1784.a.13, 2(73)

Genre: War Photography

Close view of a telegraph wagon, with a figure seated inside operating the machinery and a heavily bearded figure posed outside the wagon: 'No feature of the Army of the Potomac contributed more to its success than the field telegraph. Guided by its young chief, Mr. A. H. Caldwell, its lines bound the corps together like a perfect nervous system, and bore unerringly to the great controlling head of the army, the wants and sympathies of its members ... Through thickets, swamps, and over rushing streams, the lines stretched on, following Grant as he swooped upon the front of Lee's flying troops, and half an hour after the last gun was fired at Appomattox Court-House, the news of victory flashed along the wires to City Point ... The triumph of the field telegraph has exceeded the most sanguine expectations. From the opening of Grant's Campaign in the Wilderness to its close at Lee's surrender, an aggregate of over two hundred miles of wire was put up and taken down, without interfering in the least with its efficiency as a constant means of communication between several commands. The Army of the Potomac was the first to demonstrate the advantages of the telegraph for conducting military operations, and the future campaigns of all civilized nations must in a great measure depend for success upon this great auxiliary.'