Civil War Journalism

This book examines newspapers, magazines, photographs, illustrations, and editorial cartoons to tell the important story of journalism, documenting its role during the Civil War as well as the impact of the war on the press. Civil War Journalism presents a unique synthesis of the journalism of both the North and South during the war. It features a compelling cast of characters, including editors Horace Greeley and John M. Daniel, correspondents George Smalley and Peter W. Alexander, photographers Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner, and illustrators Alfred Waud and Thomas Nast. Written to appeal to those interested in the Civil War in general and in journalism specifically, as well as general readers, the work provides an introductory overview of journalism in the North and South on the eve of the Civil War. The following chapters examine reporting during the war, editorializing about the war, photographing and illustrating the war, censorship and government relations, and the impact of the war on the press.

"Bulla and Borchard have significantly expanded our understanding of the press, its impact, and its many roles during the Civil War. They shed light on politics, commerce, technology, public opinion, and censorship. Their book reminds us why the press matters most when a nation's fundamental freedoms are at stake."---Michael S. Sweeney, Author, The Military and the Press --Book Jacket.

Analyzes the various ways in which the nation's newspaper editors, reporters, and war correspondents covered the biggest story of their lives - the Civil War - and in doing so both reflected and shaped the responses of their readers. This book contains sections including Fighting Words, Confederates and Copperheads, and The Union Forever.

Words at War: The Civil War and American Journalism analyzes the various ways in which the nation's newspaper editors, reporters, and war correspondents covered the biggest story of their lives during the Civil War, and in doing so, they reflected and shaped the responses of their readers. The four sections of the book, "Fighting Words," "Confederates and Copperheads," "The Union Forever," and "Continuing Conflict" trace the evolving role of the press in the antebellum, wartime, and postwar periods.

This book examines newspapers, magazines, photographs, illustrations, and editorial cartoons to tell the important story of journalism, documenting its role during the Civil War as well as the impact of the war on the press. Civil War Journalism presents a unique synthesis of the journalism of both the North and South during the war. It features a compelling cast of characters, including editors Horace Greeley and John M. Daniel, correspondents George Smalley and Peter W. Alexander, photographers Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner, and illustrators Alfred Waud and Thomas Nast. Written to appeal to those interested in the Civil War in general and in journalism specifically, as well as general readers, the work provides an introductory overview of journalism in the North and South on the eve of the Civil War. The following chapters examine reporting during the war, editorializing about the war, photographing and illustrating the war, censorship and government relations, and the impact of the war on the press.

The power of the American press to influence and even set the political agenda is commonly associated with the rise of such press barons as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst at the turn of the century. The latter even took credit for instigating the Spanish-American War. Their power, however, had deeper roots in the journalistic culture of the nineteenth century, particularly in the social and political conflicts that climaxed with the Civil War. Until now historians have paid little attention to the role of the press in defining and disseminating the conflicting views of the North and the South in the decades leading up to the Civil War. In The Civil War and the Press historians, political scientists, and scholars of journalism measure the influence of the press, explore its diversity, and profile the prominent editors and publishers of the day. The book is divided into three sections covering the role of the press in the prewar years, throughout the conflict itself, and during the Reconstruction period. Part 1, "Setting the Agenda for Secession and War," considers the rise of the consumer society and the journalistic readership, the changing nature of editorial standards and practice, the issues of abolitionism, secession, and armed resistence as reflected in Northern and Southern newspapers, the reporting on John Brown's Harper's Ferry raid, and the influence of journalism on the 1860 election results. Part 2, "In Time of War," includes discussions of journalistic images and ideas of womanhood in the context of war, the political orientation of the Jewish press, the rise of illustrated periodicals, and issues of censorship and opposition journalism. The chapters in Part 3, "Reconstructing a Nation," detail the infiltration of the former Confederacy by hundreds of federally subsidized Republican newspapers, editorial reactions to the developing issue of voting rights for freed slaves, and the journalistic mythologization of Jesse James as a resister of Reconstruction laws and conquering Unionists. In tracing the confluence of journalism and politics from its source, this groundbreaking volume opens a wide variety of perspectives on a crucial period in American history while raising questions that remain pertainent to contemporary tensions between press power and government power. The Civil War and the Press will be essential reading for historians, media studies specialists, political scientists, and readers interested in the Civil War period.

WAR NEWS (originally published in 1999 as Blue & Gray in Black & White) is an exploration of the individual and collective efforts of newspaper journalists during the Civil War. As eyewitnesses to one of the most memorable conflicts in history, they left a record that is sometimes brilliant but, at other times, marred by shoddy journalism, sensationalism, and self-serving reporting. They were, however, the American public's primary source of information about the battles that were tearing the nation apart. This book focuses on the personalities, politics, and rivalries of editors; the efforts of newspapers to influence military appointments, strategy, and tactics; advances in printing technology; formal and informal censorship, the suppression of dissident newspapers, and, most of all, the war correspondents themselves.

A Press Divided provides new insights regarding the sharp political divisions that existed among the newspapers of the Civil War era. These newspapers were divided between North and South, and also divided within the North and South. These divisions reflected and exacerbated the conflicts in political thought that caused the Civil War and the political and ideological battles within the Union and the Confederacy about how to pursue the war. In the North, dissenting voices alarmed the Lincoln administration to such a degree that draconian measures were taken to suppress dissenting newspapers and editors, while in the South, the Confederate government held to its fundamental belief in freedom of speech and was more tolerant of political attacks in the press. This volume consists of eighteen chapters on subjects including newspaper coverage of the rise of Lincoln, press reports on George Armstrong Custer, Confederate women war correspondents, Civil War photojournalists, newspaper coverage of the Emancipation Proclamation, and the suppression of the dissident press. This book tells the story of a divided press before and during the Civil War, discussing the roles played by newspapers in splitting the nation, newspaper coverage of the war, and the responses by the Union and Confederate administrations to press criticism.