FOIAWEAR — HERCULES MULLIGAN / Clothier to Genl. Washington Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 038 — HERCULES MULLIGAN

Hercules Mulligan ran a clothing emporium in New York that outfitted the men occupying his city — and sold their secrets to George Washington. He is one of the founders of American intelligence, and he twice kept Washington alive.

Mulligan was born in Ireland in 1740 and came to New York at about six years old. In 1774 he opened a clothing business catering to New York society, to wealthy British businessmen and to high-ranking British officers. He employed several tailors but preferred to greet customers himself, taking their measurements and building his relationships one at a time. The business thrived, and it made him acceptable company in circles that would never have admitted a rebel — acceptable enough to marry the niece of a Royal Navy admiral. He was also a member of the Sons of Liberty and of the New York Committees of Correspondence and Observation, roughly a decade before the war began.

In 1773 his older brother Hugh introduced him to a young student named Alexander Hamilton, who boarded with Mulligan while attending King’s College. The late-night arguments in that house moved Hamilton from supporting British rule to the Patriot cause; he joined the Sons of Liberty and, at eighteen, wrote the essay that helped hasten the Revolution in New York.

When Washington told Hamilton — by then his aide-de-camp — that he needed a spy inside New York City, Hamilton named his old friend. Mulligan outfitted British officers and collected their measurements and their secrets alike. His method was patience and vanity: when an officer wanted a uniform repaired, Mulligan asked when he needed it back. When customer after customer named the same date, he could read the day of the next movement. He then sent Cato, the man he enslaved, to Washington’s headquarters in New Jersey with the intelligence.

Twice that traffic saved Washington’s life. One evening a flustered British officer arrived late for a coat and let slip that he was leaving within the day on a mission to capture General Washington, whose meeting place the British had learned. Mulligan hurried him out and sent Cato; the ambush found no Washington. In February 1781, General Sir Henry Clinton ordered 300 troops onto transport boats to intercept Washington on the Connecticut shoreline — and the provisions for those boats were loaded by Mulligan’s brother Hugh, who passed the warning along. Washington changed his route and reached New England safely. Cato was captured and beaten on one return trip, and Mulligan himself was suspected more than once and jailed, talking his way out each time.

After 1783 the danger did not end: a man who had spent the war among British officers risked tar and feathers. Washington settled it by visiting Mulligan’s house after the Evacuation Day parade, breakfasting with him and shopping in his store — and, as president, kept buying his clothes from the Irish tailor. Mulligan changed his shop sign to read: Clothier to Genl. Washington. He and Hamilton were two of the nineteen founding members of the New York Manumission Society.

The artwork is a stylised eighteenth-century copperplate line engraving — the emblems of a colonial tailor’s trade: shears, a coiled measure, a sealed letter, and a 1770s regimental coat on the dress form. It is drawn in the visual language of the period and set in typefaces of the period (Caslon and Baskerville); it is an interpretation, not a reproduction of any historical print, and it carries no lettering or callouts within the illustration itself.

Offered in eleven garment colours: the artwork carries light typography on dark garments (Black, Graphite, Espresso, Navy) and dark typography on light garments (White, Ivory, Butter, Chalky Mint, Blossom, Light Green, Chambray).

The QR code on the front opens the CIA’s account of Hercules Mulligan, the source for everything above: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the-legend-of-hercules-mulligan/

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717 garment-dyed t-shirt. Heavyweight 6.1 oz/yd² (206.8 g/m²), 100% ring-spun US cotton, pre-shrunk, relaxed fit, double-needle stitched with no side seams and a sewn-in label. Sizes S–4XL. Printed on the front at 300 DPI; plain back. The main artwork prints at 10 × 10 in and the QR at 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, with like colours. Tumble dry low. Do not iron directly on the printed area.

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