The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979 Page: 24
496 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
To Surgeon General Thomas Lawson he wrote that in accepting his
new appointment he simultaneously vacated his commission as an assis-
tant surgeon. He wanted, however, "to express the interest and Kind
regard I shall always feel for the [Medical] Corps, and to acknowledge
the uniform courtesy with which I have been treated while under Your
Command." Thus Myer ended his medical career, apparently without
regret but with elation at his new rank and future prospects. Why an
apparently able young doctor so quickly gave up the healing arts and
launched himself into a curious new endeavor of a purely military kind
remains something of a mystery. Probably, however, the answer lies
somewhere in the realms of ambition, personal taste, and the state of the
medical profession in the 185os.52
Major Myer had hardly tested his new system of signals for the first
time on an actual campaign (the Navajo Expedition of 186o-186i in
New Mexico) before the Civil War broke upon the nation. It was during
that great holocaust that he created the United States Army Signal
Corps.53
In the 1870s Myer used the Signal Corps, or the Signal Service as it
was known for many years, as the vehicle for his second great accom-
plishment, the development of the weather service, which upon its
transfer to the Department of Agriculture in 1891 became the United
States Weather Bureau. By the time of Myer's death on August 24, i88o,
his twenty-third wedding anniversary, the weather service was already
world renowned and Myer himself was known throughout the land as
"Old Probabilities" or "Old Probs" for short. 4 The proud and dig-
nified brigadier general and chief signal officer, now widely known, had
come a long way during the years since his antebellum adventures as a
young army doctor in Texas.
Buchanan and Secretary of War John B. Floyd signed Myer's commission as "Signal Officer
with the rank of Major" June 28, 186o. W. A. Nichols to Myer, June 3o, 186o, enclosing
commission of June 28 effectivee June 27, 186o).
52Myer to Lawson, July 1, 186o (quotation), Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Of-
ficer, Letters Sent, I, No. 1, RG 111, NA. On the matter of Myer and other physicians of
his dlay giving up medicine foi purely military pursuits, see Paul E. Steiner, Physician
Generals in the Civil ll'a A Sltudy in Nineteenh Mid-Cen1my American Mediczne
(Springfield, Illinois, 1966), 13, 83-87, 127. Steinei's biographical sketch of Myer contains
some inaccuracies
3PIaul .J Schcips, "I'n1ion .Sgn l Commuil I111( ll1 : In1noa110\ 11 , lllon (.O Co fl[." Ci'vil I( a1
Htstory, IX (Dec, 1963), 399-421.
a5On Myel and the weather service, see Paul J. Schcips, " 'Old Probabilities': A. J. Myer
and the Signal Corps Wceather Service," The A Iington Htiloi tual Magazzne, V (Oct, 1974),
29-43.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 82, July 1978 - April, 1979, periodical, 1978/1979; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101206/m1/44/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.