Abstract
The nineteenth century marked the beginning of the use of technology in many areas, and cryptology was no exception. The invention of the telegraph and its rapid and easy communication ushered in the twilight of traditional forms of cryptography. It also marked the beginning of a century and a half of rapid development of new techniques in both cryptography and cryptanalysis, all starting during the American Civil War. This chapter looks at the cipher systems used by both the Union and Confederate sides during the American Civil War. It also presents a description of the biggest cryptanalytic breakthrough of the nineteenth century, the breaking of the unbreakable cipher, the Vigenère.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
http://distantwriting.co.uk/telegraphwar.html (Retrieved 13 January 2018).
- 2.
Java programs to compute the Vigenère keyword length and to find the keyword are available at https://www.johnfdooley.com
References
Assarpour, Ali, and Kent D. Boklan. 2010. How We Broke the Union Code (148 Years Too Late). Cryptologia 34 (3): 200–210.
Barker, Wayne G. 1978. The History of Codes and Ciphers in the United States Prior to World War I, ed. Wayne G. Barker, vol. 20. Laguna Hills: Aegean Park Press.
Barr, Thomas H. 2002. Invitation to Cryptology. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Barr, Thomas H., and Andrew J. Simoson. 2015. Twisting the Keyword Length from a Vigenère Cipher. Cryptologia 39 (4): 335–341. https://doi.org/10.1080/01611194.2014.988365.
Bauer, Craig P. 2013. Secret History: The Story of Cryptology. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Boklan, Kent D. 2006. How I Broke the Confederate Code (137 Years Too Late). Cryptologia 30 (4): 340–345.
Chambers, Robert W. 1906. The Tracer of Lost Persons. New York: Appleton and Company.
Friedman, William F. 1922. The Index of Coincidence and Its Application to Cryptography. Geneva: Riverbank Laboratories.
———. 2006. The Friedman Legacy: A Tribute to William and Elizebeth Friedman, Sources in Cryptologic History, #3. Ft. George Meade: National Security Agency: Center for Cryptologic History.
Gaddy, David W. 1992. Rochford’s Cipher: A Discovery in Confederate Cryptography. Cryptologia 16 (4): 347–362. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161-119291867008.
———. 1993. Internal Struggle: The Civil War. In Masked Dispatches: Cryptograms and Cryptology in American History, 1775–1900, ed. Ralph Edward Weber, vol. 1, 105–120. Ft. Meade: Center for Cryptologic History, National Security Agency.
Jones, Terry L. 2013. The Codes of War. New York Times, March 14, 2013, online edition, Opinion.
Kahn, David. 1967. The Codebreakers; The Story of Secret Writing. New York: Macmillan.
Singh, Simon. 1999. The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography. New York: Doubleday.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dooley, J.F. (2018). Crypto Goes to War: The American Civil War 1861–1865. In: History of Cryptography and Cryptanalysis. History of Computing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90443-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90443-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90442-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90443-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)