Join us at Harry’s Hofbrau in Redwood City on Tuesday, October 20. Harry’s opens at 11 am for cafeteria style lunch; our meeting will start promptly at 12 noon. See the MEETING INFO menu item for directions. This month’s topic is

Alice Mansell on “Civil War Telegraph: Technology and Use”

Alice Mansell will speak about the technology and use of telegraphs during the Civil War. The story of Abraham Lincoln haunting the telegraph station closest to the White House. How an expanding network of the Northern Army’s newly mobile telegraph operators transmitted steady news from battlefronts while the Confederate forces could rarely match their communications networking success. Finally, the cross country race to transmit by telegraph the Nevada State Constitution to Washington, D.C. just in time for the “Battle Born” Silver State to be admitted to the Union and thus, its citizens able to vote in the November 1864 election and its three new Electoral College voters able to vote for Lincoln.

Alice is a member of the Peninsula Civil War Roundtable and is Historian of the Los Altos Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.