Did the Telegraph significantly influence the course of the US Civil War?

2016-02-26T11:43:10-05:00

I submit that the telegraph significantly influenced the course of the war. Early on President Lincoln seemed to grasp the importance and capability of the telegraph to both communicate with his leaders in the field and to get updates from them.
"What became of our forces which held the bridge till twenty minutes ago...?"
http://civilwarstudies.org/articles/Vol_8/situation-room.shtm

Smithsonian Civil War Studies: Article - In The Original Situation Room - Abraham Lincoln and the...

Article - Stunning account of Abraham Lincoln's untold use of the new technology of the telegraph

Response by SSG Drew Cook made Feb 26 at 2016 11:44 AM

2016-02-26T11:44:06-05:00

Much like the radio influenced shipping lanes and eventually WW1. Technology!

Response by LTC Stephen F. made Feb 26 at 2016 11:45 AM

2016-02-26T11:45:41-05:00

As Paul Harvey used to intone "The Rest of the Story" Here is the bulk of relevant text from the Smithsonian website page.
"What became of our forces which held the bridge till twenty minutes ago...?" The President of the United States telegraphed a colonel in the field during the Civil War Battle of Second Manassas (Bull Run) in 1862. Abraham Lincoln was using the new medium of electronic communications in an unprecedented manner to revolutionize the nature of national leadership.
When Lincoln arrived for his inauguration in 1861 there was not even a telegraph line to the War Department, much less the White House. Storm clouds were brewing, but when the US Army wanted to send a telegram they did like everyone else: sending a clerk with a hand written message to stand in line at Washington's central telegraph office. That unwieldy situation changed rapidly, however, as wires were strung to the War Department and other key installations. The White House, however, remained without any outside connection.
The national leaders were like their constituents in their understanding of electronic communications. While an interesting and growing technology, the telegraph's potential was still widely under-appreciated and it certainly had never been tested in a time of crisis. This reality makes Lincoln's subsequent embrace of the new technology even more remarkable. Without the guidance of precedent, and in the middle of a battle for the nation's survival, Abraham Lincoln used the new electronic communications to transform the nature of the presidency. The telegraph became a tool of his leadership and, thus, helped to win the Civil War.
Four months into his presidency Lincoln sat with his generals and waited while the thunder of cannon could be heard from the battlefield at Manassas, just 30 miles outside the capital. Their lack of activity was almost surreal. The General-in-Chief, Winfield Scott, was so accepting of the tradition of being unable to communicate rapidly with the front that he took a nap during the battle. The president found it necessary to awaken his top commander as the battle raged.
A young Pennsylvania Railroad supervisor named Andrew Carnegie had been given the responsibility of extending a telegraph line into Northern Virginia. The task was incomplete by the time the two armies clashed; the line stopped ten miles short of the battlefield. In a hybrid of the old and new, messengers from the field galloped to the end of the telegraph line. "Lincoln hardly left his seat in our office and waited with deep anxiety for each succeeding dispatch [sic]," recorded the manager of the War Department's new telegraph office.
The telegraph was beginning to change in the executive's relationship with his forces in the field. While General Scott napped, the new president consumed the electronically delivered updates. Thirteen months later, when the armies battled again along Bull Run, it was a different story in the telegraph office. No longer was Lincoln content to sit idly by and await information, he was actively in communication with the front.
During Second Manassas (Bull Run) the Confederates cut the telegraph connections with Washington. Unable to communicate with his key generals, Lincoln opened a telegraphic dialog with a subordinate officer that continued for several days. The telegrams between the president and Colonel Herman Haupt were at one point the national leadership's best source of information. The telegraph office became, as Eliot Cohen identified, the first White House Situation Room where the president could be in almost real time communication with his forces while at the same time participating in strategic discussions with his advisors.
Throughout the entire history of armed conflict, the ability to have a virtually instantaneous exchange between a national leader at the seat of government and his forces in the field had been impossible. As a result, field commanders had been the closest things to living gods. Cut off from the national leadership, the unilateral decisions of the generals determined not only the fate of individuals' lives, but also the future of nations. It was for this reason that heads of government, such as Henry V at Agincourt or Bonaparte in Russia, had remained with their troops to combine both national and military leadership."

Response by SSG Carlos Madden made Feb 26 at 2016 11:47 AM

2016-02-26T11:47:08-05:00

Absolutely. Theres a few great scenes in the movie "Lincoln" that capture the use of the telegraph.

Response by SSgt Robert Marx made Feb 26 at 2016 11:51 AM

2016-02-26T11:51:39-05:00

Yes, it significantly impacted the entire direction of the war. The president and his military generals sat in Washington D.C. and sent orders out into the field. The Confederacy did not have as great an advantage with telegraphs due to a much less pervasive telegraph line infrastructure. The US Civil War was the first modern war to be covered by correspondents who could electronically send in their stories from the field. Even so, the news coverage was shoddy at best and stories still had to wait for weeks to be published. The newspapers were still being published with type that had to be hand set in the presses.

Response by PO3 Steven Sherrill made Feb 26 at 2016 12:06 PM

2016-02-26T12:06:22-05:00

LTC Stephen F. communication is always a key component. THanks for sharing this great piece. We take for granted today that we can pick up a phone and talk to people anywhere on the planet. We take for granted our two day Amazon deliveries. Real Time communication with the front is just as important now as it was when it was an emerging technology. I wonder how much differently things would have been then, and thusly how different they would be now had Lincoln dismissed the military applications of the new technology as a fad.

Response by COL Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 26 at 2016 1:32 PM

2016-02-26T13:32:15-05:00

There is an argument among those of us who study the evolution of Operational Art of where it began. It generally splits into two camps with a third minor one. The first two are the 1) American Civil War proponents, and 2) the Napoleonic Wars proponents. First, understand that prior to either of these, the concept was for two massed armies to meet on a battlefield and conduct one large fight (or not depending on parlay) to decide the victor. This is GROSS oversimplification. With the Civil War, both sides still looked for this elusive grand battle which would signal the end of the opposition. From McClellan's failed siege of Richmond to 2nd Manassas and Gettysburg there was this feeling that one battle could end it all if only one side could destroy that army en-mass. The evolution of single battle wars to multiple, simultaneous and sequential battles (Jackson's Shenandoah Campaign is a good example), or what we now call operations heralded the era of Operational Art. This could not have been accomplished without a small number of technological inventions. First, the telegraph allowed a commander to be far removed from battle and communicate with multiple subordinate generals. Unlike the past where a king or a prince had to command all his units in a line of sight with flags and music, the commander could be far removed and command multiple armies. This allowed the control of multiple formations across as much space as you could run a telegraph wire and keep it from getting cut. These usually ran along another invention which changed the nature of movement at the time: the railroad. The railroad enabled a commander to deploy forces rapidly along multiple avenues of approach to converge on a single point where the battle was to take place (external lines of communication). It also allowed for movements of troops laterally...quickly. Changing the way commanders thought about the velocity of war. A third invention is the rifle and the repeating rifle. At the beginning of the war, nearly all Confederate troops carried their own smooth bore muskets into battle. These were highly inaccurate weapons unless you were within 100 yards, and even then had to be fired en-mass to gain effect. The introduction of the rifled barrel and the minie-ball changed the way infantrymen could be used on the battlefield. Neither side used this last one well because the doctrine of employing a Division/Corps/Army on the field was ingrained from the use of the musket for so long. The telegraph was a huge part of the advent of Operational Art and changed the way we could conduct warfare, but it was only one of a handful of inventions which were spawned by warfare at the time. I didn't even get into cannon upgrades at the time.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Feb 26 at 2016 1:53 PM

2016-02-26T13:53:03-05:00

Yes and the printing press had an impact in the Revolutionary War.

Response by Sgt Kelli Mays made Feb 26 at 2016 6:34 PM

2016-02-26T18:34:10-05:00

sure it did.

Response by CSM Charles Hayden made Feb 26 at 2016 7:57 PM

2016-02-26T19:57:58-05:00

LTC Stephen F. The idea of being able to simultaneously read both the messages President Lincoln received and sent is a fascinating concept!

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Feb 26 at 2016 8:00 PM

2016-02-26T20:00:06-05:00

Look up the text Mr Lincoln's t grams if those hre haven't already on the topic well worth reading

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Feb 26 at 2016 8:00 PM

2016-02-26T20:00:37-05:00

Also the text the Victorian internet

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made Feb 26 at 2016 8:03 PM

2016-02-26T20:03:17-05:00

And for those who love weird historical minutiae the story of Dr mahlon Loomis who along with one other each apparently got separate patents for early radio wireless telegraphy just after the civil war around 1866 or so really good stories just thought I'd share

Response by SSG Leo Bell made Feb 27 at 2016 8:13 PM

2016-02-27T20:13:38-05:00

Yes it did very much so. They got information from the field allot quicker the a carrier would get it there. Plus it was not as much of a chance of the South getting there hands on secret orders.

Response by LTC John Shaw made Feb 28 at 2016 12:21 AM

2016-02-28T00:21:09-05:00

For Signal Corps the telegraph is the start of our beautiful Branch.

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made May 25 at 2016 11:06 PM

2016-05-25T23:06:11-04:00

You Btecha, Serious Leap in technology, Reporting by the Journalist of the Day getting back to the Office for the next Printing. I remember all the stories of the long evenings President Lincoln spent with the Telegraph Operator trying to stay up to date with his Commanders in the Field.