Spying in America: Espionage from the Revolutionary War to the Dawn of the Cold War

2. The First Spy: Benjamin Church

21 2 The First Spy Benjamin Church In the Fall of 1774 and Winter of 1775, I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves into a Committee for the purpose of watching the Movements of the British soldiers, and gaining every intelligence of the Movements of the Tories. We held our meetings at the Green Dragon Tavern. We were so careful that our meetings should be kept secret that every time we met, every person swore on a Bible, that they would not discover any of our transactions, but to Messrs. Hancock, Adams, Doctors Warren, Church, and one or two more. Paul Revere, letter More than 230 years have passed since the American Revolution, and Benedict Arnold still towers over all other spies against America as the most infamous traitor in US history. Arnold, however, was not the first major spy against America. That dubious honor belongs to Dr. Benjamin Church. Although Church remains an obscure figure in the history of the Revolutionary War, he was the most highly placed civilian spy in the British espionage network. Because he was trusted with the most important secrets of the colonies, he could have inflicted significant damage on the revolutionary cause. The Revolutionary War 22 Church was among the leading patriots in the highly patriotic colony of Massachusetts. In December 1773 he participated in the Boston Tea Party, when colonists disguised as Indians dumped chests of tea on a British ship overboard to protest the king’s tax. Church was also a propagandist who penned several pamphlets supporting the revolutionary cause. He was elected to the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and was chosen by his peers to present the colony’s defense plans to the Second Continental Congress and seek aid for the colony’s militia.1 A physician by profession, Church treated wounded revolutionaries at the Battle of Bunker Hill and was eventually appointed chief surgeon of the Continental Army. As Paul Revere’s comments indicate, Church was also in the inner council of Boston revolutionaries who swore on a Bible at the Green Dragon Tavern to protect the colonists’ most guarded secrets. His revolutionary credentials were impeccable. Church was also a highly paid spy in the espionage network of the British general Thomas Gage. Gage needed intelligence on the plans, intentions , and capabilities of the upstart Massachusetts revolutionaries. After the Boston Tea Party, King George III decided to crack down on the mutinous colony. He appointed Gage commander of British Forces in North America and royal governor of Massachusetts to quell the increasing defiance of his colonists. Soon after his arrival, Gage began to satisfy the monarch ’s wishes by closing Boston Harbor to ships from overseas and other colonies, effectively cutting Massachusetts’ economic lifeline. He also restricted many of the self-governing authorities of the colony and reduced the jurisdiction of its courts. Gage realized that colonial opposition to his harsh measures was quickly mounting, so he infiltrated spies to discover Massachusetts’ progress in building a militia and stockpiling weapons and supplies. Paul Revere was convinced that one of Gage’s spies had penetrated the Sons of Liberty, an underground organization of colonists dedicated to subverting royalist rule in America. One of Revere’s informants told him that Gage knew details of a secret Sons of Liberty meeting held in the Green Dragon Tavern the day after it occurred.2 Church, however, was beyond reproach, despite hints of some suspicious activities. In one instance, Revere was advised that Church had been spotted entering Gage’s quarters in Boston and appeared “more like a man that was acquainted than a pris- The First Spy • Benjamin Church 23 oner.”3 Church later claimed that he had been detained but set free in a few days. Revere dismissed the incident. Revere was not alone in ignoring disturbing signsabouthisSonsofLibertycolleague.Church was married but had taken a mistress and begun living a lavish lifestyle, although his colleagues were aware that he had been in dire financial straits. He was living well beyond his means as a physician, a profession that hardly netted the income modern doctors command (his salary as surgeon general was $4 a day, which was relatively small compensation for a physician of that stature even by eighteenth-century standards).4 Despite this unexplained wealth, the notion of a dedicatedrevolutionarylikeChurchspyingfortheenemywassimplyinconceivable and foreshadowed the endemic blindness of Americans to glaring indicators of espionage throughout American history. Church was...