SKETCH OF GENERAL ALBERT J. MYER. 409 



of the army. During the remainder of this year and until May, 1861, 

 he was ordered to New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains by Secretary 

 Floyd, for the purpose of giving his corps an opportunity to have actual 

 practice in the field. On the breaking out of the war. Major Myer 

 identified himself with the Union army. One of his lieutenants went 

 over to the other side and succeeded in creating no little confusion, 

 for with him he took a knowledge of the signal-service system, and it 

 was not long before each army was able to read the signals of the 

 other, so that constant changes in the key became necessary. He next 

 served on General Butler's staff, at Fortress Monroe, and was General 

 McClellan's chief signal-officer during the entire Peninsular campaign. 

 In November, 1862, he took charge of the Signal-Office at Washington, 

 Here he performed service which compelled recognition and remunera- 

 tion at the hands of the Government, however unwillingly tendered, 

 and he was brevetted as lieutenant-colonel for services at Hanover 

 Court-House, colonel for services at Malvern Hill, and brigadier-gen- 

 eral for " distinguished services in organizing, instructing, and com- 

 manding the Signal Corps of the army, and for its especial service 

 October 5, 1864," when, by timely signals, were saved the post and 

 garrison of Allatoona, Georgia. 



It is said that General Myer was a strict disciplinarian, and exact- 

 ing to the degree of intolerance. He had indomitable firmness, and it 

 is possible that these traits of character may have been the causes 

 why the overbearing Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, took a dislike to 

 him. But, whatever the causes, the Secretary's hatred took a violent 

 form. When Myer was with Farragut before Mobile, he received an 

 order, signed by Stanton, informing him that he was dropped out of 

 the army on the ground that his appointment to the colonelcy had not 

 been confirmed. Myer then came on to Washington, took a house, 

 appealed to the Senators and Congressmen, and fought the matter out 

 till he was reestablished. At the close of the war Colonel Myer began 

 to turn his attention in the direction of meteorology, and to connect 

 that science with the art of army signaling. The Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution had entered upon a system of taking weather observations in 

 different parts of the country, and Colonel Myer began to work upon 

 this basis, and more completely to elaborate a method of forecasting 

 meteorological probabilities. 



"In 1868 General Meyer published a 'Manual of Signals for the 

 United States Army and Navy,' and about this time it was that his 

 field of labor began to broaden and tend upward. By virtue of an 

 act of Congress, approved February 9, 1870, he was charged with the 

 special duties of observing and giving notice by telegraph and signals 

 of the approach and force of storms on the Northern lakes and the sea- 

 coast, at military posts in the interior, and other points in the States 

 and Territories. He reorganized the meteorological division of the 

 Signal-Office in June, 1871. By an act approved March 3, 1873, he 



