Happy Birthday General Grant!
On this day in 1822 Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Although he was generally known as Ulysses S. Grant, during the Civil War he was referred to by a number of code names. In honor of his birthday, here is a review of his arbitraries from the United States Military Telegraph’s ciphers, roughly in chronological order:
Cipher 12: Abel & Austria
Cipher 12A: Abner & Alpha
Cipher 9: Bangor & Bengal
Cipher 1: Judah, John, Juno, Jupiter, Japan & Jersey
Cipher 2: Bellows & Belly
Cipher 4: Amateur, Advertise, Amber, Affect, America, Afflict
Cipher 5: Artist, Assist, Ashland, & Assume
Many thanks to the kind folks at The George C. Marshall Foundation for sharing their copies of 12,12A and 4 from the William F. Friedman Papers with us!
Roundabout News from New Orleans
Capture of New Orleans, Farragut passing the forts by night. Jay T. Last Collection, priJLC_PRG_002017.
On this day in 1862 Admiral Farragut and his fleet of 24 gunboats, a bevy of mortar boats, and 15,000 soldiers arrived at New Orleans. The fleet had fought past, under the cover of darkness on the night of the 24th/25th, both F. As Kate noted in her post last July, news of military advances often came from local newspapers as well. It this short telegram to Secretary of War Stanton, John G. Tucker relays Rebel news from Richmond that a single Federal naval vessel had passed Fort Jackson:
Fort Monroe. Apl 25th 10PM. Recd Apl 26th
Hon Stanton We have received the Richmond
dispatch of this morning which states
that a Federal gunboat had succeeded
in passing Ft Jackson below New Orleans but
they rebels state they regard it
of little importance as they had
other defenses to be depended on
No other news of interest from
any quarter J G Tucker – – –
Wildly incorrect reporting. New Orleans laid unprotected, and after prolonged negotiations surrendered; the forts surrendered on April 29. On May 1st Federal forces under General Benjamin Butler entered the city, relieving Farragut’s troops. Even though the news via Richmond was erroneous, Stanton undoubtedly knew of the coming attack. He could infer then that the attack had been successful. Roundabout news, filtered and misleading, can still be very insightful.
Atzerodt Captured
7 P.M. Baltimore Apl 20. 1865
Secy of War – Genl Tyler
telegraphs that Andrew Atzerodt was
captured at Monocacy station
I have directed him to
send him by first train double
ironed & under secure guard
to Ft Dix where he
will arrive this Evening &
be held subject to your
orders Lew Wallace Maj Genl
The hunt for the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln burned up the telegraph wires after April 14th, 1865. One of the conspirators that was sought was George Andrew Atzerodt, the conspirator chosen by John Wilkes Booth to assassinate the Vice President, Andrew Johnson. Atzerodt lost his nerve on the night of the 14th, got drunk, and never followed through with the plan. He fled to a cousin’s house in Germantown, Maryland, but left behind in the hotel room, the same hotel occupied by Vice President Johnson, weapons, including a bowie knife, and a bank book belonging to Booth.
Atzerodt became a prime suspect and was found, in bed, early on the morning of April 20th at his cousin’s home. He was arrested by soldiers from Monocacy Junction, just north of Germantown. The were led to him in large part because Atzerodt had used his real name when checking into the hotel. Once arrested he was brought back to Washington DC and imprisoned on the naval vessel U.S.S. Montauk.
Shortly after his arrest, Atzerodt was photographed by Alexander Gardner, along with the other alleged conspirators on the Montauk and another vessel, the U.S.S. Saugus. One of the photographs from that day is pasted on page 97 of the first volume of the James E. Taylor Collection, along with the portraits of three other conspirators, Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne, and David Herold.
All four were found guilty and sentenced to death. On July 7, 1865, George Andrew Atzerodt was hanged with the other three for their roles in the assassination of President Lincoln.
Pinkerton Pledges Life
6 P.M. Apl. 23. New Orleans La Apl 19. 1865
Hon Edwin M Stanton Secretary of
War Washn D C This
mornings papers contain the deplorable
intelligence of the Assassination of
President Lincoln & Secy Seward –
Under the Providence of God
in Feby Eighteen sixty one
I was enabled to –
save him from the fate
he has now met How
I regret that I had
not been near him previous
to this fatal act I
might have been the means
to arrest it – If I
can be of any service
Please let me Know the
service of my whole force
or life itself is at
your disposal & trust you
will excuse me for impressing
upon you the necessity of
great personal caution on your
own part at this time –
The nation cannot spare you –
E.J. Allen
Five days following the assassination of President Lincoln, this urgent message was sent to Secretary of War Stanton by E.J. Allen. This the pseudonym of Allan Pinkerton, the detective turned head of the Union Secret Service and a spy. Writing from Louisiana, where he was investigating fraud in supplies purchased by the US Government, Pinkerton refers in the telegram to his role in interrupting an assassination plot in 1861. The plot sought to prevent Lincoln from reaching Washington DC for his first inauguration by assassinating him in Baltimore during a train stop. Pinkerton and Lincoln passed through Baltimore safely by switching the time of his arrival.
Pinkerton now wishes he could have been there to “arrest” the most recent plot. This turned out to be one of his greatest regrets. Interestingly, Pinkerton repeats the erroneous information the Seward was also killed. Although severally wounded, that was not the case. Pinkerton’s sentiment that the “nation cannot spare” to lose Stanton was no doubt shared by many. Pinkerton underscores his thoughts by unconditionally pledging his “whole force or life” in service to Stanton, and presumably, the Nation.
Weapon used by Lewis Powell, a Rio Grande Camp Knife, in assassination attempt on William Seward, April 14, 1865. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.
Take up the Challenge
Today, April 17th, 2017, marks the first day of a two-week challenge, a challenge for not only our current volunteers but for all who would like to join in. The goal is a simple one: complete 10 ledgers in Decoding the Civil War between April 17 and May 1.
Our volunteers have been doing yeoman’s work turning out 200 classifications a day (a classification is equal to a page of transcription). However, we have fallen behind where we had hoped to be at this stage of our project. Thus, the challenge and the selection of 10 ledgers. We need roughly 425 classifications per day, a bit more than double our current number. We can do this and it will help get us back toward the long-term goal of having the majority of ledgers finished by June.
But why accept the challenge? The canard is often repeated that libraries and archives are dead, or if not dead, then they are simply morgues for outdated material. Our work, all our work, has demonstrated that active collaboration, research, and discovery are vital. Remember that the work that is being done on Decoding the Civil War brings together resources from four institutions — The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; the Papers of Abraham Lincoln at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum; North Carolina State University; and the Zooniverse with its team at the University of Minnesota — and the hard work of over 3,000 volunteers. There is also the generous backing of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). The collaboration of these groups has brought back to life telegrams from the Civil War, presenting the United States Civil War to the world in a continuous stream, not neatly packaged and organized.
Finally, Decoding the Civil War has created new and exciting paths of research—paths that have been cleared by the hard work of the citizen archivists, who have generously volunteered countless hours to this collaborative project. A hearty Thank You to them!
Starting today, let us see what new paths can be carved and cleared. To keep track of our progress we will be resetting the statistics page to reflect only the ten ledgers in the challenge. The numbers will not be set to zero as some work on the chosen ledgers has already be done. Rather, the numbers can be used as a base line to mark progress going forward. And we, as well as you, will be able to see the number of classifications per day clearly. Come back to our blog daily to see updates and new posts.
Go to our Decoding the Civil War project website, register as a new volunteer, or dive in!
Let us continue to prove that our work is vital! Take up the challenge: 10 ledgers in 2 weeks!
Pictures Please! Telegraph Operators
Telegraph operators, June 1865, James E. Taylor Collection
Ever wonder what the telegraph operators of the United States Military Telegraph looked like? In earlier posts we have shown the men who ran the USMT, Anson Stager and Thomas T. Eckert, and even one of the few women operators, Louisa Volker. But what of the other operators? The above image is a popular photograph of the men in the USMT, taken in June of 1865. It was reproduced in the 1911 edition of The Photographic History of the Civil War, Volume 8, Page 363, which provides the following identifications:
“…The members of the group are, from left to right: 1, Dennis Doren, Superintendent of Construction; 2, L.D. McCandless; 3, Charles Bart; 4, Thomas Morrison: 5, James B. Norris; 6, James Caldwell; 7, A. Harper Caldwell, chief cipher operator, and in charge; 8, Maynard A. Huyck; 9, Dennis Palmer; 10, J.H. Emerick; 11, James H. Nichols. …”
There is a variant of this image at the Library of Congress:
Richmond, Virginia. Military telegraph operators
Identification is, from left to right: James Caldwell, J.H. Emerick, Charles Bart, L.D. McCandless, Thomas Morrison, James B. Norris, A. Harper Caldwell, Dennis Doren, Dennis Palmer, Maynard A. Huyck, James H. Nichols.
Pulling from these two images we get these close up of the operators:
Charles Bart
A. Harper Caldwell
James Caldwell
Dennis Doren
J.H. Emerick
Maynard A. Huyck
L.D. McCandless
Thomas Morrison
James H. Nichols
James B. Norris
Dennis Palmer
Finally, there is this image, which we have used in several posts, of Thomas T. Eckert with a few of his operators in 1864:
There is no identification given, save for Eckert. But now some of the other men are identifiable, including A. Harper Caldwell immediately behind Eckert, and Dennis Doren to Eckert’s left, staring at the camera. Behind Doren, in profile, is J.H. Emerick. But the other three men? Time and others will possibly identify them.
Thanks to Zooniverse users OlEnglish and absoluteforth for the idea of connecting a few faces to a few names.
Sources:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens: Telegraph operators, June 1865, James E. Taylor Collection : Scrapbook One, page 90: Top (photCL 300, vol. 1, UDID 49337)
The Library of Congress: Richmond, Virginia. Military telegraph operators, Digital ID: (digital file from original neg.) cwpb 03642 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.03642 Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens: Col. Thomas Eckert and telegraph assistants, 1864, James E. Taylor Collection : Scrapbook Two, page 55: Top (photCL 300, vol. 2, UDID 49424)
If the Boot Fits…..
By Olga Tsapina, Norris Foundation Curator of American Historical Manuscripts at the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
On April 24, 1865, as John Wilkes Booth and David Herold – pursued by the combined forces of the regular police of Washington, D.C., the military police, the United States Secret Service, the Bureau of Military Justice and officers and soldiers stationed at around Washington – huddled at Robert Garrett’s farm and the grieving New Yorkers thronged to the City Hall to pay the last respects to the slain president, Robert Murray, the United States Marshal of the Southern District of New York telegraphed to Washington.
James E. Taylor Collection, photCL 300, vol. 1, p. 94 (UDID 49341), The Huntington Library
Murray reported: “I have the order for the boots in Booth’s own hand writing. They answer the description of those found & are unquestionably the same will bring the order & the maker to Wash. with me this evening – The right Boot has a pocket inside of the leg for pistol.”
This would be the footwear discovered on April 21, 1865 in the possession of Dr. Samuel Mudd, a Maryland physician and an acquaintance of Booths.
Booth showed up at Dr. Mudd ‘s house in the wee hours of April 15, with a broken left fibula. Mudd splintered Booth’s leg and let him sleep in a spare bedroom. When questioned about the incident, Mudd denied any knowledge of the identity of the man he was treating. He did produce a boot that he said he had cut off the man’s leg. The officer who arrested Mudd turned down the top of the boot to see the name “J. Wilkes” written in it.
The Bureau of Military Justice, in charge of gathering witnesses and securing evidence for the upcoming trial, had ordered to locate the manufacturer, in order to establish that the boot indeed belonged to Booth. The order was issued by Brevet Colonel Henry Lawrence Burnett (1848-1916), Judge Advocate of the Army’s Northern Department who had been assigned to lead the investigation on April 22.
Murray seems to have done his job well. It took him less than a day to locate the manufacturer, one Henry Lux of 745 Broadway, New York. Lux later testified at the trial that found Dr. Mudd guilty of conspiring to murder President Lincoln. Mudd escaped the death penalty, by a single vote. Sentenced to life in prison, he was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.
Thank you BettanyMacc for this find!
The Pencil-Pushers Are Going To Love This — Update!
2 PM Richmond 130 PM May 17
1 PM 17th for Secy War = I learn
that Vance was started for Wash this
morning under guard = The rebel War
Dept records Eighty one boxes weighing ten
tons will leave this evening sig
HW Halleck
An update to the post from last December regarding the ten (10!) tons of Confederate records shipped to Washington. Those records were originally shipped to the Federal War Department, were eventually transferred to the National Archives, and now are part of Record Group 109 War Department Collection of Confederate Records. This wonderful connection was made by Lucy Barber, Deputy Executive Director, National Historical Publications & Records Commission, National Archives. It is wonderful in two ways. First, it shows the importance of primary sources; this telegram – which doesn’t appear to be in the OR – illustrates the early provenance of Record Group 109. Second, it is due the generous grant by the NHPRC, that this telegram was transcribed. Without their support Decoding the Civil War would not have got off the ground.
As stated so correctly in the original post on this telegram: Go out and hug a records manager or an archivist today.
Ledgers with Transcriptions!
Today is an exciting day! Today is a day to say thank you to our volunteers and the research team for all their hard work! Today we added the first two ledgers with consensus transcriptions to the Huntington Digital Library!
The ledgers are mssEC 03 and mssEC 24. While small in terms of the number of pages in each, 74 and 100 respectively, their addition to the digital library is extremely important. After six months of hard work transcribing, we can start to show the fruits of our joint labor. This first fruit is the result of Phase 1, the initial full transcription of all the ledgers and letterpress books. It is wonderful to see and proves that this was the correct platform for these materials. The transcriptions created by our volunteers are incredibly clean and accurate. Here is page 38 from mssEC 03 showing the transcription next to the image of the page:
A search was done for “merrimac” and the word was found 17 times in this ledger; three times on this page alone. We are so pleased with the quality of the data being produced.
Thank you to all who have made this possible, from the staff at Zooniverse, the research team, and especially our dedicated and wonderful volunteers. All that hard work is paying off handsomely. Thank you.
Rotation Tool! Huzzah!
All of us, researchers, programmers, and our volunteers, have been waiting for this day for a long time. We have all encountered a few pages with writing running South to North, or even North to South, rather than West to East. The transcription process is difficult enough with adding side-winding text. Our able volunteers have suggested a number of very clever work-arounds, but a rotation tool would make it that much easier.
In addition a rotation tool would prevent this:
This is a transcribed page plotting all the attempted lines–most run pretty straight, a testament to our able volunteers, but a few are quiet wonky. In addition the data returned is all over the map. The rotation tool will fix this issue as well, linking the line to the correct transcription.
Finally, the new rotation tool will enable us to load in the last of the Eckert material: copy books. More on these for our next post. Right now, at this moment, let us say thanks to our fantastic programmers at Zooniverse for creating this incredibly valuable new tool.
Now go forth and transcribe!
Decoding the Civil War 