Because both sides were poorly prepared for the war, notwithstanding the many years of political buildup to the actual fighting, there apparently were few intelligence agents who had been specifically placed in the enemy's institutions. In-place agents have the strategic advantage of providing the plans and intentions of an enemy rather than reporting on how and when they are carried out. Although the Confederacy did not create its civilian and military power structure until just before the war began, the Union did have several such agents in the Confederate capital by the first year of the war. Two were black Americans employed by Confederate President Jefferson Davis in his official residence.