Historical Study: The Jolt of Electricity that Forever Altered Warfare

In the wake of the Civil War, there were many legacies left by Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, with the abolition of slavery and the foundation of a national American identity at the front of most people’s lists.

But another less well-known contribution was his use of the telegraph.

While this new technology altered news, finance, war, and greatly impacted at least one man’s presidency, Lincoln can only take credit for seeing its potential, not for creating it.

With a jolt of power that ran through two miles of wire, Samuel Morse and his colleagues, Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, sent the first electronic message on Jan. 6, 1838. They successfully created the telegraph and with it, Morse code.

Gathered at Speedwell Ironworks in Morristown, New Jersey, a small crowd watched the world’s first-ever demonstration of an electronic communication machine when the three men sent a message through bundles of cable, which they packed into the cramped building to a waiting receiver device.

The message, “a patient waiter is no loser,” was transcribed through a series of dots and dashes, conceived by Vail, and was the precursor to what would become Morse code, explains Smithsonian.com.

The concept for the telegraph was borne out of tragedy and serendipity. In 1825, Morse was a professional painter working in Washington, D.C., when he received a letter that his wife was sick. By the time he reached his home in New Haven, Connecticut, she had already been buried.

Read the Remainder at Task and Purpose