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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Bohemian Brigade: The Civil War Correspondents — Mostly Rough, Sometimes Ready
by James M. Perry.
Illustrated, maps, 305 pp., 2000. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 605 Third Ave., New York, NY 10158-0012, $27.95 plus shipping.
They went to war carrying pad and pencil and left the truth behind. Young or old, drunk or sober, their battle cry was: speed, speed, speed. James Perry, an experienced and successful reporter, tells why these sometimes dissolute, disreputable, and ill-trained hacks had only one ambition — being first in print with the story. Astutely, he points out the American Civil War, a boon for the press, created modern American journalism. Two technologies, steam press printing and the telegraph, permitted newspapers to get the news out faster than ever to an increasing literate public. For those papers first with the story, circulation skyrocketed, profits grew, and the editors, with their power to mold public opinion, attempted to make and unmake generals. The newspaper buyers rewarded speed, not accuracy; therefore the editor paid his reporter for being first, not accu-rate. This climate, Perry explains, is why generals hated them, why they were dishonest and inaccurate, and why the reading public didn’t, in many cases, believe them. However, he spells out why among much inaccurate reporting, from those whom W.T. Sherman called "buzzards of the press," there emerged some stellar reporting and reporters. The author focuses on Whitelaw Reid and Charles Carleton Coffin as exemplars of the best of Civil War journal-ism. Perry laments his focus on Northern reporters. He explains that limited sources didn’t permit him to write exten-sively about the Southern journalists. Therefore, he uses two English journalists, Francis Lawley and Frank Vizetelly, to tell their story. In the Preface, Perry acknowledges his debt to J. Cutler Andrews’s superb book, The North Reports the Civil War. He stresses that being a professional journalist gives him a perspective, different from Andrews’s, as to a reporter’s job and motivation. Using this experience, he insightfully focuses on the psychology of being a reporter during momentous times. James Perry reminds us that we live in a democracy and for a democracy to function the citizenry must be in-formed. Whatever their faults, Civil War newspapermen were an integral part of the war, for their reporting was the public’s bond to the battlefield. They deserve to be studied. James Perry’s smoothly written book is a welcome addi-tion to the scant literature about these oft-neglected men.
Gary Augustine
Gary Augustine is past president of the Western Pennsylvania Civil War Round Table and writes a monthly review of Civil War literature for the group's newsletter.
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