U.S. Military Telegraph Corps

U.S. Military Telegraph Corps
U.S. Military Telegraph battery wagon, Army of the Potomac headquarters, Petersburg, Va., June 1864.
Facts About U.S. Military Telegraph Corps
Years of Existence:	1861-1866
Number of Employees:	Over 1500
Line Constructed:	15,389 miles
Total Expenditure:	$3,219,400

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.

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, there were three major telegraph companies in operation. These companies were 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 Pittsburg, 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.

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, 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.