Beardslee Telegraph

The instrument was operated by hand-turned magnetos and did not require the heavy batteries needed in the civilian telegraphs.

[1] Limitations of the instrument were its short range of about ten miles due to insufficient power, slow transmission, and frequent lack of synchronization between sending and receiving sets.

The operator needed only to move the lever to a point on the dial representing the letter that he wished to send as part of his message.

[4] There were advantages to attaching to this instrument, that it was portable and compact, could be set a work anywhere, required no batteries, acids, or fluids; and, what was thought of importance in the early days of the late war, and while the corps was a temporary organization, it could be worked by soldiers without skill as operators.

With a permanent corps, or at secure stations it gives place to some of the forms of signal or of sound instruments.The Beardslee was considered to be capable of only a slow rate of transmission.