The Founders of the Civil War Telegraph Service, Including Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Eckert, Gather in Reunion and Sign an Image to Commemorate Their Service

When Civil War was declared 1861, the Northern communications industries – railroads and telegraph – were quick to step forward to serve. In April 1861, Andrew Carnegie, Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, went to Washington to assist the War Department with transportation planning. He initiated the formation of the US Military Telegraph Corps by recruiting four telegraph operators from the Pennsylvania Railroad: Samuel M. Brown, David Strouse, Richard O’Brien, and David H. Bates. Yet another early telegrapher, Thomas Eckert, arrived in Washington on September 17, 1861, and President Lincoln officially authorized formation of the US Military Telegraph Corps in October 1861, to be composed of civilian operators within the War Department. Eckert was the head of the US Military Telegraph Corps, and with war news coming in all the time, he spent much time with President Lincoln, who came down to get the latest news.

Military telegraphers and staff that Eckert worked with during the war were highly patriotic, and many took the work at a sacrifice to themselves, both financially and in inconvenience. They included three cipher [code] operators – David Homer Bates, Albert B. Chandler, and C.A. Tinker; A.H. Caldwell, chief cipher operator for General McClellan; and telegraphers Richard O’Brien and W. J. Dealy.

In 1907, the group met in Manhattan, those who were still alive, as a form of reunion and to remember their days at the Civil War telegraph. For those who attended, each present attendee signed a sheet commemorating their service, with a quote from U.S. Grant that “No orders ever had to be given to establish the telegraph.” On the opposite side is an image of a Union soldier laying telegraph lines.

Those attendees, both former operators and historians, signed this great memento. Document signed, March 28, 1907, signed by, among others: Carnegie, Tinker, Eckert, Chandler, Dealy, Bates and O’Brien. Bates went on to write a noted book, “Lincoln in the Telegraph Office.”

We have only seen one other example of this, which was Eckert’s copy, and we sold that to the Huntington Library. It is not clear to whom this copy belonged by we conjecture that only twelve were created, this being the copy of the one of the signers himself. Public records show no other copies of this having ever reached the market.