During the Revolutionary War, America had many spies which included: Nathan Hale, Benjamin Tallmadge, Austin Roe, Abraham Woodhull, Anna Strong, Robert Townsend, James Armistead Lafayette, Ann Bates.

These spies used many techniques to spy against their own country. Spycraft during the American Revolution consisted of a complicated system of hidden networks, interpersonal relationships, scientific knowledge, personal cunning, guile and risk taking. Some of the techniques included ciphers coded letters, invisible ink, hidden letters, mask letters, and intercepting letters.

Using ciphers and coded letters, spies would use secret codes to ensure that the contents of a letter could not be understood if it was intercepted. Ciphers were used to represent and replace other letters to mask the true meaning.

Invisible ink was also used, which was made from a mixture of ferrous sulfate and water. They would later use a secret chemical which they would rub on the paper which would make the words “magically” appear.

Spies would hide letters by rolling them up tightly and place them in secret holsters to keep other fellow Americans from finding important information. Other materials used to hide messages were small buttons and small silver balls which the spy would write on and swallow to get the message through.

The true contents of letters were also hidden through the use of mask letters. These documents were intended to be viewed by a recipient who would place a shaped template over the full letter. Then, when looking through the special template the person could see the true message being sent.

Last but not least, they would write letters with false information which they would purposely let fall into American hand. They hoped the Americans would be tricked by all the false information.

So as you can see, spies used many techniques to hide and trick the Americans and America during the Revolutionary War, but in the end, the thirteen North American colonies were able to declare themselves independent United States of America.