Confederate telegraph operator George A. “Lightning” Ellsworth was, by far, the best at his craft during the Civil War, consistently befuddling and outwitting his enemy counterparts and their Union generals.
Ellsworth was raised in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada, which is located on the northeast shore of Lake Ontario. His biographer said Ellsworth was totally “fascinated by the telegraph” and “as a young teenager, traveled to Washington, D.C., to study in Samuel Morse’s telegraphy school.”
Ellsworth found employment
as a commercial telegrapher in Lexington, Ky., when he became acquainted with
John Hunt Morgan, whose family owned and operated several sprawling horse
farms.
Morgan formed and funded the “Lexington Rifles” a pro-South militia in 1857, comprised of about 60 prominent businessmen and community leaders. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Morgan and his men formed the core of a highly effective Confederate calvary warfighting unit.
Morgan’s grand plan was “to
use the telegraph to spread disinformation” into Union territory. Realizing
that Ellsworth, though still in his teens, was perfect for the job, Morgan recruited
him to join his unit.
Ellsworth excelled as a telegrapher. Not only could he decode and read messages extremely quickly, he also could imitate the sending style of other telegraphers and he quickly mastered the “fist” of the Union telegraphers in Kentucky and Tennessee, wrote historian Dorris Alexander Brown.
“Ellsworth gained the nickname ‘Lightning’ in 1862 during Morgan’s first ‘Kentucky Raid,’ when he sat on a railroad cross tie in knee-deep water near Horse Cave, Ky., calmly tapping away at his telegraph key during a thunderstorm,” Brown said.
They made a good pair – thunder and lightning. Morgan was dubbed the “Thunderbolt of the Confederacy,” as he became legendary for rapid, hit-and-run raids, destroying railroads, capturing supplies and causing significant Union disruption.
Writing for the Civil War
Times, freelance journalist Eric Ethier tells the story of Gen. John Hunt
Morgan’s telegraph in 1862 from Somerset, Ky., to Union Gen. Jeremiah T. Boyle (shown below) in Louisville, Ky.
“Good morning, Jerry!
This telegraph is a great institution. You should destroy it, as it keeps me
too well posted. My friend Ellsworth has all of your dispatches…on file.”
Ethier said: “While Morgan was slashing through Kentucky that July, Ellsworth had been wreaking havoc on the wire.”
One anonymous historian posted online: “Ellsworth used the telegraph brilliantly to gather information and sow confusion in the enemy. He would learn the unique patterns of the enemy operators, then imitate them while sending false and misleading information to federal commanders about Morgan’s movements and the size of his force, sending them on wild goose chases or scurrying away in retreat.”
“After Morgan’s first raid, Ellsworth prepared an irreverent report detailing how he intercepted federal communications and how he deceived them with spurious messages.
The report was widely printed in newspapers in both the North and South as well as in Europe. The London Times declared Ellsworth’s activities to be “the most striking and important innovation of the war.”
Gen. Morgan was almost a folk hero, portrayed as an “ideal romantic Southern cavalryman.” His troops, numbering about 2,500 men, covered thousands of miles on horseback, slashing their way through rural parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio .
Morgan’s strikes
necessitated some 20,000 Union troops be detached from the front lines to guard
communication and supply lines.
He surrendered on July 26, 1863, to Gen. Edward H. Hobson near Salineville in Columbiana County in eastern Ohio.
Gen. Morgan and his officers were sent to the Ohio State
Penitentiary in Columbus.
Ellsworth managed to get away by swimming across the Ohio River.
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