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I am on a new CW chase trying to nail down how the quartermaster corps on both sides of the line worked. I hope to unravel all the logistical tangles they experienced when trying to supply their armies, a task that was daunting and yet so critical to success on the battlefield. However, while pursuing this I have also cast a strong side-beam on the telegraph.
I first saw the “lightening” magic of the telegraph while researching the journalists. I was hit with its importance and how quickly it flashed across America and how it changed our communication structure forever. The telegraph and its application also kept tapping into my thoughts while reading about the railroads since it was so critical to efficiently running the supply trains.
Think about it. During the Mexican War when most of the generals who became famous during the CW were doing their battle internship, the telegraph was only a faint click in the distance. During the Mexican conflict, the telegraph was not a player. Yet like the computer 100 plus years later, it burst onto the battle scene less than 12 years later.
With typical Yankee ingenuity both N&S, the telegraph was efficiently integrated it into both tactical plans and long term strategy. McClellan keyed the shots for his early victories from his railcar by using the telegraph. “My God, Jim,” explained one captured Confederate as he viewed McClellan’s headquarters, “no wonder they whipped us; they have the telegraph with them.” Two years later when Grant was forced to leave his work in the field due to his son’s illness, he was given permission to visit St. Louis contingent on taking his telegraphic system with him. Lincoln’s visits to the telegraph office have become famous. “Morning, noon, and night Lincoln would visit the small office to receive the latest news from the armies at the front.”
The telegraph as a support mechanism and tool of war is worth a close look when we examine the feints, flanks and fights. Grant left us an excellent description in his Memoirs of how it all worked on the Union side. The second was, the use made of the telegraph and signal corps. Nothing could be more complete than the organization and discipline of this body of brave and intelligent men. Insulated wires--insulated so that they would transmit messages in a storm, on the ground or under water-were wound upon reels, making about two hundred pounds weight of wire to each reel. Two men and one mule were detailed to each reel . . . There was a wagon, supplied with a telegraph operator, battery and telegraph instruments for each division, each corps, each army, and one for my headquarters. There were wagons also loaded with light poles . . . supplied with an iron spike in one end, used to hold the wires up when laid, so that wagons and artillery would not run over them. The mules thus loaded were assigned to brigades, and always kept with the command they were assigned to. The operators were also assigned to particular headquarters, and never changed except by special orders.
The moment the troops were put in position to go into camp all the men connected with this branch of service would proceed to put up their wires. A mule loaded with a coil of wire would be led to the rear of the nearest flank of the brigade he belonged to, and would be led in a line parallel thereto, while one man would hold an end of the wire and uncoil it as the mule was led off. When he had walked the length of the wire the whole of it would be on the ground. This would be done in rear of every brigade at the same time. The ends of all the wires would then be joined, making a continuous wire in the rear of the whole army. The men, attached to brigades or divisions, would all commence at once raising the wires with their telegraph poles. This was done by making a loop in the wire and putting it over the spike and raising the pole to a perpendicular position. At intervals the wire would be attached to trees, or some other permanent object, so that one pole was sufficient at a place. . . .While this was being done the telegraph wagons would take their positions near where the headquarters they belonged to were to be established, and would connect with the wire. Thus, in a few minutes longer time than it took a mule to walk the length of its coil, telegraphic communication would be effected between all the headquarters of the army. No orders ever had to be given to establish the telegraph.
The signal service was used on the march. The men composing this corps were assigned to specified commands. When movements were made, they would go in advance, or on the flanks, and seize upon high points of ground giving a commanding view of the country, if cleared, or would climb tall trees on the highest points if not cleared, and would denote, by signals, the positions of different part of our own army, and often the movements of the enemy. They would also take off the signals of the enemy and transmit them. It would sometimes take too long a time to make translations of intercepted dispatches for us to receive any benefit from them. But sometimes they gave useful information.
I just finished <u>Richmond Burning</u> by Nelson Lankford. I was delighted to find the following description of the telegraph connections between Washington and City Point. Once Weitzel connected to the field telegraph east of Richmond, he was in touch not just with City Point but also the whole country beyond. This was possible because once the campaign against Richmond and Petersburg had settled behind static lines in 1864, the army connected Grant by telegraph to Washington, D.C. This first required extending the line from the Federal capital all the way down the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia. Then engineers ran it under the Chesapeake Bay at Cherrystone Point to Fort Monroe at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula and finally along the banks of the James to City Point. When Confederate raiders cut the line, resourceful Union engineers laid a submarine cable down the middle of the river, beyond the reach of saboteurs. Weitzel's message thus reached Washington only two hours after he dashed it off in Extra Billy Smith's house overlooking the fire down below. The news of Richmond's fall spread throughout the North the same day at lightening speed. </i>(page 147)
Now I want to know did Lee have a similar set-up? Were the Rebs able to achieve the same kind of almost instant interaction between their commands? Can anyone point me in the direction of a good description of how the CSA made use of the telegraph? Any anecdotes and/or descriptions would be greatly appreciated.
Oh pooh, I pressed the post button too quickly. Must add my sources.
<u>Lincoln in the Telegraph Office</u> by David Homer Bates.
<u>Grant's Memoirs</u>
<u>Class of 1846</u> by John C. Waugh
<u>Richmond Burning</u> by Nelson Lankford
<u>Triumph and Adversity</u> by Brooks Simpson
Also if anyone can also provide sources on Lucius B. Northrop, I would certainly appreciate it.
How things work is not my forte, but I'll give it a shot. My understanding is that simply put a submarine cable is telegraph wires wrapped in a wire rope and laid at the bottom of an ocean, a bay, a lake.
Laying submarine cable had already been tried as early as 1851 in Europe and was successful on a limited basis. In 1855 McClellan was an observer of the Crimean War when the telegraph was first applied as a battlefield tactic and, of course he brought the idea home with him.
The first transatlantic cable was laid in 1857, but only worked for a few months due to technological difficulties. There was no financial backing to repair the cable and the idea lay dormant until the conclusion the CW. Had it been in operation during the conflict the rapid communication link may have had a profound impact on foreign diplomacy and its influence in both Richmond and Washington D.C.
By the time of the CW technology had advanced and much had been learned about wire rope and how to run it under water. Tug boats on the Chesapeake hauled the wire across and dropped it in place. It was dangerous work as each mile of cable weighed a ton making the small boats susceptible to the buffeting storms that frequent the Chesapeake Bay.
On Feb 27, 1862 a Baltimore paper announced: "The steamer Hoboken was taking soundings when a severe gale sprang up about noon. Her steampipe soon broke and she drifted upon Cape Henry where she broke in two. All hands were saved, but some fifteen miles of cable were destroyed." Since Cape Henry was in enemy territory it is fortunate that none of the men ended up as guests of Libby prison.
Anson Stager was head of the U.S. Military Telegraph system and ordered the laying of submarine cable. His appointment was fortuitous. He had been a superintendent of Western Union prior to the war and brought a great deal of technological expertise to his new post.
Before the submarine cable could be laid, however, additional land lines were needed. In Feb. 1862, Stager reported to Assistant Secretary of War Scott:
"Land line to Cape Charles completed on Wednesday (the) 4th inst. Commenced Monday, Jan. 13th, distance 160 miles. Cable will be laid next week if weather permits, and will complete the work inside of thirty days and the cost will not exceed the estimates. Nothing new here, the wretched condition of road delayed the work considerably. Anson Stager"
Connie, thanks for the insights about how the telegraph worked. An interesting research. I've recently read "Hear That Lonesome Whistle Blow" by Dee Brown, and it was fascinating how on the day of the joining of the transcontinental railway at Promontory Point in 1869 the telegraph furnished a sort of "live coverage" of the event, transmitting the news almost in real time to operators throughout the country.
I have a question. When the main events of the start of the war happened in the East - say, the fall of Fort Sumter, or Virginia's secession - I wonder how long did they take to reach the West Coast, since so much is said about the reactions of the officers of the "old army" in California? Was the telegraph already connecting both shores, so that they too got the news more or less in real time (a matter of hours, say), or was there a sizeable time lag of days?
Sacramento, California was not connected with the telegraph until August of 1861 and so missed real time notification of Sumter and secession. Certainly goes to show how the North continued to move West and progress in spite of the war. Buffalo and Indians often downed the lines isolating the state for long periods until the lines were fixed. Yet the telegraph meant that California was no longer a state unconnected to the rest of the country.
And it is interesting to contrast the telegraph of the Civil War with the use of field telephones even in today's environment. Reels of wire capable of carrying voice and data for a full click can now be carried by a single man. The radio is has pretty much surpassed its usefulness, but there is a security aspect that allows plain voice in a pretty safe environment without broadcasting to the world.
Of course, I find the most interesting part of it all is that the telegraph worked on a simple on/off state. Digital. Now we can send huge volumes of information in seconds the same way. On or Off. Just thousands of times a second rather than at the speed of a telegrapher's tap.
Know what the Navy still considers the most secure way of sending a message between ships without providing information to the enemy? Flashing light! Again, simple on/off. Interesting note: I have yet to meet a radioman trained in morse code that couldn't read flashing light. But the signalmen who did flashing light couldn't seem to understand the audio signals.
__________________ Mark W. Swarthout, Esq.
GGGrandson of Pvt. John W. Swarthout, Company E, 148th NYVI - Wounded at Cold Harbor.
GGGGrandson of Pvt. Henry Stephens, Company D, 137th NYVI - Wounded at Culp's Hill, Gettysburg.
Mark, as a former morse code intercept operator, I can understand why a signalmen could not r
"read" morse code over headsets or by sound. Different medium. Also, the flashs tend to be a bit slower so the eye can see the signal more clearly, while morse operators pride themselves on sending code signals as fast and as clear as possible. The other reason is not to be on the air long enough for your signal to be detected, tracked and then fired upon by enemy artillery!
Unionblue
Former "05Hog" morse intercept operator
United States Army Security Agency
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
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