 Field trials in February 1862 found that it worked satisfactorily over a test circuit of 2 miles of wire.A board of three signal officers recommended that such a train would be of great use as an auxiliary to permanent telegraph lines.For its first use in combat, during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, the Rogers train substituted a new telegraph instrument, the Beardslee Patent Magneto-Electric Field Telegraph Machine, invented by George W. Beardslee of New York.