Washington's Spies Sparknotes

TURN: Washington’s Spies is a period drama that takes place in autumn 1776. It is based on Alexander Rose’s book Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring (2007) and it begins with the insurgents declaring war against the Crown. In the first episode, we observe similar environment that we read when studying the Revolutionary War. The story begins as his Majesty’s Army forced Washington’s rebels into the wilderness and New York City are announced the military base of operation for the British and Loyalists. The episode begins with Ben Tallmadge who is a Colonial Army, escaping from the Queen’s Rangers and his meet up with General Charles Scott who insists that they begin hiring spies against the colonists. However the general

declines. On the other hand, at the tavern, Abraham Woodhull, who is one of the protagonist and the son of Judge Woodhull, is seen protecting the owner of the tavern from the British troops and later is accused of killing one of the British Captain who was involved during the quick dispute.

Interesting enough, we also observe Judge Woodhull telling his son to stay away from the people who choose “the wrong side” meaning to stay away from rebels. After death of Captain Joyce, Lieutenant John Graves Simcoe becomes the new British Captain and begins to seduce the tavern owner’s wife and also claims their home as his men and his. To fulfill Abraham’s promise of paying back the tavern owner his money, Abraham goes to meet an old friend who would buy his cabbages and from the money he receives he decides to pay back the tavern’s owner. However on his way back, he meets with Colonial troop who works under General Washington, tries to recruit him into a spy ring. On his way back, Abraham tries to make it seem as the rebels attacked him by giving himself a scar on his forehead with a fighting knife. However the British troops arrest him and take him into questioning. During the questioning, he gives false names of the Colonial army that attacked him and his father who is the Judge catches him and warns him that he would no longer protect

Abraham.
In just the first episode, we see a lot of events occurring. The location of this first episode varies as some part of the episode takes place in Setauket, New York, some in New Jersey and others in Brooklyn Harbor, New York. The event occurs during the dawn of the Revolutionary War when the “rebels” Washington’s troops were seeking independence and were in constant battles and war with the mother nation, British troops.
In the movie, there is a scene where the Queen’s Rangers ambush the rebels and one of the rebels, Ben Tallmadge, tries to escape the Queen’s Rangers by wearing their attire.

This is the scene right after the Battle in New Jersey where there can be seen several dead rebels lying on the ground while one of the Queen’s Ranger is going around stabbing the dead bodies to ensure that they are dead and none is alive. In such location, items such as buttons, rings, cartridges, bayonets, shrapnel, gunpowder, canister shots, letters, clothing such as hats, scarfs, etc. are likely to appear in the archaeological records. These are the items that can be found through excavating a battleground. The stratigraphy of these items can also help us determine when the events occurred and also help us develop relationships between those items found. Items such as silver or gold coins or any sort of currency are not likely to appear in the archaeological records as they can be found in other locations as well. These items will not be useful when analyzing the history; it won’t give much input into the event or the surrounding of the location as during that period of time, everyone used same currency. Items such as clothing, accessories, buttons, can be considered potential marker of class as they can help define whether the individuals were British troops, Loyalists or rebels. Different kind of soldiers had different buttons, color of coats, accessories that helped in their identification. In

addition, officers with different position and ranks received certain kind of badges and weaponry that can help us identify their marker of class. Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify their social status as most of the soldiers came in voluntarily and were mostly poor during the Revolutionary War.
Although the episode depicted a small event from the Revolutionary War, it seemed like an accurate representation of the events that took place during that period of time. Something that I felt that was missing from the depiction of the time period is that there were not many representation of the Indigenous American as they fought against the Revolutionaries. Indigenous American participation in the Revolutionary War is mostly disregarded in this episode. The episode in some ways fails to depict the past of Early America, as in the episode, there were lack of Black African American and Indigenous American’s presence missing as well as early Americans were more violent and savage against certain groups of people.