The U.S. Military Telegraph Corps was formed in 1861 following the outbreak of the American Civil War. David Strouse, Samuel M. Brown, Richard O'Brian and David H. Bates, all from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, were sent to Washington, D.C. to serve in the newly created office. In October of that year, Anson Stager was appointed department head. During the war, they were charged with maintaining communications between the federal government in Washington and the commanding officers of the far-flung units of the Union Army. The US Army had telegraph service before creation of the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps. In Missouri one was built from Jefferson Barracks south of St. Louis to Ft. Smith, AR in 1858. The Springfield-St. Louis Road the line followed later became known as the Old Wire Road, a forerunner of Route 66, now I-44.
Telegraph facilities prior to the Civil War Before the start of the Civil War, there were three major telegraph companies in operation: the American Telegraph Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company, and the Southwestern Telegraph Company. The American Telegraph Company's lines occupied the entire region east of the Hudson River and ran all along the Atlantic coast down to the Gulf of Mexico. Cities were connected from Newfoundland to New Orleans. From this main backbone, the American Telegraph Company's lines branched west to cities like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. At each of these points, the American Telegraph Company's lines met the Western Union lines which occupied much of the remaining northern portion of the U.S. Western Union also extended a line as far west as San Francisco by 1861. In the southern states, the American Telegraph Company's lines met the Southwestern Telegraph Company's lines at Chattanooga, Mobile, and New Orleans. From these cities, the Southwestern Telegraph Company's lines occupied the rest of the South and Southwest, including Texas and Arkansas.
Formation of Military Telegraph Corps Not long after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 President Abraham Lincoln ordered seventy-five thousand troops to assemble in Washington, D.C. On April 19, 1861, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (which was along the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad) was captured by Confederate troops. Thus, Washington lost one of its only railroad and telegraphic communications route to the North. The only railroad and telegraph lines connecting the Northern states to Washington left were located in Maryland, a state whose loyalty to the Union was not trusted.
Due to the dire situation of the railroads and telegraphic communication in Washington, the commercial telegraph lines surrounding the city were seized and Simon Cameron, the Secretary of War, sent a request to the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad to send Thomas A. Scott to get the railroad telegraph service in Washington under control. Scott made his way to Washington and began filling positions to help him manage the railroads and telegraph lines. He asked Andrew Carnegie, who was superintendent of the Pittsburgh division of the Pennsylvania Railroad to assist him. Carnegie obliged and drafted men from his railroad division to accompany him to Washington in order to help the government take possession of and operate the railroads around the capital. Carnegie's first task when he arrived in Washington was to extend the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad from its old depot in Washington across the Potomac River into Virginia. While extending the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, telegraph lines were built and communication was opened at stations such as Alexandria, Burke's Station, and Fairfax. The first government telegraph line built connected the War Office with the Navy Yard. Carnegie stayed in Washington until November 1861. By the time he left, the military railroad and telegraph operations were running smoothly.
Along with the appointment of Carnegie, Scott made a demand for telegraph operators who excelled at running trains by telegraph. Scott called on four telegraph operators from the Pennsylvania Railroad to report to Washington. These operators were David Strouse (who later became the superintendent of the Military Telegraph Corps), D.H. Bates, Samuel M. Brown, and Richard O'Brien. The four operators arrived in Washington on April 27, 1861. Strouse and Bates were stationed at the War Department; Brown was stationed in the Navy Yard; and O'Brien was stationed at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad depot, which was for some time army headquarters. Thus, these four men made up the initial United States Military Telegraph Corps, which would ultimately grow to a force of over 1,500 men. In June, 1863, Albert Brown Chandler joined the corps and began work at the War Department as a disbursing clerk, cashier, and telegraph operator. He developed ciphers for transmitting secret communications, and worked with Thomas Eckert and Charles A. Tinker as confidential telegraphers for Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
Special status of the corps Although the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps played a prominent role in transmitting messages to and from commanders in the battlefield, it functioned independently from military control. The Corps employed civilian operators out on the battlefield and in the War Department. Only supervisory personnel were granted military commissions from the Quartermaster Department in order to distribute funds and property. All of the orders the telegraph operators received came directly from the Secretary of War. Also, because there was no government telegraph organization before the Civil War, there was no appropriation of funds by Congress to pay for the expenses of erecting poles, running cables, or the salaries of operators. As a result, the first six months that the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps was in operation Edward S. Sanford, president of the American Telegraph Company, paid for all these expenses. He was later reimbursed by Congress for his generosity.
Construction of telegraph lines
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