The Vigenère cipher is a method of encrypting alphabetic text where each letter of the plaintext is encoded with a different Caesar cipher, whose increment is determined by the corresponding letter of
The Vigenère cipher is named after Blaise de Vigenère (pictured), although Giovan Battista Bellaso had invented it before Vigenère described his autokey cipher.
Cryptographic slide rule used as a calculation aid by the Swiss Army between 1914 and 1940
Confederate cipher wheel, captured at the surrender of Mobile, Alabama, in May 1865 – National Cryptologic Museum
The Confederate States of America, also known as the Confederate States or the Confederacy, was a republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865, unrecognized as a sovereign nation by either
Vigenère cipher
…could occasionally break the cipher. The Vigenère cipher is simple enough to be a field cipher if it is used in conjunction with cipher disks. The Confederate States of America, for example, used a brass cipher disk to implement the Vigenère cipher during the American Civil War. The Confederacy's messages were far from secret…
The inauguration of Jefferson Davis in Montgomery, Alabama
Elias Boudinot, a Cherokee secessionist and Confederate Representative in the Indian Territory of present-day Oklahoma