America was on the verge of civil war and needed a reliable connection between the North and South. On the telegraph market of the USA at this time were operated with six large companies: American Telegraph Company, New York Albany and Buffalo Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph, Illinois & Mississippi Telegraph Company, New Orleans & Ohio Telegraph Company, and the brainchild of Sibley & Co. - The Western Union Telegraph. Leaving the idea of expansion into Europe, Western Union took up the expansion of services in the U.S. market. Western Union made so that the time in all of American civil services was the same. Sibley, the founder of Western Union, did not build a new telegraph lines, and persuaded the other players to join. American Telegraph Company, however, still had to buy it.