The rapidity with which messages were sent by experienced operators was something wonderful to the uneducated looker-on. An ordinary message of a few lines can be sent in ten minutes, and the rate of speed is much increased where officers have worked long together, and understand each other’s methods and abbreviations.
Signal messages have been sent twenty-eight miles: but that is exceptional. The conditions of the atmosphere and the location of stations were seldom favorable to such long-distance signalling. Ordinarily, messages were not sent more than six or seven miles, but there were exceptions. Here is a familiar but noted one:—
In the latter part of September, 1864, the Rebel army under Hood set out to destroy the railroad communications of Sherman, who was then at Atlanta. The latter soon learned that Allatoona was the objective point of the enemy. As it was only held by a small brigade, whereas the enemy was seen advancing upon it in much superior numbers, Sherman signalled a despatch from Vining’s Station to Kenesaw, and from Kenesaw to Allatoona, whence it was again signalled to Rome. It requested General Corse, who was at the latter place, to hurry back to the assistance of Allatoona. Meanwhile, Sherman was propelling the main body of his army in the same direction. On reaching Kenesaw, “the signal officer reported,” says Sherman, in his Memoirs, “that since daylight he had failed to obtain any answer to his call for Allatoona; but while I was with him he caught a faint glimpse of the tell-tale flag through an embrasure, and after much time he made out these letters
‘C’ ‘R’ ‘S’ ‘E’ ‘H’ ‘E’ ‘R’
and translated the message ‘Corse is here.’ It was a source of great relief, for it gave me the first assurance that General Corse had received his orders, and that the place was adequately garrisoned.”
General Corse has informed me that the distance between the two signal stations was about sixteen miles in an air line. Several other messages passed later between these stations, among them this one, which has been often referred to:—
Allatoona, Georgia, Oct. 6, 1864—2 P.M.
Captain L. M. Dayton, Aide-de-Camp:—
I am short a cheek-bone and an ear, but am able to whip all h—l yet. My losses are heavy. A force moving from Stilesboro to Kingston gives me some anxiety. Tell me where Sherman is.
John M. Corse, Brigadier-General.