Williams College does not require a writing supplement. However, students may submit an example of their academic writing if they choose.
If you are interested in submitting an example of your academic writing, you may share a 3-5 page paper (excluding citations) written in the last year. The paper may be creative or analytical, can cover any topic, and need not be graded. Please include a description of the assignment or prompt and do not submit lab reports.
The Silent Conductor: How the U.S. Military Telegraph Reshaped Command and Control in the Civil War
The American Civil War is often remembered as a brutal collision of old tactics and new, deadly weaponry. While the rifled musket and ironclad warship rightfully receive attention for their transformative impact on the battlefield, a quieter, less visible technology played an equally crucial role in shaping the Union's strategic conduct: the electric telegraph. Though both sides used it, the Union’s systematic development and integration of the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps created a nervous system for its war effort, fundamentally altering the nature of command and control. It enabled President Lincoln and his high command to exert an unprecedented level of centralized authority, accelerated the pace of strategic decision-making, and provided a critical advantage in logistical coordination that the Confederacy could not match.
Before the Civil War, military command was a slow and decentralized affair. Generals in the field operated with broad autonomy, their actions dictated by instructions that were often weeks old. Communication relied on the speed of a horse or a locomotive. The telegraph collapsed these vast distances. For the first time in the history of warfare, a head of state could communicate in near-real-time with commanders hundreds of miles away. President Lincoln famously spent countless hours in the War Department’s telegraph office, a small room that became the strategic heart of the Union war effort. From this hub, he could monitor battlefield developments, question his generals’ decisions, and issue direct orders. This ability to gather information and project authority was a radical shift. For example, during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, Lincoln used the telegraph to constantly query General McClellan about his troop movements and tactical plans, a level of executive oversight that would have been impossible just a decade earlier. While this sometimes led to friction, it ensured that the military campaigns remained aligned with the administration's broader political objectives.
In conclusion, the electric telegraph was more than just a tool for sending messages; it was a revolutionary instrument of power. By creating the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps, the Union government built a sophisticated network that enabled a new level of centralized command, rapid strategic deployment, and intelligence gathering. It allowed President Lincoln to function as a true commander-in-chief, transformed logistics from a slow-moving art into a calculated science, and gave Union forces a decisive informational edge. The Union’s mastery of this silent conductor was a critical, if often overlooked, factor in its ultimate victory.
The Unlit Rooms: Darkness and Willful Ignorance in The Remains of the Day
In Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, the narrator, a butler named Stevens, embarks on a motoring trip through the English countryside, a physical journey that mirrors his own internal excavation of the past. As he reflects on his decades of service at Darlington Hall, his narrative is haunted by a pervasive motif of darkness, shadows, and unlit spaces. These are not merely descriptive details of a grand English house; they are powerful symbols of Stevens’s own willful ignorance and self-deception. The unlit rooms of Darlington Hall represent the areas of his own memory and morality that he refuses to illuminate, allowing him to preserve a carefully constructed identity built on a flawed notion of dignity. Through this recurring motif, Ishiguro argues that self-deception is not a passive state, but an active, ongoing process of choosing darkness over light.
This connection between darkness and willful ignorance is most powerfully illustrated in the episode involving the two Jewish maids. On Lord Darlington’s orders, Stevens is tasked with dismissing them from their positions, a clear act of antisemitic persecution. It is a moment of profound moral failure, yet Stevens recounts it with a chilling detachment. He frames his actions entirely in the context of professional duty. When Miss Kenton, the housekeeper, confronts him, challenging the injustice of the decision, she does so in a brightly lit room, symbolically trying to force him into the light of moral clarity. Stevens, however, retreats into the "shadows" of his professional role, refusing to engage with the human cost of his actions. He chooses the darkness of his butler’s pantry, a space of order and routine, over the uncomfortable glare of moral responsibility.
Ultimately, the unlit rooms of Darlington Hall are a powerful symbol of Stevens’s tragic flaw. His lifelong pursuit of a narrow, professional "dignity" requires him to actively choose darkness over light, ignorance over awareness, and duty over humanity. Ishiguro masterfully uses this motif to show that Stevens’s identity is not something he has, but something he does. It is a performance that requires constant maintenance, a relentless drawing of the curtains on any reality that might threaten his carefully constructed sense of self. The tragedy of the novel is not that Stevens was unaware of the moral and emotional truths of his life, but that he saw them, and chose to turn off the lights.
All the best!
