Tag: Eckert (Thomas T.)

Wikipedia says: Thomas Thompson Eckert (23 April 1825 – 20 October 1910) was an officer in the U.S. Army, Chief of the War Department Telegraph Staff from 1862–1866, United States Assistant Secretary of War from 1865–1867 and an executive at Western Union.

…After arriving in Cleveland, Eckert telegraphed Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott that his services were available. Eckert was ordered to Washington D.C. and assigned to General George B. McClellan’s headquarters as captain and aide-de-camp in charge of military telegraph operations, and accompanied him on the Peninsula Campaign as superintendent of the military telegraph for the Department of the Potomac. His service on the battlefield did not last long because in September 1862 he was sent to Washington D.C. to organize and administer the War Department’s military telegraph (a position he held until 1866) with the rank of major. Eckert and fellow telegraphers Charles A. Tinker and Albert Brown Chandler devised ciphers that enabled them to send and receive secret messages, and they became confidential telegraphers for Edwin Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. Eckert was well respected by Secretary of War Stanton and President Lincoln for his organizational skills; they charged him with important missions that went beyond Eckert’s formal duties as a telegrapher. In 1864 Eckert was brevetted lieutenant colonel, and in 1865 he received brevets to colonel and brigadier general of volunteers. Later, Stanton went on to appoint him Assistant Secretary of War in 1866, a position Eckert held until 1867.