Colonel Taliaferro Preston Shaffner (1811 in Smithfield, Virginia – December 11, 1881 in Troy, New York) was an American inventor and entrepreneur who promoted

telegraphy Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...

during its infancy. An associate of

Samuel Morse Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After establishing his reputation as a portrait painter, Morse, in his middle age, contributed to the invention of a Electrical telegraph#Morse ...

, Shaffner published ''Shaffner's Telegraph Companion,'' a monthly journal devoted to Morse's telegraphy, from 1854 to 1855. The ''Companion'' published articles on the history, theory, and practice of telegraphy, as well as

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

opinions regarding Morse's patent disputes over the telegraph and Morse's own legal deposition regarding his claim to priority. In 1851, Shaffner built a telegraph line from

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

Jefferson City Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Missouri. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 United States census, ranking as the List of cities in Missouri, 16th most popu ...

. Later, he organized the North Atlantic Telegraph Company, which projected building a line from

Labrador Labrador () is a geographic and cultural region within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the primarily continental portion of the province and constitutes 71% of the province's area but is home to only 6% of its populatio ...

to England through

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

, Iceland, and the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ) (alt. the Faroes) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a populat ...

. An advantage of Shaffner's proposal was that none of its segments extended below water for more than 800 miles. The British government took some interest in the project, but doubts about the long cable's feasibility undermined its funding, and the line was never built. Shaffner was chiefly

self-taught Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education (also self-learning, self-study and self-teaching) is the practice of education without the guidance of schoolmasters (i.e., teachers, professors, institutions). Overview Autodi ...

. He studied law and was admitted to the bar but mainly pursued inventing. Shaffner invented several methods of blasting with

nitroglycerine Nitroglycerin (NG) (alternative spelling nitroglycerine), also known as trinitroglycerol (TNG), nitro, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), or 1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, is a dense, colorless or pale yellow, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by ...

and other high explosives for which he received twelve patents. In 1864, he served

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

in the

Second Schleswig War The Second Schleswig War (; or German Danish War), also sometimes known as the Dano-Prussian War or Prusso-Danish War, was the second military conflict over the Schleswig–Holstein question of the nineteenth century. The war began on 1 Februar ...

. He wrote histories of the

United States Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded ...

and was active in the

Independent Order of Odd Fellows The Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) is a non-political, non-sectarian international fraternal order of Odd Fellowship. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Wildey in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Evolving from the Odd Fellows, Order ...

External links

Shaffner's books and journals:
''Shaffner's Telegraph Companion, Vol. 1–2''
(1854–1855)
''The Telegraph Manual: A Complete History and Description of the Semaphoric, Electric and Magnetic Telegraphs of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, Ancient and Modern''
(1859)
''The War in America: being an Historical and Political Account of the Southern and Northern States: showing the Origin and Cause of the Present Secession War''
(1862)
''The Illustrated Record of the International Exhibition of the Industrial Arts and Manufactures, and the Fine Arts, of All Nations, in 1862''
co-authored with Rev. William Owen (1862)
''History of the United States of America: from the Earliest Period to the Present Time''
(1863)

References

''This article incorporates facts obtained courtesy of th
Signal Corps Association (1860–1865)
'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Shaffner, Taliaferro Preston 1811 births 1881 deaths 19th-century American inventors