Samuel Beckwith
Telegraph and cipher officer to Ulysses S. Grant. (1837-1916)
Captain Samuel H. Beckwith (December 18, 1837, December 6, 1916) was a telegraph and cipher officer to Ulysses S. Grant. He was nicknamed "Grant's Shadow" by other staff officers. Beckwith was the first to transmit news of John Wilkes Booth's whereabouts after Lincoln's assassination, leading to Booth's capture. Beckwith was also present as Grant's telegraph officer on Abraham Lincoln's visits.
In Washington, Lincoln used to daily visit the telegraph office, and cipher operator David Homer Bates was later to recall these visits, along with the testimony of Thomas T. Eckert, Charles A. Tinker, Albert B. Chandler, and Albert E. H. Johnson in Lincoln in the Telegraph Office (1907).
01Popular culture
In the 2012 film Lincoln, the character of the Washington war-room telegraph officer is credited as Grant's officer "Samuel Beckwith" but appears to be based on the memoirs of Washington cipher officer David Homer Bates. He was played by Adam Driver.
Beckwith is a point-of-view character in Winfield Taylor's 2026 alternative historical fiction novel, So Mad a Thought: A Lincoln and Grant Adventure.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Samuel Beckwith”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.