The grind of war continues this week 150 years ago in the Civil War as a contingent of 3,000 Confederate fighters overrun a 1,000-man Union force at Front Royal in northern Virginia in a battle fought May 23, 1862.The nation is divided by war but now is linked at last from coast to coast by a transcontinental telegraph this week in 1861.
For some time, the telegraph extended from the Eastern seaboard only as far as Nebraska, and extended from the California coast only to Nevada. But Western Union and allied companies succeed in the Herculean task of stringing the slender wire over deserts and mountains, linking East and West into a new dawn of instant communication.
It has been hard, dirty work for laborers who cut down whole forests to make stout telegraph poles, carting them in oxen-pulled wagons across rugged passes to be planted and strung with mile after mile of wire.
Now, both sides of the continent can instantly trade messages of battles lost and won, news large and small. One of the first messages sent announces to Oregon the death of its popular senator, Edward Baker, killed days earlier in fighting in Virginia.
The telegraph soon will revolutionize battlefield communications while allowing an uninterrupted conduit for the news dispatches of The Associated Press.
Also this week, a public referendum is held Oct. 24, 1861, as a majority in the future state of West Virginia votes for statehood. The intent is to break away from Virginia amid opposition to the Confederacy. In June 1863, West Virginia will become the 35th state, aligned with the North as war drags on.
