For all their brilliance and determination in battle,

the South simply lackd the logisticsto deliver a decisive blow.

And it isn't simply rail.

Lincoln realizes that victory depends on mobilizing the entire industrial might of the North behind the war effort.

Production of clothing in the North doubles during the conflict.

Pitchfork manufacturers start making swords,

while the number of patents doubles in the course of the war.

Manufacturing, technology, infrastructure.

It will change the face of America.

For the first time in history,industry is put behind the war effort,

an approach to conflict that America will exploit in the First and Second World Wars.

It is the beginning of a new, integrated economy.

It will be the hallmark of the modern age.

In a building just across the road from the White House is a small room.

It will become Lincoln's nerve center in this war.

And at its heart, a simple device that will transform how this war is fought and won:the telegraph.

The invention of Morse Code in 1844 turns the telegraph into America's first tool of mass communication.

Quickly encoded, the basic system of dots and dashes is ideal for brief messages.

Like Twitter today,it needs just seconds to send them and transcribe them.

Where messengers previously took days on horse back, over hundreds of miles and across every kind of terrain,

now the country's 50,000 mile telegraph network means communication is almost instantaneous.

As telegraph poles snake out alongside the railroad lines,

this vast country begins to shrink.