Crypto Goes to War: The American Revolution

The birth of a new nation necessitated the creation of secret writing by the representatives and military officers of that nation. At the beginning of the American Revolution the use of codes and ciphers and secret inks to hide the contents of diplomatic and military intelligence messages was completely absent from American communications. It was up to the amateurs who ended up leading the Continental Army and the Congress to create and use systems that would protect their correspondence from British eyes. The British were not much more sophisticated in their secrecy systems than the Americans in cryptography and steganography. Regardless, when both sides are learning as they go there are successes and failures.