This week’s optional discussion topic: Spies and undercover operatives. Inspired by this wonderful painting of Grace and Rachel Martin, two sisters-in-law who ran a small spy network in South Carolina during the Revolutionary War which assisted the Continental Army in resisting the British invasion of the South. In their most famous exploit, the two women dressed in men’s clothing and waylaid two British couriers carrying dispatches from British headquarters at gun point, providing crucial intelligence for General Nathaniel Greene’s forces. In an amusing coda to this incident, the same couriers stopped at the home of a local family and complained that they’d been robbed by “two rebel lads” on their way. The rebel lads were their hosts, Grace and Rachel, who served them dinner without them becoming any of the wiser.