Summary

Chapter 7, Creating a Code, notes that after a couple of close calls, Tallmadge got nervous about the security of communications and the danger of revealing names, so an elaborate numerical code was created using numbers in place of names, places and other words, and letters in place of some numbers. The authors also speculate about the identity of the “lady” who was participating, concluding that she likely was a young woman living a fashionable life in New York as part of a Loyalist family. Other methods used to avoid detection included writing messages on blank pages inside books and hiding a letter using invisible ink inside a packet of blank writing paper.

Chapter 8, Mounting Tensions and Double-Dealings, describes the growing suspicions that plagued the Patriots and the spy ring in late 1777. Jonas Hawkins, a young man who occasionally served as a courier for...