The Battle of Ball's Bluff, October 21, 1861

On October 21, 1861, Col. Edward Dickinson Baker (right) became the only sitting U.S. senator to die in battle, leading his troops at the Battle of Ball's Bluff in Virginia. Six months earlier, the Secretary of War authorized him to organize an infantry regiment to be taken as part of the quota from California. Baker organized the California Brigade (mostly from the Philadelphia area) and served as its colonel. Shortly afterward, he received command of a brigade in General Charles Pomeroy Stone's division, guarding Potomac River fords north of Washington. Baker's death was dramatized in "Death of Col. Baker," a steel engraving (left) by H. Wright Smith after drawing by F.O.C. Darley, copyrighted by Hurlbut Williams & Co. (Photos from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Col. Baker is buried in San Francisco National Cemetery in California, where I took this photo of his tombstone. The back of the tombstone describes him as "eminent San Francisco lawyer" and "United States senator from Oregon." Baker and Abraham Lincoln became friends when both lived in Illinois, and Lincoln thought so much of the friendship and the man that he named his second son Edward Baker Lincoln.  Col. Baker and his family lived in San Francisco from 1851 to 1860, when they moved to Oregon so he could become a Republican senator from the state. His son and namesake, who escorted his father's body to Washington, DC, after Ball's Bluff, died while in serving in the Army in Vancouver, Washington.

Saluting America's First Aeronaut

The Civil War marked the beginning of modern warfare, at least in terms of communications and reconnaissance. We've already looked at the 150th anniversary of the telegraph, and this year marks the 150th anniversary of the use of aerial observers in American warfare. Professor Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe was an inventor who proposed using balloons to observe Confederate positions and troop movements to President Lincoln on June 11, 1861. Lincoln approved the plan, and Lowe first flew his balloon, the Intrepid, over the First Battle of Bull Run. After his success, Lincoln ordered the formation of the Union Army Balloon Corps and named Lowe chief aeronaut.

The first photo shows his balloon camp at Gaines Mills, Virginia, in 1862. He is in the balloon basket as it's about to lift off. The second photo shows Lowe in camp in 1861. After the war, he and his family moved to Pasadena, California, where he opened several ice plants, founded the Citizen's Bank of Los Angeles and became involved in the Mount Lowe Railway, a line designed to transport people to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains. (Photos from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

The Sesquicentennial of the Telegraph

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the invention of the telegraph. On Oct. 24, 1861, California chief justice Stephen J. Field sent a congratulatory wire from San Francisco to Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC, on the successful completion of the cross-country project, which spelled the end of the Pony Express and could be considered the start of the wiring of America.

Building the project presented its own set of challenges for Western Union, including a shortage of wood through what is now Nevada, and the unintentional destruction of some poles across what is now Wyoming by itchy buffalo, which scratched themselves on the poles and knocked some of them down.

The telegraph revolutionized communications from the east to the west, and it even created its own  shorthand, which was used primarily by wire service reporters who were filing their stories with eastern news bureaus. Reporters used the numbers "73" for goodbye, and "30" to indicate the end of a story. (Hey, now I know where the ##30## comes from from j-school. Life is a an ongoing learning experience!) They used these and other abbreviations to keep the wires as free of clutter as possible.

The Union Army strung 15,000 miles of telegraph wire solely for military use during the Civil War. Keeping it repaired was likely a full-time job. (Photo from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

During the Civil War, the telegraph made it easier for the military and the media to communicate with the capitals and newspaper offices. The Union army strung about 15,000 miles of wire solely for military telegraphic use, and telegraphers brought their battery wagons close to the front lines to power their machines. Generals could send battle reports to Washington and Richmond, and reporters could file stories with their editors faster than ever before.

By 2006, Western Union had stopped sending telegrams altogether, relying instead on customers wiring money to one another as the bulk of its business.

A Piece of Postal History

Collecting California Civil War memorabilia is not the easiest hobby to pursue, but anyone who knows me will tell you "easy" is not always the way I choose. This is a patriotic envelope that has a particularly nice rendition of the state seal and an appropriate-to-the-times message.