Army Signal Corps

Created in 1860, when the Army adopted Maj. Albert Myer's visual communications system. In 1863, Congress authorized the regular Signal Corps for the remainder of the Civil War. In addition to visual signaling, the Corps became responsible for the electric telegraph in 1867, and, in 1870, was authorized by Congress to establish a national weather service. By 1907, an Aeronautical Division had been established under the command of the Chief Signal Officer, and the Corps assumed responsibility for Army aviation until 1918, when it became the Army Air Service. Numerous technological innovations in radio and telegraph communications came out of the Corps's laboratories at Fort Monmouth in the early years of the twentieth century, and the Corps remains the “information manager” of the U.S. Army.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.