In any military organization, it benefits to know what the enemy is planning and to keep the enemy from knowing what you are planning. General George Washington understood this concept very well, and exercised every strategy and tactic to achieve both tasks. The Culper Spy Ring was an American Spy Network used to process secret British information and to supply it to General Washington during the peak of the American War for Independence. In November 1778, General Washington selected Major Benjamin Tallmadge as director of military intelligence; his duty was to create a secret spy ring to capture British information. Major Tallmadge settled his group of spies in the busy city of New York City. The information collected and delivered on through the spy ring from 1778 to the wars end in 1783 consisted of key British movements, fortifications, and plans in New York and the surrounding region that helped the patriot's defeat the British in the American Revolutionary War. .
For five years the Culper Spy Ring's operation headquarters hid deep in the city of New York and around it. During that time Major Tallmadge was the only person that knew the true identities of the spies. Tallmadge's tactics were so genius that the General George Washington himself didn't even know the real men and women behind the disguises. Tallmadge's spy ring consisted of people he was friends with at school in Long Island. He recruited only the people whom he unquestionably trusted. These trustees were Anna Strong, Abraham Woodhull, Robert Townsend, Caleb Brewster, Austin Roe and John Bolton. The code name of the spy ring was "Samuel Culper." Abraham Woodhull originated as the main source of the Spy Ring's day-to-day operations on Long Island. Woodhull personally traveled back and forth between New York collecting information and observing travel operations of the British, as well. Woodhull would evaluate all reports and decide what should be drawn to Washington's attention.