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Martha J. Coston (1829-1904), was an inventor and successful businesswoman during the second half of the 19th century. She made her mark with one invention, which she wrote about in her one book, an autobiography, A Signal Success. Although obscured in traditional history, her singular invention is not invisible, but marks maritime history in significance, widespread application, and longevity. Like her invention, her story, buried deep in the archives of history, resonates with significance more than a century later. Her invention and relationship to the U.S. Navy during the Civil War represents the early chapters of her remarkable story.
Her invention, a pyrotechnic night signal flare and code system, was first successfully used by the U.S. Navy during the Civil War. After the War, the United States Life Saving Service, forerunner of the United States Coast Guard, used the flare extensively well into the 20th century. Her manufacturing company began in 1859 and survived until at least 1985, possibly longer. Additionally, the U.S. Weather Service, military institutions in England, France, Holland, Italy, Austria, Denmark, and Brazil, commercial merchant vessels, and private New York Yachting Clubs all adopted the Coston Signal Flare and code system.
Coston was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved to Philadelphia with her widowed mother, brothers, and sisters sometime during her childhood in the 1830s. At the age of 16, perhaps even a bit younger, she married Benjamin Franklin Coston, a promising young inventor who had already developed a working prototype of a submarine that could be “navigated eight hours under water.”
By this time, Coston already experienced the affects of serious health hazards by constant inhalation of chemical gases used in experiments while at the Navy Yard. His process of generating gas from rosin further aggravated his conditioned. Although his accomplishments with gas lighting were hailed as a major success in both home and commercial lighting, the toxic effects of chemical processing proved fatal to Benjamin F. Coston. He died on November 24, 1848, leaving behind a widow with four small children.
Martha’s personal tragedy continued over the next two years as she lost first her infant son, then her mother, than yet another son. These devastating tragedies left her in poor emotional, physical, and financial straights. Although an educated woman for her time, Coston’s education proved wholly inadequate for what was soon to become her life’s work, the business of invention.
Shortly after her husband’s death, she admitted that “through her own ignorance and the duplicity of others,” particularly a relative who “misplaced” her money, she found herself penniless. She “did not know how to dig” and was “ashamed to beg.” In this state on a gloomy November afternoon, deeply depressed, she began sorting through her husband’s papers. She discovered “numerous packets, carefully sealed and labeled,” one of which contained drawings for a pyrotechnic night signal. [6] She recalled that her husband worked on this invention while at the Washington Navy Yard and had given a test set of the signals to a particular naval officer for later testing. Contact with this officer proved difficult and the return of the signal flares problematic. Eventually he begrudgingly returned the damaged box of signals without any documentation as to the "written recipes for their manufacture.”
This began one of the most challenging “testing” periods of her life, calculated in both personal and professional measures. Coston used her Washington D.C. social and U.S. Navy connections forged during her marriage to pursue what she considered the one hope for her whole future. With desperate determination, she approached the current Secretary of the Navy, Isaac Toucey, about having the signals tested. To her relief, “he readily consented to a trial of the signals,” giving her the option of choosing where the signals would be tested. She requested that tests be carried out in the Home Squadron, which fell to the flagship Wabash under Commodore (afterwards Admiral) Paulding.
At the conclusion of the testing period, Coston received a letter from Paulding, informing her that “the signals proved utterly good for nothing.” Paulding also mentioned in the letter that he thought the signals a very good idea and encouraged continued work to perfect the invention. He did not want the record to reflect that he was “the one who put her lights out.”
Upon receiving the adverse report, Secretary Toucey remained loyal to the idea and offered Coston the use of the Washington Navy Yard and its talent to perfect the invention. She accepted his offer. After six months, another test was executed, again with dismal results. In addition to Coston’s extremely limited pyrotechnic and chemistry knowledge, hints surfaced of lingering political animosity against Coston’s husband over the use of the percussion primer by the U.S. Navy.
The Yard was under the direction of John A. Dahlgren (later famous for his ordnance developments) and his staff, some of who were associated with the percussion primer incident. But there were other Navy personnel, in particular Secretary Toucey, who steadfastly continued to believe “that the invention if properly carried out would be of incalculable service to the government.”
Still, it was a bitter edge that Coston recaps this "testing" part of her life. She wrote:
It would consume too much space, and weary my readers, for me to go into all the particulars of my efforts to perfect my husband’s idea. The men I employed and dismissed, the experiments I made myself, the frauds that were practiced upon me, almost disheartened me; but despair I would not, and eagerly I treasured up each little step that was made in the right direction, the hints of naval officers, and the opinions of the different boards that gave the signals a trial.
The testing period of her life consumed nearly ten years of experimentation to perfect the “recipe” for a flare that burned red, white, and blue. Coston’s reference to the men she employed, the experiments she made herself, and the frauds practiced upon her represent some of the most trying obstacles. Because she did not possess knowledge of chemistry, scientific experimentation methodology, or an understanding of business, she had to rely on those who had such knowledge, all of whom were men. Based on gender alone, she felt ignored, not taken seriously, and sometimes deceived.
Still she persevered, treasuring the support she did have, and finally experienced a breakthrough while watching the New York celebration of the laying of the first transatlantic cable in 1858. After viewing the spectacular fireworks, she began corresponding with several of the New York pyrotechnists in hope of getting a strong blue as a third color to be used with the red and white that she already developed. She corresponded under a man’s name fearing that they would not give heed to a woman. One man replied that he had made a blue color some years previous.
Coston urged him to duplicate the blue, but if not she would be interested in a strong green. Within ten days, she received a package containing a strong green color. In the end, her desire for the patriotic red, white, and blue could not be achieved with the same clarity and brilliance as green. Coston immediately entered negotiations to work with this New York pyrotechnist.
Coston’s motivation and strength during this time was much the same as any inventor, male or female. She was interested in making money. It was a matter of survival for her and her children. And not unlike other inventors, a spirit of national patriotism also motivated her. She characterized herself as an exemplary patriot and humanitarian, especially in the looming portent of a Civil War.
In the preface of her autobiography, A Signal Success, she wrote with stirring emotion and typical Victorian voice, that it was her “intense and heartfelt desire to accomplish something for the good of humanity.” She finally presented her accomplishment to the world on April 5, 1859, in the form of Patent No. 23,536, a pyrotechnic night signal and code system.
The patent was granted to Martha J. Coston as administratrix of B. Franklin Coston, but the patent clearly states B. Franklin Coston as the inventor although he had been dead for more than 10 years. Her next patent in 1871 was patented entirely under her own name.
There are several reasons why she may have patented first in her deceased husband’s name and subsequently in her own. The strongest evidence supports that this was a business decision, calculated to benefit from the established reputation and name of a known successful Navy inventor. Coston pays attention to appropriate feminine protocol and Victorian female conduct inconsistently, but does so most noticeably when it furthers business interests.
By 1859, the success of the signal was well documented by a specially appointed board of Naval Examiners by Secretary Toucey. After a month long testing period, a report was published in February, 1859. In brief summary, the report contained three main points: (1) Coston signals are better than any other known to them; (2) the Board strongly recommend them for the use of the navy; and (3) Signals being the means whereby orders are given, or wants made known at sea, a good code of them plainly intelligible to the persons addressed is absolutely necessary to the efficient conduct of a fleet.
The current “night signals were arranged in a separate code, of little extent, and of uncertain determination.” The report concluded with full endorsement: “The Application of the “Coston night signals” to the navy day signal books gives a perfect code of night signals. They offer precision. fullness, and plainness, at a less cost for fireworks than it is thoughtwe now pay for confusion and uncertainty.” In the opinion of the Board of Examiners,Capt. Charles McCauley, Commander John Rogers, and Lt. Henry Lewis, the signals were “decidedly superior.”
"To sit in the shade on a fine day and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment." ~Jane Austen~
"The Directory of Directors in the City of New York" "A Signal Success" "Coston's Telegraphic Night Signals"
Hyatt accompanied her husband’s regiment, the 4th Wisconsin, after he enlisted in Racine, at the request of their colonel. She mostly nursed at the Patterson Park Hospital in Baltimore, although she went with the regiment for a time until they were sent to Ship Island. While returning to Washington, she came to Fairfax Court-House, Virginia, and rode on to the battlefield at Centreville (presumably the Peninsula campaign).
"Here I found Colonel Andrews with ambulances, but many of the drivers had left the teams to go on the field. I tried to carry water to the wounded, but I felt so sick that I was almost about to leave the place, when Colonel Andrews asked me if I could drive a team. When I assured him that I could, he asked me to drive an ambulance to Fairfax Court-House. There were four wounded men, and before I started, another, slightly wounded on the head, begged to go too. So I had him strapped on the seat. The road was smooth, and I told the men if they cold bear it to let me trot the horses forty minutes, I could pass the long train, avoid the dust, and could have them unloaded before the others arrived and took the most comfortable places. They told me to drive on.
I turned out and cracked the whip. The horses started on a good round trot. Every ambulance I passed, the driver would call to me to stop trotting and drive slowly, or I would kill the men. I paid no attention until one called me a "Secesh." Then I told the man who was strapped on the seat to call them something. He did, and shaking his fist, told them to keep still or they would smell powder.
When I had left the train a mile behind I halted and gave the men a drink. I cheered them what I could, telling them I would go to Washington and try to get them furloughs to go home, then drove on. When the men were comfortably settled and fed, I started on the return, and soon met the train. The drivers called to know how I got through, so for fun I told them I hadn’t a live man left. How they did swear, and call me a rebel. I made no reply, for I was in a hurry to get another load. They apologized when they found I was the 4th Wisconsin woman. They said they had talked with the men, who enjoyed the ride, and were very glad I was plucky enough to keep on."
Hyatt returned to Patterson Park hospital where her "boys" were very glad to see her and asked her not to leave again.
Nurse and hospital workers at Gettysburg From: Francis T. Miller, The Photographic History of the Civil War, 1911
Margaret Hamilton, Rochester, New York
Hamilton had been educated by the Sisters of Charity and after her mother’s death in 1857 decided to enter the Order. When the war broke out she was teaching at the Orphan’s Asylum in Albany. In 1862, she and three other Sisters proceeded to the Satterlee United States Military Hospital in Philadelphia that accommodated 5,000 patients. The first wounded they received were from the Chickahominy Swamps. "Dozens of them were already dead when taken from the ambulances, and many others were just breathing out their brave lives." All through the next three years battles, "our hospital was constantly filled."
Following Gettysburg, "The weather was extremely warm, and the vast number of the wounded made careful attention to their wounds impossible; and upon their arrival at the hospital many wounds were full of vermin, and in many cases gangrene had set in, and the odor was almost unbearable. The demand on our time and labor was so increased that the number of nurses seemed utterly inadequate and the hospital presented a pure picture of the horrors of war."
"We received a large number of wounded after the battle of the Wilderness, among them a young woman not more than 20 years of age. She ranked as lieutenant. She was wounded in the shoulder, and her sex was not discovered until she came to our hospital. It appeared that she had followed her lover to the battle and the boys who brought her in said that no one in the company showed more bravery than she did. She was discharged soon after entering the ward."
Hamilton married a Maine soldier and they raised eight children. "I have taken great pleasure in instructing them in the great principles of patriotism, and it is a standing joke among them that they have "Civil War for breakfast, dinner, and supper."
"Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn't be done."~Amelia Earhart~
Stenebaugh was a student at Oberlin College when the war broke out. It had already come close to home as one professor and two students had been taken at Harper’s Ferry and many students had friends and family who had lived through the "Bleeding Kansas" conflict. Her brother enlisted and died from wounds received at Shiloh. About a year later, she received an invitation to go South from her local minister. Her father objected but she countered, "You have given your boys to die for their country, now you can give your girls to nurse them." Between her mother and aunt, they sent six children to war.
She became the matron of the hospital at Milliken’s Bend above Vicksburg.
"Many of the men had chronic diseases, that seemed to baffle the skill of the most competent doctors; yet the soldiers were hopeful now that Union women had come to care for them."
The hospital was under threat by guerrillas who did attack one day. She crossed the river and took refuge in the canebrake for three days. On their first attempt to cross back their boat got caught in the current and was swept back to shore. "Another lady and I jumped overboard and waded to land; the others followed." They safely crossed after dark. Soon after they learned that help was needed at Natchez where they went. "So the labor was divided. Some were to look after Union women and children whose husbands and fathers had gone into or army, been robbed of their all, and left to die; others were to teach the freedmen, others to care for the sick. A confiscated mansion was turned over to us, with the injunction to be no "respecter of persons, but to welcome all who come, ‘In the name of the God of the universe.’"
"In the spring of 1864, Rev. Mr. Brown and lady, he seventy years old and she sixty-five, established a branch of the Christian Commission within the fort. As I did not always have the company of a lady, I thought it wise to call and take Mother Brown with me. She was a mother not only to me, but also to the boys in blue. Her presence made my work much easier. One Sabbath morning in the spring of 1864 everything was quiet. Soldiers and citizens were attending church. The gunboat had dropped down the river a mile, the fort was a mile above the landing, and Camp 70, U. S., colored, still a mile beyond.
Suddenly we heard firing, and the answer. The church was soon emptied, and all was excitement. The Southerners ran to their houses, or places of safety, the Northern people to the bluff overlooking the river. We could see the Confederates on the edge of the timber. About a mile away. They were commanded by a dashing German General, who rode a white horse, and wore a large white plume. They had attempted to cross the river and take our commissary stores in Natchez, under the hill men were gone but some new recruits, and they were ex-slaves. Would they fight, or would they cower at the sight of their old masters? See! See! How they rush forward, hardly waiting for orders! They do better than the guns that fire on the enemy from the boat. In two hours they are driven from the field, leaving their dead and wounded. Three rebel officers were brought to our hospital to be cared for. In a few weeks they were able to be in the sitting-room. . . ."
Soon Stenebaugh’s planned furlough was interrupted by the arrival of two boatloads of wounded at the Marine Hospital. One load was put in a crude building on the bluff of the Mississippi and soon lacked food and clothing.
"I procured a basket full of needed articles, and on my way saw an old colored woman coming out of her shanty. She asked if I was going to see the Union soldiers, and said: "I’s gwine, too. My ole man says they’s starvin’, and I’s takin’ ‘em, some dinner." Then she lifted the snowy cloth, and I saw beefsteak, butter, warm bread, and vegetables. I feared the doctor’s frowns, but many of the men relished just such a dinner. As we walked toward home I said: "Aunty, how can you afford this? Butter is fifty cents a pound, and beefsteak but little less." "Yo’ see, honey, I does washens, and ’de ole man gets jobs, an’d we be free."
Stenebaugh returned home in 1865.
"How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees." ~Shakespeare~
Thanks for finding those wonderful stories Dawna. It is nice to see such things being written about the brave women who not only bore the burden of worring and losing their loved ones but also had to keep the home front going, doing whatever they could to help the cause.
Also, I love the picture included in the one above. Notice how, even in the mud and the muck, the lady in the center is dressed very well, right down to the sharp bonette on her head. A lady to the end for sure.
And I must say I was very part and partial to the one from the woman from Wisconsin. That shall go in my "Wisconsin during the CW" file.
I realy like the "4th Wi woman" story, I believe she was also referred to as the "Angel of the 4th" & Momma Hyatt... I've only ever caught snippets about her; I enjoy these, when you find them please endeavour to post them.
Increadible women in increadible times.
__________________
Shane Christen
American Legion Post 352
SUVCW Camp Abernethy# 48
Lifetime NRA member
3rd MN VI
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Eccl 1:18
Born on December 25, 1821 in Oxford, Mass., the youngest of 5 children in a middle-class family, Barton was educated at home, and at 15 started teaching school. Her most notable antebellum achievement was the establishment of a free public school in Bordentown, N.J. Though she is remembered as the founder of the American Red Cross, her only prewar medical experience came when for 2 years she nursed an invalid brother.
In 1861 Barton was living in Washington, D.C., working at the U.S. Patent Office. When the 6th Massachusetts Regiment arrived in the city after the Baltimore Riots, she organized a relief program for the soldiers, beginning a lifetime of philanthropy.
When Barton learned that many of the wounded from First Bull Run had suffered, not from want of attention but from need of medical supplies, she advertised for donations in the Worcester, Mass., Spy and began an independent organization to distribute goods. The relief operation was successful, and the following year U.S. Surgeon General William A. Hammond granted her a general pass to travel with army ambulances "for the purpose of distributing comforts for the sick and wounded, and nursing them."
For 3 years she followed army operations throughout the Virginia theater and in the Charleston, S.C., area. Her work in Fredericksburg, Va., hospitals, caring for the casualties from the Battle of the Wilderness, and nursing work at Bermuda Hundred attracted national notice. At this time she formed her only formal Civil War connection with any organization when she served as superintendent of nurses in Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butlers command.
She also expanded her concept of soldier aid, traveling to Camp Parole, Md., to organize a program for locating men listed as missing in action. Through interviews with Federals returning from Southern prisons, she was often able to determine the status of some of the missing and notify families.
By the end of the war Barton had performed most of the services that would later he associated with the American Red Cross, which she founded in 1881. In 1904 she resigned as head of that organization, retiring to her home at Glen Echo, outside Washington, D.C., where she died 12 Apr. 1912.
Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" edited by Patricia L. Faust
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