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478The documents were hidden in goods that Roe took back to Setauket and hid on Abraham Woodhull s farm Anna Strong farm which was near Woodhull s barn would hang a black petticoat on her clothesline for Caleb Brewster in order to tell him to retrieve the documents Strong indicated which cove Brewster should land at by hanging up handkerchiefs to designate the specific cove Brewster would then deliver the messages to Tallmadge The scheme worked well most of the time but Washington's letter dated June 27 1779 signifies the dangers of this route Tallmadge was on his way from Washington's headquarters to drop this letter off with one of the Culpers Townsend who knew he was coming attempted to warn Tallmadge about possible raids in Connecticut Woodhull forwarded the message with his own similar warning but Tallmadge did not receive the warnings He and some ninety troops were near Bedford New York at Poundridge when they were attacked at dawn by Lord Roudon s and a body of light infantry Tallmadge lost his horse and most importantly his secret papers from Washington including a letter of the utmost importance This letter mentions the Culpers by code not revealing their true identity which no one knew but Tallmadge
The letter also mentioned George Higday who was going to help the ring As a result of the letter s loss Higday was not able to join Washington made sure that he was notified quickly of this discovery Although Higday s place was raided the British found no papers because he had had time to destroy all evidence In order to safeguard the identity of his spies Tallmadge used a number of protective methods Tallmadge gave his informants fake names and invented a numerical system to identify his informants rather than use names Seven hundred and sixty three numbers were used 711 was General Washington 745 was England and 727 was New York Tallmadge and his associates also wrote in invisible ink Despite constant pressure from Washington the Culper spy ring accomplished the most information gathering on both sides of the Revolutionary war The group s greatest achievement was discovering the ambush planned on French troops in Rhode Island Without the Culper Spy Ring the Franco American alliance could have been hurt severely or destroyed They also contributed to the revealing of Benedict Arnold and John Andre both conspiring to give the British control over West Point Without the Culper Spy Ring the American Revolution could have been a British victory over the US