A Concise History of the U.S. Army Signal Corps

[2], vi, 125, [s] pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Chronology. Medal of Honor Recipients. Chief Signal Officers. A selective Chronology of Signal Corps History. Index. Cover has some wear and soiling. Fort Gordon, formerly known as Camp Gordon, is a United States Army installation established in 1917. It is the current home of the United States Army Signal Corps and Cyber Center of Excellence and was once the home of The Provost Marshal General School. The fort is located next to Augusta, Georgia to the southwest of the city. The main component of the post is the Advanced Individual Training for Signal Corps military occupational specialties. In 1966-68 the Army's Signal Officer Candidate School (located at Fort Monmouth during World War II and the Korean War) graduated over 2,200 Signal officers. Signals Intelligence has become more visible and comprises more and more of the fort's duties. The United States Army Signal Corps (USASC) develops, tests, provides, and manages communications and information systems support for the command and control of combined arms forces. It was established in 1860, the brainchild of United States Army Major Albert J. Myer, and has had an important role from the American Civil War through to the current day. Over its history, it had the initial responsibility for a number of functions and new technologies that are currently managed by other organizations, including military intelligence, weather forecasting, and aviation. While serving as a medical officer in Texas in 1856, Albert James Myer proposed that the Army use his visual communications system, called aerial telegraphy (or "wig-wag"). When the Army adopted his system on 21 June 1860, the Signal Corps was born with Myer as the first and only Signal Officer. Major Myer first used his visual signaling system on active service in New Mexico during the early 1860s 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 Wool against the Confederate positions opposite Fort Monroe. For nearly three years, Myer was forced to rely on detailed personnel, although he envisioned a separate, trained professional military signal service. Myer's vision came true on 3 March 1863, when Congress authorized a regular Signal Corps for the duration of the war. Some 2,900 officers and enlisted men served, although not at any single 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, restricted to line-of-sight communications, was waning in the face of the electric telegraph. Initially, Myer used his office downtown in Washington, D.C. to house the Signal Corps School. When it was found to need additional space, he sought out other locations. First came Fort Greble, one of the Defenses of Washington during the Civil War, and when that proved inadequate, Myer chose Fort Whipple, on Arlington Heights overlooking the national capital. The size and location were outstanding. The school remained there for over 20 years and ultimately was renamed Fort Myer. Signal Corps detachments participated in campaigns fighting Native Americans in the west, such as the Powder River Expedition of 1865. The electric telegraph, in addition to visual signaling, became a Signal Corps responsibility in 1867. Within 12 years, the corps had constructed, and was maintaining and operating, some 4,000 miles of telegraph lines along the country's western frontier. In 1870, the Signal Corps established a congressionally mandated national weather service. Within a decade, with the assistance of Lieutenant Adolphus Greely, Myer commanded a weather service of international acclaim. Myer died in 1880.…