Hercules Mulligan, Spy on the Inside Pt. 2

After years of protesting and resisting British rule in New York, Mulligan passed important information on to George Washington, possibly saving his life. How did that one-time act of happenstance blossomed into a career as a full-time spy?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building
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Build it Beautiful. Hi. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, host of the
new houstuf Works Now podcast. Every week, I'll be bringing
you three stories from our team about the weird and

(00:20):
wondrous developments we've seen in science, technology, and culture. Fresh
episodes will be out every Monday on iTunes, Spotify, Google
Play Music, and everywhere else that find podcasts are found.
Welcome to Steph you missed in history class from houstuf
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

(00:47):
Tracing Built and I'm Holly Frying. Today we are picking
up where we left off in our story of Curricules. Mulligan. Yes,
inspired by the Blade Hamilton, although, as we mentioned in
part one, literally the only character or place or whatever
that appears in Hamilton's that no one has asked us
to talk about. I just wanted to do it. After

(01:09):
years of protesting and resisting British rule in New York,
Hercules Mulligan passed some important information on relating to the
safety of George Washington, which possibly saved the man's life,
and today we will talk about how this one time
act of happenstance where he just happened to be in
the right place at the right time with the right
intoxicated person to get important information sort of transformed into

(01:31):
a career as a full time spy. As we talked
about in Part one. Hercules Mulligan owned an extremely fashionable
clothing shop on Queen Street in New York. When British
forces moved into the city, more and more British officers
started buying clothes from him, including their uniforms and formal
wear for the evenings. Mulligan also did repairs for soldiers

(01:51):
in the lower ranks. He kept on selling to civilians
as well. Basically, anyone who wanted fashionable, well made clothing
could go to Hercules, and a lot of people were
willing to overlook his solid history resisting the British in
order to buy clothes from him. So great was his reputation.
There are also people who overlooked the fact that they

(02:12):
found the man personally to be kind of tacky and
grant and ghost like. You can kind of imagine a
very flamboyant, showy person rubbing some of the snobby or
ilk the wrong way. Because Hercules Mulligan's brother owned cartwriting
company and his wife was the niece of a Royal
Navy admiral, he was in a pretty socially prestigious position,

(02:34):
and as always, food, drink, and lively conversation were part
of any shopping excursion to Mulligan's place of business. He
started picking up little tidbits about the British forces and
its plans through casual conversation and through exactly what kind
of clothing people were ordering from him. Things that seemed
to be unseasonably warm or cool for what the weather

(02:54):
was like in New York suggested that somebody might be
about to be deployed somewhere else. Soon he became reacquainted
with Haimes Solomon, a Jew who had emigrated from Poland
and had been jailed at Provost Prison at the same
time as Mulligan had. Solomon told Mulligan that he had
told the British he wanted to join their cause, and

(03:15):
having heard that a lot of British officers were having
trouble communicating with German speaking Hessian soldiers, he offered his
services as a translator. As people had gotten used to
his presence, they had stopped being particularly careful about what
information they shared in front of him, or how sensitive
the materials were that they gave him to translates a bit.

(03:35):
As a bit of a side note, Solomon was one
of the people who was spreading rumors to the Hessian
soldiers that they'd actually be a lot better off deserting,
which is a phenomenon we talked about in our previous
podcast on the Hessians. Desertion rates were kind of high
because they had heard that they could stay in the
United States and run a farm, and how great that
would be. One of the sources of that idea was

(03:56):
Haims Solomon. Later on, Hams Solomon was actually captured as
a by and sentenced to death, but the sons of
Liberty Broke came out of jail. He went back to
his former work as a financial broker, and a lot
of his financial works supported the revolution, But some grandiose
claims for from later on that led to him being
nicknamed the financial Hero of the American Revolution were likely

(04:18):
invented or at least really deeply embellished by a well
meaning but over zealous son after his death. Mulligan's work
at the shop and Salomon's work as a translator meant
that together they had all kinds of access to information
that would be very useful to the Continental Army. But
by this point the Continental Army was headquartered in Pennsylvania,
and there was no possible way either man could travel

(04:39):
there and back unnoticed. Yeah, apart from the fact that
Hercules Mulligan had already had only been released from jail
under the condition that he not leave New York. That
was kind of a hall. People would notice if you
were gone for that long, And so this is when
Hercules Mulligan turned to k too. So sometimes in the
historical record and in articles that Kato is described as

(05:01):
a servant, but it's far more likely that he was enslaved.
Like a lot of times, people used the word servant
to talk about people that they actually owned as property,
not as servants who were paid for their labor. He
so he probably was Hercules Mulligan's property. People were used
to seeing Kato deliver Mulligan's merchandise, both to British and

(05:23):
Hessian officers, so he seemed like a pretty good choice
to start delivering other things as well. First, Mulligan gave
Kato advertisements for his shop to take to Solomon and
have translated into German. Those were then distributed to Hessian forces,
and then Solomon would give Kato documentation of whatever intelligence

(05:44):
that he'd gathered, and Kato would take that back to Mulligan.
Some of this was about the British force and their plans,
where they were being quartered, how they were being trained
and disciplined, and what kind of supplies they were procuring.
Some of the information was about what was happening in
the war itself. Hercules Mulligan learned about the battles of
Trenton and Princeton, for example, from Solomon via Cato. As

(06:07):
the courier who carried the information. Hercules Mulligan gleaned information
from his brother Hugh as well. Hugh's firm had become
a supplier to the British Army, and as owner, he
had information about everything they were buying and where it
was to be sent. Some of Hercules Mulligan's intelligence was
gathered in his own home as well, as was the

(06:28):
case for a lot of people in New York. He
was made to house British officers there there is some
disagreement among historians about exactly when and how Hercules Mulligan
started officially spying for George Washington. However, sometime around the
spring of seventeen seventy seven, George Washington remarked to Alexander
Hamilton's that he wished they had a trusted spy in

(06:51):
New York City who could keep them informed on the
situation there. Unsurprisingly, Hamilton's suggested his longtime friend, well known
patriot and friendly year to a seemingly endless parade of
British officers in need of clothing for the job. The
formation of the Cooper Spy Ring would follow in about
one year. Let's talk a little bit more about Hercules

(07:12):
Mulligan's more official spycraft and how he eventually did become
associated with this Cooper spir Ring after avery effort from
a sponsored It's a little bit unclear exactly how Hercules

(07:32):
Mulligan found out that he had gotten a job at
a spy. The whole thing was undertaken with so much
secrecy that there's actually no mention of it in Washington's
or Hamilton's papers. In all likelihood, Hamilton's sent a message
along with a farmer or a merchant, or some other
civilian with a legitimate reason to get into New York.
Along with the news that he was to be a spy,

(07:53):
Mulligan also got a list of safe houses in New
York and New Jersey where he could send messages. Many
of these messages went via Cato, who people were used
to seeing out and about carrying packages to and from
Mulligan's shop. You would usually carry a collection of packages,
all looking very much like normal parcels of clothing, but
some of them contained the intelligence that Mulligan had gathered

(08:15):
at the safe house. Goods and intelligence would be repackaged
to remove all references to Mulligan and his shop, and
then they would be sent on their way. In late
April of seventeen seventy seven, Kato carried a package containing
details of a British armada that was being assembled under
General William how This is a particularly massive fleet which
would contain two hundred sixty ships and more than seventeen

(08:38):
thousand men, so the British Army was on the move
and by sea. This information also contained details of a
number of British and Hessian officers who were asking Mulligan
to handle rush orders of lightweight uniforms, so logical conclusion
the British fleet was headed south. Washington first moved his
fighting force to Middlebrook side of New Brunswick, New Jersey,

(09:01):
ready to either defend New Jersey from a massive British
attack or to move southward if that was warranted. Watchers
along the coast lost sight of the fleet for several weeks.
When they were sighted in the Chesapeake Bay on August
seventeen seventy seven, Washington deduced that their target was Philadelphia.
This information meant that Washington was in fact able to

(09:23):
meet in General how There and mount of Defense. However,
how superior numbers meant that he took Philadelphia just the same,
and he established a headquarters there For a while. This
meant that Mulligan's intelligence in New York wasn't as important.
It was nice to have, but with How's headquarters in Philadelphia,
it often wasn't as critical until later on in seventeen
seventy eight, when General Howe resigned and was succeeded by

(09:46):
General Henry Clinton, who relocated the British Army's headquarters back
to New York. It was about this time when Mulligan
first made contact with the Culper Ring so to recap
for the folks who aren't familiar. The call A Ring
was one of George Washington's intelligence organizations during the American
Revolutionary War. The Culper Ring was named for the code

(10:07):
names of two of its agents, Abraham Woodhull, who was
code named Samuel Culper and Robert Townsend, who was code
named Samuel Culper Jr. The Culpa Ring was organized and
managed by Major Benjamin Talmadge. There were other agents and
sub agences in this spy ring as well, and apart
from Hercules Mulligan, the most well known are Caleb Brewster,
Austin row and a Strong and a woman known as

(10:30):
three fifty five. Rather than sending scouts on short reconnaissance
missions in enemy territory, the Colper Spiring operated by keeping
a continual presence behind enemy lines in New York. They
were all effectively working undercover and reporting your findings of
British fortifications and movements back to the Continental Army. Mulligan

(10:52):
seems to have become acquainted with the Coulpor Ring through
Robert Townsend, a k A. Culper Jr. Who he had
actually known for several years and once he was aware
of the spir ring's existence, he thought it would be
a good idea to maintain a formal connection, to have
a second and sometimes better, depending on the circumstances, way
of getting information to George Washington. Abraham Woodhull really didn't

(11:14):
like this idea. As we mentioned in part one, Mulligan
had been extremely visible in his pro independence activities, Connecting
him Connecting with him seemed like way too much of
a risk for a very covert spir ring. So when
Townsend started spending time in Mulligan's shop and then collecting
documents to pass on to George Washington, it was not

(11:34):
entirely with Woodhull's approval. He was, in fact so anxious
about the idea of being discovered thanks to Mulligan that
he sometimes took to his bed over it. Talmudge, on
the other hand, knew nothing about it until after the
war because the need for secrecy was so great. Yeah,
they did not have any person who knew literally every
other person. That would be a bad idea and a

(11:56):
covert spir ring. That is a poor way to run
your spiring, right for one person to have literally all
the detail about all the other people. So Hercules Mulligan
used the Culper Spy ring to send his his intelligence
occasionally and somewhat sporadically throughout the war. He really relied
a lot more on Kato to do it. Kato wound
up being arrested and interrogated at Provost Prison at least once,

(12:19):
where he was reportedly treated extremely cruelly. Mulligan eventually arranged
his release, and he did continue to work as a
courier after that point, but having been captured once did
make him a little bit less effective as a covert operative.
He sort of was on the list now like Hercules Mulligan,
of people who were troubled. Mulligan was arrested a second
time in May of seventeen seventy eight, following an attempt

(12:43):
by British forces to recruit him to the army at
a tavern, thinking that he appeared to be so popular
that if he enlisted, surely others would follow. Mulligan, of
course refused, and the whole thing threatened to lead to
a huge bar fight before the British forces left. Shortly thereafter,
Mulligan was asted for obstructing a British officer in the
performance of his duties. Mulligan wound up giving a jovial

(13:06):
and lighthearted testimony on the matter, and the audience before
him included a lot of his customers, and once again
he was released, and once again afterward he returns to
his spy work. The information Mulligan obtained and passed on
in late seventeen seventy eight and early seventeen seventy nine
included a plot to capture or assassinate George Washington and

(13:29):
several prominent Patriot leaders, including Governor William Livingston of a
New Jersey. In July of seventeen seventy nine. He also
learned that Major Lynch was moving south was with his
entire core, which he heard from the man himself in
his shop and confirmed by finding out that his brother
was provisioning them. He also passed along information regarding an

(13:50):
eminent attack on Charleston, South Carolina in the winter of
seventeen seventy nine to seventeen eighty, which Washington was once
again able to act on, but similarly to previous experien
in sas it was not enough to successfully defend Charleston
from the British forces far superior numbers. In the summer
of seventeen eighty, Mulligan gathered some particularly sensitive information British

(14:12):
forces were planning to attack about five thousand troops led
by Count Rochambeau of France when they arrived at Newport,
Rhode Island, hoping to surprise them upon their arrival. This
would Britain hoped derail France's involvement in the war. And
this message was so important that Mulligan sent it via
the Copra Rings information chain and by Kato, going straight

(14:33):
to Hamilton's headquarters. Kato delivered his message first and once.
Once George Washington heard about it from Alexander Hamilton's he
immediately moved to defend of the French troop's landing. He
also created some false orders about attack being planned onto
New York, which he allowed to fall into British hands,
making Clinton too wary to leave New York and protected

(14:55):
in order to attack the French force. Rochambeau and his
men arrived in Newport and on their way without having
to fight off the British first. Other intelligence efforts were
not quite as successful. In the Summer of Hercules, Mulligan
was pretty sure that something was going on and that
it was something big, but no amount of boisterous conversation

(15:16):
and generous libations in his shop could reveal exactly what
it seemed to be happening around the Upper Hudson River.
Also suspicious on that front was Robert Townsend, whose family
home on Oyster Bay was being used to billet British
troops and Major John Andre was frequently seen visiting there.
What was going on was that Benedict Arnold was plotting

(15:37):
to hand over West Point to the British in exchange
for money and a commission in the British Army. None
of Townsend's or Mulligan's intelligence had added up to that.
I mean they both knew something was up that that
it still caught everyone by surprise. Andrea, however, was captured
with incriminating documents, so that Patriots did find out about
the plot, but not before Benedict Arnold was able to

(15:58):
escape behind British lines, carrying with him the knowledge that
Washington had a spy network, although apparently not a lot
of clear detail about who was involved or how Andre
was executed, and in retaliation, the British started rounding up
anyone Arnold named as a spy or a sympathizer hercules brother,

(16:18):
Hugh happened to be at Clinton's headquarters while negotiating a
provisioning contract, and he heard about this order. He let
his brother know and arrest was imminent, but Hercules refused
to leave New York. Once again, Hercules Mulligan was arrested,
and this time he was taken to Bridewell Prison, which
is where he learned that his arrest had been because
Benedict Arnold had named him as a spy. He nearly

(16:40):
escaped three days in, but a patrol spotted him trying
to climb over the prison wall. He wound up being
recaptured and then moved to Provost Prison, which was still
being overseen by his longtime enemy William Cunningham. At this point,
Mulligan was court martialed. The lead witness against him was
Benedict Arnold, but Arnold didn't really have any clear evidence
to give. It's likely that he had simply named Mulligan

(17:03):
as a spy because he had such long and obvious
loyalist leanings. Cunningham testified as well, but his evidence was
mostly his personal dislike of Hercules Mulligan. So with no
hard evidence and yet another silver tongued defense, on the
part of Mulligan himself. He was neither convicted nor acquitted,
but kept in Provost prison because surely, after so many arrests,

(17:24):
something must be going on. This really worked out to
be kind of a bad turning point for Hercules Mulligan,
and we will talk about exactly how after a brief
sponsor break. Records aren't clear on exactly how long Hercules
Mulligan was detained this time around in Provost prison. The

(17:47):
reason for ultimately releasing him also is not totally clear,
but it seems like he was in there for approximately
five months. Even though his clothing shop had been open
and staffed while he was in prison, business had dropped
off precipitously. Previously, it had seemed as though British officers
and soldiers were willing to overlook Mulligan's obviously loyalist leanings,

(18:09):
whether it was because he was so friendly or because
his store was so fashionable. They didn't seem willing to
overlook Benedict Arnold's allegation that he was a spy, however,
and that's this was especially true since he'd been imprisoned
on charges of espionage and never acquitted of those charges.
He wound up having to work for his brother while
struggling to keep his own shop open, even though loyalists

(18:32):
were far less likely to shop in his store. After
this point, Hercules was still able to gather information while
working at his brother's firm, which was still provisioning and
outfitting the British military and the Americans. It was while
working at his brother's firm that Hercules Mulligan heard of
another plot to kill George Washington, intended to take place

(18:53):
as he passed through Lebanon, Connecticut, on March five, s one.
This followed the British forces learning that Washington was planning
to meet up with Rochambeau. Sending messages via Kato was
really no longer an option, both because of his own
prior arrest and because he was owned by the not
ever actually acquitted of treason Hercules Mulligan, So Mulligan wrote

(19:15):
to Washington and sent his message by a Robert Townsend
in the Culper Ring. The message arrived in time for
Washington to change his route, avoid the British ambush, and
still make his rendezvous with Rochambeau. So this was probably
the second time that Mulligan saved Washington's life. Although the
play Hamilton's makes it sound as though the Patriots knew
their plan for the Battle of Yorktown would work thanks

(19:37):
to Mulligan's spy work, and there was quite a bit
of espionage involved in that battle success for the Patriots,
Mulligan himself actually doesn't seem to have been a major
player in that one. Most of the fighting in the
American Revolutionary War ended after the Battle of Yorktown did
now was in October of one, although the war itself
didn't officially end until September three, seventeen eighty three. That

(20:01):
window between the end of the Battle of Yorktown and
the end of the war was a particularly difficult one
for Hercules Mulligan and his family. Without British officers and
soldiers buying clothes from him, his clothing business nearly felt
failed entirely, and without a British army to outfit anymore,
he couldn't moonlight at his brother's firm anymore because there

(20:22):
just wasn't enough work for him to do there. He
wound up deeply in debt, and he tried and failed
to offset this debt by working in real estate. With
the end of the war, Benjamin Talmadge became afraid that
some of his Copra agent spies who had maintained loyalist
covers during the war would be harassed or otherwise treated
badly after the war had wrapped up. It was when

(20:42):
meeting with Washington to try to figure out how to
ensure the safety of his agents that Talmadge learned about
Mulligan for the first time. At some point, the two
men reportedly meant and Mulligan described his spy work as quote,
Generals have a way of talking sometimes when they're being
fitted for an embroidered waistcoat. So I keep my years,
so been. On November seventeen eighty three, after the end

(21:04):
of the war, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton went to
Mulligan's home at twenty three Queen Street to have breakfast
with the Mulligan family, probably as a show of thanks
for Mulligan's work. Washington also ordered a complete wardrobe of
civilian clothes from Mulligan, who from that point on described
himself as clothier to General Washington and his advertisements. This

(21:25):
event turned his business back around, although it was still
quite some time before he was financially solvent again. His
name was posted in lists of insolvent debtors until seventeen
eighty five, during Washington's presidency, at which point the capital
was in New York. He lived not far from Mulligan's shop,
and he visited their several times. Washington also continued to

(21:46):
buy clothes from Hercules Mulligan because of the extreme secrecy
with which Mulligan had carried out his spy work. Most
of their surviving correspondence is actually about ordering clothes, including
a letter written to order some Moleskin pants just sent
from Philadelphia in seventeen Hercules and his wife wound up
having eight children together, three sons and five daughters, and

(22:10):
they prospered until his eighteen twenty retirement. Their children were John, Sarah, Elizabeth, Margaret, William, Francis, Hercules,
and Mary. Several of them lived quite long lives, although
the younger three, Francis, Hercules and Mary died at the
ages of ten, nine months and five. Hercules Mulligan himself
passed away in eighteen twenty nine, and he's buried in

(22:31):
Trinity Churchyard, not that far from Alexander Hamilton. That is
Hercules Mulligan's story, and while um many people probably want
to sing songs from Hamilton's Now I have the Disney
Um Gospel Choir Hercules thing going on in my head.
It's very fun to say Hercules Mulligan. It is. It's

(22:53):
a good name. And I feel like some of the
some of the things that I read as as I
was preparing for this. Uh. You know, often we use
people's surnames more when we're just talking about a person
at length in a podcast. Uh. And it just seemed
like a lot of people were electing to call him
Hercules mulling In all the way through, maybe just because
they were tickled by that being such an awesome name.

(23:15):
I can't blame them. Uh. Do you have a little
bit of listener mail for us as well? Do? It
is from fan stands as good morning ladies. I just
finished listening to the Wasp episodes and thought you might
enjoy some personal slash family lore regarding the WASP group.
My grandmother was a registered nurse in the Army Air
Corps during World War Two. She was stationed stateside down

(23:37):
in Dover, Delaware. She told us a story that involved
herself and other nurses at the base. During the day,
the nurses had washed their clothes and had everything hang
out on a clothesline to dry. During that day, a
group of wasp flew into the base. Once on base,
they showered and freshened up. When my grandmother and her
nurse friends went to retrieve their clothes, they were missing underwear.

(23:58):
The presumption was when the wasps flew in, they nabbed
the clean clothes to change into. After that, the nurses
would dry their clothes inside their barracks. My grandmother told
the story and laughed about it. I have no idea
whether that family story is true or not, but it
does amuse me a little bit that maybe if you
were flying into a base and freshening up, you might

(24:20):
want something clear to put on, and and and maybe
you might take a less than up and up way
solve that problem. During wartime, this letter goes on, my
grandmother had to go to the mess hall to order
food for the patients. So during this time she started
dating a man who would become my grandfather. She was

(24:42):
she was a second lieutenant, he was a staff sergeant.
It was an officer and an enlisted avan situation which
is frowned upon in the military. She finished her tour,
was honorably discharged and they were married. Then my grandfather
was sent over to India to finish this time and
the war wrapped up. I find it amazing how women
during World War two were allowed to do quote men's work,
but once the men returned, women were sidelined. I think

(25:05):
you did a great job of explaining how the wasp
did their job in such a way as to not
threaten a man's job, but as soon as things slowed down,
they were they were essentially threatening men's work by taking
away jobs from men. Uh think about it, This happened everywhere.
Rosie the riverter was sent home from the factory when
the boys came back from the warfront. This must have
been very difficult for young women of that generation to

(25:27):
have broken through the glass ceiling just to get pushed
back down when the war was over. I was too
young to really think about these things when my grandmother
was alive. When I think about it, though, my mother
grew up with two working parents, something that was kind
of unusual back in those days. I feel like anyone
can do anything regardless of your gender, race orientation, But
even today, I think there is a gap between women

(25:47):
and men, and also a race gap. I feel very
strongly that there is a biased toward girls in certain
race groups at a young age that carry on and
perpetuate stereotyping. Well we as a society ever reached a
place where everyone is equal based on GIL, I don't know,
but I think there needs to be a ton of
fundamental changes to happen before society embraces these viewpoints completely. Sincerely, Stand,

(26:09):
Thank you so much. Stand. I love this story. As
I alluded to, I love the story about UH alleged
undergarment theft. It tickles me a little bit. I agree
like with it. Definitely was hard for UH, for women
who had been out in the workforce and enjoyed in

(26:31):
a lot of cases being out in the word workforce,
then being basically UH stepped backward once the war was over,
which is one of the reasons why we have told
some of those stories on the show. If you would
like to write to us about this or any other podcast,
you can at History Podcast that How Stuffworks dot com.
We do already have every other thing ever mentioned in

(26:53):
the word in the in the play. Hamilton's on the
list already, so no need to do that, But anything
else go ahead right to us. UH We're also on
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(27:16):
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(27:37):
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