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by Michael E. Bigelow, INSCOM Command Historian
GENERAL WASHINGTON'S FIRST SPY
On Jul. 15, 1775, General George Washington, the commander of the newly established Continental Army, allocated funds to pay for his first spy into Boston. Washington’s first agent was 52-year-old John Carnes, an unassuming grocer.
From his experiences in the French and Indian War and along the Virginia frontier, Washington knew the value of intelligence. When he assumed command of American forces besieging Boston on Jul. 3, he inherited spies like the ferrymen Goodwin and Enoch Hopkins, who could only reach the periphery of the enemy lines. Yet Washington needed to know what the British were doing inside the city. So, less than two weeks after assuming command, he earmarked “333 1/3 Dollars” to an unnamed individual “to enduce [sic] him to go into the Town of Boston; to establish a secret correspondence for the purpose of conveying intelligence of the Enemy’s movements & designs.” That expenditure was the second largest the general made in 1775—intelligence was a big investment for the American commander.
Later in July, Col. Joseph Reed, one of Washington’s aides-de-camp, wrote to Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin, who commanded American troops along the north side of the harbor. “To obtain constant & authentick [sic] Intelligence from Boston,” Reed instructed Baldwin to facilitate the flow of information to and from “one John Carnes a Grocer in the South Part of Boston.” Baldwin was to transmit the information from Carnes to Washington with due haste.
A Boston native, Carnes graduated from Harvard in 1742 and entered the ministry in 1746. Over the next eighteen years, he served as the pastor for churches in Stoneham and Seekonk, Massachusetts. With wife Mary and a growing family, Carnes opened a shop on Orange Street in the town’s South End. Although called a grocery, the store stocked a wide variety of items, including clothing, shoes, toiletries, and other items. Colleagues saw Carnes as not particularly talented, “but his simplicity had no vice.” Since he had not been loudly revolutionary or loyalist, why Carnes took the risk of spying for Washington is difficult to discern.
He began, nevertheless, to collect information and send it to the American camp. On Aug. 16, Colonel Baldwin forwarded a letter from Carnes to General Washington. The letter noted the British had intended to sally out of Boston a few days later. Washington and his commanders prepared for the attack that never came.
The British, unfortunately, quickly learned of Carnes’ activity. In the fall of 1775, Maj. Gen. Thomas Gage, the royal commander in Boston, had the grocer’s house and papers searched. Although under suspicion, the British did not execute Carnes or even lock him in jail. This suggested they might have thought him guilty of nothing more than sending newsy letters to relatives. Consequently, they ordered Carnes to leave Boston.
In that regard, Carnes was fortunate. Dr. Benjamin Church, within the inner circle of the Continental Army, was privy to the mission from the start. Regrettably, Church was also a paid agent of General Gage. Although Church might not have known Carnes’ name, he could raise enough suspicions to alert the British. Washington discovered Church’s duplicity about the same time Carnes left Boston.
John Nagy, an expert on intelligence during the American Revolution, noted: “Washington’s first spy ring produced little intelligence and had a very short life. The concept was good but the execution was poor.” Washington, however, learned and his future efforts would be much better and more secure.
Expelled from Boston, Carnes became a chaplain in the Continental Army. Afterwards, he settled in Lynn, Massachusetts, serving in the state legislature for eight years. He died nineteen years after the war at the age of seventy-nine.
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| Date Taken: | 07.11.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.11.2025 14:05 |
| Story ID: | 542568 |
| Location: | US |
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