Special Announcement! Digital images of the Morton telegrams are now available free of charge through the Digital Collections of IUPUI University Library.

The Indiana State Archives has completed a database indexing project for the telegraph records of Governor Oliver P.Morton, Indiana's Civil War governor. The database, comprising over twelve thousand separate entries, represents the telegraphic communications of Governor Morton, his personal staff, the Adjutant General of Indiana, and scores of correspondents, both prominent and obscure, who wired their queries, comments, and responses.

The original records are found in seventeen volumes of telegraph books of Governor Morton, three volumes of Adjutant General of Indiana despatches, and several thousand telegraph "slips" (the original sheets of paper sent from the telegraph office to the recipient). The slips, the original records from which the telegraph books were compiled by Morton's staff, were checked against the books. In this manner, redundancies were detected and unique despatches identified for inclusion in the database.

The database is an important tool for studying the Civil War, and especially Indiana's role in the conflict. Governor Morton, outspoken and indefatigible in defense of the Union cause, was in constant communication with the nation's leadership. His communications back and forth with President Abraham Lincoln, Secretaries of War Cameron and Stanton and other cabinet officials, and the leading Union generals in the field (primarily in the western theaters of operations) form an important body of documentation of the northern war effort. The records have understandably an Indiana orientation, dealing with Indiana government issues, Indiana soldiers and politicians, Indiana military units, and other matters.

The database was created to facilitate access and research into the large body of telegraphic correspondence of Governor Morton and his staff at the Indiana State Archives. By consulting the database, the researcher may be able to find more quickly and easily references to specific persons, events or (primarily Indiana) regiments or batteries. These fields were used to construct the database:

• date
• correspondent (sender)
• correspondent (to)
• book
• page
• subject/name

A list of the subject terms is available to help focus patron searches. Please note that, in the interest of completing the project in a timely manner, only a limited number of fields were used. Consequently, certain general headings were used to describe the contents of the despatches, such as: Military; Supplies; Prisoners; Politics; Finance. A message might have one or more of these general headings in the subject fields, along with other subjects that give more detail. These are usually the name of a person or a unit designation referred to in the despatch.

For example, a message from an Indiana regimental officer reporting on a skirmish that regiment engaged in will be indexed as "Military" and "17th IVI [Indiana Volunteer Infantry regiment]"; if the despatch mentioned an officer by name, that name may be given. Another despatch, concerning politics and politicians in Indiana, may be indexed as "Politics" and "Colfax, Schuyler" (the name of a Indiana Congressman). Many despatches concern officers seeking promotion or recommending other officers for promotion. In these cases, as an example, the index gives "Military" and "4th Cav." [4th Cavalry, Indiana Volunteers regiment], the unit involved. Some wide-ranging despatches mention numerous subjects, persons and regiments, making it impossible to list all of them in the database entry for that despatch.

In all instances, the researcher will need to consult the original records for the full text of the messages. Accordingly, the Indiana State Archives' staff welcomes inquiries into the use of the telegraph correspondence of Governor Morton. Interested researchers should contact us prior to a visit for information on our hours, availability of these and other Civil War materials, copying fees, and other matters.

back to the Governor Morton Telegraph Books Index