William Norris ( Confederate signal officer ) William Norris Maryland was the Chief Signal Officer of the Confederate States Army and Chief of the Signal Bureau in Richmond . He is often confused with Dr . William S . Morris , president of the wartime Southern Telegraph Company . He is often referred to as Major , but he attained the rank of Colonel in the closing days of the war . Early life . William Norris was born December 6 , 1820 in Baltimore County , Maryland . He graduated from Yale College in 1840 at the age of nineteen and went to New Orleans to practice law . He headed to California during the 1849 Gold Rush . After his arrival he was appointed Judge Advocate to the United States Pacific Squadron . He sailed to Valparaíso , Chile in 1851 and on March 13 , 1851 , he married Ellen Lyles Hobson of Baltimore , a daughter of a former United States consul . After the wedding , Norris returned with his bride to the family estate , Brookland , near Reisterstown , northwest of Baltimore . He and his wife had a son , named Richard , in 1852 . In 1858 became the president of the Baltimore Mechanical Bakery , an ultramodern establishment on South Howard near Pratt Street . Civil War . In the winter of 1860 - 61 pro - Confederate sentiment was strong in Baltimore . On the 18th and 19 April 1861 , the Pratt Street Riot took place in Baltimore . Norris made no secret of his southern sympathies and with the outbreak of war he and his family left for Virginia . There he volunteered as a civilian aide on the staff of Brigadier General John Bankhead Magruder . After Magruder sent Norris to learn signals in Norfolk under Captain Milligan , Milligan gave Norris a book of his system of signals and On July 18 . 1861 , Magruder gived Norris authority to establish a system of signals on the Peninsula and across the James River . Norris set up a network which employed flags and colored balls raised on poles . Due to his efforts on the signal system Norris was commissioned as a captain . Norris also commanded the Secret Service Bureau , a unit within the Signal Corps . The Secret Service Bureau oversaw a communications network whose missions included the running of agents to and from Union territory and the forwarding of messages from Confederate officials in Richmond to contacts in Canada and Europe . William Norris finally achieved the rank of colonel on April 26 , 1865 and became the Commissioner of Exchange ( of prisoners of war ) replacing Colonel Robert Ould . Within a week Norris was in Union hands . Norris was held in detention in Richmond but eventually cleared of charge . On June 30 , 1865 Norris swore allegiance to the United States . After the war . Norris and his family returned to Brookline near Reisterstown . After the war Norris considered going to Chile to set up a signal corps for the military there . In 1866 Norris wrote a letter to the lawyer defending John H . Surratt from complicity in the Lincoln assassination . Norris absolved Surratt of any involvement and offered to testify in his behalf . In 1874 his eyewitness account of the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia battle was published in the Southern Magazine . Norris died of a stroke on December 29 , 1896 and is buried in the All Saints ’ Cemetery in Reisterstown , Maryland . Accessed October 11 , 2007 .