Did George Washington’s Bodyguard Plot to Kill Him in 1776?

In late June 1776, while a British armada massed off New York harbor, a stunned crowd of some 20,000 people gathered in a field north of the city and watched a Continental Army private climb the gallows. The condemned man was Thomas Hickey, an Irish-born former British soldier turned Patriot—and a member of Washington’s Life Guard, the elite detail entrusted with protecting the commander in chief. His alleged crime: sedition, mutiny, and treacherous correspondence with the enemy. Around the same week, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) diplomats were quietly weighing which side of the conflict to back, and Oneida and Tuscarora leaders would soon break with the Confederacy’s neutrality to support the Patriot cause. The Hickey affair—America’s first great internal conspiracy—unfolded at the exact moment the Revolution’s Indigenous diplomacy reached its most fragile crossroads.

The World of 1776: New York, Loyalists, and the Coming Storm

When George Washington arrived in New York in April 1776 to prepare for a British counterattack, he understood that the threat came from within as much as from the sea. New York’s merchant elite still depended on secure trade with Britain, and many hoped for reconciliation with the mother country. From exile aboard a British merchant ship anchored in the harbor, the royal governor William Tryon worked to undermine the Patriot cause by recruiting Loyalist support across the region.

Washington moved quickly. In May 1776, at his request, the New York Provincial Congress formed a “Secret Committee” led by Patriot statesman John Jay. Historians Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch describe it as “a small early prototype of an intelligence agency—a team dedicated entirely to gathering information, identifying dangerous parties, and uncovering hostile plots.” That committee would foreshadow modern counterintelligence work, including the tradecraft later adopted by organizations described in accounts of the plots against George Washington during the Revolution.

Parallel to these Patriot anxieties, the war’s outcome in New York depended heavily on Indigenous nations. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy—Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora—had maintained a careful neutrality since the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, but both the Crown and the Continental Congress courted them relentlessly. Joseph Brant, a Mohawk leader educated in Connecticut, would ultimately side with Britain; the Oneida and Tuscarora would support the Americans. For the peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, the Revolution was never a distant European quarrel—it was a contest for land, sovereignty, and survival.

The Hickey Plot: Evidence, Interrogation, and the First Execution for Treason

In mid-June 1776, Thomas Hickey and fellow Life Guard soldier Michael Lynch were jailed for passing counterfeit money. While imprisoned, they confided to a fellow inmate, Isaac Ketcham, that they and several other Guardsmen were involved in a scheme to undermine the Patriot cause on behalf of the British. Seeking leniency, Ketcham reported what he had heard. Acting on that tip—and on the testimony of other witnesses—the Secret Committee arrested and interrogated New York City mayor David Mathews, along with dozens of additional suspects. Even Washington’s housekeeper, Mary Smith, appears to have been implicated, though her actual involvement remains unclear.

The Court-Martial and Execution

On June 26, 1776, Hickey faced a court-martial. Four witnesses testified against him, including Ketcham, and he was found guilty of “sedition and mutiny, and also of holding a treach’rous correspondence with the enemy, for the most horrid and detestable purposes,” per the general orders issued the following day. Two days later he was hanged near the intersection of today’s Grand and Chrystie Streets on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He became the first Continental soldier executed for treason.

William Eustis, then an army surgeon and later governor of Massachusetts, was in the crowd. Writing to Dr. David Townsend, he called the Hickey conspiracy “the greatest and vilest attempt ever made against our country.” To name the unthinkable—a plot against Washington by the men he trusted most—Eustis coined the word “sacricide,” from Latin roots meaning “slaughter of the good.”

What Was Actually Proven?

The sensational rumor that Hickey tried to kill Washington with poisoned peas is almost certainly apocryphal. Washington himself never mentioned a threat to his own life, even in the letter he wrote to John Hancock on the morning of Hickey’s execution, and none of the committee’s surviving examinations mention an assassination plan. Meltzer and Mensch argue that the evidence suggests the plotters intended to kill or at least kidnap Washington, and that the general and the committee kept this quiet to avoid panic—and to avoid appearing weak—just as the British invasion loomed. What is documented is the conspiracy itself, the arrests, and the execution. What is speculation is the poisoned peas.

Why the Revolution Turned on Indigenous Alliances

Just as Washington’s Secret Committee tracked Loyalists inside New York, both the British and the Americans recognized that the war’s geography—especially in the Ohio Country and along the New York frontier—was dominated by Native nations. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) and the Royal Proclamation of 1763 had drawn a boundary line meant to restrain colonial expansion onto Indigenous lands. That line, and the Crown’s commitment to enforcing it, became one of the grievances catalogued in the Declaration of Independence—a document that accused King George III of inciting “the merciless Indian Savages.” The hypocrisy was stark: the Proclamation of 1763 had been a protective measure for Native nations, yet Patriot rhetoric weaponized it against the Crown.

Native Nations in the Fight for New York

By July 1776, as the main body of the British fleet landed at Staten Island, the Oneida and Tuscarora were already negotiating with Patriot commissioners. Their decision to side with the Americans cost them dearly—their villages were burned by Loyalist and British forces, and their populations were decimated. The Confederacy itself fractured, a wound that would not heal for generations. The Revolution, therefore, is not merely the story of Hickey and Washington’s Life Guard; it is also the story of Native nations forced to gamble their sovereignty on a colonial quarrel they did not start.

Continental Uniforms, Regimental Identity, and Material Culture

Hickey wore the uniform of a Continental private, and understanding how that garment was made—its hunting shirts, cockades, and regimental distinctions—is essential to understanding the army he betrayed. For a museum-grade visual record of Continental dress and camp life, see accounts of what uniforms the Continental Army wore. For Indigenous communities, regimental insignia and treaty medals served a parallel diplomatic function: gifts from European powers were worn as symbols of alliance and were often buried with their recipients, becoming archaeological evidence of eighteenth-century diplomacy.

Historical Context & Key Cultural Takeaways

Verified Facts You Can Trust

• Thomas Hickey was a member of Washington’s Life Guard, arrested in June 1776 for passing counterfeit money and later charged with sedition and mutiny.
• He was court-martialed on June 26, 1776, convicted on the testimony of four witnesses, and hanged on June 28, 1776—the first Continental soldier executed for treason.
• The New York Secret Committee, chaired by John Jay, was formed in May 1776 as an early counterintelligence body.
• New York City mayor David Mathews was arrested and interrogated; the royal governor William Tryon directed Loyalist recruitment from a ship in the harbor.
• No contemporary document confirms an assassination attempt on Washington; the “poisoned peas” story is a later, false legend.

Indigenous Context That Must Not Be Erased

The year 1776 was equally pivotal for Native nations. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy split under the pressure of the war; the Oneida and Tuscarora allied with the Americans, while the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga largely sided with Britain. The Proclamation of 1763 and Treaty of Fort Stanwix—both designed to protect Indigenous land—became flashpoints in colonial grievances. Material culture from this period, including treaty medals, wampum belts, and regimental artifacts, now anchors museum collections that document the era. Understanding the Hickey plot without recognizing these parallel struggles would be an incomplete and misleading history.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Thomas Hickey and why was he executed?

Thomas Hickey was an Irish-born former British soldier who joined the Patriot cause in 1775 and was assigned to Washington’s Life Guard. In June 1776 he was arrested for passing counterfeit currency and then implicated in a Loyalist plot to undermine the Continental Army. He was court-martialed on June 26, 1776, convicted of sedition, mutiny, and treacherous correspondence with the enemy, and hanged on June 28, 1776.

Did Hickey really try to poison George Washington with peas?

No verified source supports this claim. Washington never wrote of a threat to his life, and none of the Secret Committee’s surviving examinations mention an assassination attempt. The “poisoned peas” story is a sensationalized rumor that circulated afterward; historians treat it as unsubstantiated.

What was the New York Secret Committee?

Formed in May 1776 by the New York Provincial Congress at Washington’s urging, the Secret Committee—led by John Jay—was an early counterintelligence body dedicated to identifying Loyalists, intercepting hostile correspondence, and stopping plots against the Patriot cause. Its methods anticipated later intelligence tradecraft.

How did the Revolution affect the Haudenosaunee Confederacy?

The war fractured the Confederacy’s traditional neutrality. The Oneida and Tuscarora allied with the Americans; the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga largely sided with the British. The conflict brought devastation to Iroquois homelands, with villages destroyed and populations displaced—consequences that shaped Native-American diplomacy, land loss, and sovereignty debates for generations afterward.

Where can artifacts from this era be studied today?

Objects from the Revolutionary period—Continental uniforms, treaty medals, wampum, and diplomatic gifts—are held in institutions such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the New-York Historical Society, and regional museums in Haudenosaunee territory. The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA, 1990) governs the return of culturally affiliated items to descendant communities, ensuring that descendant nations retain a voice in how their heritage is preserved and interpreted.

Cultural Legacy and Modern Preservation

The Hickey conspiracy endures as America’s first great internal security crisis—a moment when the Revolution nearly turned on itself. Yet its full meaning cannot be separated from the Native nations who were simultaneously fighting for their own futures. The Oneida and Tuscarora alliance with the Patriots, the Mohawk and Seneca alignment with Britain, and the Confederacy’s wrenching split are all part of the same 1776. Today, museums and tribal historic preservation offices collaborate under NAGPRA to interpret that legacy with accuracy and respect, ensuring that the Revolutionary generation’s Indigenous contemporaries are not erased from the historical record.