The Secret Spy Service of the American Revolution (1882)

Henry Phelps Johnston (1842–1923) was a Professor of History at the College of the City of New York. He was the author of Loyalist History of the Revolution; The Yorktown Campaign; &c

This book is an article originally printed in The Magazine of American History in 1882.

Johnston writes:
"Especially did Washington make full use of the secret service during the Revolution, and he used it strictly within the rules of war. Whether he stopped to consider what some writers on the Law of Nations call the "ethics" of the case does not appear, but it is little likely that he did. Washington both sent out spies from his own camp, and employed spies resident within the enemy's lines. Among the former was young Nathan Hale, whose fate recalls a sad yet fragrant memory of that war. Of the latter class of spies no names, so far as known, have been preserved, nor does it appear from such correspondence as we have that they were "subjects " of the British in the sense that Vattel uses the term."