Captain Samuel H. Beckwith (1840-6 December 1916) was telegraph and cipher officer to Ulysses S Grant. He was nicknamed "Grant's shadow" by other staff officers. Beckwith was the first to transmit news of John Wilkes Booth's whereabouts after Lincoln's assassination, leading to his capture.[1] Beckwith was also present as Grant's telegraph officer on Abraham Lincoln's visits.[2]
In Washington Lincoln used to daily visit the telegraph office, and cipher operator David Homer Bates was later to recall these visits, along with the testimony of Thomas T. Eckert, Charles A. Tinker, Albert B. Chandler, and Albert E. H. Johnson in Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (1907).[3]
In Lincoln, the character of the Washington war-room telegraph officer is credited as Grant's officer "Samuel Beckwith" but appears to be based on the memoirs of Washington cipher officer David Homer Bates.
References[]
- ↑ Congressional edition - Page 39 United States. Congress - 1866 "... General H. H. Wells, then under General Augur's command, George Cottingham and Alexander Lovett, detectives, and Samuel H. Beckwith, a telegraph operator, rendered important service leading to the arrest of Booth and Herold, and the .."
- ↑ David Homer Bates Lincoln in the Telegraph Office 1907- Page 65 Beckwith — Grant's cipher-operator — told the writer in November, 1906, that a few days after the President's arrival at Grant's headquarters, the flap of the telegraph tent was slowly turned back and there appeared at the opening ..."
- ↑ David Homer Bates Lincoln in the Telegraph Office: Recollections of the United States Military Telegraph Corps During the Civil War Page 8- 1995 "It was in the War Department telegraph office that Lincoln received from the writer's hands, on May 24, 1861, the ... the first authentic news of Booth's whereabouts should come from Grant's cipher-operator, Samuel H. Beckwith, who ... Thirty-six hours after Beckwith's despatch reached Washington the assassin was hunted down and shot.1 Lincoln's daily visits to the telegraph office were therefore greatly relished... He would there relax from the strain and care ever present at the White House, and while waiting for fresh despatches, ... his cabinet and his private secretaries, none were brought into closer or more confidential relations with Lincoln than the ... of those stirring scenes, namely: Thomas T. Eckert, Charles A. Tinker, Albert B. Chandler, and the writer— who served as cipher-operators in the War Department telegraph office — and Albert E. H. Johnson, custodian of military telegrams."
The original article can be found at Samuel Beckwith and the edit history here.