Launching the Buoy from the Bow of the Great Eastern on August 8th, 1865

One of the 19th century's great technological achievements was to lay a telegraphic cable beneath the Atlantic, allowing messages to speed back and forth between North America and Europe in minutes, rather than ten or twelve days by steamer. An initially successful attempt in 1858, led by Cyrus W. Field and financed by the Atlantic Telegraph Company, failed after three weeks. Two working cables were finally laid in July and September 1866, the result of repeated efforts by the indefatigable Field, a cadre of engineers, technicians, and sailors, two groups of financial backers, and significant help from the British and United States navies. Dudley documented the process in a series of watercolors and oils, this example showing the Great Eastern launching a buoy to mark the position of the cable broken and lost on August 2, 1865, six hundred miles from Newfoundland. Retrieval proved elusive in 1865, but the ship managed to grapple and raise the cable in 1866, and lay it on to Canada. In 1892 Field donated art works by Dudley, commemorative medals, memorabilia, and specimens of cable to the Museum.