This photograph, taken at Wilcox Landing, near City Point, gives an
excellent idea of the difficulties under which telegraphing was done at
the front or on the march. With a tent-fly for shelter and a hard-tack box
for a table, the resourceful operator mounted his "relay," tested his
wire, and brought the commanding general into direct communication with
separated brigades or divisions. The U. S. Military Telegraph Corps,
through its Superintendent of Construction, Dennis Doren, kept Meade and
both wings of his army in communication from the crossing of the Rapidan
in May, 1864, till the siege of Petersburg. Over this field-line Grant
received daily reports from four separate armies, numbering a quarter of a
million men, and replied with daily directions for their operations over
an area of seven hundred and fifty thousand square miles. Though every
corps of Meade's army moved daily, Doren kept them in touch with
headquarters. The field-line was built of seven twisted, rubber-coated
wires which were hastily strung on trees or fences.