This is the continuation of a story begun on our December 2014 Home Page. To
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December 2014 Home Page Archive. To return to this
month'sactual Home Page, click on the Signal Corps
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The original function of the
trail was to support the
logistical movement of men in
war… Indian men, that is. It’s
most famous use came during the
French and Indian war (1754
– 1763) when local Indians
disclosed its existence to the
French, who then used it to move
their own men to attack the
British, while the Indians
continued to use it to move
Braves from one town to another,
stopping along the way to
terrorize and kill English
settlers.
Stories abound of
Indian raids on farms along the Mohawk
Trail, where settlers were
literally butchered in their
homes at night. And if the
Indians couldn’t find settlers
asleep at night, they would
otherwise ambush them as the
occasion allowed… in the field
as they plowed, enroute to town
to sell their goods at market,
or otherwise finding, fighting
and killing the settlers as and
where possible. To be fair to
the Indians, not every tribe
that belonged to the Mohawk
nation fought on the side of the
French, or massacred settlers.
Those that did were mostly from
the Abenaki, Oneida and northern
section of the Mohawks. Other
tribes within the Mohawk nation actually helped the
British, and even protected the
settlers.[1]
As a key logistics support
mechanism that moved braves
along its length from one hot
spot to another the Mohawk Trail
served early American Indians
well… but only… it should be
noted… because it was possible
to communicate along its length.
That is, without the ability to
send messages along its length
Indians would not have been able
to coordinate their activities
and their war fighting.
Similarly, their
terrorist efforts would have
amounted to little more than
sporadic harassment. In this
regard, the Indians had a
distinct advantage; while they
had the ability to communicate
with each other across the
entire state of Massachusetts,
the colonial settlers were left
in the blind. They had no
ability to communicate
whatsoever… except by horseback,
wherein they were required to
saddle up a horse, put a rider
on it and send him on his way
out into a dense forest heading
for God knows where, without
access to any trails to guide
him, or even any clue as to what
direction he was heading (except
in those cases where he was able
to find a tree with moss growing
on the North side of its trunk).
As to why the Indians could
communicate along the Mohawk
Trail’s length, it’s because
they recognized that the unique
terrain of New England—and
Massachusetts in
particular—could be turned to
their advantage. More
specifically, by virtue of the
way the ice from the last Ice
Age retreated, Massachusetts
became topographically composed
of tens of thousands of little
“hills.” Not mountains, mind
you, those exist further north,
in Vermont. Instead,
Massachusetts found itself
populated with little hills that
averaged 800 – 1,200 feet in
height, with a few mountains of
2,000 feet and above sprinkled
in for good measure. Just high enough to
allow someone on top of one of
these hills to see the surrounding
valley, the Indians recognized
early on that this height and
the spacing of the hills was
such that it created an ideal
situation for someone standing
on top of one to pound out
a message on a drum... a message
easily heard by another person
standing on a nearby hill. And
thus long distance communication in colonial
America was born, and ciphering
invented.[2]
The reality
is that even until today someone on a hill in New England
can easily send drum based
messages 30 to 50 miles away;
and it is because of this that
the concept of Drums Along The
Mohawk came into existence… both
as a literary concept, as well
as real, functional means for
the Mohawk Indians to
communicate with each other.
Ciphering then has a long and
glorious history in America.
Starting with drums, the armies
that America’s indigenous
citizens and the settlers formed
worked hard to develop ever
better means of cipher based
communication… in order to
better allow them to win the
numerous little nefarious wars
we Americans fought within our
country. Starting with the early
colonial wars and carrying on up
to the Civil War, and the Indian
Wars that followed that, better
and better means of cipher were
developed.
As time passed numerous
forms were tried, from cipher by
drums and fire (as in smoke from
wood fires, not gunfire), to
trumpets and eventually banners.
As to why the Indians of New
England turned to drums instead
of smoke signals, the Mohawks
stayed away from cipher by fire
because of the terrain in New
England. In addition to being
composed of lots of little
hills, it is also composed of lots of dense trees and thicket, which forms a tinder box just waiting for a campfire to get out of hand. Any
Indian trying to light a fire to
send a message by smoke signals
would more often than not find himself a)
giving away his location in the
woods and b) starting a forest
fire, than reaching the intended
party with the message. Besides,
the Indians were quick to
recognize that smoke signals
proved useless at night.
That was not the case with
trumpets and banners however, and because of
this these forms of communication readily took hold as a
means of cipher-based
communication... especially during America’s
Civil War. As we all know, it
was during this period that the
concept of cipher as a form and
method of communication truly came
into its own. That is, while the
Mohawk Indians may have been the
first to perfect drum based
cipher communication, they
certainly did not recognize it
as such. To them it was just a
means of sending messages along
the Mohawk Trail. The concept of
a “communication set” called
"cipher" escaped them... but it did not escape the soldiers that watched the Mohawks warn each other, via their drums, of approaching enemies.
As we all know, the men who
fought in the Civil War took the Indian's concept of signaling a step further. Where the Mohawks were satisfied with their hill-to-hill signaling technique, the soldiers who fought alongside of them wanted more... they wanted greater distance, speed and reliability. And so slowly, over time, they experimented with drums, whistles, bugles,
and banners, until they too were able to claim a form of communication that achieved the coveted goal of getting the message through.
In each case their experiments with long distance communication revolved around one concept: the
ability to convert, via
ciphering, one form of
information into another, such
that what could not be
transmitted in one form could
easily be transmitted in
another. In other words, cipher
became a concept in and of
itself… which from that point forward
in history made cipher one of the most critical attributes of the
communication process…
especially in the military
world.
In the end, it all came together during the Civil War.
What the American
military learned during the Civil War
was that with cipher three
benefits ensued.
• First, depending on the
environment, some forms of
cipher worked better at
transmitting messages than
others. Thus, bugles worked well
both during the day and at
night. Whereas, as we said
earlier, smoke signals lost all
value at night.
• Second, the content of messages
could be reduced in length from
how they might appear in written
or oral form to how they were
best transmitted when ciphered.
• Third, the process of
ciphering a message created a
form of encryption in and of
itself, although that was not the purpose of ciphering.
Today this all seems
obvious… but back in 1861 (when
the Civil War started) that was
not the case, and it certainly
was not the case during the time
of the French and Indian War in
1754. During the Civil War
period men like U.S. Army
surgeon Major Albert Myer had to
fight to get their point across
that whether signal flags,
torches, acetylene lanterns, or heliographs were used the armies
that fought the Civil War needed
to understand that communication
via cipher was a far better and
more reliable means of “getting
the message through” than
sending riders on horseback…
either through or along enemy
lines, in hopes of finding the
intended recipient so that a
message could be delivered. And
so Alfred Myer pursued the
development of cipher as a means
of improving military
communication, taking it from
the stage where the American
Indians had left it to its next
level. As to where signal flags
and the U.S. Signal Corps first
successfully used this form of
communication, it was at the
Battle of Antietam.
Antietam
At Antietam
(September 17, 1862), Generals
Robert E. Lee and George
McClellan faced off near what
was called the Antietam creek,
in Sharpsburg, Maryland. The
battle that ensued was the first
battle of the American Civil War
to be fought on northern soil (i.e. north of the Mason Dixon line),
and although McClellan failed to
utilize his numerical
superiority to crush Lee’s army,
thanks to the Signaleers on his
team he was at least able to
check the Confederate advance
and stop the Confederates from
invading the north. More of a
draw than a win, the north was
happy to at least keep the south
bottled up in its own claimed
territory, rather than running
around in Union territory. With this little caveat, the Union claimed the Battle of Antietam as a
tactical win... even though it was not.
Of greater
importance, this "tactical
victory" came on the heels of a
string of Union defeats. By constituting a win, it provided the impetus Abraham
Lincoln needed to be able to
issue his Emancipation
Proclamation. That is, without
McClellan’s “win” at Antietam,
Lincoln would not have held a
strong enough political hand to
be able to issue his
proclamation. Considering then
if it were not for the Signal
Corp’s new fangled form of
banner waving cipher McClellan
most likely would have lost at
Antietam, one might be forgiven
for saying that if it were not
for the U.S. Army Signal Corps
Lincoln might never have freed
the slaves. A stretch of the
imagination perhaps, but there
is no doubt that the Signal
Corps brought forward the day
when the blacks would be freed.
As to the battle itself, it was
bloody, and remains until today
the bloodiest single day in
American history, with more than
22,000 casualties.[3]
In terms of
why we claim that the Signal
Corps saved the day, it is
because of how the Union Signal
Corps was able to support
McClellan’s efforts to contain
and stymie General Lee’s
movements. Without the
information they provided McClellan, and the Signal Corp's ability to relay his
commands around the battlefield,
it is likely General Lee would
have gone home a victor.
Instead, located on the
surrounding ridges, McClellan’s
Signaleers were able to message
each other across the full
length and breadth of the
battlefield.
This ability to
instantly communicate, use the
signal stations on the ridges
above the battlefield to observe
and report on the progress of
the battle, and most importantly
view enemy troop movements
behind Confederate lines (and let those in command on the ground know what the enemy was doing) proved
not only effective in helping
the Union carry the day but
addictive to the point that
today the U.S. Army still has a
Signal Corps. That is, once the
value of ciphered messaging was
proven at Antietam, there was no
way in hell the U.S. Army was
ever going to go forward without
a Signal Corps of its own.
Purists might say that
technically it was in 1860 that
the U.S. Army officially adopted
Myer’s method of signaling, but
just as we made the claim
earlier that the Signal Corps
enabled Lincoln to issue his
Emancipation Proclamation and
free the slaves, we will make
the point here that until
Antietam (1862) the concept of
military signaling itself was
still on trial.
The question
though is not when did cipher signaling become legitimate within the U.S. Army, but how did this cipher
signaling actually work? Yes, we
know about the waving of flags and
such, and have heard the
nickname for all of this—wig
wagging—but what exactly were
the men waving the flags doing,
and how did their work translate
into words?
Two Versus Four Element Code
Strangely, it was
not Major Myer that figured out
how to convert words into
physical flag movements, and
vice versa, but an exceptional
young officer named Lieutenant
E. Porter Alexander. A Georgian,
Alexander started out on the
side of the North but soon
resigned his commission in the
Army and switched sides to the
Confederates. Fortunately for
the North, before he did so he
helped organize, equip, and
train the Army of the Potomac in
how to use signal flags to
communicate, and how to use a
form of cipher to expedite the
process. Unfortunately for the
North, as soon as he switched
sides he did the same for what
came to be called the
Confederate Signal Service. Thus,
both armies ended up using
essentially the same signaling
system… and it was because of
this that the cipher process was
extended to include the
encryption of the core message
itself. When that happened the
distinction between cipher
encoding and encryption became
blurred. From that time on
Signaleers have tended to use
the two terms interchangeably.
They should not, as the
two words have different
meanings, no matter how close
the result of the use of one
process may resemble the output
gained when the other process is
used.
As far as Lt. Alexander
was concerned, the only thing he
worried about was how the
process worked. In today's terms he was a geek, and while his sympathies lay with the South he could care less which side used his newly invented signaling technique. His goal was to
simplify ciphering to the point
that any poorly educated recruit
could use the signal flags
involved to communicate.
Initially he did this by
developing a four-element code.
Later he determined that his
four element code was still too
complex, and so developed a more
simplified two-element code.
In
the four-element code each
movement of the flag was
designed to convey one of the
numbers 1, 2, 3, or 4. These
numbers were then grouped to
stand for letters, and in some
cases even entire words or
phrases. Thus the letter "B"
might be ciphered as "1423".
Similarly the phrase “End of
Word” might consist of the
numbers “2121”.[4]
Effective and
easy for even a poorly educated
recruit to learn, the problem
with the four-element code was
not that it was difficult to use
but that it forced messages to
require a signaling format where
the signaling device needed to
be displayed in four distinct
ways. For flags this was not a
problem, but for torches, which
were used at night, the process
became more cumbersome,
difficult to master and prone to
misinterpretation of the message
being sent as the number of torches increased.
Little more than bright spots
against a dark background at
night, the signal being sent could be misconstrued or
misread due to the parallax caused by three dimensional space. For
example, if
more than one intended receiving
party was watching for the
message and each of them was
separated from the other by more
than 60 angular degrees from the signaling source, it was possible for one receiving party to see lights "A" and "B" such that "A" was on the left and "B" was on the right. The other receiving party might see the two lights as being placed exactly opposite, with "B" being on the left. And since it was night and the background dark, there would be no way for the second receiving party to know what he was seeing was wrong do to three dimensional parallax. To
reduce the possibility of
miscommunication and simplify
the whole process, by the end of
the war Lt. Alexander developed and put in place a
two-element code. Considering
that the Union implemented the
same two-code format at about
the same time, and that Lt.
Alexander had by then joined the
Confederate Army, one can only
surmise that spies within the
Confederate Army had relayed to
the Union Army the changes Lt.
Alexander was making.
Is that
possible? Is it possible that the Confederate Signal
Service contained spies that
worked for the Union Army’s
Signal Corps? Nahhh. It never
could be. Signaleers wouldn’t disclose top secret stuff, no matter whose side
they were on... right?
Either way, the
two-element code that Lt.
Alexander rolled out had letters
that were formed using just the
numerals 1 and 2. For those of
our readers who read our October
2014 Home Page article on the
telegraph, you will readily
recognize the correlation
between flag waving based on
only two numbers… 1 and 2… and
what became known as dots and
dashes in telegraphy. What you
are reading of here, in the case
of flag waving or lantern shining based on a two-element code, is in fact the precursor to the use of dots and dashes in telegraphy. Morse Code, as brilliant as it was at the time of its invention, was nothing more than the redefinition of the original two number cipher method defined, tested and perfected by Lt. Alexander during the Civil War, but credited to General Myer.
As for how the two element code
worked with flags, in the case of flags a "1" was indicated by moving the flag from the vertical to the sender's left. A "2" was represented with just the opposite motion… moving the flag to the sender's right. In the graphic on the right, the Signaleer is sending a “1”.
Simple, it
is. However the simplicity comes
in great measure from how human
beings “see” things… that is,
how our eyes work.
Many of us
OCS graduates remember being
taught that in low light level
conditions we could improve our
ability to pick out and
recognize things by looking not
at the object, but above, below
and to the right and left of it.
That is, by looking just
slightly aside of an object in
low light conditions, and
circling our eyes around it, it
is usually easier to make out
an object's shape and there from
determine what it is… an enemy
soldier, a malformed tree or the
barrel of an RPG staring back at
you. For some reason though,
looking straight at and focusing
intently on an object seems to
confuse the eye, to the extent
that the image transmitted to
the brain becomes
unrecognizable.
This also
happens when signaling with
flags, except that the opposite
occurs if the flag is being
moved. When stationary,
observers often cannot even see
the flag, never mind make out
what code it is sending. But
move a flag from a vertical to a
horizontal position, and back
again, and it becomes unusually
easy for a distant observer to
make out the movement… even if
they are so far away that they
cannot see the person waving the
flag itself. Because of this,
when used for signaling the
motion of the flag becomes not
only a means for defining the
character being sent, but also
an integral aspect of the
process by which the readability
of the signal being sent is
enhanced. In other words,
wig-wagging increases the signal
to noise level: more signal,
less noise for the eyes.
All in
all, excepting one item that
still caused problems with flag
based signaling, the cipher
method Lt. Alexander developed
for wig-wag signaling proved a
very effective system. As to
what the problem item was, it
was obviously the fact that the
enemy could read your cipher just as
well as your own men could; and
so as we alluded to earlier
encryption was both needed and
invented.
Here too Lt. Alexander came to the rescue. His version of encryption was based on a signal disk made of two concentric circles made of brass (sometimes cardboard was used) riveted together at their center point. One disk (or in modern day parlance, disc) contained the alphabet, the other numeral combinations. By rotating the discs around the rivet and changing the alignment of the numbers and letters the codes relating to which numbers corresponded with which letters could easily be changed. This simple little device—called a cipher disc—ended up doing two jobs in one. It ciphered the message (changing it from one form to another) while at the same time it encrypted it. Astute readers will recognize however that while it was called a cipher disc, its true purpose was to encrypt the message, not encipher it.
With these items
out of the way, all that was
left was to outfit each group of
Signaleers taking
to the field with a kit that provided them with all they
needed to do the job. Called “Signal Parties”
the men involved carried a
standard assemblage of different
combinations of flag sizes,
colors, and staff lengths to both
increase the readability of the
signal being sent and allow it
to be sent over longer
distances. During the Civil War
signal kits issued by the U.S.
Army included:
• Seven
different flags in three
different sizes; 2'x2', 4'x4',
and 6'x6'.
– The 2-foot flag
permitted sending a signal over
short distances in tactical
situations where the flagman had
to lie down or signal from
cover.
– Based on battle
tactics of the time, the 4-foot
flag suited most battlefield
engagements done on horseback or
by infantry in line, and ended
up being the most commonly used.
– The 6-foot flag was
employed for extra long
distances.
• Color
combinations employed included
red or black with a white center
square, and white with a red
center square.
– The color choice
was up the Signaleer, with the
color selected in any given
situation being that which he
felt gave the best contrast to
the background he found himself
standing in front of.
• Army issued flag staffs were
made of hickory and came in
4-foot sections that could be
assembled to become longer
lengths.
– Myer's Manual of
Signals stated that with a
12-foot staff and 4-foot flag,
signals “are easily read at a
distance of 8 miles at all
times, except in cases of fog or
rain. They are read at 15 miles
on days and nights ordinarily
clear.”
• Special
torches fueled with turpentine
were also provided. These were
used to send signals at night.
– Lt. Alexander’s solution to
the night time parallax problem
was to have one torch placed on
the ground. The other was then
attached to the top of a signal
staff and held above the
ground-mounted torch. Called a
“flying torch” the Signaleer
could then move it from side to
side relative to the motionless
foot torch, thus sending either
a "1" or "2", based on whether
the staff was moved to the right
or left.
• Telescopes
and field glasses were also
included in the field kit, and
were considered an absolutely
essential part of a Signal
Party's equipment.
As in the
Signal Corps today, Union
officers back then were fully
accountable for their equipment
and were under strict orders not
to let any of it fall into enemy
hands.
As for the Signal Party
itself, in true U.S. Army style
it varied between squad and
platoon size, based on the task
at hand. For small Signal Party
outposts a squad composed of an
Officer and two Privates was
sufficient. Since signaling
meant that more than one signal
post had to be manned, generally
these three person squad sized
units tended to be grouped into
platoon sizes that, while small
by today’s standards, made sense
at the time. Referred to as
detachments, the ratio of
Officers to men was the same in
one of these platoon/detachments
as for the previously mentioned
squad size of one Officer and
two Privates. The reader can see
this in the photo taken by
Alexander Gardner of a Signal
Detachment on Elk Mountain east
of the Antietam battlefield.
There one can see three Officers
and six Enlisted Men, the
equivalent of three Signal Party
squads.
To prevent the cipher
code from falling into enemy
hands, only the Officer had
access to the cipher wheel. He
alone was responsible for
enciphering and deciphering
messages… or encrypting and
decrypting them if you prefer.
The enlisted men were
responsible only for flagging
the signals and reading and
recording incoming message
codes. Once received, the
message was given to the Officer
for conversion back to English.
In terms of how these men were
picked, notwithstanding Lt.
Alexander’s effort to make the
process so easy a poorly
educated recruit could do it,
Signalmen were selected by
examinations and were generally
more educated than the average
recruit. Commissioned Officers,
already presumed to have a
higher degree of education (or
at least a well connected uncle
able to get them a commission…)
were nevertheless required to
pass tests in reading, writing,
composition, arithmetic,
chemistry, natural philosophy,
surveying and topography. Fail
at any one of these and you
could not be a Signal Officer.
The Life Of A Signaleer
Duty wise, these very early Signal Parties not only served as communicators they also assisted Cobat Commanders
with recon, surveillance and even development of field tactics.
This was natural after all, since in
doing their basic duty they
usually sat far above the
madding crowd, at a high point
on the terrain from which they
could survey the entire
battlefield. This, plus their
mobility tended to cause
Combat Commanders to turn to Signal Officers for
not just information on what was
transpiring on the battlefield,
but also what kinds of tactics
might work given the particular
situation. In fact, it was in
just this way that the
Signaleers that supported George
McClellan helped him figure out
where to move his men to thwart
Robert E. Lee’s effort to break
out into the northern Maryland
countryside, presumably to make
a mad dash for Washington
D.C.
Overall, much like in combat today,
the life of a Signaleer in those days was often
one of sheer terror. Signal
Parties posted to the field often found their locations overrun by the enemy. Those who stayed behind and worked at HQ however usually lived a life of relative comfort… at least until their next field assignment came up. Regardless of where you worked though, combat in the 1800s was hard... Officer or Enlisted, you existed in a world
exposed to the elements, located in remote and isolated locations, lived hard, and experiencing both
privation and danger. It was not a life for the weak of spirit or body. But it was most definitely the kind of life you sought if you wanted to be one of the very few who actually contributed to the winning of a battle—and all of this
because the concept of cipher
that the Mohawk Indians of New
England perfected with their
drums was able to be ported to
signal flags and torches.
As for those of our
readers saying we are
making far too much here of the
importance of the Signal Corps,
and the contribution Signal
Parties made to battles, let us
take a moment to look at what
actually happened at Antietam.
The Battle
Major General George B.
McClellan was clearly not the
best Commanding General the U.S.
has ever had. After all, Lincoln
relieved him because he couldn’t
seem to get off of his duff and
get after the Confederate Army.
An over cautious man, how he
handled the Battle of Antietam
was in keeping with his style:
do nothing, pray for more troops
for your side, and hope the
enemy goes away. Given that
situation, the information the
Signal Corps provided to him
about enemy activities during
the battle was crucial to his
being able to avoid a defeat.
Actually, to be more accurate,
we should say that the
information the Signal Stations
provided to his subordinateCommanders was crucial to
McClellan’s being able to avoid
a defeat, since it was their
mostly independent acting on the
information the Signal Stations
provided them that allowed
these Commanders to turn the
Confederates and prevent their
entry into Union Territory, as
Lee had intended.
Lee being,
aware that the Army of the
Potomac was shadowing him,
picked a piece of ground over
which the engagement could take
place on the basis of what
suited him. From his
perspective the ground was
appropriate for a defensive
engagement, but dangerous if you
were the one on the offensive.
McClellan seemed not to see
this, as he took up a position
that put the Potomac River
behind him, effectively cutting
off much of his maneuverability.
Even so, at first glance McClellan's plan seemed sound, as he stated his intentions
as being one of
overwhelming Lee’s left flank
and rolling it up in a southward
direction, until Lee's Confederate Army was
crushed.
On the surface this
seemed good, except for one
thing: McClellan failed to
exercise command and control over
his Army. As a result, rather
than performing an
enfilading action in a southern
direction, all he ended up doing
was diffusing the combat, south
along the length of the battle
line.
The actual process of this
happening occurred in several
segments throughout the day. The
first four hours of fighting
took place in an area that
covered farmer David Miller’s
thirty-acre cornfield… in the
northern part of the Antietam
battle area. A bloody battle,
the Battle of the Cornfield was
indecisive, doing little more
than to force the combatants to
move to the south of their then
current positions, in order to
gain more room for maneuver and
cover.
Quite naturally, as the
Confederates moved to their
right, in a southerly direction,
while the Union troops moved to
their left… in the same
southerly direction, they ended
up facing off against each other
once again… except this
time on a fresh battle space
where no defenses had been
prepared. Hastily digging in and
trying to set up artillery along
the lines, the Union Army
mounted a series of massively
bloody head-on attacks against
Lee’s center. These attacks took
place along a depression in the
ground known as Bloody Lane.
Eventually, the Union troops
made some headway and finally
over-ran the area around Bloody
Lane. Yet tough as the fighting
was and considering the slight
Union advantage gained on this
field of fire, the outcome was
still indecisive.
The battle
having flowed from its beginning
on the north of the battlefield,
towards the middle in the area
around Bloody Lane—and no
consequential outcome having
been gained by either side—the
pulse and pace quite naturally
continued in a southerly
direction towards the end point
of Lee’s line... further south
still from where the second
segment of the battle ended.
Located to the right of Lee, as
he stood on his own line looking
out to the east at the
battlefield, the end point of
his line was where the last
action of the day took place.
Here the Union troops once more
hit Lee’s line head on, this
time piercing it in an area that
had been weakened when Lee
removed men from this point to
reinforce other sections to the
north, in the center of the
battlefield. Yet while Lee’s
line was pierced, McClellan’s
over cautious nature stopped him
from following up on this
opportunity. Feeling that after
a full day’s fighting, and little-to-no progress, Lee's actions must be a
trap, McClellan hesitated. In
that short blink of an eye Lee moved into his line a series of
late-arriving Confederate
reinforcements brought up by A.P. Hill. Hill's men essentially
sealed the hole in the Confederate line and saved the
day.
By the time dusk came
around, Lee’s Army had suffered
10,318 casualties out of the
38,000 men he had brought to the
field. McClellan saw laying dead
in front of him 12,401 of the 75,000 men
he had brought to the field.
As
night set in Lee began
withdrawing across the river to
safety, completing his escape by
the end of the day on the 18th.
At best the battle was a draw.
At worst it was a defeat for the
Union in that in this one
opportunity another commander
might have been able to deal a
death blow to General Robert E.
Lee’s army. Be that as it may
be, the draw that McClellan took
pride in accomplishing would
never have happened if McClellan
had been forced to fight without
the information his Signal
Stations provided him with—or
more accurately again, provided
to his subordinate Commanders.
Who were these subordinate
Commanders, and where did they get their battlefield
information from? The answer of
course was from battlefield
observations and reports, the
most accurate of which would
have come from the Signal
Stations that were set up along
the battlefield. However, to determine where
these Signal Stations were located and exactly how much of the battlefield they could see we have to turn to the
Atlas to the Official Records of the Battle of Antietam,
assembled by the U.S.
Government. These records, when
combined with those of the
Virginia Historical Society and
other research groups, help us locate both the
Union as well as Confederate
Signal Stations. Having said this, we should
clarify that there is some
disagreement on exactly how many
Signal Stations existed on both
sides on the actual day of the
battle, and where they were.
That being the case, the graphic at right shows our best guesstimate. For our part, having combed through
dozens of archives and field
maps, what we have depicted here
is as accurate as any our readers are likely to find.
Notwithstanding this, we offer this one correction to the map at right: we know that General
Lee moved his HQ on the 18th of
September, and his HQ Signal
Station followed him in the
process. Thus what we show here
is his HQ Signal Station
location on the 17th, the day of
the battle.
Similarly there is a
disagreement as to exactly where
the U.S. signal station on Elk
Mountain was located. On our
graphic it is shown off the
right edge of the map as the
“Mountain Signal Station”. Some
placed this Station, a critical
one because of the fact that it
relayed signals to General
Burnside, higher than where we
have indicated it is. Others
even lower. Our estimate is
based on recent field
excavations on a farm in the
vicinity of where we have shown
it; a farm whose owners just
shortly after the battle
petitioned the U.S. Government
for redress and payment for lost
money due to the 1.5 acres of
trees that were cut down to
create a more clear field of
view for the “mountain signal
station”. Considering that this
Mountain Signal Station had the
best field of view of the
battlefield, it’s involvement in
helping McClellan’s subordinate
Commanders stalemate this battle
is important.
Lieutenant Joseph Gloskoski was the OIC of the Elk
Mountain Signal Station. He
claimed it overlooked the
battlefield from the east.
Higher than most, Lt. Gloskoski
reported that during the battle
he was able to communicate with
at least five different stations
on the field, although we have
shown this Station on our map as
communicating with only two:
General Burnside’s Signal
Station and the second of two
Signal Stations located at
General McClellan’s headquarters
at the Pry House. In addition to
these two, Lt. Gloskoski said
his men could see and transmit
ciphers to General Hooker's
headquarters on the Union right,
and “two stations in the center
of our lines.” One of these was
possibly at the Roulette farm,
the other may have been the
Signal Station just to the north
of the Roulette farm station.
It’s because of this that the
Signal Corps was able to provide
so much information on the troop
movements behind the lines, as
well as the course of the
battle. Under such conditions it
was to be expected that the OICs
of these Signal Stations went
from being mere cipher
transmitters to tactical
advisors to the subordinate
Commanders running the show. And
it was in this vein that Lt. Gloskoski's Elk Mountain station
sent the most famous signal of
the battle, one which saved the
day for the Union. To wit, late in the
afternoon his Signal party
observed Lieutenant General A.P.
Hill's division of Confederates
approaching the battlefield
after its long march from
Harpers Ferry. Seeing them fall
into line, Lt. Gloskoski ordered
that an urgent message be sent
to Gen. Burnside, instructing
him to prepare to take tactical
action. Out of character for a
Second Lieutenant to send what
amounted to an order to a
General, Lt. Gloskoski carefully
worded his message as follows:
“Look well to your left. The
enemy are moving a strong force
in that direction.”
In the
stilted language of the day, his
message was nothing short of an
instruction for Burnside to move
his men to intercept, fix and
defeat a threat coming on his
flank… something Burnside was
clearly not aware of and if not
met properly would have caused
the Army of the Potomac, with
its back to the river and no
room to maneuver, to suffer an
enfilading defeat.
With this we
rest our case.
In terms of how
it evolved and has been used in
war in America, by the time of
the Civil War the concept of "cipher"—i.e. the process of changing one form of information into another, so that it can be more effectively handled and transmitted—had proven
its value. Beginning with the Mohawk Indians in the French and Indian War, carrying forward through the Revolutionary War, and on up to and including the Civil War, cipher helped America’s
leaders chart a destiny for our
country, one that helped form our republic. Further to this, as a tool of
the U.S. Army Signal Corps the
concept of cipher actually
underwrote much of America's development, with some of the most
important events in our nation’s
history having had their outcome determined by its use. In just the example above we have seen that it
proved its merit by enabling a
situation where the political
outcome from the Battle of
Antietam could be used by
President Lincoln to free the
slaves. It also helped stop
General Robert E. Lee from
invading the North and doing to
it what Sherman did on his march
to the sea. Overall, it is
worthwhile for Signaleers to
recognize how critical the
invention and development of
cipher was to the success of our country.
Thank You
Footnotes:
[1] The reader might note that it was
the Mohawk Indians that first brought
the concept of scalping to the attention
of settlers in America, not the Apache
or some other tribe. To be more clear,
it is possible that other tribes used
scalping before the Mohawks did,
however, since the settlement of America
moved from East to West, the first
encounter colonial settlers had with
angry Indians intent on killing them was
in New England… and so this is where the
first encounter with scalping took
place.
- To return to your place in the
text click here:
[2] The highest “hill” in Massachusetts
is Mount Greylock. It stands at 3,491
feet. A few others exist between 2,100
and 2,800 feet, but most of the highest
"mountains" in Massachusetts fall
in the range of 800 to 1,100 feet...
making them little more than hills
compared to those found in Vermont and
New Hampshire.
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text click here:
[3] At a Cabinet meeting on July 22,
Lincoln informed his advisors that he
had decided to issue an edict freeing
the slaves. He stated that he felt he
could do so based on his powers as
Commander in Chief to seize enemy
property—in this case, slaves—that were
being used to wage war against the Union.
In devising this course of action he
concluded that the risk of such a
proclamation was more than balanced by
the potential benefits of a measure that
would convert black labor from
Confederate use into a Union asset.
Emancipation was “a military necessity,
absolutely essential to the preservation
of the Union,” he told his Cabinet. “The
slaves [are] undeniably an element of
strength to those who [have] their
service, and we must decide whether that
element shall be for us or against us.”
Most Cabinet members supported Lincoln’s
decision, but Secretary of State William
H. Seward advised against issuing such a
proclamation until the Union could point
to more successes on the battlefield.
Wait “until you can give it to the
country supported by military success,”
Seward said. Otherwise the world might
view it “as the last measure of an
exhausted government, a cry for help
. . . our last shriek, on the retreat.”
Lincoln put the proclamation away to
wait for a military victory. It would
prove to be a long, dismal wait, until
the Battle of Antietam occurred. Looking
closely at the fact that Lee’s attempted
invasion of the North had been stopped,
and claiming that the Battle of Antietam
showed that the momentum had turned,
Lincoln proceeded to issue his
Emancipation Proclamation. If the battle
had been lost, the proclamation might
never have been issued. One wonders what
that would have meant for slavery today?
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text click here:
[4] For more information on the
signaling systems approved for use by
the U.S. Army, see the attached
reference PDF file labeled Manual of
Visual Signaling, U.S. Signal Corps -
1910.
It's a fascinating read and well worth
the effort.
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text click here:
Additional Sources:
Library of Congress
National Park Service, The Signal
Corps, Antietam
EyeWitness To History; Carnage At
Antietam, 1862
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