The 16th President Learning Activity

A Learning On-Line Activity by Howard Taylor

Authoring, Researching, Reporting and other Work
Learning On-Line by Howard Taylor for his G.E. students at Charleston, Il, and all other students of Lincoln

Questions for each Category
The War Room
Questions  


President Lincoln perhaps reading or writing a telegraph message to one of the commanders in the field
Secretary Edward Stanton's War Department, located behind the White House, only a walk for the President.  A room on the bottom floor was dedicated to a new U.S. Military Telegraph Office

Secretary of War, Edward Stanton

Quick to establish a national telegraph system, but did not trust the new hot-air surveillance balloons
1860's White House
        The President had no privacy or real security in this old building.  Anyone could walk inside and join a crowd waiting to meet with him.  He would have to greet and talk to job-seekers, government-position seekers, and people wanting solutions to their problems. 
        In addition,  the First Lady felt it necessary to host a big dinner and/or reception regularly.  The Telegraph Office was a place where the President could get private time to think and run the war.


Check the Washington D.C. Page for a map to see where the War Department was actually located.

President Lincoln would use the Telegraph Office (on the bottom floor of the Department of War building right behind the White House) as his strategy, and sometimes "escape-place" to get away from the high-stress of the always full White House.  In the War Room, also called the Telegraph Office, he would receive instant updates on battles, events and other topics through his telegraphers.  The White House did not have telegraphs within it, and therefore all messages were sent and received from the War Room.   CLICK HERE FOR A DESCRIPTION OF THE TELEGRAPH OFFICE

If you get interested in Civil War ciphering, read Chapters IV and V of David Homer Bates' Lincoln in the Telegraph Office available for sale or in a public library.  It is available in the G.E. classroom.

Actual Library of Congress Presidential Telegraphs can be viewed Here.

Click here  for a description of the War (Telegraph) Room and the President. 

Here are your questions:

1.  Communication on the battlefront before the Civil War was done by what means (how)?

2.  Did the United States have telegraph lines everywhere, as we do phone lines now?  Why?

3.  Who was the Assistant Secretary of War that got the military telegraph system started?

4.  A war telegraph office was placed next to the White House.  List some of the men who were operators and managers of that first office.

5.  Who was a regular visitor of the telegraph office?  Why did he stay in it so much?

6. What is a cipher, and who designed the first cipher to be used with telegraph messages over the military telegraph system?

7.  What was the name of the code used to send the ciphered messages?

8.  Why were military messages ciphered?

9.  Why was being a telegraph operator/ cipherer so dangerous? 



 
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