News Fit To Print : The Birth Of War Reporting

George Washburn joined the New York Tribune as a rookie reporter soon after the American Civil War broke out in 1861.

He was assigned to follow the Union army’s commander, General George McClellan, to assess his ability to prevent the Rebel army under Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson from rampaging in Maryland and occupying the capital, Washington.

After scrapes and scraps at the bloody Battle of Antietam, Washburn rides horseback, train and ferry to New York to deliver his account of the action, his assessment of the generals and his analyses of whether the state of the conflict will allow President Lincoln to add freedom for slaves to his war aims. The Civil War created immense thirst for news which was eagerly satisfied by newspaper proprietors already engaged in circulation wars.

Larger and faster presses printed millions of papers and illustrated weeklies for millions of literate Americans and their armies on the move.

Railroads and their accompanying electric telegraphs spread news – and fake news - across the continent.

The Tribune published Washburn’s scoop in a special edition on Saturday 20 September 1862, two and a half days after the battle ended.

It was syndicated to 180 papers across the world. That night George Washburn, the Father of War Reporters, celebrated with his fellow correspondents, the self-styled Bohemians, in their favorite watering hole at Pfaff’ Cave under Broadway – in the arms of Ida Godiva, the bareback rider from Vaudeville.