Signal Corps in the American Civil War
Although the chief engineer of the Army, Colonel Joseph G. Totten, supported Myer's proposal, it did not include specific technical details and Davis rejected it.
When John B. Floyd replaced Davis as secretary of war in 1857, Totten reintroduced Myer's proposal, and in March 1859, a board of examination was formed in Washington, D.C.
The board, presided over by Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee, was not enthusiastic about the proposal, judging it suitable only as a secondary means of communications over short distances, but it did recommend further testing.
[4] However, the appropriations bill provided for no personnel to work for Myer and the Signal Corps as a formal organization would not be authorized until March 1863.
He intended that each division of the Army, which he assumed would eventually comprise 500,000 men, would have dedicated aerial and electromagnetic telegraphy support.
[7] Myer's persistence paid off when President Abraham Lincoln signed a sundry civil appropriations bill on March 3, 1863, which authorized the organization of a Signal Corps during the "present rebellion."
When this device suffered from technical limitations, in the autumn of 1862 he advertised in the Army and Navy Official Gazette for trained telegraphers.
The War Department informed Myer that his actions were "irregular and improper" and he was removed as chief signal officer on November 10, 1863.
In May 1864, Myer's prewar ally, Edward Canby, selected him to be the signal officer for the Military Division of West Mississippi.
The first chief signal officer was Captain William Norris, a Maryland lawyer then a civilian volunteer on the staff of Maj. Gen. John B.
[14] The corps under Norris was organized to consist of one major, 10 captains, 20 lieutenants, 20 sergeants, and 1500 men detailed from all branches of the service.
(Both services provided valuable battlefield intelligence, and sometimes artillery fire direction, from their elevated observation points, but the Confederate corpsmen performed undercover missions behind enemy lines as well.)
[14] Wig-wag signaling was performed during daylight with a single flag tied to a hickory staff constructed in four-foot jointed sections.
The signal officer would typically give the key numbers to the flagmen without revealing the plain text version of the message.
Although this method of encryption was primitive by modern standards, there is no record that the Confederates ever deciphered a Union message that had been processed in this manner.
A more complex system in which four concentric discs were used was invented by Sergeant Francis M. Metcalf and modified by Captain Lemuel B. Norton, but it did not receive widespread adoption.
Edward Porter Alexander made history by transmitting the first message in combat using signal flags over a long distance.
[20] On the Union side, Myer attempted to deploy a military observation balloon at Manassas, bringing along 20 troops from the 26th Pennsylvania Infantry because of the lack of Signal Corps personnel that early in the war.
[21] At the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862, significant use of the Beardslee telegraph made it possible for Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside to communicate with the Army through the fog and smoke from the burning town.
On December 13, the main day of the battle, signal corpsmen extended a line across the Rappahannock River into the town of Fredericksburg while under fire and Burnside was able to communicate with both of his grand division commanders and his supply base, 7.5 miles away.
On April 29, as the Army prepared to cross the Rapidan River, the Beardslee telegraph did not work, probably due to excessive wire length.
That evening a telegraph reached headquarters from the Ford on the Rapidan at 10:30 p.m., but it was marked (incorrectly) as originating at 5:30 p.m. Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, Chief of Staff of the Army of the Potomac, told Cushing that he was not going to wake the commanding general for any telegram that was five hours late; his repose was "worth more than the commissions of a dozen signal officers."
Butterfield was concerned about Confederate interception of aerial telegraphy signals, but he used this as an advantage, ordering deceptive messages to be transmitted early in the campaign to mask the Union Army's true intentions.
The chief signal officer of the Army of the Potomac, Captain Lemuel B. Norton, had field telegraph trains at his disposal, but did not deploy them.
On July 1, 1863, a Union signal officer, Lt. Aaron B. Jerome, ascended the cupola of the Lutheran Theological Seminary and the courthouse steeple to observe the enemy's approach and reported to Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard.
On July 2, the Confederate corps under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet attempted to maneuver into position for an attack on the Union left flank.
They were forced into a lengthy counter march, delaying their attack, when they spotted the presence of the Union signal station on Little Round Top mountain and knew that their approach would be reported.
A plaque commemorating the U.S. Army Signal Corps' contribution to the battle is mounted today on a boulder near the peak of Little Round Top.
Captain Edward C. Pierce, a signal officer attached to the VI Corps, acted as a mounted courier to Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's headquarters, despite warnings that he would never make it alive through the firing.
