Thomas T. Eckert Papers

Thomas Thompson Eckert was born in 1825 in Ohio. Sometime in the 1840s or 1850s he married Emma Whitney, also of Ohio. The couple had two children. Eckert began his career in the telegraph industry at a young age. When the Civil War began, he served as head of the United States military telegraph in Ohio. He received several promotions to become superintendent of military telegraphs in the Department of the Potomac, general superintendent of military telegraphs in the War Department, breveted lieutenant-colonel, colonel, and brigadier-general of volunteers.



Throughout the Civil War, Eckert assisted Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and President Abraham Lincoln. He became an asset to them by 1865. Eckert's diary of that year records the Hampton Roads Conference and the night of Lincoln's assassination which he spent at the dying president's bedside.



In 1866, Eckert received his highest military position and became Assistant Secretary of War. He resigned from this position in 1867 but continued working in the telegraph industry in the private sector. At the height of his postwar career, Eckert served as president of the Western Union Telegraph Company and chaired the company's board of directors.



He retired shortly before his death in 1910. Today, Eckert is remembered for his Civil War service and his effectiveness in organizing the telegraph industry in business and government.



(Johnson, Allen and Dumas Malone, eds. Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 3, Cushman-Fraser. New York: Scribner, 1959).