Modernizing War: Science And Technology In The American Civil War

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-11

[00:00:02]GPS, drones, laser guidance, all modern marvels that have served mankind in both peace and war. Nothing new, for there were creations and adaptations for a conflict contested in the 1860s.

[00:00:20]Enough so that the confrontation has been called by many the first modern war. This is the story of enterprising inventors and engineers and their ideas and machines. They're taking theory and making it practical. The ongoing marriage between innovation and war.

[00:00:42]This is the story of science and technology in the American Civil War.

[00:00:50]The last five letters of history spell story. And that's exactly how history should be taught. Numbers and dates have no soul. Such presentations fall flat for history is alive and relevant.

[00:01:04]Welcome to Threads from the National Tapestry. Stories from the American Civil War. This series will feature events and people from that period and will strive to make you feel as if you were there to show that history is indeed a story.

[00:01:21]By June 1862, only 25% of the cotton spindles in New England were operational. Therefore, with political, military, and economic urgency, a campaign was prepared for eastern Texas and its white gold cotton.

[00:01:39]That campaign finally came to fruition when on March 1864, Major General Nathaniel Banks and Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter left Vixsburg and headed down the Mississippi for the Red River. 5 days later, the 15th, Porter's gunboats arrived at Alexandria, Louisiana.

[00:02:01]The next day, federal troops occupied the town. to hold the town and ensure the campaign's success. Reinforcements were on the way. Major General Frederick Steel's Union columns moved south from Little Rock, Arkansas, and plan to rendevous with banks coming up the Red River. If successful, the two-pronged advance would break up the Confederacy west of the Mississippi. To counter, Major General Richard Taylor's Confederates concentrated.

[00:02:34]The end of March and beginning of April bore witness to skirmishing at Nacatosh, Louisiana. And as steel made his way south to join banks at Archadadelphia, Arkansas on April the 1st. On the 3rd, there was fighting at Granny Core, Louisiana.

[00:02:52]Things seemed to go rather well until the 5th when the Red River's water level created problems.

[00:03:00]The Red River was simply running low. By the 7th of April, Banks was near Mansfield, Louisiana. Taylor was nearby and on a Friday the 8th, Taylor decided to make a stand to keep Union troops out of Shreveport.

[00:03:16]We know it as the Battle of Sabine Pass or Mansfield.

[00:03:21]The route taken by Banks drew them away from the Red River and the protection of his gunboats. The column was strung out and with wagons unwisely in the line of march, Taylor struck. Though the attacks were disjointed, the Confederates were able to push Banks back. By nightfall, the federal force withdrew to Pleasant Hill to lick their wounds. Confederate casualties were estimated at 1,000 out of 8,800 effectives, and Union losses 2,235 of some 12,000. The next day there was another fight. This one at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana. It was a northern tactical victory, but the next day, the 10th, Banks pulled his force back toward the Red River and the safety of his gunboats at Granny Core, Louisiana.

[00:04:12]Similarly, Steel's Union expedition, which was to reinforce banks, turned back toward Little Rock. The river's level continued to drop and Porter was very concerned his fleet would be trapped in the shallow river. By the 13th, Porter was able to get his vessels back to Granny Core, but the water level continued to drop and Confederate harassment added to his woes. The campaign was stalled and there seemed to be no hope of renewing it. On the 15th of April, Porter's largest ironclad, the Eastport, struck a Confederate torpedo or mine and was severely damaged. Porter and his men managed to reflat the vessel and the ship tried to escape April the 21st only to repeatedly run a ground.

[00:05:02]Finally, on the 26th, the crew destroyed her. Indeed, Confederate harassment helped to sink two transports, and many others were shot up. With a mission now one of simple survival, Banks and Porter decided to fall back to Alexandria, which they reached April the 25th. The problem, the Red River's water level.

[00:05:24]Near Alexandria, there were two sets of rapids, and Porter needed 7 ft of water to get his vessels through them. from locals. He learned the river failed to rise in 9year intervals. 1846, 1855, and yes, in 1864.

[00:05:45]In some places, the water level was only three or 4 in.

[00:05:50]At the upper rapids, there was a 7 ft drop. At the lower set of rapids, the drop was 6 feet. In a word, Porter's fleet was trapped. Eight ironclads, one tinclad, one wooden gunboat, and counting transports, 35 vessels were in serious trouble. The fleet included the USS Oage, the USS Louisville, and the USS Pittsburgh. It was a desperate time and equal to the challenge for innovation, there was a former lumberman by the name of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey, fourth Wisconsin and acting chief engineer for the 19th Corps. Back home, he had built dams to move cut logs down river. Bailey was convinced he could do the same for ships.

[00:06:43]Porter was skeptical at first, but agreed to their building when the infantry agreed to do all the work. Two wing dams were to be built at the lower rapids, each to be 300 ft long and to project from the shore. On the northshore, large trees were cut. On the south, cribs were made and filled with rock, stone, and confiscated machines.

[00:07:09]Former loggers and lumbermen from the 29th Maine worked on the wing dams located on the Northshore.

[00:07:17]Men from the 116th, 133rd, and 161st New York worked on the Southshore cribs. Employed some 3,000 men and 300 wagons. Not to be lost here, a colossal engineering effort working against nature, dealing with dwindling army supplies in all deep in enemy territory. Constantly harassed by Confederate snipers, confiscated steamers were called in to help tow in needed material. Between the wing dams, four naval coal barges were scuttled to hurry the rising of the water at the lower falls. The 24 ftx 170 ft barges were placed lengthwise parallel to the current and joined by long timbers so that they filled most of the space between the two wing dams with gaps about 20 ft wide between them. These barges were filled with sand, bricks, and iron rails and then held in place by wooden braces and long thick ropes from the shore. One barge was lightly filled so it literally could be rammed out of the way when the run was made. The plan was simple. Impound enough water so that Porter's boats could pass the upper falls. Once all were over the upper falls, the lead gunboat would ram the lightly loaded barge out of the way and the vessels could ride the current over the second set of rapids. To aid the venture, all ships to make the run were stripped down. On May the 8th, the three shallowest drafted ships, the Fort Heineman, Osage, and Neoso, made the run over the upper falls and came to rest just above the dam. For the others, there was a wait for deeper water. That was a good news, bad news situation. As the water level rose, so did pressure, and that placed a great strain on the dam. In fact, at 5:30 a.m. on May the 9th, several barges broke their moorings, drifted shoreward, and thus created a 66- ft gap. Porter, who had been warned this might happen, was prepared. He raced up river on horseback to get his ships moving. Lexington was first to get up steam and make the run.

[00:09:44]It scraped through. Neoso followed. Its captain shut down his steam engines as the vessel neared the lower rapids gap, which meant he lost all control and the vessel slammed into rocks and went over the lower falls almost vertically. A hole was knocked in her bottom, but the strong current carried the Neoso through to deeper waters below the dam. The hole in the ship was amazingly repaired within the hour. Fort Heineman and Osage also scraped through. Four gunboats were safe, but six still remained upstream and facing exposed rock at the upper falls. Engineer Bailey began stage two.

[00:10:31]He and his men started work on a dam at the upper ford. Again, tree dams on the north bank and crib dams on the south.

[00:10:40]By early morning of May the 10th, water rose enough for Chilikafi to plow through. Kurandlay followed but bottomed out and Mound City running close behind slammed into Kurandlay and ground to a halt. Both were stuck and worse the channel for descent was now blocked.

[00:11:02]Bailey and another veteran dam builder, Lieutenant Colonel Yuri B. Piol, now responded with a third type of dam, a bracket dam. It was completed at 10:00 a.m. May 11th. In one hour, the river rose one foot. From the shore, men used ropes and wenches to assist in pulling the Kurandlay and Mound City over the rapids to safety. The next day, Ozark and Louisville ran the watery gauntlet.

[00:11:32]By the morning of the 13th, all were safely past the two rapids. And yet, our engineer from the fourth Wisconsin was faced with another challenge. The Union troops in retreat found the 600 ft Achafallayia River too wide for the pontoons they had with them. The need to cross imperative as Taylor's Confederates were in hot pursuit.

[00:11:58]The badger took every available ship and set them up side by side across the river. He had them bolted together with timbers laid parallel to the width of the river. He then covered these with timbers laid parallel to the flow of the river to serve as a bridge. It indeed was an undulating thing, but it worked.

[00:12:20]By the 20th, all wagons and infantry were over and safe from Confederate attack. safe. But the Red River campaign was a dismal failure and recriminations fell about Bank's head. Our engineering hero, however, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey, was handsomely rewarded for quite literally saving Porter's fleet and making it possible for Banks army to retire intact. He received the thanks of Congress and was promoted to Brigadier General. And with money donated from Porter's men, Bailey was presented with a silver vase valued at $1600.

[00:13:02]On its side was inscribed a dam and the fleet. Also from Porter's men, $3,000 in cash was presented. And finally, Porter himself, as a personal gift, gave Bailey a sword valued at $700.

[00:13:20]He was not alone in making something from literally nothing. Meet another innovator, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants of the 48th Pennsylvania. Born in Buenus Aries in February of 1833. By the summer of 1864, Henry Pleasants was 31 years of age. Trained as a civil engineer, he had before the war driven nearly a mile long tunnel through the Alagany Mountains for the Pennsylvania Railroad. In the late 1850s, he moved to Skookul County where he served as a mining engineer. Fast forward to the Union siege of Petersburg, Virginia, which began June 18th, 1864. His unit, the 48th, were entrenched the nearest to Confederate trenches than anyone else.

[00:14:12]And it just so happened that one quarter of his some 400 men were anthraite miners from Skookul and were experienced military constructionist.

[00:14:22]Already in the war, they had built a causeway at Hatteris Inlet and had constructed a devious defense, water filled moes and trip wires, which helped to turn back James Long Street's Confederates when they attacked Fort Sanders at Knoxville, Tennessee. With the Confederate line at Petersburg so close, a scheme was launched. Onethird of a mile away, just behind that portion of the Confederate line, which was called Pilgrims, or more commonly Elliot Salient, there was elevated ground on the Jerusalem plank road, which ran north into Petersburg. A tunnel from the Union line to the Confederate line, filled with gunpowder, might blow a gap in Lee's defenses and allow Union forces to get a stride the plank road.

[00:15:13]Pleasants and his men needed mining material but received little help from Major General George Gordon Meade and Army of the Ptoic engineers who thought the plan ludicrous.

[00:15:26]Nevertheless, rounding up picks and shovels from other units, they began digging at high noon of June the 25th.

[00:15:34]Pleasant's miners, some 210 men who worked round the clock on three-hour shifts, averaged 23 feet a day. To keep the mine from collapsing, they had to have stout timbers. Again, no help from the army's engineers. So, Pleasant's men found an abandoned sawmill five miles to the rear and produced their own. The shaft's height was for the most part 4 and 1/2 ft high and varied in width from 4 feet at the bottom to about two at the top. While digging, excavated debris was placed in buckets and so as not to alert Confederate pickets discreetly spread at the bottom of a ravine behind the Union works. For lighting, candles and lanterns were attached every 10 ft or so to the walls. All went well until July 2nd when miners struck a layer of solid wet clay which made the ceiling sag.

[00:16:37]Stouter timbering solved that issue.

[00:16:39]Then a day or so later, another problem.

[00:16:42]They hit marl, a puttylike mixture of clay and calcium carbonate which became rock hard not long after being exposed to air. Unable to move forward, Pleasants and his mind bosses decided to turn the shaft upwards 7.7°.

[00:17:00]That meant the shaft rose 13.5 ft over a horizontal distance of 100 ft. To calculate the exact length of the shaft, Pleasants made use of a theottoolite, a surveying device, a high precision transit usually used for measuring angles. It was essentially a mounted telescope that could be rotated horizontally and vertically to measure horizontal and vertical angles.

[00:17:31]Major James C. Dwayne me's chief engineer promised an instrument, but Pleasants borrowed one from a friend of a friend in Washington City. But to make his measurements, he had to expose himself to Confederate sniper fire times in order to triangulate.

[00:17:50]From his observations, he found the required length for the shaft by ascertaining the angle from his sighting position to the existing shaft with the use of the theottoolite.

[00:18:03]Once that angle was determined and the distance was known from his sighting to the shaft, he figured the unknown distance to the Confederate line by trigonometry.

[00:18:16]For yet another problem, he exercised common sense. Most thought the shaft too long for proper ventilation, but the 48th Lieutenant Colonel knew warm air rose.

[00:18:29]100 ft from the entrance, still behind the Union picket line, a vertical shaft was made which ran down to the tunnel.

[00:18:37]Between that shaft and the entrance, they stretched an airtight canvas door.

[00:18:44]They then used boards and constructed an 8 in square air duct and ran it along the floor from the entrance through an airtight opening in the stretched canvas, then running all the way to where the men were digging.

[00:18:59]Next, a grading and a fire was built on the far side of the partition from the entrance. Thus, pleasants created a giant air pump. Warm air rose up the vertical shaft and into the created low pressure. Cool air was pulled through the entrance via the air duct that ran the length of the horizontal shaft. As to the charge, at the end of the 586 ft shaft, a tea was dug and 8,000 pounds of black powder were placed 22 feet directly under Elliot South Carolina battery. The entrance of the mine was blocked so the explosion would go upwards rather than both up and back.

[00:19:48]Early morning of July 30th, 1864, all was ready. With infantry ready to exploit the blast and Confederate confusion, the fuse was lit. At 3:15 a.m., everyone waited, but by 4:00 a.m., nothing. The problem, cheap, lowgrade common blasting fuse, which had been supplied, failed. Sergeant Henry Ree and Lieutenant Jacob Dowy volunteered to find out what happened. At the first of 10 splices, they found the problem. A new length of fuse was found, reapplied, and at 4:30, the fuse was relit.

[00:20:34]14 minutes later, the ground rounded, bubbled, and burst. It would become known as we know the battle of the crater. The resulting crater 180 ft long, 60 to 80 ft wide, and some 30 feet deep. In the blast, 278 South Carolinians were killed.

[00:20:59]15,000 Federals of the Ninth Core now moved forward, but many instead of attacking up and around the crater poured into it. The result, Union disaster. Over 4,000 Union casualties, some 1500 Confederate, and both sides continued to hunker down for a siege that would last until the first days of April 1865.

[00:21:28]More on the Battle of the Crater can be found in our episode 18.

[00:21:34]Technology benefited not only select participants, but in this instance, every soldier who carried a weapon. And because of it, tactics would never again be the same. From the days of smooth boore weapons firing round balls, the Civil War soldier entered the age of mass produced weapons. Most used shoulder arms that were rifled musketss.

[00:22:01]The term was adopted in 1855 to designate those shoulder arms that retained outside dimensions of the old musketss but had rifled barrels. For many who wore blue, the Springfield models 1861 and 1862 were used. Before many might have come from the Harper's Ferry Armory, but with its destruction back in the spring of 1861, the Springfield, Massachusetts Armory took on primary importance. That armory turned out over 793,000 weapons between January the 1st, 1861 and December the 31st, 1865.

[00:22:44]Its weapon fired a 58 caliber miniball or bullet that was developed in 1849 and named for its inventor French army captain Claude Manet. The mist ball or bullet was a cylindroonoidal projectile. When fired, expanding gas entered the bullet's hollow base and forced its side into the rifling. its effect revolutionary.

[00:23:14]Another advance from the singleshot rifled musket was the colt repeating rifle. In 1855, Samuel Colt tried to reproduce his successful sixshot pistol principle for a repeating rifle. A soldier could fire as fast as he could the hammer and pull the trigger.

[00:23:35]Though slowed to load, five shots could be fired by a veteran in 9 seconds. In 5 hours of fighting on September the 20th, 1863 at the Battle of Chikamaga, the 21st Ohio, armed with that repeater, fired an unbelievable 43,550 rounds.

[00:23:58]A day's Confederate prisoner exclaimed, "My God, we thought you had a division here."

[00:24:06]It worked well, but there was an annoying problem. On occasion, gas and flame leakage between cylinder and barrel meant the possibility of all barrels discharging at once.

[00:24:19]Another repeater was the Henry repeating rifle. It was introduced around 1860 and named for B. Tyler Henry, who designed it and improved the cartridge it fired.

[00:24:32]Henry was the plant superintendent for Oliver Winchester's New Haven Arms Company. The Henry became the first magazine rifle used in quantity by the Union. Around 10,000 were used during the war. Its distinctive feature was a tubular magazine under the barrel which held 15 rimfire 44 caliber short cartridges. Pull the trigger guard down and return it to its original position meant the hammer was cocked. The old shell ejected and a new one loaded.

[00:25:07]Confederate soldiers who went up against it called the Henry that damn Yankee rifle that could be loaded on Sunday and fired all week.

[00:25:17]Winchester still stamps an H on the base of all their rimfire cartridges in Henry's honor. Another inventor, native North Carolinian, born in Herford County, Dr. Richard Gatling. We all know what's coming here, but few Gatlin guns saw service in the Civil War. Still, the Gatling gun fired small armed caliber projectiles rapidly. It was not a machine gun because it was powered by an external source. Rear Admiral DD Porter did order one. Major General Benjamin F.

[00:25:56]Butler used two around Petersburg and had eight placed on gunboats. Major General Winfield Scott Hancock ordered 12. Though a weapon that generated much notoriety, it was not adopted by the United States Army until 1866.

[00:26:14]Another rapid fire weapon was Ager's coffee mill gun. Hopper fed. It was inferior to the Gatling, but better promoted. Again, the Civil War would not see many of these. Back to shoulder arms. The favorite weapon for most Confederates was the infield, which had been adopted by the English Army in 1855 and used by them until a breach loader was developed in 1867.

[00:26:43]The infield fired a 577 caliber projectile and was accurate at 800 yards and fairly accurate at 1100.

[00:26:53]One half million were imported to the north until arms production there was mobilized. Many made their way into Confederate hands thanks either to capture or brought in through the Union blockade.

[00:27:06]Thus far, we've mentioned weapons used by the infantry, but there was a weapon that was a favorite for those who were mounted. The Sharps carbine, one of the first successful breach loaders. It was patented in 1848 by Christian Sharp.

[00:27:22]About 100,000 were used in the conflict.

[00:27:26]A solid weapon, nine times more sharps, carbines were bought rather than the sharps rifle.

[00:27:34]The carbine fired not only a 52 caliber but 427 caliber and 373 caliber as well.

[00:27:44]The user lowered the breach block by pushing forward a lever that doubled as a trigger guard that allowed chamber access for a paper or linen cartridge.

[00:27:55]Closing the brereech block cut the end of either cartridge. No metallic cartridge was available for this weapon until after the war. The hammer cocked manually and the weapon was accurate up to 600 yards, but one could fire 10 rounds a minute. If the Sharps was one of the first successful breach loaders, the Spencer carbine was the first successful breach loading repeating rifle patented by Christopher M. Spencer of Connecticut in 1860. It was the standard arm of the Federal Cavalry by 1864.

[00:28:34]By fall of that year, a few infantry brigades even used them. It was loaded by a tubular magazine which entered via the stock. Its magazine held seven 52 caliber cartridges. Pulling down the trigger guard discharged the empty cartridge and returning it allowed a spring to feed a new one. The hammer, like the sharps, cocked manually. The weapon weighed only 8 and a/4 pounds and its barrel was only 39 in. That in itself made it a favorite for horsemen.

[00:29:09]It was the first to use completely self-contained cartridges. Usually 10 extra magazines were given a calvaryaryman, so he had 70 extra rounds. Its drawback, it lacked range and muzzle power. Advanced in weaponry and technology did not only benefit the infantry, but artillery as well. No question, the favorite piece used by both sides was the Napoleon gun howitzer. Named for France's Napoleon III, it first appeared in 1856.

[00:29:43]The 12 pounder fired a 4.62 in projectile. Initially, it was made of bronze and could fire grapeshot, solid shot, spherical case, shell, and canister. Its maximum effective range between 800 and 1,000 yards. One that was rifled added range. Then there was the parrot, named for Robert Parker Parrot. It fired anywhere from 3 in to 10 in shells. Its signature, the heavy rot iron band. That band was heated in production, then shrunk around its breach to withstand the pressure created when fired. The parrot had twice the range of smooth boores. The 20 lb parrots threw a 3.67 in shell, a maximum range of over 2 miles at a 10 degree elevation. 30 pounders threw a 4.20 in shell, 4,400 yards.

[00:30:45]Maximum effective range for rifled artillery was about 2500 yards. Parrots were also made that fired heavy ordinance, 200 pounders, usually used in coastal defense that were even 300 pounders. Like to take a moment to thank everyone for listening to threads from the national tapestry.

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[00:32:44]From firepower to transmitting messages, technology also stretched into the world of communication.

[00:32:53]Electromagnetic telegraphy had been around in some form since the late 1700s.

[00:32:59]By 1802, some had tried to use static electricity generated by friction to send impulses. Yet at the turn of the 19th century, Italian scientists Galavani and Volulta created the Voltaic Pile, the first crude battery. An early telegraphic version transmitted electrical signals to liberate hydrogen bubbles on the receiving end which indicated reception.

[00:33:28]In 1820, Hans Orstead while giving a lecture on electricity noticed a current in a wire caused a nearby magnetic compass to deflect. Thus began the study of electromagnetism.

[00:33:44]Three years after Orstead's discovery, Englishman William Sturgeon wrapped wire around an iron bar and created a device that could be magnetic when current ran through it and non-magnetic otherwise.

[00:34:00]He thus developed the first electromagnet.

[00:34:04]All this set the stage for Joseph Henry, one of America's preeminent scientist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institute. Henry placed a battery at one end of an electrical line to provide an electrical impulse. On the other end, he placed an electromagnet and an iron bar.

[00:34:24]By using a switch, he turned on and off the current and found when on, the iron bar was pulled toward the electromagnet and released when the current was off.

[00:34:38]He had before him the first practical telegraph. By the 1830s, he wrapped much more wire than before and insulated it with cloth and found the magnetic pull 100 times greater. By 1835, he invented the electrical relay. For all this, he accepted a professorship at Princeton.

[00:35:02]Another took his unprotected ideas and advanced them. That man was Samuel F.B Morse.

[00:35:11]While Henry thought scientific ideas should belong to all, Morse was a realist or maybe an opportunist. He patented the telegraph in 1840 and in 1843 received $30,000 to stretch telegraph line from Baltimore to the District of Columbia. The line along a 40mile route of the BNO railroad. He tried running the line underground, but found poles with glass insulators worked far more effectively. From Baltimore's Pratt Street station in May 1844, Morse successfully sent a message to the Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capital. It read, "Everything worked well." He sent that message in long and short bursts. The receiving electromagnetic apparatus moved a pencil in short or long lines, hence dots and dashes. On May 24th of that same year, Morse gave a public demonstration and transmitted what is usually regarded as the first telegraphic message. That communication read, "What hath God wrought?"

[00:36:31]The idea of telegraphy exploded. In 1846, there were 40 miles of line. In 1848, more than 2,000. Two years later, 12,000.

[00:36:45]Two years later, in 1852, that jumped to 23,283 miles. The lightning lines appeared everywhere. But like the development of most internal improvements in this nation, those lines ran most prominently east west. Only two lines ran north south. And without central regulation, there was fantastic growth. Poles were improved. Cyprus or heavy cedar. Copper wire gave way to less expensive iron.

[00:37:22]Gataperta insulation was used for underwater river crossings. By 1860, six companies were in existence, but two stood out. The American Telegraph Company covered the eastern seabboard from the Atlantic provinces of Canada south to Florida and the Western Union Telegraph Union extended from the eastern states above the Mason Dixon line to the upper Midwest. When war began, the telegraph was deemed not only valuable, but essential, and Union Secretary of War at that time, Simon Cameron, moved quickly to put Telegraph and the railroads under federal control.

[00:38:07]Telegraph headquarters was established at the War Department, and there four young talented operators man the lines.

[00:38:16]David Strauss, Samuel Brown, Richard O'Brien, and David Homer Bates.

[00:38:24]Interestingly enough, lines ran to the Navy Yard and Arsenal, but not to President Lincoln in the executive mansion. There was a major problem in the first days of the war. Lines were open between North and South, particularly those owned by the American Telegraph Company. On April the 21st, 1861, representatives of the company's northern and southern divisions met on the long bridge over the PTOIC to sever the lines between Richmond and Washington.

[00:39:00]By February the 25th, 1862, all northern lines fell under federal control and the United States Military Telegraph was born. Though civilians ran the United States Military Telegraph, in actuality, it was under the heavy hand of Cameron's replacement as Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton. He ran the military telegraph like he did most things, abrasively with an iron hand. If he deemed it best, he empowered operators to withhold info from commanders, sometimes even from the commanderin-chief.

[00:39:39]Telegraphy, perhaps like the worldwide internet, was too new for old school officers. But one early on recognized its importance. Major General George Brenton Mlen who used it in western Virginia in 1861.

[00:39:57]He also made use of the telegraph on the Virginia Peninsula. And one of the most famous censures came June 29th, 1862 when he angry and frustrated telegraphed the War Department.

[00:40:13]It read, "If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other person in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army."

[00:40:27]The USMT's operational head was Albert J. Meyer who headed up anywhere from,00 to,500 employees during the war. A telegraphic team was made up of foremen, wagon makers, teamsters, messengers, battery keepers, linemen, watchmen, and general laborers.

[00:40:50]Their work could be dangerous as some 300 were either wounded, infirmed, or captured during the course of the war.

[00:40:58]Constant improvements were of course made like Henry Rogers who developed a strong, flexible, insulated wire that could be unwound in the field. Usually there was about 200 pounds of wire per reel and by 1864 laid at a rate of 2 m per hour. Over the four-year struggle, 15,389 miles of line went up. 6 12 million messages were transmitted at 40 cents per message.

[00:41:31]Lieutenant General US Graham and Major Generals George Thomas and William Sherman used the telegraph extensively.

[00:41:40]Henry Rogers set up telegraphic teams and they traveled in telegraph trains.

[00:41:46]One of the most important wagons was called the battery wagon. Carried in converted ambulances, the batteries were 100 cells and each 1.5 volts. Product of constant tinkering, the Beardsley Telegraph was designed to be used without batteries. To work, one turned a crank. On the receiving end, the impulse moved a needle to the desired letter or number. Innovative. But there were two concerns. One, there was no reliable range beyond five miles. And second, it was easy sometimes to get a wrong letter. Another concern with all telegraphs, pocketsized keys could tap into the system. In July 1862, Confederate Ed Seville listened in for four days. Unable to control his daring, he interrupted one message when he tapped Harrah for Jeff Davis.

[00:42:51]And Jeb Stewart was not above pranks either. From Burke Station in Virginia, he had a message sent to Washington City that complained of the quality of the horses he had been capturing. So, how was secrecy kept? The Confederacy used the Visionaire Tableau, or as it was more commonly called, the Vixsburg Square. Its use marked the first time that electrically transmitted messages were encoded. Its problem was that it confused Confederate operators.

[00:43:26]One officer for Kirby Smith, after 12 hours of trying to decipher one message, mounted his horse, rode around a US force, and ask the operator who sent it.

[00:43:40]Like most resources, Confederate Telegraph was limited to essentially what had been there before. For in the South, there were no factories for glass insulators, little extra wire, and battery acid. Now given that it is odd that the only strike in the Confederacy during wartime was by telegraph operators.

[00:44:03]They thought themselves overworked and underpaid and they were in all likelihood what they complained about. Word came down to go back to work or be fired and conscripted.

[00:44:20]A little more than a week the strike ended.

[00:44:24]Regardless, Confederate telegraph service was maintained until spring of 1865, and stockholders were paid until January of that year. For encoding, the Federals used a code adopted by Enson Stagger.

[00:44:40]It was a route cipher system, a rectangle of words with a key word that indicated size of column, route that should be read and end of column. The key word might reveal up first column then down third. And so we move from lightning signals through the wires to airy signals from the sky.

[00:45:07]On June 18th, 1861, a telegram reached the 16th president. It read, "Sir, this point of observation commands an area nearly 50 miles in diameter. I have pleasure in sending you the first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station.

[00:45:28]The message came from Professor Thaddius SC Low who was 500 ft over the Colombian armory several blocks from the executive mansion. Now, let's be clear, ballooning itself was not new. In fact, by 1861, it was in its seventh decade for the Union. Aerionauts included James Allen, John Steiner, John Wise, John Lamontaine, who had already taken an aerial trip from St. Louis to upstate New York, and our Fattius SC Low, who flew or drifted 1,000 miles in 9 hours. The good news was he left Cincinnati and successfully landed. The bad news was he landed in Unionville, South Carolina on April the 20th, 1861, 8 days after the firing on Fort Sumpter.

[00:46:30]As you might guess, there was intense rivalries between all the so-called aeronauts. The French had set the president, but all those aeronauts we mentioned competed for US military first. Again, as you might expect, problems often originated from the inexperienced ground crews. For example, John Wise was assisted in trying to take his balloon over a bridge spanning the Ptoac River, but his crew entangled the inflated balloon with the telegraph lines. Those lines sliced through the tethering ropes and wise began to float away. Alert federal troops at Arlington, Virginia shot him down. His was the only balloon shot down in the American Civil War and by his own people. For the record, the first US balloon to be brought down by enemy fire did not come until 1898.

[00:47:34]John Lamontaine probably made the first effective recon from a balloon. July 31st, 1861.

[00:47:42]At 1400 ft, he counted tents and fires, which led to probably another first, the first blackout by the Confederacy. The mountain began to master free ascensions.

[00:47:57]He would drift east to west at lower altitudes, then would ascend to catch lower effects of the jetream, which would take him back to the east and union lines, not without incident. For once, he dropped into the midst of perplexed German troops who beat him up.

[00:48:20]On August the 2nd, 1861, despite his and other efforts, Thaddius Low, who had more connections, was officially tabbed as the first US military aeronaut. The US government constructed him a new balloon, paid him $5 a day when not in the air, and $10 when up. He could take to the battlefield because he had portable gas generators.

[00:48:46]of 12 that were used. Low took six in 1862 to the fields. The generators stood five feet high and were 11 ft long. To inflate them, hydrogen was used. As we've noted earlier, all this caught the eye of Mlelen, who indeed created the US balloon corps.

[00:49:09]Low recruited nine other aeronauts. He even modified the naval coal barge.

[00:49:15]George Washington Park Custous to carry a balloon which in a way made it the first aircraft carrier low and his balloon left the Washington area March 27th 1862 and headed for the Virginia Peninsula. They arrived April the 5th.

[00:49:34]One of his balloons was named the Intrepid. It was his largest so big that a telegraph operator could ascend with him. The balloon itself or as it was called the envelope was fawn colored and made from India silk handsewn by seamstresses. It was varnished to prevent leaks. Another of his balloons was named the constitution which low made sure the lettering faced Richmond when he scouted near the confederate capital. For each ascent, he usually used three or four mooring ropes, some as long as 5,000 ft. It was low, who found the Confederate lines at Yorktown evacuated just before Mlen planned an attack on May the 4th. And oh yes, there were on occasions problems like 5 a.m.

[00:50:28]on the morning of April the 11th, 1862 when core commander Major General Fitz John Porter went up alone. While airborne, the morning rope snapped and the lines from the basket to the balloon became entangled with the valve that released gas which would allow the balloon to descend.

[00:50:50]Porter rocketed upwards, but calmly climbed the basket, disentangled the lines, and rotated the valve to slowly descend.

[00:51:02]Balloons did have an effect, a psychological one, if nothing else.

[00:51:07]Confederate full General Joseph E.

[00:51:09]Johnston called them the infernal balloons and with good reason for a Union balloon recon spoiled his attack at Seven Pines outside of Richmond in May of 1862.

[00:51:24]Later that year of 1862, balloons were used around Sharpsburg and Harper's Ferry. And even later, Low found service with Major General Ambrose Burnside. His balloons were prominent at the December 13th Battle of Fredericksburg, although low was limited by fog in the early morning hours. Change was in the wind.

[00:51:48]However, Major General Joseph Hooker placed Low under Federal Officer Cyrus Commtock, who really did not care for the balloon as a military tool. Commtock cut Lowe's pay and took actual control of the balloon core. Despite the issues for control, balloon recon was effective during the Chancellor'sville campaign.

[00:52:12]Although trees limited observation, their use actually aided in the gathering of information and attack of Major General John Cedric's sixth corps at the second battle of Fredericksburg.

[00:52:26]Commtock and Lo were at such odds that finally on April the 12th, 1863, Low resigned and left the service. It would be another 30 years before the United States would once again use a military balloon. To the Confederates, who once again tried but could not match the number and resources for a balloon service, the loss of low and aeronauts mystified Confederate EP Alexander, who thought the Union should never have given up such a great means to gather information.

[00:53:01]There would be others who during this time dreamed and dared through the air.

[00:53:07]Luther Crowell of West Dennis, Massachusetts, patented an aircraft with hinged steamdriven propellers. Those allowed vertical and horizontal takeoffs and landings.

[00:53:21]WF Quinnby of Stanton, Delaware, came up with a steamdriven device that made use of rotating wings, much like a helicopter. Arthur Canella of Cascades, Washington territory submitted a patent for a rocketshaped device that would move forward as air was forced out its end. And perhaps fitting for the outmanned and outguned South, a professor blank went around the Richmond area accepting contributions for an aerial device that would allow him to drop bombs on the executive mansion and the United States Capital in Washington City. The only bomb Blank dropped was when he skipped town with everyone's money. And finally, from high in the sky to beneath the sea.

[00:54:17]The concept for the use of submarines was nothing new during the Civil War.

[00:54:22]Legend has it that Alexander the Great went below in a diving bell, and Leonardo da Vinci made sketches of travel beneath the surface.

[00:54:32]Both are credited with various advances, for as one put it, assassination at the bottom of the sea. William Bourne, a former English naval gunner in the 16th century, wrote on submarine physics, negative buoyancy, as he called it. In 1623, Dutch chemist and mechanical engineer Cornelius Van Drebble built what many consider the first working submarine.

[00:54:59]And the idea of a submarine was certainly not new, even from the American perspective. During the war for American independence, Connecticut native and American patriot David Bush Neell even received funds from a doubting George Washington and constructed the turtle, an 8 ft long, six feet tall, and three feet wide submersible.

[00:55:24]It was two wooden shells patched together with tar and reinforced by steel bands. The vessel could allow water to submerge and with a hand pump force water out to ascend. It was powered by a screw propeller and that was done by hand. Bushnell wanted to get near an enemy vessel and using a drill bore a hole in the vessel's hull by which a keg containing 130 lbs of gunpowder would be attached. That keg would then be detonated by a time fuse.

[00:55:59]Inside the pilot would have air enough for about 30 minutes. Its speed in calm water was 3 to four miles per hour.

[00:56:08]Bioluminescent fox fire was used for the pilot to read a depth meter and compass.

[00:56:15]On the evening of September the 7th, 1776, Army Volunteer Sergeant Ezra Lee attacked British General How's flagship, the HMS Eagle, which was mored off Governor's Island due south of Manhattan. He was unsuccessful. Yet, the turtle is touted as the first submarine to be used in battle.

[00:56:39]Robert Falton of steamboat fame dabbled with submarine design. He designed a foldable sail to propel the craft on the surface. Compressed air to increase the crew's endurance was stored in the boat.

[00:56:55]Horizontal rudders were added to help in ascent and descent as well as a lead ke to increase stability. Some believe his design even included a rotating periscope.

[00:57:07]His copper sheath vessel was dubbed the Nautilus.

[00:57:12]Fulton first demonstrated his boat to the French and when they passed on his offer he tempted the English but again got a no thanks. Enter the fascination with underwater warfare and possible profit James R. Mcccleintoch Baxter Watson and HL Hunley who wanted to create a Confederate submersible.

[00:57:37]After its completion, the three wanted their craft to be a privateeer and so submitted an application to the Confederate government. Even before hearing whether their application was accepted, they began work in the fall of 1861 that carried over into early 1862.

[00:57:55]Their creation, an oversized cigar, the Pioneer. It was 34 ft long, 4 feet in breadth, 4 feet deep, and weighed in at 4 tons. The hatchway was a torso squeezing 18 in around. In February of 1862, they tested the black painted vessel, which held four. Inside, it was cavelike. Candles provided light.

[00:58:26]Leaks were repaired with beeswax and tar. A hand crank powered the vessel and like so many before the everpresent danger to the crew was air and how long it would last. Its big test came in March of 1862 at Lake Ponertrine with a torpedo attached at the tip of a spar. It attacked a wooden barge.

[00:58:53]The barge was blown up and a letter of mark for privateeering was given March 31st, 1862.

[00:59:00]That was a precedent in itself for the pioneer remains the only submarine sanctioned as a privateeer. All that ended April 24th, 1862 when David Farragut seagoing fleet ran the Confederate forts at the mouth of Mississippi. And at 100 p.m. the next day, New Orleans surrendered. The three men could not evacuate their invention and so the pioneer was scuttled. Though greatly disappointed, Hunley, Watson, and Mcccleintoch were not finished. The three moved 140 mi east to the city of Mobile, where they joined Thomas Park and Thomas B. Lions, who owned a machine shop. Inside, work began on Pioneer 2, or as it's been called, the American diver. A new engineer, Lieutenant William A. Alexander, joined the team.

[00:59:54]For propulsion, they tried electromagnetic power, then steam, but returned to hand crank. Though similar to the original, the Pioneer 2 was bigger. It was 36 feet long, 3 feet wide, 4t high, and 12 feet at each tapered end. Two hatchways were provided for five or six men. At 2 mph, there were those who thought the submersible slow and with a torpedo dragged in tow unreliable to deliver a payload. Still, it moved into Mobile Bay to attack in February 1863.

[01:00:34]Towed out in rough weather, waves rolled over and into the open hatches. It filled, rolled over, and sank to the floor of Mobile Bay. Incredibly, no lives were lost. The officer in command there, Franklin Buchanan of the ironclad CSS Virginia fame, remarked, "I consider the whole affair as impractical from the commencement."

[01:01:02]Yet more backers lined up. Engineer Lieutenant Alexander described this this third edition of their submersible as a hald cylindrical boiler. 40 feet long, four feet wide, five feet deep, two hatchways, two raised combings eight inches high, which acted like conning towers, and a Mercury gauge for determining depth. It was known as Whitney submarine boat after another investor, Gus Whitney, who interestingly was a relative of Eli Whitney. Admiral Buchanan was present July 31st, 1863 for the testing of this new vessel. An attack was planned on a mored flatboat.

[01:01:49]A 200 ft rope dragged a singer contact mine. Submersible descended 20 ft, leveled off and blew the flatbo up.

[01:02:00]Buchanan was pleased, but was also curiously concerned about the sense of fair play, as he put it, another infernal machine.

[01:02:12]With Charleston Harbor blockaded in its fort and city under constant fire, PGT Borugard was interested and sent for it.

[01:02:21]It arrived around August the 12th, 1863 by means of two flat cars and was docked on the Cooper River. The vessel up to this time had been more commonly called the porpus or fishboat. It was now around August of 1863 that it started being referred to as the HL Hunley or simply the Hunley.

[01:02:45]For greater details and amazing stories about the career of the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in wartime, please refer to episode 25.

[01:02:57]During our time together today, we've related six examples where the use of math, science, innovative engineering, and technology were exhibited and used in the great military struggle between North and South. For all those attempts, both successful and not, and even for the constant cranking out of every new this and that, perhaps the following observations might still apply. first from American playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder in 1962. He wrote, "Then there is technology, the excesses of scientists who learn how to make things much faster than we can learn what to do with them."

[01:03:47]Or maybe the German philosopher, political theorist, economist, and revolutionary socialist Carl Marx who once wrote, "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people." Or finally, from the New Yorker dated February of 1931.

[01:04:09]The higher we soar on the wings of science, the worse our feet seem to get entangled in the wires.

[01:04:25]By the middle of June 1864, the war in the eastern theater foretold warfare in a world war five decades later.

[01:04:37]This is the story of a time when mobility and maneuver gave way to static confrontation.

[01:04:44]The existence of miles and miles of trenches. Next time we gather, the story of the 10-month siege at Petersburg, Virginia. This is Fred Kiger. Thank you for listening.