250 years ago this week, General Thomas Gage, the royal governor of Massachusetts and commander in chief of all British forces in North America, sent two British spies into the rural communities around Boston. He carefully selected two redcoats to go undercover, roaming highways and country lanes and taking painstaking notes about their terrain and relative military advantages. First they surveyed the western roads to Worcester, then the northern roads to Concord, anticipating a spring offensive against one town or the other. Unfortunately for them, however, their disguises weren’t as good as they hoped, and they were soon under nearly constant surveillance from patriot counterintelligence that left them in fear for their lives.
Continue reading Drinker, Draftsman, Soldier, Spy (episode 321)