If you want to know about signals, telegraph & cyphers during the Civil War there is no better place to start than the "Signal Corps Association 1860 -1865." Many of the authors were U. S. Army Signal Corps members & Viet Nam veterans. At large scale reenactments they set up signal nets with flags, Beardlee & key telegraph wire systems. They are living historians with a deep level of real world experience. Read more here.
Link
www.civilwarsignals.org
It is important to understand that the telegraph system did not operate on it own. It was the long distance element of a signal network. This photograph is of Fort Negley overlooking Nashville, Tennessee. Notice the tree on the left hand side, standing proud of the horizon.
Up in that tree was the treehouse site of Fort Negley Station. Radiating out from there were two sides of a triangle (+/-) 45 miles on a side.
Roper's Knob station overlooks Fort Granger in Franklin on the western corner.
60 feet up in a tremendous tree on the summit of Pilot Knob was Fort Transit, the eastern corner of the triangle.
In the center of the base was the Rutherford County Courthouse in Murfreesboro. On the second floor there was a nexus.
Facing east & west signalists manned two very large telescopes. When a flag or torch signal came in, the bell of the courthouse clock. From below, an officer would take the message recorded by the "scribe" & bring it down to the signal office.
Powered by ten volt wet cell batteries, the HQ's of Union camps surrounding Murfreesboro were connected by telegraph.
General Rosecrans orders & reports flowed freely across the network.
24 / 7 visual signals were exchanged between a stations of observation sited on points that overlooked thousands of square mile.
Twenty miles west of the Courthouse Station was Triune Station. On this ridge that dominates the skyline there are three miles of rifle pits & a star shaped stone faced bastion atop the highest point. It is all still up there, something like a Mayan ruin. This gives you some idea of the system of observation that flags, couriers & telegraph provided Rosecrans' HQ unprecedented real time intel.
It is likely that very few of you have ever seen a functioning Beardslee Repeating Telegraph. Using a single wire & the earth for a ground, the magneto inside the box powered the indicator on the dial of another Beardslee. A letter at a time, the highly mobile Beardslees could set up all weather coms during an advance.
No demijohns of sulphuric acid to carry around, the Beardslee created its own power.
At night turpentine torches replaced the flags. On cold, clear nights the torch signaled directly 41 miles between Fort Tranist & Fort Negley Stations.
A "General Services Code" was used by army & navy signalists until 1913. These men are the navy signal team that received notice that Sherman had arrived at the sea.
During the March to the Sea Sherman had to send & receive messages across a 60 miles wide front.
Sherman had this unique map to guide him to the most productive counties along his line of march. This is the eastern half of the county map over printed with 1860 Census data.
Sherman knew how to dispatch his columns to where they could do the maximum damage. How, you might ask yourself, did he maintain command & control through out such dynamic movement.
The answer is a simple one. When commanders in Sherman's army group entered a town, first thing they did was to secure the telegraph office. Pretending to be the Confederate operators, they received & passed on messages. This gave Sherman & his sub commanders a comprehensive understanding of what the Confederate commanders knew & what they were attempting to do.
With their men off to war, it was not uncommon for wives to take over the running of telegraph offices in Georgia. On a number of occasions imagine the lady's astonishment when General Sherman himself dismounted & entered her office. He would sit down writing messages, receiving reports & communicating with commanders across a vast swath of country. When finished, Sherman would politely inquire what the going rate for his use of her office. He paid in full, made a bit of banter before mounting up & leaving the lady saying, "Lord have mercy…" under her breath.
Wouldn't you like to know what telegraphic signals were coming into the Military Telegraph Station Washington D.C.? Believe it or not, you can. The signal ledgers still exist. I especially recommend Charles Dana's eyes only bespoke ledger where his secret reports to Lincoln were recorded.
It is all here, the ultimate original source. Read more here.
Link
hdl.huntington.org
At Stones River National Battlefield, living historians present Civil War signal programs all season long. The genius of the General Service Code system is its simplicity.
Literally, a small child can teach the basics to her schoolmates.
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