Near daily manuscript entries on the pages of an 1863 Pocket Diary, published by Denton and Wood. 10x16 cm (4x6¼") full black leather with attached wrap-around wallet and flap, edges gilt.
Original Civil War manuscript diary kept by President Abraham Lincoln's close confidant and "Master of the Military Telegraph" Thomas T. Eckert. All entries are in Eckert's hand and chronicle his daily life in Washington, D.C., and on various trips he took on behalf of the War Department in 1863. During the course of the war Eckert rose through the ranks, eventually receiving a brevet to brigadier general of volunteers in 1865. Edwin Stanton appointed him Assistant Secretary of War in 1866.
The year 1863 was a notable one for Eckert. As his friendship with the President deepened and his telegraphing job responsibilities expanded, Eckert was appointed the head of the Washington, D.C. office, as Assistant Quartermaster of U.S. Army and Assistant Superintendent of the U.S. Military Telegraph. Entries here include his move into a new house in the Spring of 1863 when he received his appointment, dealings with photographer Matthew Brady including his own likeness sitting for the famous Civil War photographer, various trips pertaining to his work with the War Department to cities such as New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, family gatherings including a steamer trip, a visit to the Russian Fleet which helped to deter Britain and France from entering the war on the Confederate side, theater tickets, etc. Also numerous entries pertaining to "Emma" (Eckert's wife Emma D.
Whitney), medical expenses and services rendered, cigar purchases for the cigar-chomping Eckert, etc.
President Abraham Lincoln trusted Eckert to such a great extent that he asked Ekert to accompany him to Ford's Theater on the night of his assassination. Like Lincoln, Eckert was an avid fan of the theater as evidenced by various entries in the present diary for theater tickets. Unlike Lincoln and Eckert, Secretary of War Stanton considered theater a frivolous waste of time and forbade Eckert from accompanying Lincoln to Ford's Theater on that fateful night. Stanton claimed Eckert had an important work-related task for him to perform that night, when in fact this was not true. As a result of Stanton's urging, Eckert famously spent the evening at home rather than at the president's side, giving rise to endless conspiracy theories.
While managing a gold mine in North Carolina in 1861, Eckert was accused of being a Northern spy. When his case was heard before a judge, he was acquitted due to a lack of evidence and quickly fled with his family back north to Cleveland. As a result of his experience, Eckert telegraphed Assistant Secretary of War Thomas A.
Scott upon his arrival in Cleveland that his services were available to the Union. Because Eckert possessed considerable telegraph expertise, he was summoned to Washington D.C. and assigned to General George B. McClellan's headquarters as captain and aide-de-camp in charge of military telegraph operations. He would accompany Gen. McClellan on the Peninsula Campaign as superintendent of the military telegraph for the Department of the Potomac.
Eckert's service on the battlefield came to a halt in September 1862 when was sent back to Washington D.C. to head up the War Department's military telegraph (a position he held until 1866) with the associated rank of major. Eckert and fellow telegraphers Charles A. Tinker and Albert Brown Chandler would soon devise ciphers that enabled them to send and receive secret messages. The three men, and Eckert in particular, became confidential telegraphers for Edwin Stanton and Abraham Lincoln. Eckert was highly respected by Secretary of War Stanton and President Lincoln and they charged him with important missions that went well beyond his formal duties as a telegrapher.
President Lincoln frequently visited the Telegraph Office to send and receive messages, as it was not a far walk from the White House. As a result, Eckert became very close with the president. Eckert's role expanded from simply managing the telegraphic staff and office operations to becoming extensively involved in intelligence gathering, including the monitoring of Confederate wires and newspapers. In August 1864, he was an integral part of a complex covert operation that thwarted a Confederate plot to set fire to more than a dozen sites in New York, and later was involved in monitoring Confederate activities in Canada.