Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

mssEC_24_076

Chicago 21
Sheldon
I thank you for
the suggestion the printer
is now at work
printing arbitraries for months and
hours and which will be
pasted inside cover of book
I designate arbitraries as follows
hamlet for James Hebrew for Pamunky
valley for Brigadier vernon for General
venus Colonel Vienna Major virtue Captain
vulture lieutenant Vincent quartermaster violet paymaster
vista surgeon how you like it

The codebooks used in the Civil War evolved as time went on, as is evident in this telegraph. The updates here correspond to copies of Cipher, or Code, Book 9, which has gaps in the arbitraries even after these additions. Half of the “P” section, most of “T”, and all of “U” are still unassigned, so there was still room for expansion of the code if needed. We will be recording these unassigned arbitraries as we will the assigned ones (e.g. Hamlet = James, Vernon=general, Pacific=[none]) so that we will have a complete data set when it comes time to decode the messages.

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