Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps During the Civil War

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U of Nebraska Press, Jan 1, 1995 - Biography & Autobiography - 432 pages
As the Civil War raged, President Abraham Lincoln spent many hours in the War Department's telegraph office, where he received all his telegrams. Morning, noon, and night Lincoln would visit the small office to receive the latest news from the armies at the front. The place was a refuge for the president, who waited for incoming dispatches and talked while they were being deciphered. David Homer Bates, one of the first military telegraphers, recollects those presidential visits during times of crisis. Lincoln in the Telegraph Office, originally published in 1907, shows history in the making and personalities at their most unguarded: Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Andrew Carnegie, General George McClellan, and many others. The reader is with Lincoln at the scene of dramatic tidings: of the Northern disasters at Bull Run, of Meade's victory at Gettysburg, of Grant's capture of Richmond. Lincoln wrote the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation at the telegraph office, and from there the news of his assassination was relayed. Wartime human-interest anecdotes, the wonder of the new technology, the unraveling of ciphers and codes, conspiracies and rumors, a heightened sense of onrushing events, the tragedy of Good Friday 1865-all are conveyed in this classic of Lincolniana. Introducing Lincoln in the Telegraph Office is James A. Rawley, Carl Adolph Happold Professor Emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His works include Turning Points of the Civil War, also available as a Bison Book.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION
3
ORGANIZATION OF THE MILITARY TELEGRAPH
14
THE WAR DEPARTMENT TELEGRAPH OFFICE
38
CIPHERCODES AND MESSAGES
49
CONFEDERATE CIPHERCODES AND INTER
68
MCCLELLANS DISAGREEMENTS WITH
101
VHI LINCOLN IN TOUCH WITH ARMY MOVEMENTS
113
ECKERT CHIEF OF THE WAR DEPARTMENT
124
LINCOLN UNDER FIRE AT FORT STEVENS
250
CABLES AND SIGNALS
257
LINCOLNS FOREBODINGS OF DEFEAT AT THE POLLS
267
CONSPIRATORS IN CANADA
287
THE ATTEMPT TO BURN NEW YORK
299
GRANTS ORDERS FOR THE REMOVAL OF THOMAS
310
THE ABORTIVE PEACE CONFERENCE AT HAMPTON ROADS
322
LINCOLNS LAST DAYS
343

THE FIRST DRAFT OF THE EMANCIPATION
138
LINCOLNS TENDER TREATMENT OF ROSE
158
A REMARKABLE FEAT IN RAILROAD TRANS
172
LINCOLN IN EVERYDAY HUMOR
183
CHAPTER PAGE XV LINCOLNS LOVE FOR HIS CHILDREN
208
A BOGUS PROCLAMATION
228
GRANTS WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN
244
THE ASSASSINATION
364
PAYNE THE ASSASSIN
377
LINCOLNS MANNER CONTRASTED WITH STAN TONS
389
APPENDIX
411
INDEX
427
Copyright

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About the author (1995)

Introducing Lincoln in the Telegraph Office is James A. Rawley, Carl Adolph Happold Professor Emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska?Lincoln. His works include Turning Points of the Civil War, also available as a Bison Book.

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