to these discussions via a hole in the floorboards. She would write everything she heard onto a piece of paper and sew the paper onto her son's coat buttons. Her son would go to a nearby forest and meet with American generals, and give them the paper. 

The Secret Committee was the original spy group, created by the Second Continental Congress in 1775 Like I mentioned earlier, they were concerned with secretly obtaining military supplies and distributing them, as well as selling gunpowder to privateers. This Committee also administered the secret contracts for arms. The Committee was kept as secretive as possible, and any documents that they used were generally destroyed after usage. This helped them stay virtually undetectable for a long time. 

They employed some of their agents overseas, to gather information in England. This was often done with the Committee of Secret Correspondence, another newly-created spy committee. They would gather information about the British ammunition stores, and make arrangements to seize these stores. These missions were also very useful in the southern colonies of America, because of the many British supply stores found there.

The Committee of Secret Correspondence was created just six months after the Secret Committee, due to increasing necessities of foreign agents and alliances. Having two of these committees helped them work overseas, with one group being overseas while another maintained everything in America. Some of the original members of this committee were Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison and Thomas Johnson. Although these men didn't do much of the "dirty work," they were still instrumental in planning out the operations successfully. The Secret Correspondence employed secret agents abroad, conducted covert operations and devised codes and ciphers, among other things. Furthermore, they established a useful courier system, with was utilized well when engaging in communication with British and Scottish sympathizers.

A few years after its creation, it was renamed the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Diplomatic matters became a strong driving factor of this committee, because of the original Secret Committee handling nearly all affairs in America. In 1781, the official Department of Foreign Affairs was created. Their goal was to obtain useful information regarding the foreign affairs. Technically speaking, these committees were spying on their own citizens, albeit spying on British ones. However, unlike the Romans, the committees' goal was not to spy on their own citizens; rather collect information on citizens who may be British and be part of an attack.