The Culper Ring was a successful operation that provided Washington with valuable information on the British Army headquartered in New York from October 1778 to the end of the war. After the United States gained independence, Woodhull served as a magistrate, as had his father before him, and served as a judge in Suffolk County, New York.
Woodhull was a descendant of Richard Lawrence Woodhull, a wealthy settler of Setauket, and was also related to New York militia Brigadier General Nathaniel Woodhull. His parents were Judge Richard Woodhull and Mary Woodhull (née Smith).
Woodhull served as a lieutenant in the Suffolk County, New York, militia in the fall of 1775 but resigned after a few months. He was motivated by the murder of his cousin Brigadier General Nathaniel Woodhull of the New York militia, who was wounded by sword and bayonet cuts after he had been captured on August 29, 1776. According to some reports, he had been deprived of medical care and food and suffered an agonizing death on September 20, 1776, and Abraham Woodhull was inflamed against the British by that event. He did not immediately take up arms or begin spying, however, and was more placid than some of his friends, who joined the Continental Army at the outset of the war.

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