Description:

UNION SIGNAL CORPS AT PETERSBURG
Historically important war-date A.L.S. by Lt. Frank M. Metcalf, inventor of the cipher disk "Metcalf's Disk", 6pp. 8vo., City Point, July 22, 1864 concerning the City Point signat station's operations during Grant's Petersburg campaign. In part: "...Here I still am with six fellows doing my party of watching for flaggin messages etc. of which we have considerable to do here...of an important nature. We are the only means of communication between this Pt. & Gen. Sheridan's Hd. Qrs. except to travel over the whole distance, six or eight miles. They are just taking and deciphering a message upstairs...we have now an officer Lt. Keozinski of Poland...ther or four Russian & Polish Signal Officers...One captain a banished Russian left here this morning...probably...to resign...I like to see some of the arrogant tyrants humbled...an account of that poor fellow who committed suicide...a terrible termination of his existence and soldiering...my duties to watch the station four hours...in twenty hours...". With original transmittal envelope. In the book Signal Corps U.S.A. Metcalf is pictured and credited with the invention of the new cipher disk which replaced the seriously defective existing disk. Fine.

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September 27, 2012 11:00 AM EDT
Stamford, CT, US

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