22 Greatest Spies and Their Top Secret Missions

Thomas Miller Beach was an English spy who enlisted in the Northern army during the American Civil War. His services enabled the British Government to take measures which led to the fiasco of the Canadian invasion of 1870 and Kiel’s surrender in 1871. He supplied full details concerning the various Irish-American associations, in which he […]

A well-born Richmond, resident of Virginia, Elizabeth Van Lew operated a widespread spy ring for the United States during the American Civil War from 1864 to 1865. She earned the “Crazy Bet” moniker for effectively posing as mentally ill by wearing old clothes and bonnets so that people might think that she was crazy. Elizabeth

A spy for the Confederate Army in North Carolina, Pigott organized fishermen to spy for her as she hid secret messages in her skirt and carried them from New Bern through the sea ports to be transmitted to the proper authorities. Though she had been arrested by the Union forces several times on charges of

Maria Isabella Boyd or the “Cleopatra of the Secession,” was a Confederate spy during the American Civil War operating from her father’s hotel, the Front Royal. She conveyed valuable information to General Stonewall Jackson in 1862 through her slave Eliza Hopewell as she charmed military secrets out of one of her Union sentries. She was

A slave owned by William Armistead of Virginia, he became the first African-American double agent during the American Revolution. He volunteered in 1781 to join the army under General Lafayette after getting the consent of his master. His first mission was to spy on Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold, who had defected from the Continental Army

John André (2 May 1750—2 October 1780) was a BritishArmy officer hanged as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold’s attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York to the British.Andre was a favourite in colonial society during the British occupation in both Philadelphia and

Famously known as the “first American spy,” Hale was a soldier for the continental Army during the American Revolutionary War in 1775. He was officially designated the state hero of Connecticut after he had volunteered to go behind enemy lines and observe the movements of the British during the Battle of Long Island. Disguised as