Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/107

 The Signal Corps in the Confederate States Army. 101

through all these trying hours not an impatient or despondent word ever escaped him. If Mr. Davis ever knew when he was whipped he never let anyone else know that he knew it.

The secret cipher used by the Confederate States War Department was that known as the court cipher, and has been much used in diplomatic service. A key- word or phrase is agreed upon by the parties who intend to communicate in cipher. The message is writ- ten under the key. Suppose, for example, the key to be " In God we trust"; and the message, " Longstreet is marching on Fisher's Hill." It will be written thus:

InGodwetrustinGodwetrustinGodwetr Lon gs t reet is mar ch i ngonFish e r sHi 11

The alphabet is written out in a square, thus :

A

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ii

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The first letter in the key is "I," and the letter under it is " L." Take " I " in the top horizontal column and run down the " I " ver- tical column until it intersects the "L" horizontal column. The letter at the intersection is " T." This is substituted in the message for "L" in Longstreet. The other letters are converted in the same way, and the message will read thus :

Tbturpvxnalunxgklrzfhxbaukfvdmec

Sometimes the small words were run into the contiguous large ones, and sometimes no division into words is made, as in the above example. The last is the best plan. If the words are separated, or if a part of the message is written in plain language, a chance is