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Chapter II 1 ARSO, 1865, in ARSW, 1865, vol. 2, pp. 999-1000. The report is reprinted in Scheips, ed., Military Signal Communications, vol. 1. The "Preliminary List of Officers and Enlisted Men Who Served on Signal Duty During the War of the Rebellion, 1861 to 1866" (Washington, D.C.: Signal Office, 1891) contains the names of 2,922 men. The annual reports of the chief signal officer were published each year as part of the annual report of the secretary of war. For the years 1866 to 1874, they appeared in volume 1 of the secretary's report. From 1875 to 1891, they were published as volume 4. 2 ARSO, 1865, pp. 999-1002. 3 The provisions of the act of 28 July 1866 are published in WDGO 56, 1 Aug 1866, sec. 22, p. 7. 4 Scheips, "Myer," pp. 603-04, n. 63. 5 Scheips, "Myer," pp. 590-92. Myer was still a major because the Senate had failed to confirm his appointment as colonel. 6 Copies of the memorial and supplement are among the Myer Papers at MHI. See Scheips, "Myer," pp. 610-11. 7 Fisher made this argument in a list of "Reasons why the Executive should protect Col. B. F. Fisher in place and reputation," an unsigned and undated draft in the Benjamin F. Fisher Papers at MHI. 8 Ltr, Grant to Stanton, 30 Jul 1866, reel 21, vol. 47, Ulysses S. Grant Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also Scheips, "Myer," pp. 611-13. 9 Scheips, "Myer," pp. 597-98 and p. 599, n. 57.The expiration of Fisher's appointment by constitutional limitation was announced in WDGO 71, 31 Aug 1866, p. 276. 10 ARSO, 1867, pp. 614-15 and apps.A, B, and C. 11 See Porter's letter to Myer of 15 Oct 1866 on roll 2 of Myer Papers microfilm, CMH, and the plan for the course at Appendix D, ARSO, 1867. See also Howeth, Communications-Electronics in Navy, p. 10. 12 WDGO 92, 31 Oct 1867, also published as Appendix E to ARSO, 1867. 13 WDGO 47, 18 Jul 1868; ARSO, 1867, p. 617. 14 ARSO, 1868, pp. 780-81. See also Howgate's report therein, pp. 799-801, and that of Capt. S. C. Plummer, in charge of Fort Greble, pp. 803-04. The telegraphic rate of ten words per minute is given as the standard in [U.S. War Department, Office of the Chief Signal Officer], Instructions for Acting Signal Officers, 1869 (n.p., 1869) and ARSO, 1878, Paper 1, "Course at Fort Whipple," p. 185. See also extract of Special Orders 40, Headquarters of the Army, Adjutant General's Office, 17 Feb 1869, assigning officers and men to the various commands, included as Appendix A to ARSO, 1869. 15 ARSO, 1868, pp. 784, 799, and 805. 16 ARSO, 1869, p. 191. 17 U. S. Congress, House Committee on Military Affairs, Army Organization, 40th Cong., 3d sess., 1869, Rpt no. 33, pp. 3 and 127. 18 See James Rodger Fleming, Meteorology in America, 1800-1870 (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990). 19 Mary C. Gillett, The Army Medical Department, 1775-1818, Army Historical Series (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1981), p. 154 and app. J; Edgar E. Hume, "The Foundations of American Meteorology by the United States Army Medical Department," Bulletin of the History of Medicine 8 (Feb 1940): 202; Lewis J. Darter, Jr., "Weather Service Activities of Federal Agencies Prior to 1891," introduction to List of Climatological Records in the National Archives (Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1942), p. vii. 20 Donald R. Whitnah, A History of the United States Weather Bureau (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965), pp. 12-13; Darter, "Weather Service Activities," pp. x-xiv; Fleming, Meteorology in America, chs. 4-7. 21 Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1865, p. 57. 22 Congressional Globe, 41st Cong., 2d sess., 1869-1870, 42, pt. 1: 177. The quotation is taken from the resolution as printed in WDGO 29, 15 Mar 1870. Whitnah, Weather Bureau, pp. 17-19; Eric R. Miller, "New Light on the Beginnings of the Weather Bureau from the Papers of Increase A. Lapham," Monthly Weather Review 59 (Feb 1931): 67-68. 23 As quoted in Miller, "New Light," p. 68. 24 As quoted in ibid. Cleveland Abbe, a longtime member of the Weather Bureau, claims that Myer had submitted a plan for weather reporting to the secretary of war in 1869 but was turned down because he lacked legislative authority for such activity. See Cleveland Abbe, "The Meteorological Work of the U.S. Signal Service, 1870 to 1891," Bulletin no. 11 (Washington, D.C.: Weather Bureau, 1894): 235, one of the Bulletins of the Weather Bureau in Report of the International Meteorological Conference, Chicago, 1893 (U.S. Department of Agriculture); Darter, "Weather Service Activities," p. x. 25 WDGO 29, 15 Mar 1870. 26 See, for example, Gaines M. Foster, The Demands of Humanity: Army Medical Disaster Relief, Special Studies (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1983). 27 Legislation approved on 10 June 1872 contained the agricultural provisions. See extract thereof in WDGO 52, 24 Jun 1872. 28 See ARSO, 1871, app., pp. 61-63; ARSO, 1872, p. 4; ARSO, 1873, pp. 234, 318, and 352. ARSO, 1877, p. 6 and Paper 22, p. 328, indicate that a year of service as an assistant was necessary. See also ARSO, 1881, p. 6. 29 Beginning in 1870, many annual reports of the chief signal officer contain detailed instructions for the observer-sergeants. 30 For a detailed discussion of the records kept at the observation stations, see Darter, "Weather Service Activities." The first federal legislation establishing standard time for the nation was not passed until 1918. See also Carlene Stephens, Inventing Standard Time (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1983). 31 ARSO, 1890, p. 271. 32 Scheips, "Myer," pp. 625-26. 33 The reports from the Chicago and Mount Washington stations are published in ARSO, 1872, pp. 17-20 and 47-48, respectively. 34 On this case, see Joseph M. Hawes, "The Signal Corps and Its Weather Service, 1870-1890," Military Affairs 30 (Summer 1966): 71-72; opinion by Assistant Adjutant General Reverdy Johnson in ARSO, 1874, Paper 53, pp. 798f, upholding the commercial telegraph companies' obligation to transmit the Signal Corps' weather reports and the Army's right to construct telegraph lines of its own. Johnson had been commissioned by the attorney general to handle the disputes between the government and the commercial telegraph companies. See also ARSO, 1875, p. 107. 35 A barometric reading of 18.74, for example, was replaced by the word "April." Rainfall of .94 inches was referred to as "Recess." For tables of the codes, see ARSO, 1877, Paper 23, pp. 337-55. 36 For a history of the Pikes Peak station, see Phyllis Smith, Weather Pioneers: The Signal Corps Station at Pikes Peak (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993). The Signal Corps also maintained a summer station for a time atop Mount Mitchell, North Carolina. 37 ARSO, 1873, pp. 304-05. On the initiation of the railway bulletin service, see ARSO, 1879, p. 206. Along some lines weather symbols were displayed on railway cars. By 1888 this system had largely been replaced by the work of the state weather services. See ARSO, 1888, p. 15. 38 Several reasons are given in the literature for Lapham's brief tenure with the Signal Corps. According to Cleveland Abbe, Lapham's poor health caused him to turn down a permanent position with the Corps. See Truman Abbe, Professor Abbe and the Isobars: The Story of Cleveland Abbe, America's First Weatherman (New York: Vantage Press, 1955), pp. 123-24, and Cleveland Abbe, "Meteorological Work of the Signal Service," p. 239. Both Whitnah, Weather Bureau (p. 22), and Scheips, "Myer" (p. 627), indicate that personal business kept him away from the job. Lapham's biographer in the Dictionary of American Biography, 10: 611-12, states that he was offered the leadership of the weather bureau upon its establishment within the War Department, but he refused the position because of his Quaker beliefs. Miller, in "New Light" (p. 70), cites a letter written to Lapham in 1872 by Capt. Henry Howgate informing him that a lack of funds necessitated the termination of his services as assistant to the chief signal officer. 39 T. Abbe, Isobars, chs. 11 and 12. 40 On his skepticism, see his letter to Lapham, quoted in T. Abbe, Isobars, p. 119, and Miller, "New Light," p. 68. 41 ARSO, 1871, p. 9 and Paper 7 therein. See also ARSO, 1878, pp. 159-60 and Paper 45, pp. 662£ At stations on the lakes the white flag above the red was known as the "cautionary northwest signal." At night a white light above a red light served as the signal. ARSO, 1881, p. 47. Beginning in 1883 a white flag with a black center signified a cold wave warning. See ARSO, 1885 (in two parts), pt. 1, app. 54, pp. 509-15. The same flag also served as a frost warning. ARSO, 1890, app. 5, p. 69. Other flags were used to indicate weather conditions and their meanings are explained in ARSO, 1885, pt. 1, app. 2, p. 54, and ARSO, 1886, app. 3. 42 Whitnah, Weather Bureau, p. 22, makes this assertion. 43 WDGO 40, 21 Mar 1873. On the Life-Saving Service, see Dennis R. Means, "A Heavy Sea Running: The Formation of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, 1846-1878," Prologue 19 (Winter 1987): 222-43. Samuel l. Kimball, head of the Life-Saving Service, had recommended that the Signal Corps place observers at the life-saving stations (p. 229). Myer thanks Kimball for his cooperation in ARSO, 1873, p. 307. 44 See ARSO, 1882 (in two parts), pt. 1, p. 33, and ARSO, 1884, app. 5, p. 87, that give the total as 618 miles. See also ARSO, 1885, pt. 1, app. 63, p. 547. In 1884 commercial lines replaced the leased lines to the Signal Office. 45 The wreck occurred only two and one-half miles from the Nags Head life-saving station, also closed for the season. See report of the Kitty Hawk weather station in ARSO, 1878, pp. 47-48, and Myer's comments, pp. 173-75. See also David Stick, Graveyard of the Atlantic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952), pp. 73-85; Means, "Heavy Sea Running," p. 233. 46 His account of this experience is contained in the entry for the Kitty Hawk station in ARSO, 1879, p. 55. 47 ARSO, 1874, Paper 51, p. 796; ARSO, 1876, p. 118; ARSO, 1880, p. 220; ARSO, 1881, p. 34; ARSO, 1888, app. 8, p. 152; ARSO, 1891, p. 7. Some of the lines were actually underwater cables, such as those under San Francisco Harbor and between Wood's Hole and Nantucket, Massachusetts. 48 L. Tuffly Ellis, "Lieutenant A. W. Greely's Report on the Installation of Military Telegraph Lines in Texas, 1875-1876," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 69 (July 1965), reprinted in Scheips, ed., Military Signal Communications, vol. 1,and ch. 17 in Greely's Reminiscences of Adventure and Service (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927). Greely was also responsible for building many of the seacoast lines. See ARSO, 1874, Paper 53, p. 979. Soldiers stationed at the various posts aided in much of the construction. 49 Will C. Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns: The Reminiscences of Will C. Barnes, ed. by Frank C. Lockwood (Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, 1941; facsimile edition, Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1982), p. 9. 50 Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, ch. 6; Robert M. Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891 (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1974), pp. 371f, Joseph C. Porter, Paper Medicine Man: John Gregory Bourke and His American West (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986), pp. 144-45. 51 ARSO, 1874, pp. 506-07 and Papers 20-22, pp. 704-05. See also Papers 27a and b in ARSO, 1875, p. 362. In 1887 the surgeon general of the Army turned over to the Corps its original meteorological records dating to 1819. The Navy began supplying maritime observations in 1876. ARSO, 1877, p. 118; ARSO, 1888, app. 14, p. 184. 52 Robert V. Bruce, 1877. Year of Violence (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970), p. 213; Jerry M. Cooper, The Army and Civil Disorder: Federal Military Intervention in Labor Disputes, 1877-1890 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), p. 64. The chief signal officer only alludes to this aspect of the observers' duties in ARSO, 1877, p. 5. President Hayes and Myer were also personal friends. See Scheips, "Myer," p. 641. 53 The original telegrams are among the collections of the Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial Library, Fremont, Ohio. References herein are to typescripts thereof compiled into a "Strike File": Zebree [sic] to chief signal officer, 25 Jul 1877, 11:45 a.m.; Myer to the president and the secretary of war, telegram no. 39, 26 Jul 1877, 9:47 p.m.; Myer to the president, telegram no. 11, 29 Jul 1877; Myer to the president, 13 Aug 1877. 54 The Russians had been taking weather observations at Sitka since 1828. Whitnah, Weather Bureau, p. 37. On Nelson's ethnographic work, see Michael Olmert, "Spirit World of the Bering Sea Eskimos," Smithsonian 13 (May 1982): 50-59. See also Nelson's preliminary reports in ARSO, 1881, Appendix 38, and ARSO, 1882, pt. 1, pp. 79-86. 55 According to Whitnah, Myer was one of the major advocates of this idea. See Weather Bureau, p. 36, n. 48. The observations were taken at 0735 and later at 0700 Washington time. 56 The first bulletin is included as Paper 40 in ARSO, 1875, and summarizes data collected on 11 April 1875. The Signal Office discontinued the daily publication of the international bulletin and the accompanying map in July 1885. These included observations made through 30 June 1884. Monthly summaries continued to be published until 1889. Publication of the maps resumed for a limited time in 1886-1887. See ARSO, 1885, pt. 1, pp. 29-30 and app. 65 and Cleveland Abbe, "Meteorological Work of the Signal Service," pp. 258-59. See also the table in ARSO, 1891, p. 18, and Appendix 17 to that report, which is Greely's summary of "International Pressure and Storm Charts," pp. 747f Darter, "Weather Service Activities," gives a slightly different listing on p. xxiv. 57 ARSO, 1878, Paper 25, p. 429; ARSO, 1880, p. 171. 58 ARS0, 1874, p. 424; ARSO, 1875, Paper 6, p.116. 59 WDGO 58, 18Jun 1874. 60 For a discussion of the Corps' status, see ARSO, 1882, pt. 1, Appendix 74, pp. 927-50. Extracts of the legislation affecting the Corps' strength are published in WDGO 70, 26 Jul 1876; WDGO 41, 25 Jun 1878; and WDGO 57, 2 Jul 1880. See also Table A, "Organization of the Regular Army of the United States," in vol. 1 of the annual reports of the secretary of war, which includes personnel totals for the Signal Corps. Strength figures are also given in ARSO, 1879, p. 6 and ARSO, 1880, p. 6. 61 Congress appropriated $375,000 for the observation and report of storms for the fiscal year ending 30 June 188 1. See WDGO 57, 2 Jul 1880, and ARSO, 1880, pp. 166 and 175. The Corps classified the regular stations as first, second, or third order. In the very beginning, the regular stations were those that reported their observations three times daily by telegraph. The definitions of the categories changed over time, however, and a first order station came to be defined as one using self-recording instruments. Until 1888 only the Washington office fit this description. By 1890 there were twenty-six such stations. Thirteen of these were among the original twenty-four stations opened in 1870. Seven other original stations remained in operation as second order stations. Other than the use of self-registering equipment, little difference existed between first and second order stations in terms of the service provided, and both were staffed with full-time personnel. Third order stations used few, if any, recording instruments and usually made just one visual observation per day. Some stations made sunset observations only. Other categories included display stations, special river stations, and repair stations along the military telegraph and seacoast telegraph lines. Stations of all types in 1880 totaled 344. For a breakdown of the types of stations from 1870 to 1888, see ARSO, 1888, Appendix 10, p. 171. See also ARSO, 1890, p. 18. For a list of stations see, ARSO, 1891, p.299.For additional background, see ARSO, 1891, p. 344. 62 WDGO 12, 4 Feb 18. 63 Myer could perhaps also be called the Willard Scott of his day. As his son Truman relates, Cleveland Abbe was also referred to by the nickname "Old Probabilities." See T. Abbe, Isobars, p. 125. 64 Scheips, "Myer," pp. 643-45. Another post-Civil War organization, the United States Veteran Signal Corps Association, is a forebear of the present Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. 65 For biographical details, see Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Hazen, William Babcock," 8: 478-79 and George W. Cullum, Biographical Register, 2: 632-35. Hazen was West Point graduate number 1704. Hazen wrote of his Civil War experiences in A Narrative of Military Service (1885: reprint, Huntington, W.V.: Blue Acorn Press, 1993). For a study of his early post-Civil War career, see Marvin E. Kroeker, Great Plains Command: William B. Hazen in the Frontier West(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976). See also Paul J. Scheips, "William Babcock Hazen," Cosmos Club Bulletin 38 (Oct 1985): 4-7. 66 Edward M. Coffinan, "The Long Shadow of The Soldier and the State," Journal of Military History 55 (Jan 1991): 69-82. Coffman compares Hazen's little-known work with Emory Upton's The Armies of Asia and Europe, published six years later. 67 ARSO, 1881, p. 11; A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1957; Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 189; Robert V. Bruce, The Launching of Modern American Science, 1846-1876(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), p. 319. 68 ARSO, 1881, pp. 61-62.Although the Signal Office had included a study room for several years, its work apparently consisted more of compiling statistical data than preparing original reports. Abbe's assistants were referred to as professors, junior professors, or assistant professors. Langley later became secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and was an early aviation pioneer (see ch. 4). 69 ARSO, 1881, pp. 61-62 and 70-71. The Corps published both series until 1886. Ferrel's textbook is printed as part 2 of the 1885 annual report. See Abbe's comments in ARSO, 1883, Appendix 69, p. 665. 70 ARSO, 1882, pt. 1, pp. 75-76 and app. 67, pp. 874-80. For details of King's aeronautical career, see Crouch, The Eagle Aloft, pp. 451-63. 71 ARSO, 1884, app. 4, p. 66. 72 ARSO, 1882, pt. 1, pp. 4-5. 73 ARSO, 1883, app. 69, pp. 663 and 665.In January 1886 special stations to observe atmospheric electricity were set up at Yale College, Cornell University, Ohio State University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (to replace that at Harvard). A station was already in operation at Johns Hopkins (ARSO, 1886, app. 22, p. 219). McAdie published a number of articles relating to atmospheric electricity and coauthored one with McRae that appeared in the Periodical of the American Academy of Science. A list of publications by Corps members appears in ARSO, 1891, pp. 406-07. McAdie later became director of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory near Boston. During World War I he assisted in the organization of the Navy's weather service. See Charles C. Bates and John F. Fuller, America's Weather Warriors 1814-1985(College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1986), pp. 24-25. 74 Darter, "Weather Service Activities," p. xxvii, reports that all states had such services by 1892. See ARSO, 1884, app. 8 and ARSO, 1889 (in two parts), pt. 1, app. 5, p. 101. Whitnah discusses earlier attempts at establishing state weather services in Weather Bureau, pp. 11-12. 75 ARSO, 1885, pt. 1, app. 3; ARSO, 1890, app. 22, pp. 681-82. 76 ARSO, 1886, p. 25 and app. 15, p. 199; ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, pp. 103 and 113-14. 77 Howgate eventually married his mistress, Nettie Burrill, following his wife's death. For an entertaining account of the scandal, see George Walton, "The Fugitive Captain," Washington Post Potomac[magazine], 16 Feb 1969. On Hazen's relationship with Garfield, see Scheips, "Hazen," pp. 4-7. Edward M. Coffman in The Old Army(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 267, mentions Hazen's efforts on Garfield's behalf when he ran for president in 1880. Whitnah also recounts the Howgate scandal in Weather Bureau, pp. 46-48. 78 The hiring of an examiner is reported in ARSO, 1882, pt. 1, p. 9. 79 A list of Greely's awards is included in Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Greely, Adolphus Washington," 21: 352-55. For accounts of the expedition, see Greely's Three Years of Arctic Service, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1886); A. L. Todd, Abandoned: The Story of the Greely Arctic Expedition, 1881-1884(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1961); (Todd discovered Greely's papers and used them in the preparation of his manuscript. They now reside in the Library of Congress.) Theodore Powell, The Long Rescue(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1960); Pierre Berton, The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909(New York: Viking, 1988), ch. 11. On the ill-fated Garlington rescue attempt, see Lawrence J. Fischer, "Horse Soldiers in the Arctic: The Garlington Expedition of 1883," American Neptune 36 (Apr 1976): 108-24. Fischer counters the negative portrait of Garlington presented by Todd and Powell. Instead, he places most of the blame for Garlington's failure on Hazen. See also Charles R. Shrader's article on Greely in Roger J. Spiller, ed., Dictionary of American Military Biography, 3 vols. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984), 1: 403-08. As a result of the two Arctic expeditions, Hazen has a bay in Alaska and a strait and a lake in Canada named for him. 80 ARSW, 1884, pp. 22-26. The censure incident is discussed in the Hazen article in the Dictionary of American Biography. See also Todd, Abandoned, pp. 306-07. 81 The correspondence between Hazen and Lincoln is reproduced in Bernard C. Nalty and Morris J. MacGregor, eds., Blacks in the Military: Essential Documents (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1981), pp. 54-58. Greene's case is also discussed in Jack D. Foner, The United States Soldier Between Two Wars: Army Life and Reforms, 1865-1898 (New York: Humanities Press, 1970), p. 141; and Whitnah, Weather Bureau, p. 51. 82 The amount appropriated for fiscal year 1884 equaled $1,028,241.81. ARSO, 1884, pp. 10 and 58. 83 ARSW, 1884, p. 22. 84 For Hazen's comments regarding the effects of the budget cuts, see ARSO, 1883, pp. 3-5. See page 17 for a list of the actions taken to save money. A ten-year list of forecasting percentages appears in ARSO, 1883, p. 6. According to the table, the best percentage up to that time had been 88.3 in 1876. 85 ARSO, 1883, pp. 12-13 and app. 60; see act of 3 Mar 1883 published in WDGO 17, 20 Mar 1883. Because Hazen complained to the secretary of war about the lack of funds, the secretary issued WDGO 35 on 23 May 1883 authorizing temporary details to be made when necessary "to prevent interruption of the public business." 86 Comprising three members each from the House and Senate, its full title was the Joint Commission To Consider the Present Organization of the Signal Service, Geological Survey, Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department, with a View To Secure Greater Efficiency and Economy of Administration of the Public Service in said Bureaus. For a more detailed discussion of the commission and its impact, see Dupree, Science in Federal Government, chs. 9 and 11. Dupree characterizes the commission's probe as "one of the fullest congressional investigations of the nineteenth century" (p. 190). See also Whitnah, Weather Bureau, pp. 50-58. 87 Portions of his testimony are published in the Army and Navy Journal, issues of 7 and 14 February 1874. 88 Dupree, Science in Federal Government, p. 191; Paul Andrew Hutton, Phil Sheridan and His Army (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), pp. 43-44. 89 Dupree, Science in Federal Government, p. 192, states that three members favored transfer to a civilian bureau within the War Department and three wanted no change. He also mentions (p. 191) that Sheridan had recommended that Fort Myer be closed. ARSO, 1886, p. 6, announces the closing of Fort Myer through the action of the Joint Commission of Congress. See also Hawes, "The Signal Corps and Its Weather Service," pp. 74-75. 90 The Allison Commission's findings are published as House Report 2740, 49th Cong., 1st sess., 1886. For the recommendations regarding Fort Myer and the study room, see page 18. For a discussion of the commission's recommendations regarding the Signal Corps, see Dupree, Science in Federal Government, p.192; Bates and Fuller, Weather Warriors, p. 13; Cleveland Abbe, "Meteorological Work of the Signal Service," p. 242; Darter, "Federal Weather Activities," pp. xxxii xxxiii. 91 ARSO, 1886, app. 14, pp. 191-92, and Whitnah, Weather Bureau, p. 56. 92 His widow, Mildred McLean Hazen, the daughter of wealthy newspaperman Washington McLean, later married Admiral George Dewey of Manila Bay fame. 93 Greely was shot in the face, and this injury may account for the splendid beard that he wore for the remainder of his life. He details his Civil War service in his memoirs, Reminiscences of Adventure and Service. 94 ARSO, 1887 (in two parts), pt. 1, pp. 16, 25-27; ARSO, 1888, p. 10. The number of regular stations reached its peak in 1881 at 219. In 1888 the total of all types of stations equaled 509. See ARSO, 1888, app. 10, p. 171. By 1890 there were 1,924 volunteers, a gain of 1,577 over the decade. ARSO, 1890, p. 261. In his 1891 annual report, Greely boasted of his four years of "earnest, well-directed effort" to produce such astonishing results (p. 24). 95 ARSO, 1887, pt. 1, p. 30; ARSO, 1890, app. 7, p. 208. 96 ARSO, 1887, pt. 1, pp. 11-15. Due to the difficulties, the prediction period returned to twenty-four hours. Furthermore, in 1888 the number of daily forecasts was reduced from three to two. ARSO, 1888, p. 9, and ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, app. 3, p. 59. 97 Many of the larger newspapers provided local forecasts based on the information received from the Signal Corps. See ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, pp. 9 and 27, as well as Appendix 9, "Report of the Officer in Charge of the Stations Division," p. 133. 98 ARSO, 1888, app. 10, pp. 171-72. 99 ARSO, 1887, pt. 1, p. 19; ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, p. 129; ARSO, 1890, p. 15. 100 ARS0, 1887, pt. 1, p. 39. 101 ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, pp. 39-40; ARSO, 1890, app. 7, p. 211 and the report of Sgt. Park Morrill, in charge of the exhibit, at app. 23, pp. 683f. A fourth grand prize was awarded to the War Department for the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. 102 In 1887 Greely had recommended that the 125 enlisted men occupying clerical positions in the Washington office be converted to civilian status. This action would save the government the transportation expenses of moving soldiers from other posts to Washington and provide a more stable clerical force. ARSO, 1887, pt. 1, pp. 49-50; ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, p. 28. On the personnel reductions, see WDGO 59, 12 Aug 1886, and WDGO 79, 12 Oct 1888. 103 In 1887 he recommended a force consisting of 14 officers (1 chief signal officer, 1 major, 6 captains, 6 first lieutenants) and 225 enlisted men (25 first class observers, 100 second class observers, 50 corporals, and 50 privates). In his plan, the office would also include two professors and two junior professors. In 1888 he altered his recommendation by reducing the officers to twelve, eliminating a captain and a first lieutenant. He increased the office staff by adding a third assistant professor. ARSO, 1888, pp. 38-39. In 1889 he added a major to his projected officer corps and further reduced the enlisted strength to 50 first sergeants, 50 sergeants, 50 corporals, and 50 privates-for a total of 200. See ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, p. 41. 104 The authorizations for the Signal Corps' strength are provided in the following orders: WDGO 17, 20 Mar 1883; WDGO 70, 15 Jul 1884; WDGO 32, 20 Mar 1885; WDGO 59, 12 Aug 1886; WDGO 22, 15 Mar 1887; WDGO 79, 12 Oct 1888; WDGO 32, 29 Mar 1889. 105 ARSW, 1887, vol. 1, p. 33. 106 Whitnah, Weather Bureau, p. 58, and Darter, "Weather Service Activities," pp. xxxiii-xxxiv. 107 Darter, "Weather Service Activities," pp. xxxiv-xxxv. 108 WDGO 109, 12 Oct 1885. 109 ARSO, 1888, p. 7. 110 Army Regulations, 1889, secs. 1761 and 1762 (hereafter cited as AR). See also ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, app. 1, p. 52. 111 ARSO, 1891, app. 1, p. 37. 112 Timothy K. Nenninger, The Leavenworth Schools and the Old Army (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978): pp. 29-30. See also William H. Carter, "The Infantry and Cavalry School," Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States (hereafter cited as JMSI) 15 (Jul 1894): 752. 113 The report of the school commandant is published ARSW, 1892, vol. 1, pp. 137-42. See also ARSO, 1892, appendix C, p. 621, in ARSW, 1892, vol. 1. 114 ARSO, 1885, pt. 1, pp. 3-4; ARSO, 1887, pt. 1, app. 1. 115 ARSO, 1883, p. 1. 116 ARSO, 1889, pt. 1, app. 1, p. 45. 117 ARSO, 1891, app. 1, p. 42. 118 ARSO, 1887, pt. 1, pp. 5-6 and app. 1, p. 59. An electric signal lamp did not become standard equipment until World War I. 119 Scheips, "Myer," p. 618; ARSO, 1877, p. 3. 120 Miles claims in his Personal Recollections and Observations (Chicago: Werner and Co., 1896), p. 481, that he borrowed six heliographs from Chief Signal Officer Myer in 1878 to set up a line between Forts Keogh and Custer, Montana, but Myer never men tions this transaction in his annual reports. Miles also states (p. 402) that in the early 1880s he established heliographic communication between Vancouver Barracks, Washington, and Mount Hood, Oregon. See Roger E. Kelly, "Talking Mirrors at Fort Bowie: Military Heliograph Communication in the Southwest," manuscript prepared for the National Park Service, Chiricahua National Monument in January 1967, copy in author's files. Miles has no report in the ARSW for 1878 and he makes no mention of his use of the heliograph in his report the following year in ARSW, 1879, vol. 1, pp. 68-75. 121 Quotation from Miles' report to the Assistant Adjutant General, Division of the Pacific, dated 18 Sep 1886, in ARSW, 1886, vol. 1, p. 175. See also ARSO, 1886, app. 1, p. 34; report of 2d Lt. A. M. Fuller, acting chief signal officer during the Miles campaign, in Paul J. Scheips, comp., The Military Heliograph and Its Use in Arizona and New Mexico [Washington, D.C.: Signal Corps Historical Division, 1954], copy in CMH library. 122 Bruno Rolak in an essay, "The Heliograph in the Geronimo Campaign of 1886," in Military History of the Spanish-American Southwest: A Seminar (Fort Huachuca, Ariz., 1976), takes issue with Miles' claims for the heliograph and with those writers who accepted his statements. Rolak states that the heliograph did not play a crucial role in bringing about Geronimo's surrender, but it did provide an effective communications network over a vast territory of operations. This essay is a revised and expanded version of his article "General Miles' Mirrors: The Heliograph in the Geronimo Campaign of 1886," which appeared in The Journal of Arizona History 16 (Summer 1975): 145-60. According to another source, General Crook, rather than Miles, was the first to use heliographs during the Indian campaigns. See Tom Horn, Life of Tom Horn, Government Scout and Interpreter…; A Vindication (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), p. 128. 123 R. E. Thompson, "Instructions for the Use of the Service Heliograph," p. 11, published in WDGO 99, 15 Nov 1888. See also comments in ARSO, 1888, app. 1, pp. 43-47. 124 ARS0, 1890, pp. 4-5 and app. 1, pp. 40-41. 125 ARSO, 1882, pt. 1, app. 75, pp. 951-55. 126 ARS0, 1887, pt. 1, app. 1, p. 60; ARSO, 1888, p. 6 and app. 1; ARSO, 1891, app. 1, p. 42. 127 ARSO, 1878, p. 3. According to Capt. Charles E. Kilbourne, in charge of the Division of Military Signaling, fifty-nine of the ninety-nine garrisoned posts were equipped with telephones. ARSO, 1892, app. C, p. 621. 128 ARSO, 1883, p. 14. 129 See table of appropriations in ARSO, 1886 and 1887, pp. 7 and 8, respectively; ARSO, 1888, p. 7. 130 James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 20 vols. (New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., 1897-1914), 12: 5487. The previous calls for the transfer by Presidents Arthur and Cleveland are published in ibid., 10: 4637 and 11: 4934, respectively. 131 Among the civilians transferred to the Agriculture Department was Alexander Ashley, who had worked as a clerk in the signal office since the Civil War. Scheips, "Myer," p. 404. 132 WDGO 124, 17 Oct 1890; Whitnah, Weather Bureau, pp. 58-60. 133 Whitnah, Weather Bureau, ch. 4. Return to Chapter II Return to Table of Contents
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