Morse Code: The Secret language
Morse Code:The Secret Language Picture yourself in the mid 1820s where the only form of communication was by letter or by personal messenger. However, as everything seemed to fall into place during the industrial age of the 1840s, Samuel Finley Morse gave one the alternative to no longer have to use these options. He invented a way to represent letters and numbers by using short and long pulses that sent electrical signals to an operator. The telegraph, an invention also by Morse, allowed for the transmission of these complex messages across telegraph wires between stations. Morse sent the first message from Washington D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland on May 24, 1844. Morse Code changed the way we communicated in the Civil War, World War II and continues to influence us in the 21st century. The Civil War was a war that was changed drastically by the use of Morse Code. Both General Robert E. Lee and General Ulysses S. Grant used Morse Code to assist in the ways of communication. The Confederacy, however, thought it was more important to destroy the telegraph system, which transported the coded messages across, rather than use it to their advantage like the Union did. During the Civil War, “[c]oders had to have great auditory acuity, and memory abilities. The coded messages would have to be converted to complex ciphers” (Taylor par. 13). The ciphers helped in keeping the messages secret so the Confederacy could not decipher what the Union's plan of attack was, as well as so people on the Northern side knew what was going on. The Union won the war with the help of Morse Code because they were able to send information such as victories or death tolls, or the obvious tactics to aid in the next battle that approached them. Without Morse Code, the Civil War could have ended a completely different way. Among the many wars that Morse Code helped in, World War II was the most historically significant. During WWII, “Radio telegraphy using Morse code was vital during