Masked Dispatches: Cryptograms and Cryptology in American History, 1775-1900

Chapter 23. U.S. Military Cryptography in the Late Nineteenth Century

David W. Gaddy

The restoration of peace removed whatever impetus to further advancement in cryptology that might have existed in 1865. The vast military machine of the Union contracted swiftly. Other than residual concern about French intentions in Mexico, there was little or no external threat to stimulate thought of such arcane technical matters: The greatly reduced army was stationed in the South as occupation forces, or on remote western posts to cope with the Indians, The wartime U.S. Military Telegraph (USMT) was dissolved soon after Appomattox, and shortly thereafter its wartime rival, the Signal Corps (reduced to a shadow of its wartime strength), finally gained control ...