a card. For the reception of these cards he had a case made with
compartments and pigeon-holes. Every time a movement was reported the
cards were shifted to correspond, so that he could know at a glance,
when the cards were spread out upon a table, just how the troops of the
enemy were distributed or massed. Every few days, the officer in charge
had to send the emperor a list of the changes which had taken place.
This important matter was intrusted to a person who knew the languages
of the different nations engaged in the war.

It was Bonaparte's perfect organization of his spy system which enabled
him to carry out his plan of always having a superior force at the point
of attack. These two were the great secrets of his tactical system,
namely, to have the best information and the most men at the decisive
moment.

Bonaparte was a trained soldier; but when Washington took command of the
army in July, 1775, he had had very little experience of actual warfare.
That little, however, was precisely of the kind to prove the value of
correct information. For the want of it, he had seen General Braddock
lead an army into the jaws of destruction, and he may have still
possessed in some closet of Mount Vernon the coat with four bullet-holes
in it which he had himself worn on that occasion. There are no warriors
so skillful either at getting or concealing information as Indians, and
all his experience hitherto had been in the Indian country and with
warlike methods of an Indian character.

Hence it is not surprising to discover that the first important act
which he performed at Cambridge was to engage a person to go into the
city of Boston for the purpose of procuring "intelligence of the enemy's
movements and designs." An entry in his private note-book shows that he