An unsung hero of the Revolution, Hercules Mulligan was one of America’s most important spies.

Hercules Mulligan (September 25, 1740 – March 4, 1825) was an Irish-American tailor and spy during the American Revolutionary War. Born in Coleraine in the north of Ireland to Hugh and Sarah Mulligan, Hercules Mulligan immigrated with his family to North America in 1746, settling in New York City, where he was raised from the age of six. In 1765, Mulligan became one of the first colonists to join the Sons of Liberty, a secret society formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to oppose British policies that limited them.

When George Washington spoke of his need for reliable information from within New York City in 1776, after the Continental Army was driven out, Alexander Hamilton (who was then an officer on Washington's staff) recommended Mulligan due to his placement as tailor to British soldiers and officers. Mulligan proved to be quite valuable to George Washington, when information he provided resulted in Washington's life being saved not once, but twice. Following the Revolution, Mulligan's tailoring business prospered. He retired in 1820 and died in 1825, aged 84. Mulligan was buried in Trinity Church Cemetery, a burial ground behind Trinity Church in Manhattan.

Giving testimony to the British House of Commons in 1779, American politician turned loyalist Joseph Galloway estimated that Irishmen composed perhaps one-half of the Continental Army. Five years later, after Washington’s army won the war, another expert witness told Parliament that “the Irish language was as commonly spoken in the American ranks as English” and that Irish valor “determined the contest.”

Those claims contained a fair degree of exaggeration, but they capture an essential truth: Men of Irish heritage played crucial roles in fighting the American Revolutionary War. Irish Americans sided with the patriots against the British Army in overwhelming numbers and shouldered muskets at Lexington and Concord, during the Battle of Bunker Hill, and at every other significant military encounter over the eight long years of war. Their numbers included general, colonels, thousands of enlisted men, and even spies.

In New York, equally strenuous efforts were made by the British to enlist “the emigrants from Ireland.” General Sir Henry Clinton wrote the English Secretary of War of his plan to lure the poverty stricken Irish to a cause which, he candidly admitted, “was contrary to the particular interests of most of them.”Although the British spent much time and money trying to persuade the Irish, both at home and in America, to join their side of the conflict, they were rarely successful.

Probably the best individual example of Irish loyalty and daring is the story of Hercules Mulligan. This burly gentleman’s tailor was one of the leaders of New York’s Sons of Liberty. He battled Tories with words and fists in the turbulent days before the Revolution. When hostilities began & Washington was forced to retreat from New York, Mulligan stayed behind. He pretended to have a change of heart about the rebellion but in all actuality, Mulligan had become one of Washington’s most valuable spies throughout the war.

Mulligan's story, hidden history that has remained long forgotten, is the story of a man determined to see the American dream come to fruition & a foreign superpower intent on preserving dominance over the Thirteen American colonies.

For the rest of Mulligan's story, please check out the audio link provided for EPISODE SEVEN of our podcast, Hidden History:

LISTEN NOW: A Confidential Correspondent: The Biography of Hercules Mulligan -

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Images and Documents

The First Trinity Church, where Hercules Mulligan got married, destroyed in the fire of 1776.

The New York Public Library Digital Collections, 1893.

Information about the children of Hercules & Elizabeth Mulligan.

The Constitutional Courant, September 21, 1765.

Battle of Golden Hill, by Charles M. Lefferts, circa 1919–1920.

NYC DURING BRITISH OCCUPATION, 1776 - 1783.

Mulligan's residence is number 23.

HMS Asia at the Halifax Naval Yard, 1797.

Watercolor by George Gustavus Lennox,

who was a lieutenant aboard Asia.

Depiction of the Battle of Lexington by William Barnes Wollen, 1910.

The Old Bridewell, which formerly stood in the Park,

between the City Hall and Broadway.

Colored lithograph by H.R. Robinson.

The 1879 painting Evacuation Day and Washington's Triumphal

Entry into New York City. Edmund P. Restein, 1879.

Photo Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

Tobias Lear was the personal secretary

to President George Washington.

Tobias Lear to Hercules Mulligan, 6 February 1792: “The President is desirous of getting some black mole skin, like that of which you made him a pair of breeches when he was in New York—and not being able to procure any in this City he has directed me to request, if there is any in N. York, that you will be so good as to get and send to him as much as will three pair breeches; the amount of which shall be remitted to you as soon as it gets to him, and the price is known.”

19 Mar. 1792: “Agreeably to my letter of friday last, I now enclose you forty dollars in bank notes of the Bank of the United States. This is one dollar and ⅓ of a dollar more than the 7½ yards of mole skin will come to at 5¼ doll. per yd but it was the nearest I could make the sum in Bank Notes—You may therefore add as much to the quantity of mole skin as will make up for this surplus. If this mole-skin is made up into as small a bundle as it can be, and put into the Post-Office, it will reach us with safety—Let it be directed to the President—and be so good as to send the Bill with it”

George Washington's purchase order from Mulligan's shop. Today, these seven outfits would cost a little over $50,000.

Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, March 29, 1799.

On loan from the NYS Archives at Philipse Manor Hall, Yonkers, N.Y.

Photos taken by Hidden History team, 11/17/22

The Mulligan Vault in Trinity Churchyard.

WHALIE, which is actually misspelt, is in reference to Hercules Mulligan's brother-in-law, Thomas Whaly.

Obituary found in the New York Spectator, Tuesday, March 8, 1825.

The New-York Daily Tribune, Tuesday, May 18, 1875.

This article is commemorating 100 years since the formation

of the Committee of One Hundred.

Print from 1884 commemorating the Battle of Golden Hill.

An article in the New York Herald, Saturday, September 25, 1915, by historian Michael J. O'Brien, who was working on a biography of Hercules Mulligan at the time.

He was searching for living descendants of Mulligan.

An article in the Brooklyn NY Daily Eagle, Tuesday, July 14, 1921. It discusses Washington's relationship with the Irish.

Reading Material

Everything you need to know about the American Revolutionary War can be found below:

On August 22, 1776, New Yorkers heard the cannon blasts of the Battle of Long Island. Five days later, an expeditionary force of over 32,000 British regulars, 10 ships of line, 20 frigates, and 170 transports defeated Washington’s troops at Kip’s Bay and invaded Manhattan Island. Thus began seven years of British occupation in the City of New York.

Learn more about the British occupation of New York City here:

Resources

• O'Brien, Michael J. Hercules Mulligan: Confidential Correspondent of George Washington. (New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1937).

• Hamilton, John C. History of the Republic of the United States of America, as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton and in Those of His Contemporaries, Vol. 1. (Philadelphia: 1864).
• Washington Parke Custis, George. Recollections and Private Memoirs of George Washington. (Washington, D.C.: WILLIAM H. MOORE, 1859).
• Shea, George. The Life and Epoch of Alexander Hamilton; A Historical Study. (Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1879).
• Misencik, Paul R.. The Original American Spies: Seven Covert Agents of the Revolutionary War. (North Carolina: McFarland & Co, Inc., Publishers, 2014).
• https://archive.org/details/peculiarservice00ford/page/314/mode/2up
• https://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/evacuation-day-washingtons-farewell#_edn19
• https://www.familysearch.org/search/