AMERICAN REVOLUTION

Overviews

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Abbott, Wilbur C. New York in the American Revolution. New York: Scribner's, 1929.

Augur, Helen. The Secret War of Independence. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1955. Boston: Little, Brown, 1955. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1976.

According to Constantinides, scholars regard this work as "thoroughly researched, utilizing the best secondary sources and manuscript collections, as well as reliable and marked by good judgment.... Only the secret war in Europe is treated...; consequently, the title is somewhat misleading."

Bakeless, John. "Spies in the Revolution." American History Illustrated 6 (Jun. 1971): 36-45. [Petersen]

Bakeless, John. Turncoats, Traitors and Heroes: Espionage in the American Revolution. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1959. New York: Da Capo, 1998. New York: Da Capo, 2005. [pb]

Pforzheimer notes that this is "considered to be the best general work" available on intelligence aspects of the Revolutionary War. While "somewhat fragmented and choppy," it is "loaded with information." For Constantinides the book is "a history of espionage in the main theater of war.... [F]or the area of operations covered, it is one of the best works available.... [I]t gives a vivid picture of General Washington's interest in intelligence and deception and the value he placed on effective intelligence."

Commenting on the 1998 reprint, Kruh, Cryptologia 24.3, finds the work "still relevant today.... Based on almost 20 years of research, the author provides a thorough study of the espionage, counterespionage, and other military intelligence services in the Continental and British armies."

Barch, Dorothey C., ed. Minutes of the Committee and First Commission for Detecting Conspiracies. New York: New York Historical Society, 1924.

American counterintelligence efforts in New York were conducted under the auspices of the "New York State Committee and Commission for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies," headed by John Jay until mid-February 1777. Rose, Intelligencer 11.2/12.

Bemis, Samuel Flagg. "Secret Intelligence, 1777: Two Documents." Huntington Library Quarterly 24, no. 3 (1971): 233-248. [Petersen]

Berger, Carl. Broadsides and Bayonets; the Propaganda War of the American Revolution. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961.

Bowers, Ray L. "The American Revolution: A Study in Insurgency." Military Review 46, no. 7 (1966): 64-72. [Petersen]

Boyd, Julian P. Number 7, Alexander Hamilton's Secret Attempts to Control American Foreign Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964.

Burnett, Edmund C. "Ciphers of the Revolutionary Period." American Historical Review 22 (Jan. 1917): 329-334. [Petersen]

Butterfield, Lyman H. "Psychological Warfare in 1776: the Jefferson-Franklin Plan to Cause Hessian Desertions." American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Proceedings 94 (20 Jun. 1950): 233-241. [Petersen]

Casey, William J. Where and How the War Was Fought: An Armchair Tour of the American Revolution. New York: Morrow, 1976.

Cummings, Light. "Spanish Espionage in the South during the American Revolution." Southern Studies 19 (1980): 39-49. [Petersen]

Daigler, Kenneth A. "American Covert Action in the Revolutionary War." Intelligencer 15, no. 2 (Fall-Winter 2006-2007): 39-46.

A nice, easy (but unsourced) romp through the "massive covert actions ... undertaken in support of the American cause.... France, and to a far lesser degree Spain, were America's partners.... These activities were run out of the American Commission in Paris.... The role covert action played in gaining American independence ... was vital, necessary and largely successful."

Daigler, Kenneth A. "Samuel Adams and the Covert Action Campaign that Led to the American Revolution." Intelligencer 16, no. 2 (Fall 2008): 37-51.

The author details the role of the Sons of Liberty and Samuel Adams in the covert action campaign to build support for seeking independence from Britain.

Davidson, Philip. Propaganda and the American Revolution. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1941.

Ford, Corey. A Peculiar Service: A Narrative of Espionage in and Around New York during the American Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown, 1965.

Constantinides: This work covers "the cases of Nathan Hale, Major André, and Benedict Arnold and the work of the Culper Ring"; therefore, it is not a complete history of U.S. intelligence during the Revolutionary War.

Johnston, Henry P. "The Secret Service of the Revolution." The Magazine of American History 8 (Feb. 1882): 95-105.

McKone, Frank E. General Sullivan: New Hampshire Patriot. New York: Vantage, 1977.

Nagy, John A. Rebellion in the Ranks: Mutinies of the American Revolution. Chicago, IL: Westholme, 2007.

Although intelligence is not mentioned in the advertising literature, the author notes in private correspondence that in addition to "being the only book that ever covered mutinies as a subject for the entire American Revolution, it also identifies 30 spies in the American Revolution of which some are outed for the first time. It also correct[s] some of the names of spies of which Carl Van Doren in Mutiny in January (1943) guessed."

Nathan Hale Institute. Intelligence in the War of Independence. Washington, DC: n.d.

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