The single-wire telegraph revolutionized long distance communication but it was not the brainchild of one inventor, Samuel Morse. His colleagues and employees--specifically Ezra Cornell and Joseph Henry--made crucial contributions.

Examining the careers of the three men and the key events, this book presents Morse as primarily a businessman and consolidator of ideas who, frequently in conflict with his associates, sought to present the telegraph as a uniform system under his sole imprimatur. The battle between Morse and Cornell over the invention of the magnetic relay was central to the drama.

What emerges is a complex portrait of three ambitious and brilliant innovators and the age in which they lived.