Visualizing Francis H. Pierpont Telegrams
Introduction
In 1844 Samuel Morse sent the first telegraphic message from Washington, D. C. to Baltimore, Maryland. Using wire connecting the two locations and an alphabet of his own devising, Morse’s invention of the telegraph made it possible to communicate messages between two locations almost instantly. The practical applications of such a technology during the Civil War, where the speed of information transmission could mean the difference between life and death for West Virginian soldiers and the survival of fledgling West Virginia as a state is difficult to overstate. Suffice to say, Francis H. Pierpont, provisional governor of the western area of Virginia, was under no small amount of pressure.
The circa 850 telegrams in the West Virginia & Regional History Center’s collection convey the sometimes tumultuous and other times mundane logistics driven practice of governance and war in the soon-to-be state. Digitized in 2011, the telegrams include granular descriptions of each telegram including transcriptions of the sender name, sender location, recipient, recipient location, message sent, and date, each transcribed by archival staff. With more than 364 unique senders writing from more than 110 locations in 8 states, Civil War-era West Virginia was more connected than most would expect. This site has visualizations featuring the people, places, and networks created by the information found within the telegrams.
People
Governor Pierpont corresponded with hundreds of individuals. Below is a list of individuals with a bar coresponding to the number of times they sent telegrams to Governor Pierpont. Click the bar for the relevant individual to be taken to the original telegrams in the West Virginia & Regional History Center.
Places
Each pin on the map below represents a location from which a telegram was sent. The dispersion of pins demonstrates the surprising network of communication between the Loyal Government of Virginia, which remained within the Union, and other individuals for military and governance purposes.
Timeline
Telegrams in this collection were primarily sent between 1861 and 1863, with a smaller number sent in 1863 and only one from 1865.
| Year | Frequency | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1861 | 408 | 49.39% |
| 1862 | 311 | 37.65% |
| 1863 | 108 | 13.07% |
| 1865 | 1 | 0.1% |
Network
When examining a single telegram, it can be easy to forget that there are more than 850 more to read, creating a vast network of people and places that interacted with Governor Pierpont.
The Pierpont Network page has been linked separately as it will take a moment to load.