Existing comment:
Signal Corps Member with Signal Flag
A New York infantry officer remembered being sent to Darnestown to attend a school of instruction: "The men had been selected with great care for their physical, as well as mental ability...Most of the Twenty-eighth will remember the 'Chestnut-tree station' on the Magruder farm near Darnestown, it was picturesque. The upper limbs sustained a platform for the man to wave his flag, while just underneath was the platform for the officer, who, with his glass, kept watch of the communicating station. These platforms were some forty or fifty feet above the ground and were reached by rustic ladders. This was the first line of signal stations established on the Potomac." |