Captain John De Treville: Continental Officer and British Spy

Originally published in the Journal of the American Revolution on November 12, 2019.

In late June 1780 a messenger arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, with intelligence for Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis. The messenger, Capt. John La Boularderie De Treville, was a South Carolina Continental artillery officer and prisoner of war on parole. He was also a British spy. On at least four occasions, from June 1780 to January 1781, De Treville was sent into North Carolina to gather intelligence on American force levels and movements. By all accounts, he was successful on these missions and delivered actionable intelligence to British leadership, often at critical periods before their advances northward. His status as a British spy soon came to be discovered by American leadership. He was arrested and narrowly avoided being hanged, somehow escaping back to British-occupied Charleston. Remarkably, for someone wanted on the executable offense of being a spy, De Treville chose not to evacuate with the British but remain in South Carolina. With his “secret” more or less out, the post-war period was anything but tranquil as De Treville quite literally fought to restore his public character as a loyal American.

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