Civil War Tech

Today is Memorial Day, a day originally designated to honor the Northern dead of the Civil War. Over time that has obviously morphed to not only include those who gave the last full measure of devotion in any of our nation’s wars but also to include cookouts and trips to the beach. Our Civil War was a defining event in our nation’s history and we are still feeling the aftershocks of it still today. Some are still even fighting it. It has been considered to be the one of the first if not the first modern war so today we will examine some of the technology that was used during the war that made your celebration and life today possible.

Photography

Today we take photography for granted. At the time of the Civil War this was still a relatively new technology. It was not the first conflict that photography was used in, that was actually the Crimean War in 1854, but this was the first war in which photographs were made for the consumption of the public. And what the public saw was shocking. The series of photographs taken by Alexander Gardner following the Battle of Antietam in September 1862 brought the horrors of war to the public in a way that had never been done before.

Mangled corpses littered the battlefield and were the perfect subject matter for a photographic system that required absolute stillness to process. Previous to this a crude drawing would be completed and might have been painted in or included in a newspaper or magazine. Often times these showed the heroic nature of warfare, as did the paintings of the time. Sure there could be a few dead on the field but they lay there almost lifelike and with little blood. Following Gardner’s exhibition in Washington DC the public now saw the carnage that the war was bringing and it was only intensified the following year following another photographic exhibition following the Battle of Gettysburg.

Of course photography was used for more than just to record the carnage of battle. Soldiers on both sides sat down to have their picture taken so that they could leave an image of themselves with their loved ones. In many cases the soldiers went off to war with pictures of their family with them and this was true of generals on down to the lowliest private. Photography allowed also for the recording of mundane army tasks as well like drill, meal time (using a new technology like canned food for better preservation), mail call and even some of the first combat images.

Communication

Communications was also a technology that received massive advancements during the war. The telegraph was not new, it had been patented in 1848 but this system of wires, transmitters and receivers made instantaneous communication possible. It was now possible for Abraham Lincoln to speak to anyone connected to the grapevine in the United States immediately. Europe and North America were even connected though the signal was poor and nature did its best to stymy the whims of mankind.

This led to the ability for command and control from a central location (Washington and Richmond) with relatively up to date information. No more waiting for a messenger to arrive either on foot or on horseback from a distant battlefield, all anyone had to do was to go to the local telegraph operator or even bring the system with them to connect to the network and send a message.

The telegraph also was employed on the battlefield for many of the same reasons. During combat operations a line could be strung and a field telegraph set up. This allowed a commanding general to keep up to date about what was going on from a central location giving them more control over the operations. No more needing to ride the length of a line that could be more than a mile long and exposing themselves to enemy fire. New technology that was ahead of its time like the Beardslee Telegraph allowed users to simply move a dial to transmit a letter meaning that operators did not have to even learn Morse Code. Unfortunately these devices were too slow to transmit and were eventually scrapped.

The War Department in the North set up a massive operation that funneled information through it via the telegraph. It was abuzz with activity and Abraham Lincoln was known to go there to read dispatches to keep himself apprised of the military situation. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton turned the War Department’s library on 17th St NW into the most modern communications hub the world had ever seen.

These operators were the first people in Washington to learn of the great events of the war and as such leaking information or drunkenness was not tolerated. When great moments happened though the operators wanted to celebrate just like everyone else. In the summer of 1863 U.S. Grant captured Vicksburg, Mississippi and news of the capitulation reached Washington on July 5 (Grant had operated away from his lines of communication and thus had to get a message up the Mississippi River to Memphis to report his victory hence the delay) and the operators decided to get some beer to celebrate. This was big news, as the Union now controlled the Mississippi River and combined with the victory at Gettysburg 2 days before it appeared that the war could be over soon. As they were passing it around President Lincoln walked in. Knowing the rules many were quick to hurry out or conceal their drinks but Lincoln figured out what was going on and bent the rules, just this once. He even paid for someone to go get more beer!

While photography has certainly been modernized and the telegraph is no longer in use anywhere in the world this was state of the art technology over 150 years ago. Who knows in 150 years our descendants may look at what we are using and think the same thing. There are still innovations of the Civil War that we still live with like clothing sizes, left and right shoes and one that most would like to live without in the income tax. Either way the Civil War changed America and the technology that we used. Remember that on the day that was designed to honor the fallen of the North.