The Confederacy's Secret Weapon: The Civil War Illustrations of Frank Vizetelly
When the Federal blockade of the Southern states became tighter, the Confederacy's chances of obtaining European recognition and sympathy dwindled. That decline was due in part to the inability of Southerners to provide favorable news stories to the European newspapers. England's Illustrated London News was one of the few foreign newspapers to carry Confederate accounts. The reason it was able to do so was because of its stellar war correspondent Frank Vizetelly. Vizetelly was sent to the United States to travel with Union armies and provide the paper with appropriate news releases, sketches and drawings. Because he was not able to gain the necessary access (in large part due to a run-in with Edwin Stanton), he took it upon himself to cover the war from a Southern perspective. Surreptitiously entering the Confederate States of America in July 1862, he quickly gained favor of those in authority who allowed him to freely travel through the South. Vizetelly traveled widely, from Charleston to the Mississippi River and into northern Virginia. During his travels Vizetelly met and interviewed many of the leaders of the Confederacy, including Jeb Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. His descriptions of them and others helped create favorable impressions among English readers of his dispatches. Included in this book are many of Vizetelly's published dispatches and sketches. They are available here for the first time since the 1860s and provide readers with an interesting slice of Southern military and social life during the Civil War. Of particular interest to modern readers is his account of the last days of the Davis administration, including the Confederate president's flight from Richmond. Vizetelly's war correspondent skills were greatly enhanced by his artistic talents. His dispatches to Great Britain that got through the blockade were very well received and helped create British support for the Confederacy. As the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War approaches, many books will be published that bring to light previously obscure and hard-to-find accounts of life in the Confederacy. Douglas Bostick's work is a shining example of the type of scholarship that readers can anticipate and is well worth the modest price. Reviewer: Jay Jorgensen Jay Jorgensen has written several books about Gettysburg, including Gettysburg's Bloody Wheatfield. He is a Superior Court Judge in New Jersey.
|
Illustrations, 158 pp., 2009, The History Press,