1866: The Great Eastern Lays the Cable That Stayed OCEAN CABLES | MORSE CODE WORKS Cyrus Field refused to quit. After the 1858 cable died and the American Civil War paused everything, he raised new money, ordered better cable, and chartered the only ship that could hold it all: the Great Eastern, a leviathan so oversized she had failed at everything except being enormous. In July 1866 she steamed slowly west from Ireland, paying out cable into the deep. This time the signals were clear and strong. Then the crew did something extraordinary: they found the cable lost in 1865, two miles down, spliced it, and gave the Atlantic two working lines. Key points - News between London and New York shrank from ten days to minutes - Early rates ran to about a hundred dollars for a short message - Heart's Content station stayed in service for a century - Field's persistence turned a stunt into permanent infrastructure Try it yourself Translate any text to Morse code and hear it with sound, free: Morse Code Works