Booknotes

Mr. JAMES PERRY (Author, "A Bohemian Brigade"): Well, that's because the Civil War correspondents named themselves--called themselves the Bohemian Brigade. Th--that--they thought of that as sort of they were bohemians surrounded by professional soldiers. And they--they were a little mischievous, the--the Civil War correspondents, and they thought of themselves as a Bohemian Brigade. And in all their writing, they refer to themselves--they call themselves, `The bohemians did that. The bohemians did'--so it's a natural title for it.

Mr. PERRY: The jolly congress w--was a group of--of Europeans that came to cover the war, and th--two--two--two reporters and then a lot of professional soldiers that came to observe the war. And they--and--and they traveled around in a group, just like the people I'm talking about here, and they called themselves the jolly congress: one, The Times of London, The Illustrated London News and four or five soldiers over here to observe the war.

Mr. PERRY: Uh-oh.

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Well, it--my point in this book is--this all began here. This is where it began, in the Civil War, for--for two basic reasons. One was the telegraph, of course. This was the first instant-news war in history, and--and that wa--the--the--the problem is very much like the Internet today, when you think about it. They--they could file and--immediately, and--and it was the rush to get--be the first. They would take these immense, long rides across broken countryside on horseback to get to the nearest telegraph station, file it. Then the other was, of course, steam--steam powering the new presses, steam powering locomotives. You could get on a train and go back to your own office pretty quick--pretty quickly and file the story that way, if you couldn't get on the telegraph, and the Army wasn't too keen on--on--on making it--the telegraph easily available to reporters. They preferred to reserve it for themselves as much as possible.

Mr. PERRY: Oh, I said that just to--to cover myself, I think.

Mr. PERRY: Yes, I'm afraid so, probably. I mean, if you spend your--30 years with Jack Germond and Bob Novak, people like that, occasionally, you know, there are evenings which--nothing serious, though. We were all...

Mr. PERRY: We were all hard-working.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I worked--I worked for Dow Jones for--I started in '62 with the old National Observer--you may remember the old National Observer, weekly publication by Dow Jones--and when it--when it--when it went under, when it was closed down in 1977, I moved over to The Wall Street Journal, covering politics for the next 20-some years.

Mr. PERRY: Yeah, that was nice. That's...

Mr. PERRY: Well, it's--it's one of the few--few awards there are for a career in journalism. I mean, most awards, like the Pulitzer, are for individual stories or a series of--or--and this is for a th--th--in the--and--the--in honor of a--of an entire career. You ha--have to be--there aren't very many young men getting this award. This tends to be--I mean, David Broder's won it and Walter Cronkite and people like that.

Mr. PERRY: '97.

Mr. PERRY: I still do some work for them, though. I still occasionally do stories for The Journal.

Mr. PERRY: I like to think--I--I like to think, now that--yes, there's one I'd--I'd like to think of. His name is Charles Page, and he was a--he had a--an amazing man. He--he worked with the Treasury Department, and when his desk was cleared, he was allowed to take the field as a--as--as--as a war correspondent for the--for the New York Tribune, and he was very good. He was a wonderful fea--he was the best feature writer in the Civil War, I think. I'm the only one who's ever written a book about these correspondents who--who--who's been a reporter himself, so I think I get a better feel for who these people are. I know these--I know these characters--I mean, they're familiar to me.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I'd done an earlier book on military history, and I kept bumping into war correspondents in that, Richard Harding Davis and others, and--and the more I thought about it, the more I thought `Gee, I'd like to do a book about them.' And then it taunted me--it all began with the--the modern journalist as we know him today--began here in the Civil War, mostly with the North, though there were--there were Southern war correspondents as well, but we don't know much about them.

Mr. PERRY: Sherman hated this--hated--hated correspondents and actually court-martialed one of them, and what is today, you can--in all of history, it's the greatest challenge to freedom of the press, I suppose, particularly as far as war correspondents would go, that ever happened, tried him. The man could have been hung--Thomas Knox.

Mr. PERRY: Well, General--the--the--the press--one of the worst things the press does is pile on. You know, this is an old tradition of--and it's a--it's a bad one, of--of--of reporters getting together, ganging up and--and piling on, and they did this with Sherman. And the--they--they said he was insane. There--there is a--there is a piece that ran in the Cincinnati Commercial that--General William T. Sherman Insane, it says, the headline is, and it went on to say that--and, you know, he was a little bit crazy. He did have a history of--of serious--serious breakdowns, and he was having one at this point, but they all--they finally piled on him then, he had to go home, spent some time recuperating, came back, restored himself and was--performed very well at a number of battles.

But then--then there was a--there was a battle at Chickasaw Bluff or Chickasaw Bay, or up above Vicksburg, and--and it wasn't his fault that it turned into something of a disaster, but they all--a couple of the reporters particularly, I named--one of my favorites, actually, is Frank Wing--not Frank Wing, but Frank Wilke, and--and this guy Knox wrote stories, both--you could tell that they're colluding, because the stories are so similar. They start off by saying that--that Sherman and his officers have been rifling their mail. They're trying to s--a--and they had. Sherman's chief of staff named Hammond had been rifling their mail. And then they go on to say that--that--they go right--say right in the story, `If Sherman and his people spent more time fighting the Confederates and less time trying to--to make life miserable for journalists, he might have won that battle,' and it went on and on and on in that--then they finally concluded he was insane. They said he was insane again, the man's insane.

And it's--it's no wonder, at this point, that Sherman, who--who is not very pleased with them to begin with, begins to think the--`I--I'm not gonna be able to--I can't put up with this anymore. I'm just not gonna be able to do it.' So he actually had poor Knox arrested, and scared the poor man to death. He--he--he wrote a letter at one point and groveled to Sherman, saying he'd all--he'd been all wrong, but sorry about it, and he didn't talk to the right people, and--but the trial went ahead, full dress officers in complete uniforms, swords and sashes, general in command, and--and he was--he was mostly found not guilty of the charges, and Sherman was absolutely incensed, absolutely incensed. He wrote a wonderful letter, which I can find here in a minute, up--expressing his distaste for this--for this business, and he wrote one to Knox, who had asked to be reinstated, and he said, to come--`Come with us with a musket, come with us and join us in--in combat, come with us anywhere, but as a newspaper reporter, never.' And it's still one of the most stunning letters from a general to a reporter I've ever seen.

Mr. PERRY: Yeah.

Mr. PERRY: Well, right. They didn't have very much, and they--but they--they did tend--the Southern newspapers did tend, in the latter part of the war, to defe--depend on something called the Confederate Press Association, which--which supplied them with a very small amount of cable--telegraph news every day, maybe less than 1,000 words, which some of these Northern reporters would--they'd take that long to write their leads, probably, but...

Mr. PERRY: Well, the--no, it's almost impossible. It's hard to define just what a reporter was. I mean, there--some regiments would have an officer or somebody with them, sending material home to the local newspaper, and historians rely on those a lot, but I--I suppose for the North, if you wanted to--there were well over 200, surely.

Mr. PERRY: The South, maybe 50 to 75.

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Send rumors. They did a lot of that. They did a lot of that, and they--the--the--the competition was ferocious. You can remember how many newspapers there were. I mean, New York had 18 daily newspapers at this time, you know, and four or five of them were ser--seriously covered the war, mainly the--the--Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald and Henry J. Raymond's New York Times. New York World was--had some serious correspondents in the--in the field, and there--there were--they we so eager to get information, the telegraph made it so easy to do--when you can look right at the beginning of the--right at the beginning of the war, I have here--Bull Run, the f--Bull Run, The Great Union Defeat, and here's the headline in the New York Herald, The Great Battle, `Brilliant Union victory,' it says, `capture of Bull Run's batteries, the l--re--rebels routed and driven back to Manassas.' That's what happened in the morning. But they filed...

Mr. PERRY: ...they filed so quickly, that they didn't get into--they didn't--they didn't get what happened later in the day. The Washington Journal ran this headline by telegraph, Great Battle Near Manassas Junction, you know, `The enemy forced to retire, three mass batteries taken, desperate conflict,' by telegraph. It's a secret--they filed--they filed prematurely. They filed so early that--that they couldn't handle it.

Mr. PERRY: Well, that would vary, I think. Some of them probably wouldn't--wouldn't see the newspaper with the report till days later, probably. But they--they--they read the papers, I mean, they were very serious about reading them, and particularly they were--they were very concerned about their own reputations, and they were also concerned about the papers providing information that would be useful to--to the other side, of course.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I think so, sure. I mean, it--it's inevitable, I suppose, in this day and age, but yeah, I--I think the--the good reporters in this book--and I s--I--I single out two, principally--Charles Carlton Coffin of The Boston Morning Journal and Whitelaw Reid of the Cincinnati Gazette--were hard-working correspondents who went about their business without con--without any concern for being celebrities, although Reid eventually ran for vice president and became quite a celebrity himself, but as a politician, not as a journalist.

Now Horace Greeley was a celebrity. You know, he--he--he was. I mean, he was known all over America. There--every--nobody in America didn't know who Horace Greeley was.

Mr. PERRY: Well, he was the editor and the publisher--and the owner and publisher of the--the--the--the--of the New York Tribune, and an erratic, strange character who--who was more interested in ideas than in news. And--but he--he had so--he--he had a pa--his paper was almost comparable to a national newspaper except it didn't circulate in the South, where his views on slavery were anathema, of course, but he was very fam--`Go West, young man,' you know, everybody knows it.

And then James Gordon Bennett was probably pretty well-known. He was the--I think probably the greatest genius we've ever had in American journalism. He founded what the modern newspaper is, warts and all, lots of warts in his case. But he was very interested in covering the news, so--had no interest in anything else and he wanted--unlike Greeley--and then the other--the other--the other major publisher and proprietor was Henry J. Raymond at the--of The New York Times, a mo--a more sedate figure, although there were some unusual things about him as well, but those three hated each other, they despised one another and were highly competitive.

Mr. PERRY: Well, clear--clearly--Bennett was the oldest of the bunch. But Bennett came from Scotland, where he had pretty good--he was probably the best educated of all the--of all the great proprietors. He--he trained as a--as a Catholic priest in Scotland, came over here and--and was well into his middle age at the time of the Civil War.

Greeley was moving along in years, too. Raymond was much younger, and they're interesting--interesting charact--wonderful characters. I--I--I love--I love characters and eccentrics, and the Civil War is just filled with them, and...

Mr. PERRY: George--he was a young boy from Delaware who--who--who got in the business, did some reporting for the--the New York--the New York Herald early on, and--and thought he'd go to England, go over to England and lecture around--you know, he--he put up posters and said--hire a lecture hall, and--and did so, and--and made quite a bit of money on it. People in England were quite interested in hearing his accounts of the Civil War. You can see his work today if you go out to Antietam, the South Mountain, where in his--in his later years, he built a monument to the Bohemian Brigade. They have a picture of it there at the end of the book. And it stands there today.

Mr. PERRY: I took the picture.

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Well, he doesn't have a full list, but there are probably 75 or so there. It's an ugly thing. It's--in it--it's--it's kind of off the beaten track. and every now and again, tourists will show up and wonder, `What in the world is this?' But it's the only monument there is to the Bohemian Brigade.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I started out first by reading what others had written about them, and there's one--you have to give a lot of credit to a--to a scholar named J. Cutler Andrews, who wrote a book called "The North Reports the Civil War," and he also wrote a smaller book called "The South Reports the Civil War"--it's a huge, huge book, 800, 900 pages. It just lists in encyclopedic fashion every reporter, virtually, that was involved in the Civil War, and--and he spent his lifetime, virtually, as an academic and--and tracking all this down. So you really have to rely a lot on him, but then finding you have to get to the memoirs, first of all. The--these fellows did babble a lot. They loved to talk about each other, and--even in their stories and in their memoirs, and there are a lot--a lot of them wrote memoirs after the war.

And then, of course, you go down to the Library of Congress, into the--into the newspaper room down there, and start cranking your way through the microfilm and reading what they wrote.

Mr. PERRY: All--all of the ones that I'm concerned with here are there, some on microfilm, some still--the Boston Jour--the Journal, for example, is still--is still bound--bound copies of it, in huge big books, you know, and you have to--it takes a couple of days for them to dig those out of the files and--and then you have to take notes on them. On the microfilm, you can push a button and it'll take a picture, you know, it'll--it'll reproduce what you're looking at.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I--I've been to a lot of these battlefields. I'm an old history buff, and I've been to most of the Civil War battlefields, but I did go to Antietam and Gettysburg and, of course, I went down and--I've been down to all--all the ones around Richmond, and--a good bit of this war was fought right near us, right here in--right in--right in Virginia.

Mr. PERRY: Yeah. Yeah. The--the--I think the Western reporters--the Western reporters were more true bohemians; they--they were more mischievous, they--they had more fun, I think. They were--there--there were more rogues out there, perhaps, than there were in the East, although there were rogues everywhere. But, yeah--and the soldiers themselves are--often been said, were different. The Western army was--was--was more relaxed, they were bigger, they're stronger, and--but the journalists were the same. They had--they--they took a--they--they thought of themselves as either Easterners or Westerners.

Mr. PERRY: Well, they varied. Most of them were quite young, an--and strange--they all went to--most--a lot of them went to college, an--and they tended to go to small liberal arts colleges, like Trinity and Beloit and Miami of Ohio and Amherst, places like that--Union; only one of them right--that I could find actually went to an Ivy League school, a very good one named George Smalley, who stroked the first Yale crew in the first race against Harvard on Lake Winnipesaukee, and he went on to Harvard Law School as well, so he's quite dis--quite--quite a distinguished academic background. But they tended to be a--my favorite reporter, the nicest one in here, is a very young man named Henry Wing, who was kissed by Lincoln--that was what he was most famous for--and he was only 18 when he--when he went off to cover the war. And that was after serving with the Connecticut regiment, and he was wounded at Fredericksburg, and--so he's had a--he's had an amazing career.

Mr. PERRY: Well, 1860 to 1864.

Mr. PERRY: Well, you--it wasn't very hard, I mean, because they were so desperate to find anyone to send into the field, but you would have to get in touch with the managing editors of the--of the papers, and say you were interested in doing this, and if you--would be helpful, of course, if you had a journalistic background, but they--they would--there was lots of criticism, particularly of the New York Herald, for sending these useless, hard-drinking characters out into the field who did no good to anybody. So, you know, that was--it was--it was a raffish crowd.

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Oh, no, no, no. There would--they--they--most--mo--most of the coverage was directed out of the wa--the--the offices in Washington, and where they would have a--just like today--they would have a bureau chief, and they--they would be assigned--they would be assigned very particularly to cover a corps or regiments or armies, and they--you know, there's quite...

Mr. PERRY: There's about--well, they tried--the smart ones tried to stay near the general's tent, because they could see more what was happening from that vantage point then they could out--out in the--out--out somewhere else with the troops, so they--they did tend to hang around--you can see that makes sense, of course.

Mr. PERRY: Henry J. Raymond of the--the--The New York Times, founded The New York Times, the founder of the--of The New York Times, and a--a very good journalist.

Mr. PERRY: He's pretty young, I would guess--in his 30s, probably, there.

Mr. PERRY: He started working for--he started working--let's see now, he started working with--with Greeley, and an interesting--interesting man. He--he's--he's--the most interesting thing about him is, he died at a very young age; he was only in his 30s, and he'd been out with some people and he--and he stopped on his way home to--to--a visit to his mistress, and he had a stroke, I guess, there, and they--some people never--to this day, not known that they dumped him on his own doorstep, where he was found later that night by one of his daughters, and died shortly thereafter--very sad.

Mr. PERRY: I mention--I can't remember now. It's in there. What--he started it before the Civil War, and he had a good bit of money, unlike some of these others that--he ha--he had--he started out with--with a fair amount of cash on hand, and so it was a good start.

Mr. PERRY: Well, it started out--started out pretty much--because he had the cash on hand to do it, it started out as a--as a--as a--as a real--as a serious--serious newspaper and widely recognized as such. It's unusual, in--you know, in that day and age. Mostly it started on out a--just on a--on a--on a prayer and a wish, you know. They had no money to start.

Mr. PERRY: Oh, that's--that's Bennett, James Gordon Bennett--cross-eyed, not liked by very many people, but--he was--was--but--but tough, I mean, a tough, tough, tough journalist, and of cour--and a publisher who--who--who realized that news was the important thing, and--and telegraph was the--was the way to get it fast, and that's--that's--that's what he did.

Mr. PERRY: Oh, they--the little Boston Morning Journal, for instance, was only about four pages long, and some of the--some of these regional papers could the--the big New York papers would run 12, 14, 16, 20 pages, sometimes. Lots of ads, of course.

Mr. PERRY: I don't have a--not very much. S--tha--that was, of course, the cause of some of them--out West, particularly--some of them began to speculate in--in cotton and make--make money on the side, but--and then of course, they wrote books and they--they had other sources of income, and--afterwards, but there wasn't--there wasn't a whole lot of money that--my favorite, Frank--Frank Wilke, was--was--was most mischievous of all these correspondents, and worked for the Chicago Times, and the pub--a lot of these publishers co--self-styled themselves as `colonel,' and he worked for a Colonel Fortin. And he--he--they--they were so cheap, and this was when they worked after--that when the pencils would wear down--their number--they used number five Faber pencils--they weren't--and this--this guy invented a tongs that you could attach to the stub so you could keep using it after it was almost worn out, and so it wa--these--the--he didn't make huge bunches of money when you were working for a publisher like that, I don't believe.

Mr. PERRY: In--in a notebook, with a pencil.

Mr. PERRY: About normal size, that we use today.

Mr. PERRY: There's a picture in there of--of--of--somewhere in there, there's a picture of--of Coffin with his notebook--I mean, not a picture, but a drawing of--the newspaper's an interesting thing. Though pho--photography had--had been invented, newspapers could not have the technology to print photographs. So--so there are no photographs in any of these newspapers of the Civil War, just drawings that--they used drawings, and that's all they could use.

Mr. PERRY: Well, they would be in books--you could publish them in books, I suppose, and then they would have--you know, they would have shows in which they would display their photographs, but you couldn't get it on the press. You couldn't--the process of printing the same photograph over and over again overnight in thousands of copies wasn't--wasn't possible.

Mr. PERRY: Henry Villard was a--a very distinguished--very distinguished guy. If you've ever been to Le Cirque restaurant in New York, you've been to his home. There's a famous restaurant in New York, Le Cirque 2000. He was a German boy--came over here as a very young man, 17, 18 years old, spoke only German, spoke not a word of English, was taken in by--by German communities in New York City, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, otherwise. Came to--came to--came to--become f--when he became fluent in English, he began writing for American newspapers, and he was--Villard's--he--Villard was--was the ace correspondent for--for Bennett, the Herald, at the start of the war. He covered the election, Lincoln's election, and he became very distinguished, and--but he did become mixed up in the Sherman episode in which he--his role is not--I mean, he was chiefly responsible for that headline in the Cincinnati Commercial that Sherman was insane. He's the one that had pleaded with the publisher of that paper to say so. I--I don't think that was a great moment for him.

Mr. PERRY: Court-martialed.

Mr. PERRY: No. No, he didn't.

Mr. PERRY: No, he never did.

Mr. PERRY: Ah...

Mr. PERRY: Actually go to jail--no, I can't think of any that actually spent much time behind bars. The--they tried to do the same thing--the Confederates tried to do the same thing to a reporter for the Memphis paper, which I think is a very odd--the Memphis Appeal was a great newspaper, covered the whole Civil War, even though it was driven out of Memphis. It became num--known as the Moving Appeal because it went to Mississippi, then to Georgia, then to Alabama, and it kept publishing, and--and Braxton Bragg, a Confedrate general, had him arrested for the same sort of thing, but his paper hired a lawyer and fought the case, and the judge ruled that it--the army had acted improperly, and he was released. The Herald did nothing--nothing to help Knox, and they left him hanging there at that trial, and no effort was made to support him or provide him with a lawyer or anything.

Mr. PERRY: Not a whole lot, except--except the great in--instance which we just said, and--and the Southern justice, the courts in the South upheld--upheld this reporter on the Memphis Appeal, and...

Mr. PERRY: Right. It wasn't--there were terrible things they did. Meade--Meade hated reporters, too.

Mr. PERRY: General Meade, the--the victor at Gettysburg, despised reporters, and had an even bigger temper than Sherman, probably, and there--The Philadelphia Inquirer had a reporter named Edward Crapsey, and Crapsey had tried to do an analytical piece--what we call an analytical piece today--on what was the relationship between Grant and Meade--Grant at this time was a generalissimo in charge of everything, and Meade, of course, was in charge of the Army of the Potomac--and how--how this relationship worked, and--and he--he did that, and did it very professionally.

But then he went on to say that there was a time, after--after--after the--the Wilderness, after the battle of the Wilderness--when--when--when Meade wanted to do what all the other generals had done, which is retire, retreat, and Grant inter--he said Grant intervened and said, `No, we will not--we will go on. We are--this is--never again are we going to go back,' and the--the si--saved the--saved the--saved the army from--but Meade saw that as--as some reflection upon his--on his courage and his--and his--you know, and--and got furious--got furious, and had Cra--poor Crapsey was arrested and put on backwards on a--on a mule and ridden around the camp with a--with a big sign on his back, saying, `Libeler of the press,' and just disgraceful performance, and--and some of the journalists became very upset by this, and--and Me--Meade for weeks and months thereafter was never mentioned in the papers. They boycotted him. They just simply wiped him out, because they were so furious at this.

Mr. PERRY: Upstate New York.

Mr. PERRY: Elmira. I was born there; I grew up in Philadelphia, actually, but born in Elmira.

Mr. PERRY: Mmm--well, my stepbrother was a writer, William H. White, the fellow who wrote "The Organization Man," and he--he--he came out of the war, came out of the Marines and went to Fortune magazine, and I actually did a little research for him on his--on his book, and then when I was in the Marines, I worked for Leatherneck magazine, very brief--as an 18-year-old PFC, and then when I went to college--I went to college in Hartford, Trinity College in Hartford, and--and became a stringer for the--for the Hartford Courant and worked on the college paper, and then took a job at The Hartford Times. They offered me $45, and the Hartford Courant offered me $35, so I went for the big money at that time. And so it--actually, my--my stepbrother really was the guru in all this, and...

Mr. PERRY: My stepbrother.

Mr. PERRY: Well, my--my mother and his father were married, both second marriages for both, and I was the product of my mother's first marriage, and he was the product of the...

Mr. PERRY: He's older. He's--he's dead now. He died a year or so ago.

Mr. PERRY: Oh, back in '56, maybe, somewhere along in there.

Mr. PERRY: Well, it was a huge best-seller, of course, and I was extremely impressed. By that time, I--I had been working for newspapers for six years or so, and so I--but he was the best reporter, I think, I ever knew, and--and worked--an immensely hard worker.

Mr. PERRY: Well, it was---there was an anal--analysis of--of the corporate executives, young corporate executives, and--and how they had--how they had--had--no longer were interested in entrepreneurial endeavors, and had become creatures of the organization, a sociological study with some huge amount of reporting in it.

Mr. PERRY: Well, he be--he went on to urban studies after that and became really quite famous for--for studying street life in big cities, Tokyo, New York, everywhere.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I was in--I was working in Philadelphia. I was working for The Philadelphia Bulletin, and I'd always wanted to come to Washington, and the--and the Dow Jones started up the National Observer, and I became a stringer for them, and then they--they asked me if I'd like a job, so I--so I came down here to--came down here in '62, to Washington in '62, been here ever since.

Mr. PERRY: I--I had that--I had a sort of a play recess for--in London for three years, and--six months at one time and two and a half the next, and--and that was wonderful fun. I just loved that.

Mr. PERRY: Oh, I love it. Wonderful.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I've been--this is the fifth book with my name. But I--I've--I've actually--I--I--I was a ghostwriter for a couple of books, one of which I'm not supposed to mention. But--you know--but...

Mr. PERRY: Well, I was--it's just--it--it's just I had to rewrite a--it was a book about World War II. It was--it's still--I still see it once in a while. Well, at any rate, I've--I've written mostly political books. And I'm basically just a political writer. And...

Mr. PERRY: Yes, a very interesting man, Thomas Chester of the Philadelphia Press. And there's just a wonderful, wonderful scene. I--I got--I--I have to--a wonderful scene at the end--at the end of the war, when he--he--he came from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. And he was hired by what--by the Philadelphia Press, which was not a very good newspaper.

But--but he--he--he's one of the most--one of the most dramatic stories, I think. Richmond has--Richmond has just--has just fallen, and Chester is--is in Richmond. And he date--the story is datelined, `Hall of Congress, Richmond, April 4th, 1865. Seated in the speaker's chair, so long dedicated to treason but in the future to be consecrated to loyalty, I haste to give a rapid sketch of the incidents which have occurred since my last dispatch.' Here's the Civil War's only black reporter, seated in the speaker's chair of the Confederate Congress.

Mr. PERRY: In Richmond. And at this point, in comes a con--a young conf--a Confederate officer, sees him a--sees him seated in the chair, and two other reporters have observed this, one--one of them being my--my--my--my favorite reporter, Coffin. And he says--this--this Confederate--this Confederate soldier says, `Come out of there, you black cuss.' `Mr. Chet--Mr. Chester rated--raised his eyes, calmly surveyed the intruder and went on with his writing.' Later when the guy approached him, Chester got up, gave him one quick punch on the nose, toppled him back down on the floor and continued with his story. I mean, that's a won--isn't that amazing? The--the--the only black reporter. It's just so dramatic.

Mr. PERRY: None. None in the field, no.

Mr. PERRY: Well, there were some women reporters, I think, working in Washington--yeah, sure. But no--no battlefield cor--no women battlefield correspondents.

Mr. PERRY: That's right. Well--well...

Mr. PERRY: Well, Grant in his last great campaign just simply disappeared with his army. And they--and they were desperate in Washington--at the White House and at the War Department to know where he was. And Wing, with extraordinary courage and difficulty, ro--rode from the Army and through--through--through the back country. It a--it was just filled with all kinds of deserters and--and just difficult people of all kinds, confederate patrols. Managed to get his way all the way through to--he came--he approached Washington, found a Union--finally found a Union outpost. And he wanted to file a story about telegraph, and they wouldn't let him. It was an--an Army telegraph.

And finally, they heard in Washington that--here he was. There was a reporter here at this Army station and--who knew where Grant was. And so Dana--the--the--the--that the word--Richard--that Charles Dana said had him arr--ordered him to be arrested. And he--that wasn't what he wanted to hear, he--you know. So he finally--so he cut a deal. He was going to cut a deal that--if he was allowed to send 150 words or 200 words, or whatever it was, he--he would--to--to his own paper, he would come to Washington and report on what he knew.

And Lincoln heard about it. And--and--and Lin--Lincoln heard about it, and fina--sent--finally he se--sent--said, `None of this arresting him, we'll send a train down.' So they--so they--you could. You send a train and attender and--and a few soldiers. And they sent--sent--sent the train down, picked him up, brought him back to--brought him back to--to the White House. And he came in--at this time, he was just a--he--he was--was--he was just covered with dirt and grime. And--and he noticed someone--the whole Cabinet's there. The whole--the whole--Lincoln's whole Cabinet was sitting there. And he walks in the room, and--and--he knows most of these people, but he--he's in such disreputable appearance that they don't recognize him, but he finally tells his story. And--and then when it's all over, he--he says that--he says, `I have a--I have a message from General--General Grant for you.' And he--before he left, Grant had taken him aside, and he said, `If you actually get through and if you see Lincoln, tell him, this time, there's to be no turning back.'

And so the--the two of them are together. I mean, Wing's a very short guy and--and--and--and Lincoln's this extraordinary tall man. And--and--and he tells this story to--to Lincoln. He says, `General Grant wants me to tell you "This time, there's to be no turning back."' And Lincoln was--is so, so overwhelmed by this that he kisses--he kisses Wing on the forehead.

And then, even--even--even more dramatic, he--he had to leave his horse in--in some--in--in some--in--in a--in a little--in a little vale, sort of near the woods. And he said, `I--I--Mr. President, I worry about Jess'--Jess being the horse. And so--so--`Tell me about Jess,' says--says President Lincoln. He says, `Well, I--you know, I--I said I'd come back to get him, and I never lie to horses, Mr. President.' And--and--and--and Lincoln said, `I think--I think, Henry, we have to do something about that.' So the next day, they--they sent a train down there with some soldiers in--in the car, and they pick up Jess and--and th--you see--there he is. He's--he's grazing in this--just where he'd been left, and they bring him back to Washington. And some of the other reporters were so impressed they--they collected the--they collected a little fund and bought the horse for him.

Mr. PERRY: Yeah, the same family. That's Whitelaw Reid's family--mm-hmm.

Mr. PERRY: Whitelaw Reid was--was a--was a--started with the--started with the--the Cincinnati paper. And--and he wrote the great--the great monumental account of--of--of--of--of--of Shiloh, and--which was quite--which was quite the--quite controversial because he--he was a wonderful reporter. I think he's the second best reporter with Coffin, but he was grumpy. He had to--he--he--he always--and the first day was a bit of a disaster for--for the Union Army. And when he wrote this huge 12,000-word story, he--he just kept going over and over again, saying how they'd been surprised and--and--they'd been surprised and they shouldn't have been by the Confederate attack. And they had been. They--but--but--you know, Grant--they didn't want to--to admit that. And they seemed very upset by that. So the story became quite controversial.

And--and--but it--he--he did that of--he did that constantly. He--he wou--he would--even at the very end, the fall of Richmond, he's still grumbling about things aren't the way they ought to be, and they should do this better, you know.

Mr. PERRY: Oh, no.

Mr. PERRY: No, no, no, no. Reporters in the Civil War were--were not considered to be neutrals at all.

(Graphic on screen)

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 605 Third Avenue New York, NY 10158

Mr. PERRY: You--and there is a--a--we have in a--in a chapter in the book--I have a chapter in the book about two Northern reporters who were captured trying to run past Vicksburg, and have a terrible time, spend two years in the--in the--in--this is Brown and--and--and...

Mr. PERRY: ...Richardson and Brown. And--and then end up in one of the very worst prisons--Salisbury--in Salisbury, North Carolina, where things--where things were just appalling, this--the conditions were so bad. And--they were treated just like captured soldiers. I mean, they were--they were--they weren't considered just to be non-combatants at all. So they--they escaped, these--these--these two reporters, and made their way north and--three--over 300 miles it took them. And they--they finally--they finally...

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Well, they--they--sometimes they were on horseback, sometimes they were on foot. And they--they were helped occasionally by--by--by what--by what--by loyal Union supporters that they encountered. But it was an extraordinary experience for both. And they both wrote books immediately, of course. So things haven't change entirely. So...

Mr. PERRY: I think that's true. A lot--a lot of--a lot of stuff went on--went on the--went on the telegraph that shouldn't have, and a lot of it totally unreliable. There is--and my favorite--my favorite in the whole book and--it was the battle called Pea Ridge in Arkansas there are only two reporters there. And--Knox and a reporter from St. Louis. And--and Pea Ridge is an important battle because it--it pretty much preserved Missouri for the Union cause, a great--a great Union victory.

And these--these two reporters get on their horses and go 200 miles to--to where they can file their stories. And Knox fil--files a very short piece, just 200, 300 words, with a map. And it turns out that the day before, two other reporters had holed--had holed up in a hotel room and made up the story of the battle--the two of them--and to--and--and had--and had ran--one of them ran for, oh, most of the whole page, and they'd never been there. They hadn't seen the battle at all. But they--they heard enough. They had a few reports on the battle. They got--they talked to some people who'd--who knew the--who knew the geography of where--where it was. And--and it was a--they put it all together. Th--look, the Times of London called it the greatest battlefield story of the war, and they hadn't seen a thing. They hadn't seen a shot fired at--at all.

Mr. PERRY: Yeah. And I--I must have been a--one of--but--but--but the--the--the ...(unintelligible) the one who set the type, must have been immensely skilled because a lot of this writing must have been very difficult to--to decipher.

Mr. PERRY: No. There were no--there was--they'd write--they just wrote it in pencil and--and--and--and they delivered it that way.

Mr. PERRY: The--you--you'd--you'd wr--write...

Mr. PERRY: I think they were--there--I think probably--they probably--wrote more legibly than we do today, I suspect. They'd almost have to.

Mr. PERRY: Never saw a notebook, no.

Mr. PERRY: Yeah, not particularly. No, the--no diaries either. It was--it was really disappointing. None of them kept a--kept a day-to-day diary that--that was of any use.

Mr. PERRY: Well, because so many of the cities were overrun by the Union armies, and the papers disappeared in their runs, which is to say they--day-by-day--a lot of them just don't exist. Besides which, the reporters--unlike the--these Northern reporters we're talking about--they didn't write about each other very much, or hardly at all. And--and only one actually wrote a memoir, and there's nothing in it of any interest. And...

Mr. PERRY: Well, Peggy's my wife, and Greta and Kathie are my two daughters.

Mr. PERRY: No, neither one. Nope.

Mr. PERRY: No, she's n--she's not. Kathie's is in--is in a--she does fused glass in terms of arts and crafts. And Greta--Greta, of all things, is of all things a project manager for a construction company.

Mr. PERRY: Here. Here--here in--in Washington.

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Well, what--what's really changed, of course, and began--we have to really go back a little bit. The first--the first war correspondent was a guy named George Kendall for The New Orleans Picayune who covered the war with Mexico and did a really good job. He was a--he was a fine reporter. And then we--he became quite well-known and, I mean, President Polk rel--relied on his reports.

And then we go to Russell--William Howard Russell, the most famous war correspondent of all, who--who became famous for covering the war in the Crimea, where he exposed the--the--the competency of the Bri--British army in equipping and giving medical advice, and led to--led to the toppling of the--of Lord Aberdeen's government. And he came over here--I--I open the book with his visit to the United States at the beginning of the war. And--and he was a celebrity. I mean, he was truly a celebrity journalist. There he is with his dog at his feet writing. And everybody knew him, and the American--people in the United States, and particularly people who read newspapers, were extremely, extremely excited at the fact that he was being sent by the most famous newspaper in the world, the Times of London, here to--to cover the war.

But he--he--he was--his--his piece on Bull Run--which he never got to in time to actually observe the battle; he just saw the retreat--is--it--it's patronizing. I mean, he--he--he would patronize America, saying how bad their troops were and how bad their armies were. And the regular army could be easily defeated by Indian native tribes, tribal soldiers. And so the--the--everybody got so mad at him, that he finally had to leave. And--so that brings us up to--to--then, of course, we get all these people trying to be Billy Russells on the n--on the Northern side, but they had a good bit--a bit of independence in what they wrote. I mean, they could get their stuff in the paper.

These days, if you talk to anybody that's covered the Persian Gulf or Somalia or Grenada or things like that, they--they can't get to the war. I mean, you know, the--the censorship and the--is so difficult today. And once...

Mr. PERRY: ...once they got there, with land satellite, with their whole ability to--to--to hook up to a satellite--of course, they can--they can send things from anywhere. But the problem--problem today is--is getting there in the first place, al--allowing the Army to--to take you to battle. This--this, of course, was fought on home soil--native soil, which makes a huge difference.

Mr. PERRY: The Civil War?

Mr. PERRY: Oh, a tremendous impact. I mean, this was--these papers were read by dozens of--handed around. You know, this was the bloody--th--this was the bloodiest war we ever fought, you know, in--in terms of casualties. I mean, huge--and the one thing that makes the--the reporting so important, too, is that the armies--both sides did not report casualties. They--they didn't give out lists of who were killed and who was wounded. So that was done by the reporters. Reporters--reporters collected the casualty lists and published them. So people would read them--particularly, a reporter was covering their own unit, whatever it might be, because he would tell them who had been killed and who'd been wounded.

Mr. PERRY: Cervanis Cadwalader, the--he--he's--he--he's the most controversial figure, probably, in the book. He--he became very close to Ulysses Grant, and he wrote his memoirs well after the war. And he--and described in them this bender that Grant had go on in a boat going up the Yazoo River, but--that he wrote that he was there and saw it, and it wa--and he was the one who--who tried to--who--who saved Grant from disgrace on that night. He finally got him off the boat and back to his--back to his headquarters. And...

Mr. PERRY: Yeah. And--and that--there are historians to this day who still differ on whether that's an accurate account or not. Some claim he wasn't even on the boat, he made this all up. I've--I took--take the other side. I believe the story's accurate, basically accurate, that he was there. He did see all this. He--the fact that he was very close to Grant and that--that at Grant's--in Cadwalader's papers at the Library of Congress, there's a letter from Grant that says that Cadwalader--he--he saw more of Cadwalader during the war than all the other reporters put together, and that Cadwalader had written accurate, factual material, and that if other reporters had done the same, there wouldn't have been any problem with the press coverage of the war.

And his best friend was--was Colonel Rollins, who was Grant's chief of staff, and in fact, they actually shared a house together after the war. Cadwalader named his son Rollins for--for--for--for Grant's chief of staff. So it seems inconceivable to me that--that ke--that--that he would have made this story up out of the whole cloth because either it's--either he's lying entirely or--either it's true or it isn't--and it's my feeling that basically it's true. But--but historians do differ on it.

Mr. PERRY: Well, what--what--what the--that's right. Weren't published until...

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: Right.

Mr. PERRY: He takes--he--he--he--he agrees with this. Shelby Foote agrees with this account of it. Bruce Catton's not so sure. But--so ti--ti--it remains. It depends--if--if you're really a big Grant partisan--and I--I--I'm a great admirer of Grant--you tend to come down on the side that Cadwalader's making this up. And if you--if you're--if--if you're being a little more rational, a little more--about it, you'd think like he must be--there must be something to it. At any rate...

Mr. PERRY: ...I put it in there with the caveat that--with--there are those who say that this is not--this is not the way it happened.

Mr. PERRY: Well, James McPherson--James McPherson.

Mr. PERRY: And writer Lloyd Lewis' great biography of Sherman, which was really the out--the biggest eye-opener to me; a wonderful, wonderful book.

Mr. PERRY: I still--I'm still a Bruce Catton man. I mean, i--you tend--you know, it tend--if--if--if your sympathies are with the North, to this day, you can't really approach this totally objectively. If your sympathies tend to be the--with the North, you kind of tend to be a Catton man. If your sympathies tend to be with the South, you tend to be a Shelby Foote man. I mean, I--I think--I think I rely more on--on Catton than--than--than--than anyone, but they're all good.

Mr. PERRY: That were under arms at one time or another.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I mean, the North because of its--its immense reserves of manpower and industrial might, of course, it finally was overwhelming. And eventually, you know, it's always said that the North had no good generals. But in the West, they did have good generals. I mean, you think of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and Admiral Foote and people like that. I mean, and--and when they finally came in control, it--they were fine.

Mr. PERRY: No, not in this book. No, no. I'm not going to do the Civil War again. No.

Mr. PERRY: I might do a battle history. I--I--I--what--what--I really have always been a big fan of the American Revolution, and--which is the second bloodiest war we ever fought in terms of the men under arms. And--and I'd like to do a--the last campa--I think I might like to do a book on the--on the last campaign that led to Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown. But we'll see. I'm not sure about that.

Mr. PERRY: I only found that the--what's the--that the--the correspon--correspondents--the correspondents wrote wonderful things at Gettysburg. I mean, I just love that Coffin's--he was--Coffin was a religious man, a deeply religious man who didn't smoke or drink. And--and he wrote--he wrote a piece that echoes Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. It's the most amazing thing. `The invasion of the North was over, the power of the Southern Confederacy broken. There at that sunset hour, I could discern the future. No longer an overcast sky, but clear, unclouded, starlight; a country redeemed, save baptized, consecrated anew to the coming ages. All honor to the heroic living, all glory to the gallant dead. They have not fought in vain.'

It goes on. I mean, it does ring--I mean, that does ring--has a little ring of the--the Gettysburg Address to it. It's not as good, but ...

Mr. PERRY: Oh, I think--I--I think--I--well, I'd think I would might have been a correspondent when I was a corespondent. I--I'm not sure I'd want to be one right now as political writer because, you know, it's changed so much. And--but during the years I did it, I--I--I--I think I'd just assume have done it then as any other time.

Mr. PERRY: Well, I--it--it--it's--I just fell--I dislike the--the sort of anger--there's a lot of anger out there and meanness and--we talk about piling on. In this book, there's a lot of piling on that goes on, and there's a lot of bad editing or no editing that--that goes so because of just the way the business has expanded. And with the Internet and all these--all of these ways that news gets reported today. We had it more to ourselves back then, just like the Bohemian brigade did. And I think we felt better about it when it was all in our own hands.

Mr. PERRY: No, it's not. At--the picture at the bottom that shows the--that the headquarters of The New York Herald in the field. And--but they did that. And then the--they found the picture up above, which is, I think, an artillery unit in the Civil War. But I like it. I think it's fine.

Mr. PERRY: Thank you.