Marcus F. Wright's Civil War Bios -  General Albert J. Myer

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                                    MYER
   p.136 e
   MYER, GENERAL ALBERT J., born in Newburgh, N. Y., September 20, 1827;
   died in Buffalo, N. Y., August 24, 1880. He was graduated at Hobart
   College in 1847, and at Buffalo Medical College in 1851. In September,
   1854, he entered the United States Army as assistant surgeon and was
   assigned to duty in Texas. While so engaged he devised a systemof army
   signals with flags and torches for day and night, by means of which
   messages could be sent as fully and accurately as with the electric
   telegraph, though less rapidly. In 1858-60, he held command of the
   Signal Corps, and was engaged in perfecting his system. He was
   commissioned major in 1860, and made chief signal officer of the
   United States Army. His first field work with the new signal code was
   in New Mexico, but at the beginning of the Civil War he was ordered to
   Washington and assigned to duty in the Army of the Potomac. Throughout
   the Peninsular Campaign he served as chief signal officer to General
   George B. McClellan, participating in all of the battles from Bull Run
   to Antietam. he then returned to Washington, when he took charge of
   the United States Signal Office, on March 3, 1863, with the rank of
   colonel. At this time he introduced the study of military signals at
   the United States Military Academy and was a member of the central
   board of examination for admission to the United States Signal Corps.
   In December, 1863, he was assigned to reconnoissance on the
   Mississippi River, between Cairo, Ill., and Memphis, Tenn., and later
   he became chief signal officer of the military divisions of West
   Mississippi, under General Edward R. S. Canby, by whom he was
   commissioned to arrange the terms of surrender of Fort Gaines. He was
   relieved of his command at this time by the Secretary of War on the
   ground that his appointment had not been confirmed, and his
   appointment of chief signal officer was revoked on July 21, 1864; but
   he was brevetted brigadier general on March 13, 1865. After his
   removal from the army he settled in Buffalo, and there devoted his
   time to the preparation of a "Manual of Signals for the United States
   Army and Navy, New York, 1868". He was reappointed colonel and chief
   signal officer, on July 18, 1866. An Act of Congress, approved
   February 9, 1870, authorized provision for taking meteorological
   observations at the military stations in the Interior of the Continent
   and at other points in the States and Territories of the United
   States, and for giving notice on the northern lakes and seaboard by
   telegraph and signals of the approach and force of storms; and the
   execution of this duty was confided to General Myer, as he had been
   interested previously in the subject of storm telegraphy. The
   preparatory work of organization was prosecuted with energy.
   Arrangements were made with the telegraph companies for transmitting
   the observations, and on November 1, 1870, at 7:35 A.M., the first
   systematized simultaneous meteorological observationsthat were taken
   in the United States were read from the instruments at twenty-four
   stations and placed on the telegraph wires for transmission.On the
   first day of the report weather bulletins were posted at each one of
   the twenty-four stations, and the practical working of the scheme was
   assured. The work of the weather bureau soon became popular and was
   rapidly extended. It had increased, at the date of General Myer's
   death, to more than three hundred stations, with a force of five
   hundred men. In 1873General Myer represented the United States at the
   International Congress of Meteorologists in Vienna. On July 1, 1875,
   the Signal Service Bureau began the publication of a daily
   "International Bulletin", comprising the reports from all co-operating
   stations, and on July 1, 1878, this was supplemented with a daily
   international chart. In 1879 he was a delegate to the Meteorological
   Congress at Rome. He was promoted brigadier general on June 16, 1880,
   as a special reward of Congress for his services in the line of his
   profession.