History
Signal Corps History
Albert James Myer, an Army doctor, first conceived the idea of a separate, trained professional military signal service. He proposed that the Army use his visual communications system called "wigwag" while serving as a medical officer in Texas in 1856. When the Army adopted his system June 21, 1860, the Signal Corps was born with Myer as the first and only Signal officer.
MAJ Myer first used his visual signaling system on active service in New Mexico during the 1860-1861 Navajo expedition. Using flags for daytime signaling and a torch at night, wigwag was tested in Civil War combat in June 1861 to direct the fire of a harbor battery at Fort Calhoun (Fort Wool) against the Confederate positions opposite Fort Monroe. Until March 3, 1863, when Congress authorized a regular Signal Corps for the duration of the war, Myer was forced to rely on detailed personnel. Some 2,900 officers and enlisted men served, albeit not at any one time, in the Civil War Signal Corps.
Myer's Civil War innovations included an unsuccessful balloon experiment at First Bull Run and, in response to McClellan's desire for a Signal Corps field telegraph train, an electric telegraph in the form of the Beardslee magnetoelectric telegraph machine. Even in the Civil War the wigwag system, dependent upon line-of-sight, was waning in the face of the electric telegraph.
First chief signal officer
The "father" of the U.S. Army Signal Corps was Major Albert J. Myer, an Army surgeon with an interest in communications by sign language for the deaf and then in signaling over long distances with lightweight and simple to use equipment. He invented a signaling system using a flag (or a kerosene torch for nighttime use) that is known as wig-wag signaling, or aerial telegraphy. Unlike semaphore flag signalling, which employed two flags, Signal wig-wag required only one, using a binary code to represent each letter of the alphabet or digit. Myer was serving at Fort Duncan, Texas, in 1856 when he wrote to Secretaryof War Jefferson Davis and offered his signaling system to the War Department. Although the chief engineer of the Army, Colonel Joseph G.Totten, supported Myer's proposal, it did not include specific technical details and Davis rejected it. When John B.Floyd replaced Davis as secretary of war in 1857, Totten reintroduced Myer's proposal, and in March 1859, a board of examination was formed in Washington D.C. The board, presided over by Lt Col. Robert E.Lee, was not enthusiastic about the proposal, judging it suitable only as a secondary means of communications over short distances, but it did recommend further testing.
Myer began testing in April 1859 at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and then New York Harbour, West Point, New York, and Washington, D.C. One of Myer's principal assistants was Second Lieutenant Edward Porter Alexander, the future Confederate signal, engineer, and artillery officer. They were able to communicate at distances up to 15 miles and Myer reported to the War Department that the tests had "exceeded anticipation." He recommended that the Army adopt his signaling system and that he should be placed in charge of it.
On March 29, 1860, the United States House of Representatives approved the Army appropriations bill for fiscal year 1861, which included the following amendment:
For the manufacture or purchase of apparatus and equipment for field signals, $2000; and that there be added to the staff of the Army one signal officer, with the rank, pay, and allowance of a major of cavalry, who shall have charge, under the direction of the Secretary of War, of all signal duty, and all books, papers, and apparatus connected therewith.
The United States Senate eventually approved the appropriations bill, over the objections of Jefferson Davis, now Senator from Mississippi, and President James Buchanan signed it into law on June 21, 1860, the date now celebrated as the birthday of the modern U.S. Army Signal Corps. Myer's appointment as the first signal officer with the rank of major was confirmed by the Senate on June 27. However, the appropriations bill provided for no personnel to work for Myer and the Signal Corps as a formal organization would not be authorized until March 1863.
Immediately before the war, Myer was assigned to the Department of New Mexico to test his signals in the field during a campaign against the Najavos. In that assignment, he was assisted by Second Lieutenant William J.L. Nicodemus, who would later succeed him as chief signal officer. Field testing proceeded successfully, winning the admiration of Major Edward Canby, who became a strong advocate of forming a dedicated Signal Corps; Myer at this time believed that the best approach for staffing signal work would be to train officers across the Army in its disciplines
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