10/10/2025

Telegraph Operator Leaked Union Commander's Name in US Civil War?

Ciphers in newspapers clippings in the papers of mathematican Charles Babbage are presented in my new article "Charles Babbage's Clippings of Newspaper Ciphers". Only one among the twelve remains unsolved, in which only the name of a brigade commander appears to be in cipher:
THE COMING MAN. - The New York Tribune states that a telegram was recently despatched to the Federal army directing to whom the command of a brigade was to be intrusted, and that the operator at the telegraph station declared the person selected to be Amjyrdkowasejow Deabxpeop. [annotated "Times Tuesday 13 Jan 1863"]
Did the telegraph operator leak the name? Could it be so important information to be carried in a newspaper in London?

(Edit: After first uploading this, I added one unsolved ciphertext from Evening Standard, 12 February 1870, seemingly in a simple substitution cipher.)

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