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Rustics In Rebellion - A Yankee Reporter On The Road To Richmond 1861-65
Rustics In Rebellion A Yankee Reporter On The Road To Richmond 186165 Author:George Alfred Townsend Rustics in Rebellion RUSTICS IN REBELLION -, A Yankee Reporter on the Road to Richmond 1861-65 GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND With an Introduction by LIDA MAYO Chapel Hill THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS Contents Introduction ix I. The War Correspondents First Day I II. A General under the Microscope 10 III. A Foraging Adventure 17 IV. What a Mar... more »ch Is 28 V. Down the Chesapeake 39 VI. On to Richmond 49 VII. Rustics in Rebellion 58 VIII. Under Arrest 68 IX. After the Victory 81 X. Balloon Battles 92 XI. Seven Pines and Fair Oaks 100 XII. Stuarts Raid 113 XIII. Fever Dreams 121 XIV. Two Days of Battle 131 XV. McClellans Retreat 143 XVI. A Battle Sunday 153 XVII. By the Riverside 165 XVIII. The Hospital Transport 177 XIX. On Furlough Awhile 185 XX. Campaigning with General Pope 195 vl I Contents XXL Army Morals 205 XXII Going into Action 215 XXIII. The Battle of Cedar Mountain 222 XXIV. Out with a Burying Party . 233 XXV. The Battle of Five Forks 244 XXVI. Richmond Desolate 262 XXVII The Ruins of the Rebellion 272 Index 285 Editors Note m. HE CIVIL WAR reporting of George Alfred Townsend first appeared in book form in 1866, entitled Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and published under the imprint of Blelock and Company, New York. Rustics in Rebellion reproduces the material of this earlier edition, with the exception of an introductory chapter in which Townsend made some philosophical comments on his career as a newspaperman a final and digressional chapter describ ing executions which he had witnessed a chapter on his experiences in England, where he spent nine months in 1862-63 one on his impressions of Florence, Italy and a chapter on Washington after the war. These have been omitted in order to present a continuous war narrative. Few changes have been made from the original edition. Obvious minor errors in names, dates, punctuation, and spelling have been corrected. But Townsends occasional lapses in reporting events of the war only too understand able in the fog of battle have been allowed to stand as they were written. Rustics in Rebellion is Townsends own title for Chapter VII. It was used for the book title of the present edition as representative of Townsends characterization of the Southern people as he saw them a people whom he liked and admired but whose cause he deplored. vii Introduction I - A. T TWO OCLOCK in the afternoon of a winter day early in 1862 a newly accredited war correspondent rode out of Washington into Virginia to cover the Civil War. He was the youngest of all the correspondents, only twenty one years old, a stocky, rather handsome boy with thick brown hair, high cheekbones, and intelligent blue eyes. His name was George Alfred Townsend. Cheerful by nature, he was more than usually light-hearted at the prospect of adventure and excitement, but he was a little anxious, too. The Army of the Potomac was about to begin its long-anticipated advance and he expected to follow it into battle. His expectation was not fulfilled the advance turned out to be only a practice march toward Manassas but in the three years that followed, he saw war at close quarters. Soon after his first assignment he was sent by the New York Herald to cover the terrible Seven Days battles on the Virginia peninsula. He was with General Popes Army of Virginia at Cedar Mountain. Later he rounded out the war with Sheridan at Five Forks, and was one of the first of the correspondents to enter captured Richmond. The boys dispatches covering the tremendous battles of 1862 were signed only By a Correspondent or Correspondents Account. It was not until 1865, when by-lines began to be used, that he received any personal recognition. His brilliant stories on Lincolns assassination and the capture of Booth were widely acclaimed, and it x Rustics in Rebellion was in the Reconstruction era that he began to be really well known. In the Gilded Age he became famous as a Washington correspondent and columnist...« less