The steamboat Constitution in Boston Harbor, Harper’s Weekly, December 7, 1861. Author’s collection.

Thanks to artists in the field and the recent technology of the telegraph, readers across the country could stay on top of events happening in far-off places during the Civil War by reading newspapers and publications like Harper’s Weekly. During the war, President Lincoln slept in the telegraph office on occasion, enabling him to communicate with his officers in almost real time. The Constitution’s maiden voyage transported 3,000 troops, including the 26^th Massachusetts, to Ship Island off the coast of Biloxi, Mississippi. These soldiers were the first large Union force to land on the island that would be the jumping off point for seizing New Orleans.