Cardboard covered telegraphic ledgers of up to 400 pages had been stowed away by Thomas Eckert, a pioneering telegraph operator who ran the U.S. military’s telegraph office at the War Department in Washington from 1863 to 1867. (Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times)
David Zeidberg, director of the Huntington’s library division, said the telegram texts’ scholarly value could be enhanced through digital archiving. (Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times)
Olga Tsapina, a history curator who will be cataloging the logs, points to Abraham Lincoln’s code name, “Ida,” in a log listing code names for members of government. (Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times)