The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

The Associated Press Reports the End of the War-- Part 1: Getting the News Out

From the April 4, 2015, Yahoo! News, AP  "A.P. Was There: 150 years ago, Lee surrendered to Grant."

William Down MacGregor of the AP was there in the front yard of the McLean House at Appomattox Court House along with other Union war correspondents.  he got his story out that day.

Sadly, the names of AP correspondents and their original manuscript reports are lost to history.  But Mr. MacGregor's name occasionally appeared printed his dispatches as he is remembered for his "delivering of disciplined and restrained accounts for an era when reporting was often laced with shrill and sectarian opinion."

The Associated Press was a newspaper co-operative formed in 1846, just two years after the first successful telegraph message was sent.  The organization used the ever-expanding network of telegraph lines to get news as fast as possible to the United States.

The Civil War marked the first time that news of battles could be transmitted even the same day or by the day following.

And, this was news to the public.  Obviously Union military used the reports from the correspondents its own people to follow events.  Abraham Lincoln spent much time in the Washington, D.C. telegraph room.

Plus, the Chicago Tribune in the previous posts, used "NEWS BY TELEGRAPH" extensively.

--Old Secesh

No comments: