 Unlike semaphore flag signaling, which employed two flags, signal wig-wag required only one, using a binary code to represent each letter of the alphabet or digit.Myer was serving at Fort Duncan, Texas, in 1856 when he wrote to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and offered his signaling system to the War Department.Although the chief engineer of the Army, Colonel Joseph G. Totten, supported Myer's proposal, it did not include specific technical details and Davis rejected it.