The First Conspiracy

Begin Reading Table of Contents About the Authors Copyright Page Thank you for buying this Flatiron Books ebook. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters. Or visit us online at us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup For email updates on Brad Meltzer, click here. For email updates on Josh Mensch, click here. The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy. For Dale Flam, my mother-in-law, the quiet leader, who does all the heavy lifting, but never takes the credit. —B.M. For Mary and Malcolm, with all my love. —J.M. Author’s Note This book started as a detective story. Nearly a decade ago, I found my first clues where all the best clues are found—in the footnotes. I forget the name of the book, but there it was: a supposed plot to kill George Washington. Naturally, I started with skepticism. Was this true, or just some overhyped myth? Weeks went by and I couldn’t shake it. A bit of digging found small mentions in many scholarly works. Some called it a plot to kill George Washington; others said the goal was to seize or kidnap him, but I couldn’t find an entire book written on the subject. Searching for information, and wondering if this should be my new project, I eventually reached out to Pulitzer Prize– winning historian Joseph J. Ellis. As the author of His Excellency: George Washington, I thought he’d know a thing or two about the subject. Naturally, he’d heard the story. He was fascinated by it too, and when I told him I was thinking about writing a book about it, he warned me how hard the project would be. This was a story about espionage—a secret plot—and the clandestine investigation to stop that plot. For everyone involved, including George Washington’s inner circle, their entire purpose was to ensure there was no record of their actions. As Ellis told me that day, “You can find the number of slaves at Mount Vernon; you’ll never find all his spies. By its nature, this is something that will always be elusive.” He was right. Thankfully, with the help of Josh Mensch, as well as historian and Washington expert Barnet Schecter, there was still plenty to find. You’ll see the evidence in these pages —from private letters, to pension requests, to the transcripts of secret trials—each detail an additional puzzle piece. Along the way, one key question remained: Were they trying to kill George Washington, kidnap him, or something else? The evidence, along with our analysis and conclusions, are in these pages, though whether it was killing or kidnapping, the result would most likely have been the same. During the Revolution, if those at the top level of American leadership were captured, they expected to be hanged as traitors. Only at lower levels were officers like Major General Charles Lee, Washington’s second-in-command, exchanged for their British counterparts. Does that tell us definitively what was in the heart of each and every conspirator back then? Of course not. Like Ellis said during out first conversation, some details are forever elusive. In the end, you’ll see how the plot against George Washington was planned. You’ll see how it was foiled. And most important, when it came to Washington himself, you’ll see how easily history could’ve turned out differently. —Brad Meltzer Notes on the Text When quoting directly from eighteenth-century written sources, we’ve standardized the original spelling, capitalization, and punctuation to make the language more accessible to modern readers. The wording itself is not changed, unless otherwise indicated in the text or endnotes. Also, many chapters begin with a heading that indicates the location, using the familiar “City, State” construction. The states were still colonies during most of the time period we cover, but because the colony and state names are the same in every case, we’ve opted to use the modern format. We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. —ATTRIBUTED TO BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, JULY 4, 1776 Prologue New York, New York April 1776 The trap is set. It’s quiet on this night. Moonlight shines over a clearing in a dense wood. The silence is broken by the drumbeat of hooves in the distance, growing steadily louder. Soon several uniformed men on horseback emerge from the blackness. The party halts not far from a large wooden manor house that sits at the clearing’s edge. A few of the riders dismount and prime their muskets, standing guard. They scan the clearing, apparently thinking all is safe. They’re wrong. A moment later, another rider steps down from his horse. He’s taller than the rest and wears a long officer’s coat. His name is George Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental army. There is a traitorous plan against him. He has no idea it’s coming. For the last ten months, since the day he was appointed to his command, Washington has had a nearly impossible task: to organize a scattered mess of backwoods militias and untrained volunteers into a functioning national army. And not just any army. This small, inexperienced, poorly equipped group of soldiers needs to stand up to what is probably the biggest and most powerful military force in the world. By any normal measure, they don’t stand a chance—and Washington knows this, just as he knows that with every decision he makes, thousands of young soldiers’ lives could be lost. Tonight, even more is at risk. Washington has just arrived in the western woods of Manhattan, about two miles north of New York City’s bustling commercial district, which covers the island’s southern tip. He’s just finished a weeklong journey from Boston, and he’s here now to fortify the city against the first major British offensive of the war. What he’s facing is terrifying: Sometime in the next few weeks or months, a massive fleet of the vaunted British navy will swarm into New York Harbor— hundreds of ships and tens of thousands of soldiers prepared to invade the city. They’re coming. It’s just a question of when. The colonies have placed all their hope and trust in him. It is up to this one man, George Washington, to lead the small Continental army and withstand the massive attack. Tonight, among the soldiers accompanying Washington, a few are dressed differently from the rest, in short blue-and- white coats with brass buttons. They’re known as the “Life Guards,” an elite group of specially trained soldiers handpicked to serve as Washington’s bodyguards. He takes particular pride in these men, whom he trusts above all others. In the faint moonlight, Washington walks slowly toward the nearby manor house that will serve as his lodging for the next few critical weeks before the British attack. Yet what George Washington doesn’t know is that here in Manhattan, the coming battle isn’t the only thing he should fear. There are other enemies waiting for him—enemies more dangerous than even the British army. At this exact moment, three miles away due southeast in New York Harbor, a ship is anchored in the darkness. On board is one of the most powerful men of the colonies—the exiled Governor of New York—and he is masterminding a clandestine plan to sabotage the colonies’ rebellion. In the dead of night, small boats carrying spies shuttle back and forth to him, delivering intelligence from shore. At the same time, two miles away from where Washington now stands, the Mayor of New York City, working in concert with the Governor, carries a secret cache of money. His plan is to tempt Washington’s soldiers to betray their army and their countrymen in a breathtaking act of treason. And several blocks from the Mayor’s office, in one of the city’s underground jails, three prisoners whisper to each other in a dank cell, out of earshot of the guards. They have no idea that their quiet murmurs could change the future of the continent. They are all players in an extraordinary plot: A deadly plot against George Washington. Most extraordinary of all, some of the key members of this plot are in George Washington’s own inner circle—the very men in whom he has placed his greatest trust. You could call it America’s first great conspiracy—but at this moment, America doesn’t yet exist. Some of the details of this scheme are still shrouded in mystery, but history provides enough clues for an astonishing story. This is a story of soldiers, spies, traitors, Redcoats, turncoats, criminals, prostitutes, politicians, great men, terrible men, and before it’s over, the largest public execution at the time ever to take place on North American shores. It all happens, amazingly, within days of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That’s not all. The discovery of this plot, and the effort to investigate it, will lead colonial authorities to devise new systems of intelligence gathering and counterespionage. In many ways, this plot against George Washington would lead to the creation of a whole new field of American spycraft—now known as counterintelligence.

Load more