Photo By Lori Stewart | A much older Enoch Crosby, portrait completed in 1830 (National Portrait Gallery,...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
ENOCH CROSBY HANGS UP HIS CLOAK AND DAGGER
In late May 1777, Enoch Crosby completed his final counterintelligence mission in support of the American cause. Unwittingly thrown into “secret service” nine months earlier, he helped disrupt the forming of three separate loyalist companies planning to assist British operations in New York City.
Born in Massachusetts and raised in New York, 25-year-old Crosby enlisted in the 5th Connecticut Regiment in April 1775. In his first eight-month enlistment, he joined the regiment during the American campaign to invade Canada. In August 1776, he reenlisted for a nine-month term with Col. Jacobus Swarthout’s New York militia unit in Fredericksburg (today’s Carmel). At this time, Crosby’s military career took an unexpected turn.
During his journey to join his new regiment, Crosby fell in with a fellow traveler who questioned him to ascertain his loyalties. Allowing the British sympathizer to believe they were of like mind, Crosby learned of a loyalist company being formed nearby for operations in New York City. Crosby discreetly disentangled himself from the conversation and continued his travels southward. That night, he stopped at the home of a fellow patriot, a member of the county’s committee of safety that had responsibility for the identification of and action against citizens suspected of being disloyal to the American cause. He convinced Crosby to attend the next day’s committee meeting to share what he had learned.
After hearing Crosby’s story, the committee asked him to undertake a mission “to aid in the apprehension of the company then raising;” meanwhile, the committee promised to inform Colonel Swarthout why Crosby had not shown up to join his regiment. To provide Crosby cover, the committee arrested him as a British collaborator and then arranged for him to escape. Crosby returned to the home of the loyalist traveler he had met on the road and agreed to join his company. Crosby proceeded to gather a significant amount of information about the company, including the pending date of its departure for New York City. He relayed this information to his committee contacts, and the next day, an American ranger unit took all thirty members of the company, including Crosby, prisoner. After a few days, Crosby was allowed to escape.
This was the first of Crosby’s exploits. By early 1777, he was working directly with John Jay and his Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies. In their employ, Crosby used the aliases of John Brown and Levi Foster to repeat his counterintelligence operation twice more. The first took place in the town of Marlborough and the second in Pawling. In both instances, all members of the fledgling loyalist companies were captured and imprisoned and Crosby was allowed to escape thereafter. Crosby’s final mission for the committee was to mingle with the residents of Albany County, where he reported nothing of interest except that “the confiscation of the personal property of the Tories & leasing of their lands had a great tendency to discourage them from joining the British Army.”
By late May 1777, Crosby’s enlistment was at an end. He asked to be relieved of his counter-intelligence duties, believing “a longer continuance in that employment would be dangerous.” The committee agreed. Crosby returned home, where he collected his full pay despite never actually joining his regiment. Before the war ended, Crosby reenlisted twice more, in 1779 and in 1780.
While Crosby recounted these events in his pension application some fifty years after the war, his story was factually supported by the minutes of Jay’s Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies. Crosby was authorized a pension of $100 in September 1833; he passed away just three years later, at the age of eighty-five. Although contested by historians, Crosby is often identified as the inspiration for the character of Harvey Birch in James Fenimore Cooper’s 1821 novel, "The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground."
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| Date Taken: | 05.16.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.16.2025 15:04 |
| Story ID: | 498212 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 12 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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