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the main line, via the Orange and Alexandria road, accompanying Grant, keeping him in direct communication with Washington, General Eckert had at this time perfected a field telegraph system somewhat on the mountain howitzer plan. Reels of insulated cable, strong enough to resist cannon-wheels, were carried on the backs of mules paying out the wire over the field, where it was raised on lances or on trees, while compact portable electric batteries were transported in ambulances constructed for the purpose. This system was found efficient on the battlefield and at Spotsylvania Court House, where at one time operators and cable were within the enemy's lines, and in subsequent battles it was thoroughly tested. Throughout the remainder of the war General Grant received almost daily reports by telegraph from all the armies in the field, and issued his orders, in cipher, over our wires to all his lieutenants in pursuance of one comprehensive plan. With Butler's coöperative move up the Peninsula went the telegraph to Gloucester Point, West Point, and White House on the Pamunkey; and when this feint on the York was followed by the real attack on the other side of the Peninsula, the telegraph was pushed up the James as rapidly as possible; so that when Grant swung around Richmond he was met at White House and at City Point by these electric nerves. Before Grant's arrival wires were run from Bermuda Hundred to Point of Rocks, on the left bank of the Appomattox, under fire from the enemy's batteries on the right bank, to Butler's headquarters, midway between that point and Broadway Landing,

and to W. F. Smith's and Gillmore's corps. A line was run down the south bank of the James from City Point to Fort Powhatan, and another was pushed across from Jamestown Island to Yorktown, whence it completed connection by McClellan's old wire to Fort Monroe and Washington. These links were then united by a submarine cable from Jamestown Island to Fort Powhatan, some nineteen miles in the James River, and a short one across the Appomattox. The James River cable was necessitated by the incursions of guerrillas on both banks. Facilities for the manufacture of telegraph cable in this country being then deficient, a portion of the original Atlantic cable was used. It never worked well, and in September, William Mackintosh, with a construction party of ten men and an infantry escort of one hundred, made an attempt to replace the cable by a land line on the south bank, which resulted in the capture of all but two of the party, six six-mule teams, and twenty miles of wire. The party had camped at night on a tidal creek below City Point, expecting to start out in the morning, all but "Mack" and the colored cook preferring the right bank on account of its being higher ground. About daybreak the contraband heard firing and roused Mack, who thought it was only his escort killing pigs for breakfast. The old cook started to make a fire and fry some bacon, but a bullet whistling near his head demoralized him and he took to the woods. Mack then saw the raiders on the opposite bank of the creek and heard them shouting to him to surrender. Fortunately the tide was in, and while they

were crossing he secured his horse and set off amid a shower of bullets, closely pursued by the Confederates.1 The chase was kept up for a mile by augmenting parties of cavalry who had forded the creek higher up, and was stopped only when the pursuers were confronted by a regiment of our men, who poured a volley into them and emptied a number of saddles. Mackintosh thus escaped a third term in Libby prison, he having been twice before captured and exchanged. A week after the capture of the telegraph party a "climber," barefoot and tattered, found his way back to our lines. When asked where his shoes were, he replied, "The ribils schkarred me out of me boots."

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In Butler's advance on the Petersburg and Richmond Railroad, 7th of May, a line was carried along with the column to within sight of that road, and worked until Beauregard struck us at Drewry's Bluff, on the 16th, when General Butler ordered his chief operator to bring the line within the intrenchments." In these trenches, one night, Maynard Huyck was awakened from sleep, not by the familiar voice of his instrument, but by the shriek of a Whitworth bolt, a six-pound steel shell, which passed through the few clothes he had doffed, then ricochetted, and exploded beyond. Congratulating himself that he was not in his "duds" at the moment, the boy turned over and slept through the infernal turmoil of an awakening cannonade until aroused by the gentle tick of the telegraph relay. We used no "sounders" in those days at the front.

In illustration of the sensibility of hearing acquired by the military operators for this one sound, the writer may be pardoned another personal incident. At Norfolk, in April, 1863, he happened to be alone in charge of the telegraph when Longstreet with a large force laid siege to Suffolk. In the emergency he remained on duty, without sleep, for three

days and nights, repeating orders between Fort Monroe and the front. Towards morning on the third night he fell asleep, but was roused by the

1 This proved to be Hampton's famous "cattle raid," than which there stands nothing bolder or more curious in the annals of such exploits. It originated in a telegraphic episode, General Hampton's operator, Gaston, having lain six weeks in the woods, with his instrument connected by fine wire to our line. All that he heard of importance was in cipher, except one message

strenuous calls of the fort and asked why he had not given "O. K." for the messages just sent. He replied that none had been received. "We called you," said the operator at the fort; "you answered, and we sent you two messages, but you failed to acknowledge them." The dispatches were repeated and forwarded, when on taking up a volume of Scott's novels, with which he had previously endeavored to keep awake, the writer was astonished to find the missing telegrams scrawled across the printed page in his own writing, some sentences omitted, and some repeated. It was a curious instance of somnambulism.

During the siege of Petersburg every salient point on the front of the armies of the Potomac and James was covered with the wires radiating from Grant's headquarters at City Point. One circuit, crossing the Appomattox, took in the intrenchments on the Bermuda Hundred front, the Tenth Corps' headquarters. Later it crossed the James at Deep Bottom by cable, included the "Crow's Nest," Dutch Gap, headquarters Army of the James, Fort Harrison when captured, and eventually Weitzel's headquarters and Kautz's cavalry on our extreme right. The second circuit followed up the south bank of the Appomattox to our advanced works, and running to the left connected Smith, Hancock, Burnside, and Warren, Sheridan on his arrival, and other commands as they arrived or were shifted on this important field as the tide of

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FIELD TELEGRAPH-BATTERY WAGON.

battle ebbed and flowed, pushing farther to the left as Grant, throughout the winter and spring, deployed his forces to envelop Lee's mentioning that 2586 beeves, to feed our army, would be landed at Coggin's Point for pasture. Hampton got them all but one lame steer. Doubtless the hungry "Johnnies" blessed the operator who neglected to put that message in cipher. The other dispatches which Gaston copied were sent to Richmond, but were never deciphered.

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The result of battles sometimes hung on the continuity of a slender wire, as when on March 25, 1865, the Confederates under Gordon attacked and carried Fort Stedman and cut the wire to City Point. The capture occurred about 5 A. M. According to General Humphreys, who has described this campaign, General Parke, then commanding the Ninth Corps, which received the attack, telegraphed at 5:30 A. M. to General Webb the loss of the fort. Webb immediately replied that Meade was at City Point, and he (Parke) in command. At 6:15 Humphreys, commanding the Second Corps, on Parke's left, received the news also by telegraph that the enemy had "broken our right, taken Stedman, and were moving on City Point." Parke ordered Warren up with the Fifth Corps, the Ninth assaulted, and the fort was recaptured by eight o'clock. Promptly the telegraph was repaired and flashed the news to Grant and Meade, who as quickly projected the Second and the Ninth Corps against the enemy, capturing his intrenched picket line, a position of immense subsequent advantage, inflicting a loss of 4000 men, and losing 2000 in the whole operation. Thus the cutting of the wire by Gordon removed Meade from control, placed

Point current would have rendered the rest of the circuit useless.

In the final pursuit and capture of Lee's army all authorities unite in attesting the efficiency of the telegraph corps. In the rush of fifty miles from Petersburg to Appomattox, Grant, Meade, and all the corps of both the Potomac and James armies, except Sheridan's, were kept connected. Our men found poles standing on the South-side road, which materially facilitated our advance with the army. Where the retreat of the Confederates had been too rapid to destroy wires these were spliced to ours and used, turning the enemy's telegraph against himself, an operation which we were able to make on an extended scale in the North Carolina campaign.

The President at this time was at City Point, and later in Petersburg and Richmond, and to him Grant telegraphed the phases of the conflict, beginning with Sheridan's victory at Five Forks and ending with Lee's surrender. Meantime, over the wire pushed forward north of the James sped the message, " Richmond is fallen."

Sherman had reached Goldsboro'; and Schofield, advancing by two routes from the coast,

overcoming all obstacles, had built railroads and telegraphs to meet and supply him, and now he was advancing to Raleigh. Johnston surrendered, and at last over the military line which has been traced began to flow a tide of commercial dispatches, transmitted by the military telegraphers, Schofield's operators at Raleigh taking the business from Columbia and the south, rushing it over the Raleigh and Gaston wire, sixty messages an hour to Petersburg, whence northward flew the silent harbingers of peace. It was the first link to bind the North and the South together again.

It may surprise the reader to learn that, beyond the commendation of Lincoln, Stanton, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and all the higher officers, the military telegraphers-except a few heads of departments, who were commissioned and promoted from captains up to brigadiergenerals have never received any recognition for their great services. Though suffering captivity, wounds, and all of the hardships of the troops, the members of the corps cannot tell their children that they were soldiers, nor hail their brother veterans of the Grand Army of

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the Republic as comrades. They were merely "civilians" who faithfully performed dangerous and harassing military duty with boyish enthusiasm, and some of whom have survived to learn that republics are ungrateful, or at least forgetful. Uncle Sam, who has been more generous to his veterans than any potentate of history, has forgotten them. Their widows and orphans receive no pensions.

Once a year the survivors of the corps from all parts of the Union meet to renew old acquaintance, cemented by the electric spark over leagues of wire. Many of them never met in the field, but they knew each other well by telegraph, and can still recognize the touch of a comrade's hand on the "key" a thousand miles away.

The experience of this country, which demonstrated the value of a military telegraph, induced the immediate organization of such corps, but on a more strictly military basis, in all European armies.1

1 See Lieutenant Von Treuenfeldt's "Kriegs-Telegraphie," and "Die Kriegstelegraphie" of Captain Bucholtz.

J. Emmet O'Brien.

THE

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

Ballot Reform Progress.

`HE record of ballot reform legislation for the current year is one of most encouraging progress. At the beginning of the year only one State, Massachusetts, had such a law on its statute books. At its close, the legislatures of nine States had passed comprehensive measures closely resembling that of Massachusetts, seven of which were approved and became laws and two of which were defeated by executive vetoes. The States which have these, all of which are to go into effect in the near future, are, given in the order of enactment: Massachusetts, Indiana, Montana, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Minnesota, and Missouri. The two States which lost theirs through vetoes are New York and Connecticut. New York has been deprived in this way twice in succession, both times by the same governor. In Connecticut a so-called secret ballot law was hurriedly passed on the last day of the session, and was approved by the governor. It is in no sense an application of the Australian system, and there is considerable doubt as to whether it will accomplish much real reform in practice. It is, however, a step in advance.

When the agitation for ballot reform was started by the discussions of the Commonwealth Club of New York City in the spring of 1887, there was no law embodying the principles of the Australian system to be found in any part of the United States. A bill proposing a partial application of that system was discussed that winter in the Michigan legislature, and finally VOL. XXXVIII.— 104.

passed one house, but it failed in the other house. Later in the spring of 1887 the Wisconsin legislature passed a law, applying only to the city of Milwaukee, in which some of the Australian principles, notably those providing for an absolutely secret ballot, were embodied. The committee appointed by the Commonwealth Club to draft a bill for presentation to the New York legislature spent a great deal of time during the autumn and early winter of 1887 in devising a simple and comprehensive scheme for applying the Australian system to American election methods. They completed their work in time to have their bill presented to the New York legislature soon after its assembling in January, 1888. This bill has served as the model for all subsequent measures, and while the eight laws now in existence differ from it in details, its underlying principles are to be found without modification in all of them. It was used in 1888 as the basis for the Massachusetts law, which, with the exception of a very excellent law passed by the Kentucky legislature and applying exclusively to the city of Louisville, was the only advance made by the reform during that year. The New York legislature passed the Commonwealth Club bill, but Governor Hill vetoed it.

The discussions aroused in New York and Massachusetts on the pending measures called the attention of the whole country to the subject. A valuable demonstration of the practicability of the reform was furnished by elections in Milwaukee and Louisville, for in both instances the new system worked with such smoothness and success as to command the praise of its most

strenuous opponents. This helped forward the movement, but a far more vigorous impulse was given to it by the revelations which were made after the presidential election concerning the unprecedented use of money for the purchase of votes by both political parties. These awoke the public conscience in all parts of the country, and caused a general demand for some ballot system which would secure a secret and untrammeled vote. When the State legislatures came together in January last, there was scarcely one of them which did not have before it in some form a measure for a change in existing ballot systems. The Australian method was the favorite everywhere, partly because it had stood the test of experience in Australia for 30 years, in England for 18 years, and in Canada for 16 years, and partly because discussion of it had made the public to some extent familiar with its principles.

The result of the legislative year's work was the seven laws which we have enumerated. In Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and several other States similar laws were considered but were not passed. The seed sown by the discussions of them is certain, how ever, to bear fruit in the near future. The leading principles of the eight laws which we now have are the same in all. They are:

1. An exclusively official ballot, printed and distributed at the public expense. The names of all candidates for all offices are to be placed upon these ballots, and none others are to be received or counted.

2. Absolute secrecy in voting. Every voter is required to take his ballots and retire alone with them to a compartment where, free from observation or espionage of any kind, he must mark them to indicate the candidates for whom he wishes to vote. There is slight variation in the methods prescribed by the different laws for this marking. In Indiana the voter is to make the mark with an official stamp, furnished for the purpose; in Missouri he must erase from the ballot all names except those for which he wishes to vote; and in Massachusetts, Montana, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Tennessee, and Minnesota he must indicate his choice by an X opposite the name of each candidate for whom he wishes to vote. In three of the laws, those of Indiana, Missouri, and Tennessee, the names of candidates are grouped under party titles, but in the others they follow the order in which the nominations are received by the officer in charge of the printing, with the politics indicated after each name.

3. Ample provision for independent nominations. All the laws contain careful provision whereby a specified number of voters can, by agreeing upon an independent candidate, and by making his nomination in writing to the official printer of the ballots, have his name placed upon the ballots on equal terms with those of the regular candidates.

It is easy to see at a glance what a momentous gain for honest elections has been secured by the engrafting of these three principles upon our electoral system. The printing and distributing of ballots at the public expense, and the prohibition of all others, takes away all excuse for assessments upon candidates, and drives from the polls all the ticket-peddlers, watchers, and political workers of all kinds. There will be nothing for them to do outside and about the polls, they are forbidden to congregate near the polls, and they are

not allowed inside. Thus we are rid at once of the chief excuse for raising money for corrupt purposes at the polls, and of the ability to use it, even if raised, with any certainty that the receivers of it will carry out their part of the corrupt bargain at the ballot-boxes. By having an absolutely secret ballot we are rid of espionage and intimidation of all kinds. The ward "boss cannot follow his henchmen to the polls to see if they vote according to orders, or according to the terms of a " deal." The bulldozing employer cannot intimidate his employees to vote in accordance with his interests, but must leave them to vote in accordance with their own free will.

Possibly the greatest gain of all will be found in time to be that secured through independent nominations. This is the straightest and deadliest blow which has been struck at the dictatorial caucus system. Henceforth in eight States, any body of men, though a mere handful, can get their candidates' names upon the ballots and can have them distributed at the polls on equal terms with those of the regular parties. Every caucus will thus have hanging over its deliberations the threat of a formidable and easily organized inde. pendent movement in case its own nominations are not satisfactory. Heretofore the most effective obstacle to an independent ticket has been the difficulty and expense of getting it distributed at the polls.

Eight Hours a Day.

AGITATION is by no means a thing to be condemned off-hand. The justification of it rests on the same basis as that of any other advocacy: its ground of defense is that no other agency will take pains to defend its client; that opposing forces have their advocates who will bring out the best points on their behalf; and that this particular client should also have its advocate, to bring out the strong points of its case, leaving the balance of justice to be ascertained by those to whom that duty properly belongs. It will certainly not be asserted that any of our "trusts," or pools, or associ ations of manufacturers, or other employers, will make as hearty and persistent efforts as a labor organization would make to state and make clear the reasons or provocations for a troublesome and expensive strike. Nor, on the other hand, is it the primary business of the labor organization to maintain the cause of any but its own members. The case will be best understood and decided by the general public and by the parties interested when each side has been presented fully by those who feel its justice most keenly and know most about it, provided the presentation has been made in a spirit of fairness and of willingness to compromise. Even then some points will be imperfectly understood, but substantial justice can in no other way be so closely reached.

Every man, then, who is interested in industrial discussion has a right to protest against the spirit in which some industrial disputes are settled. A settlement into which either side brings personal rancor, or in which either side yields only perforce after a mismanaged struggle, with the reservation of an intention to try it again at the earliest opportunity or to gain the wishedfor end by treachery and indirection, is no settlement at all. The employer who abandons a lock-out, but takes every subsequent opportunity to discharge" agi

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