Throughout the Civil War the telegraph was used for strategic and tactical reasons. This new war-time technology changed the way in which the battles were organized and laid the foundation for today's strategies. One very real problem with the telegraph was that it could be easily "tapped" and the enemy could listen to messages. A common solution was to encrypt these messages using the Vigerere system of poly-alphabetic substitution. In this system a message is sent in plain text with a key word which will allow the decoding of the message using a simple cipher wheel or reel much the same way decoder rings work.
Unfortunately most example of these wheels or reels used during the Civil War were lost and destroyed. One notable exception is the Confederate Cipher Reel which was captured in Mobile, Alabama and sent to the chief signal officer in Washington as a trophy. The wheel dates back to 1863 or 1864 and is a rare example from that time of the mechanization of a code system. Currently the cipher is open to public viewing in the National Cryptologic Museum in Fort Meade, MD.
-Professor Walter
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