Hercules Mulligan was an Irish-born New York tailor who outfitted British officers during the occupation of the city while secretly passing their secrets to the Continental Army. This episode strips away the pop culture version of Mulligan and looks at the documented record of how he built an intelligence operation in plain sight.

We trace Mulligan’s path from immigrant clerk to Sons of Liberty radical, his role in seizing cannons at the Battery under fire from HMS Asia, and his mentorship of a young Alexander Hamilton. Then we turn to his espionage, and to Cato, the enslaved man who served as his co-spy and courier and carried messages past British checkpoints at enormous personal risk.

• Why a luxury tailor shop made such an effective intelligence hub
• The boastful British officer whose watch coat order revealed a plan to capture Washington
• How British class prejudice and racism let both Mulligan and Cato operate unnoticed
• George Washington’s public breakfast with Mulligan after Evacuation Day
• Mulligan’s later role as a founding member of the New York Manumission Society