The American Revolution and the start of our republic would not have happened without George Washington – victorious general, president of the convention that produced the Constitution, and first President, for eight years, of the new republic. All this is well-known. What is not as well-known is the fact that Washington served as his own spymaster in the Revolution, producing crucial information without which we probably would have lost the War of Independence to the British. George Washington, Spymaster by Thomas B. Allen tells this exciting story for a middle school or high school audience. A spymaster has to recruit spies, take their reports, analyze their information to see what should and should not be believed, keep his people secret and safe, and find the money to clandestinely pay them for their expenses and risk-taking work. All these aspects are dealt with in Allen’s book.
I should note that John Bakeless also has a good book on spies in the American Revolution, which will be in the library sometime in 2026. Bakeless’ book on the explorers that discovered America is already in the library. This role that Washington played in the Revolution was treated by James Fenimore Cooper in his classic novel The Spy, where Washington, as spymaster, is a character. The Spy is an American classic worth reading (as is practically anything by Cooper).