Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph made an interesting discovery in 1844. When he was trying to lay his first telegraph line from Washington DC to Baltimore Maryland he tried to lay the wire inside of a pipe. During the construction process it appears that they got some bad wire. Morse was under a lot of stress and pressure to get this telegraph completed quickly because he was getting paid by the government to do it and he was on a strict timeline to complete the job. One of the men working on the line recommended that rather than put the wire in a pipe why not just string it from trees and poles. This turned out to be a quick and effective method of connecting the wires.

As a result, they were able to quickly lay telegraph lines across long distances. It wasn’t long after his famous experiment connecting Baltimore and Washington that multiple cities up and down the East Coast were installing their own telegraph systems.

This was one of the reasons why the telegraph was so successful during the Civil War. Lines could be laid quickly using either poles or in some cases just running a line and attaching it to a tree. This allowed armies to move their communication systems with them as they moved in and around territory. In the case of the garrison in Clarksburg Virginia (now West Virginia) it enabled General Rosecrans operating south and east of Clarksburg as well as General Cox operating in the Kanaha Valley to rapidly notify the garrison in Clarksburg of their logistical needs as well as pass troop movement information quickly back and forth that could be relayed to other commanders in the field.

Therefore, the telegraph was one of those inventions that had a significant impact upon the Civil War. It allowed commanders in the field to send messages rapidly from one location to another. Additionally, messages could be sent in such a way that they could be sent in ‘the clear’ or encoded.

In his book” Nine Months in the Quartermaster Corps; Or How to Steal a Million”, Charles Lieb talked about being able to sit in his office in Clarksburg and message directly with General Rosecrans in the field. He was able to determine exactly what the General’s needs were as far as logistical support and the next day have needed supplies moving towards the ‘seat of war’, or to the front-line locations.

One of the responsibilities of the quartermaster was installing telegraph lines, maintaining the lines and sending messages back and forth.

There was always a concern that the lines would be cut once the people realized how important they were and so the telegraph lines were patrolled by soldiers on horseback. When Captain Leib established his courier service from Clarksburg to Gauley Bridge each set of riders was responsible for monitoring the status of the telegraph lines along their eight-to-ten-mile section. They would be responsible for checking the wire to make sure there weren’t any breaks and ensuring that enemy forces had not tapped into the line and were reading the mail.

But many locals didn’t really understand the telegraph system or the long lines of wire that ran through the countryside. They knew that there were wires running up there through the trees or over poles and then knew that it had something to do with the war effort, but they really did not understand this new technology

While Captain Lieb and the chief telegrapher were investigating a break in the line down near a little village called New Hope, the repairman found the brake and began to repair the line. Lieb and his associates were talking to an old Mountaineer. He had told his son to stay away from that wire he was certain that he would be killed if he touched it. All he knew was that electricity went down those lines, but he didn’t really understand how messages could be sent over them. He told his son that lightning would come through the line and kill him if he touched the exposed wires.

It would seem that the telegraph lines would be vulnerable to attack and because of their strategic importance loss of the lines could be devastating. Many of the rural residents of the county were fearful of the telegraph wires and in many ways ignorant of its importance.

One story was relayed in my book “A Civil War History of Harrison County West Virginia 1861 – 1865” about an old Mountaineer, a secessionist family, who had no understanding of the telegraph system. While the repair team was walking the line looking for the break the old Mountaineer came out to the roadside where a telegraph office had been temporarily opened in Good Hope and expressed his astonishment because they didn’t see the wire moving toward Clarksburg. The telegraph operator explained that he was sending news down the line, but the old man couldn’t see anything that was actually moving, and they doubted if information was actually getting all the way to Clarksburg along the wire.

An old lady at whose house a couple of members of the repair crew stayed were invited to dinner. She believed it was all bunk about sending letters on that little wire because she had watched it for hours and hadn’t seen any letters nor anything else going down the wire. “I ain’t seen no envelopes on that wire so how could they be sending letters?” she asked.

Captain Leib wrote, “I began to get some insight into the reasons that had operated to preserve the wire through this hostile but fearfully benighted region,”

But the line was not completely safe and many of the partisan rangers who were operating in the area understood the importance of the telegraph lines. They knew they could cut the lines and interrupt communications. By having a telegraph key at each one of the operational stations along the route Union officers could determine where a break in the line had occurred and dispatch soldiers to repair brakes.

Clarksburg became a significant communication center throughout the vast majority of western Virginia, later West Virginia. Miles of telegraph line and poles were held in reserve to replace any that were burned or destroyed by confederate raiders. The telegraphers soon realized that they could tell if someone was listening in on their communications. They would send a message up the line telling everyone to stop and wait until they could find out where the Confederates had tapped into the wire. Initially the telegraph was controlled by a civilian agency but as the war went along the military trained their own telegraphers to operate the military systems.

So as you can see the telegraph was a extremely valuable tool in fighting the civil war. Wire could be laid directly to command headquarters in the field and a telegrapher assigned to each one of those positions could send messages back and forth to the support headquarters area. If you are ever doing research on the Civil War One of the interesting aspects of the “Official Records of the War of Rebellion”, or the OR for short, is that many of these telegrams are still found in the books. It shows how quickly information was passed from the field to the garrisons and then on to the War Department.

President Lincoln spent hours in the Telegraph office in Washington DC reading the messages that were coming back and forth to the War Department. It was his way of staying in touch with his commanders in the field and trying to determine from his vantage point what was happening in the war that he was directing.

So, we see this 20-year-old piece of communications technology at the time of the Civil War had a significant impact upon the war effort.

My book, “A Civil War History of Harrison County West Virginia 1861 – 1865,” is available on Amazon. All proceeds for the sale of this book go to support the Harrison County Historical Society. It is also available through the Clarksburg History Museum’s website.

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The Advisor Series:

• “The Advisor, Kien Bing, South Vietnam, 1969-1970. A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B09L4X5NQ3)
• “The Province Senior Intelligence Advisor, Kien Song Province 1970-1971; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0BHL2XCX5)
• “The Hardchargers,” Vietnam 1972-1973; A Novel” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0C7SPR1JY)
• “The Tuscarora Trail” (Available on Amazon ASIN: B0D3QY2GM6)

Check out my website for other books that I’ve written or edited. Website: ptaylorvietnamadvisor.com