j^ki-f?^ i|i|iii!ig%|;::^ 1 rAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS 'imt F. LAURISTON BUIIMd Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/famouswarcorrespOObullricli FAMOUS WAK CORRESPOP«)ENTS "News of battle! News of battle! Hark! ' tis ringing down the street; And the archways and the pavement Bear the clang of hurrying feet. News of battle! Who has brought it?" — W. E. Aytoun, Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. • • ••• SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL Frontispiece FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS BY F. LAURISTON BXJLLARD AUTHOR OF "historic SUMMER HAUNTS," ETC. Illustrated BOSTON LnTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY 1914 Copyright, 191^ Bt Little, Bhown, and Company. All rightt reserved Published. September, 1914. TO E. L. B., F. K. AND B., 1 R , P. B. PREFACE As this preface is written, journalistic enterprise is confronted with a clamoring demand for news of a war which promises to be the greatest in modern history and with an absolute embargo decreed upon publicity by nearly all the nations of Europe. Heretofore war correspondents have been able to cross frontiers and reach neutral cities and uncensored cable and telegraph stations, whence they have forwarded their despatches. London often has been a great clearing house for war news. In the Russo-Japanese war, correspondents several times rode to Chinese ports with budgets of important despatches; in the Balkan war they made their way out of the rout and welter of Turkish defeats to Roumania. But there is no place in this Conti- nental struggle to which a correspondent may go with the hope of finding a free wire. Moreover, the move- ments of news men with the armies are likely to be more restricted than in any previous war and this because of the new conditions brought about by modern science. Methods of communication are so nearly instantaneous, and means of travel so swift, that governments will not permit reporters to enjoy the intimate touch with armies in the field which gave such men as William Howard Russell, Archibald Forbes and Januarius A. MacGahan the materials for their thrilling narratives. The ten- dency to apply the muffler has been apparent for years; Lord Roberts in South Africa tolerated only the free vii viii PREFACE use of the mails; the Japanese in Manchuria "enter- tained" the press men elaborately but kept them a long way from the front; in the Balkan war only the correspondents with the Turks had any degree of Kberty. Today the cables of Europe are controlled by the war departments of the Powers. No such rigid censorship has before been known. Upon the day on which this is written a despatch comes to my attention stating that cables for publication must pass the scrutiny of nine censors before delivery to the papers addressed. The general result is likely to be not the suppression of the news but the delaying of it. The facts will be told sooner or later. But military strategy will restore the conditions of the early years of war correspondence, when Washington waited for weeks to learn that General Taylor had not been annihilated at Buena Vista and London read the "Crimean Letters" long after Russell had penned them. Nevertheless several American correspondents have been sent across the Atlantic, Richard Harding Davis among them, and many of the best known English correspondents are going to do what can be done at the front, among whom is Frederic Villiers, who may soon add a new chapter to his picturesque career. Upon the other hand, one American periodical will employ a "correspondent"* whose desk will be in its own office and whose function will be to summarize the history of the war at long range. Personally I am of the opinion that it is of vast importance to humanity that the truth shall be told about war, and that publicity is the greatest agency for the promotion of the cause of peace; also that in time a way will be found for the competent news man to tell what he sees, his freedom being restricted perhaps PREFACE ix for weeks at a stretch by the exigencies of the mihtary situation. This book contains a collection of biographical sketches of representative war correspondents. I am well aware that many men with valid claims to dis- tinction as followers of the warpath are merely men- tioned, if they are alluded to at all, and that a volume of vivid tales could be compiled from the lives of such artists and reporters as Melton Prior, H. C. Seppings Wright, Julius Mendes Price, "Crimean" Simpson, John Alexander Cameron, Lionel James, Frederick Boyle, WilHam Beattie Kingston, and "Fred" Burnaby, to name but a few of the long list. A large amoimt of material remains unused in my hands. This selection has been based upon principles easy to understand: that both men of action like Bennet Bur- leigh and men of distinguished literary artistry like George Warrington Steevens should be included; that while treating of correspondents who "cover" the same wars for rival journals, duplication should be avoided by a judicious choice of incidents, and that the range and variety of the work of the special correspondent should be indicated by taking the reader to campaigns in all quarters of the world. Also the method of ar- rangement has been such that practically a history of war correspondence is contained in the volume. The citations from despatches are intended both to aid in the narration of their adventures and to indicate the quality of the prose that was written by the earlier correspondents who used the mail and the later ones who dashed for the wire. I do not claim to have dis- covered new facts, but I have a measure of pride in the attempt to rescue from forgetfulness the exploits of George Wilkins Kendall and the other Americans whose X PREFACE pioneer work for the press has never been recognized in the history of journalism. My sources of information have been numerous. It is a pleasant duty to refer to the books and arti- cles by the correspondents themselves from which I have gleaned most of my facts, and to such biogra- phies as that of Russell, by John Black Atkins. I have been a diligent student of the files of the newspapers and pictorial weeklies of England and the United States. Of those who have rendered personal assist- ance I would thank especially Dr. Frank Horace Vizetelly, whose kindly generosity in the loan of documents and photographs is greatly appreciated; Mrs. Georgina K. Fellowes, the daughter of Major Kendall; Mr. Paul MacGahan, the son of the "Liberator of Bulgaria"; John M. LeSage, Esq., the managing editor of the Daily Telegraph', Mr. William Beer, of the Howard Memorial Library of New Orleans; Prof. Albert Bushnell Hart; General T. Dimitrieff, of Sofia, Bulgaria; the Rev. Henry E. Wing; and others who have helped me to ascertain facts difficult to verify. I am under obligations also to Mr. J. B. Millet for the loan of the portrait group of his brother, the late Francis D. Millet, and Mr. MacGahan; to the Century Company, for the portrait of William H. Russell; to Smith, Elder & Company, for the portrait of Edmond O'Donovan; and to Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, for that of Henry Richard Vizetelly. F. Lauriston Bullard. Boston, September 1, 1914. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Acknowledgement is made of the courtesy of the following publishers who gave permission for the use of quoted material as here listed: William Blackwood & Sons, from G. W. Steevens's "With the Conquering Turk'* and "With Kitchener to Khartoum"; The Canadian Magazine, from articles by Frederic Villiers; Cassell & Company, Ltd., from Archibald Forbes's "Memories of War and Peace"; Chapman & Hall, Ltd., from Bennet Burleigh's "Desert Warfare," "Sirdar and Khalifa" and "The Khartoum Campaign"; Chatto & Windus, from E. A. Vizetelly's "The Lover's Progress"; Dodd, Mead & Company, from Steevens's "Capetown to Ladysmith," and to Mr. James B. Pinker, owner of the English copyright of the work; Duckworth & Company, from the English edition of George W. Smalley's "Anglo-American Memories"; Longmans, Green & Company, from E. F. Knight's "Madagascar in War Time," Winston Churchill's "Story of the Malakand Field Force" and"From London to Ladysmith*'; Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, from James Creel- man's "On the Great Highway"; McClure's Magazine, from an article by George W. Smalley; Macmillan & Company, Ltd., from Forbes's "Souvenirs of Some Continents" and "The War Correspondence of the Daily News**; C. Arthur Pearson, Ltd., from E. H. Vizetelly's "Cyprus to Zanzibar"; G. P. Putnam's Sons, from Smalley's "Anglo-American Memories"; xi xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., from W. H. Russeirs "The Crimean War," "My Diary in India," and "My Diary during the Last Great War"; Sampson, Low, Marston & Company, from J. A. Mae- Gahan's "Campaigning on the Oxus"; Smith, Elder & Company from E. O'Donovan's "The Merv Oasis"; T. Fisher Unwin, from Burleigh's "Two Campaigns.'* CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The War Correspondent: His Rise and the Prob- lematical Future of his Profession 1 II Sir William Howard Russell SI III Archibald Forbes 69 IV Januarius Aloysius MacGahan 115 V Frederick VilhCTS 155 VI Bennet Burieigh 192 VII Edmond O'Donovan 231 VIII The Five Vizetellys 247 IX Edward Frederick Knight 286 —" X George Warringtdh Steevens 804 XI Winston Spencer Churchill 320 XII James Creelman 336 XIII George Wilkins Kendall 851 XrV " Covering " the Civil War in America 875 XV Reporting the Spanish-American War 409 Index 425 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Sir William Howard Russell Frontispiece FACING PAGE How London Punch delineated the Emotion aroused by Russell's Crimean Letter 46 •^-Archibald Forbes 72 Januarius Aloysius MacGahan and Francis D. Millet. . 116 Frederic Villiers 156 \ Bennet Burleigh 194 Ednjond O'Donovan 232 Henry Richard, Edward Henry, and Frank Vizetelly . . 248 Edward Frederick Knight 288 George Warrington Steevens 306 Winston Spencer Churchill 324 \rames Creelman 338 ^George Wilkins Kendall 352 Charles Carleton Coffin 386 xWhitelaw Reid 386 George Washburn Smalley 400 ^ Stephen Crane 418 -Richard Harding Davis 418 "I will go on ther^lightest errand now to the antipodes that you can desire to send me on. " — Much Ado About Nothing. '* What most extraordinary men are these reporters . . . ! Surely if there be any class of individuals who are entitled to the appellation of cosmopolites, it is these; who pursue their avocation in all countries indifferently and accommodate themselves at will to the manners of all classes of society; their fluency of style as writers is only surpassed by their facility of language in conversation, and their attainments in classical and polite literature only by their profound knowledge of the world. . . I saw them during the three days at Paris mingled with canaille and gamins behind the barriers, while the mitraille was flying in all directions, and the desperate cuirassiers were dashing their fierce horses against the seemingly feeble bulwarks. There stood they, dotting down their observations in their pocket-books, as unconcernedly as if reporting a Reform Meeting in Finsbury Square or Covent Garden, whilst in Spain several of them accompanied the Carlist and Christino guerillas in some of their most desperate raids and expeditions, exposing them- selves to the danger of hostile bullets, the inclemency of winter, and the fierce heat of the summer sun. " — George Borrow, The Bihle in Spain, Famous War Correspondents CHAPTER I The War Correspondent: His Rise and the Problematical Future of His Profession "... the extraordinary devotion and energy of the press, of which the country may well be proud, have created, under very great diflBculty, what may be called a war literature, unexampled in ability and interest, putting before the public all the various astonishing events which have so rapidly succeeded each other in this tremendous struggle." — Lord GranvUley 1870. "Those newly invented curses to armies — I mean newspaper corre- spondents." — Sir Garnet Wolseley. "The life of the modern war correspondent cannot be described as being exactly a bed of roses. The glorious days of the profession, when William Russell and Archibald Forbes and their like flom-ished, have gone, never to return." — Ellis Ashmead-BaHlett We are told that the profession of war correspond- ence is out of date. War has become as much a matter of business calculation as any industrial enter- prise, and in the interest of efficiency the newspaper man has been eliminated. Daring and dash no longer win battles. Close range actions and cavalry charges have faded into the picturesque past. The application of scientific methods to what was once the splendid game of kings has stretched the little battle line of Waterloo to the one hundred and fifty miles of Mukden, and has relegated the commanding generals *. FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS to some point far in the rear of the firing trenches, where, with a battery of telephones, a corps of teleg- raphers and a roll of charts, they receive reports and send orders, not by galloping aides, but by wire. \ The contending armies thus pushed apart and the lines of battle thus extended, the artist and the corre- spondent find themselves confronted by insuperable obstacles which render impossible the duplication of the feats of men like Archibald Forbes and William Howard Russell. They cannot see a battle. Episodes and incidents may come under their observation — pro- vided they are permitted to get within reach of the firing line. These experiences may furnish the mate- rials for articles which editors will welcome as **good stuff," if the press men are allowed to forward their copy. But the blue pencil relentlessly takes the thrill and throb out of their despatches. Wires do not sizzle and cables do not oscillate nowadays with the stories from the " specials at the front." Correspondents are kept in straight- jackets, "cabin'd, cribb'd, con- fin'd," hampered, limited, and circumscribed. And therefore, we are assured, the alluring profession of the war special no longer invites the newspaper man. Yet all these things have been said before. In 1880 the then Lieutenant, now General, Francis Vinton Greene, U. S. A., the friend of Januarius Mac- Gahan, was writing of the drab colors of the military pageant which once had made so brave a show. " How very prosaic the modern battle can be with its long- range muskets," he said. "How tame as a mere spectacle — how little action there is in it. Yet this is characteristic of nearly all battles now. Up to the last moment of the final advance, which is decisive of victory or defeat, but which seldom lasts half an hour. THE WAR CORRESPONDENT S . . . the dramatic features of battle have become short-lived and infrequent." In one of his books upon the Boer War, Winston Spencer Churchill ex- claimed: "Alas! the days of newspaper enterprise in war are over. What can one do with a censor, a forty-eight-hour delay, and a fifty-word limit on the wire?" And Alexander Innes Shand, relating the situation after the Russo-Japanese War, declared: "The war correspondent is notably the victim of the cycles. He was, he is, and it seems likely that he may cease to be." I do not think that he will cease to be, and for rea- sons which will presently appear. His province will be more defined and his sphere of action will be more circumscribed. Times change and he must change with them. The policies of the newspapers and of the war oflfices will be determined by two fundamental j considerations: the right of the public — which pays A the bills, furnishes the soldiers and mourns the dead — j to know how well, or ill, a war is planned and fought, and the right of the men entrusted with the command of , armies and navies to impose such restraints and compel \ such concealments as the strategy of a campaign may require. "^ The war correspondent is a newspaper man assigned to cover a campaign. He goes into the field with the army, expecting to send his reports from that witching region known as "the front." He is a special corre- spondent commissioned to collect intelligence and trans- mit it from the camp and the battle ground. A non- combatant, he mingles freely with men whose business it is to fight. He may be ten thousand miles from his home office, but he finds competition as keen as ever it is in Fleet Street or Newspaper Row. He is engaged 4 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS in the most dramatic department of a profession whose infinite variety is equalled only by its fascination. If he becomes a professional rather than an occasional correspondent, wandering will be his business and ad- venture his daily fare. Mr. A. G. Hales is of the opinion that the newspaper man who is chosen as a war correspondent has won the Victoria Cross of journalism. For the making of a first-rate war correspondent ' there are required all the qualifications of a capable reporter in any other branch of the profession, and others besides. Perhaps it is true that the regular hack work of an ordinary newspaper man is the best training for the scribe of war. The men who had reported fires and train wrecks in American cities proved themselves able to describe vigorously and clearly the campaign in Cuba. William Howard Rus- sell had been doing a great variety of descriptive writ- ing before he was sent to the Crimea. The prime requisites for a satisfactory war correspondent are those fundamental to success in any kind of newspaper service, the ability to see straight, to write vividly and accurately, and to get a story on the wire. Occasionally a brilliant workman appears from no- where, the happy possessor of an almost uncanny intuition of movements and purposes. Such a man was Archibald Forbes. But Forbes, no less than the average special, had to have the physical capacity to march with the private soldier, to ride a hundred miles at a clip at top speed over rough country, to sleep in the open, to stand the heat of the desert and the cold of the mountain height, to endure hunger and thirst and all the deprivations of a hard campaign. Every correspondent at times must keep going until his strength is utterly spent. He must have the tenacity THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 5 which does not yield to exhaustion until his messages are written and on the way to his paper. When the soldier ceases fighting the correspondent's work is only begim. He needs also to have a degree of familiarity with the affairs of the present and the history of the past which will secure him the respect of the oflScers with whom he may associate. Along with the courage of the scout he should possess the suavity and tact of the diplomat, for he will have to get along with men of all types, and occasionally, indeed, his own influence may lap over into the field of international diplomacy. British correspondents, having covered many wars, small and great, since 1870, usually are acquainted with several languages, and often have acquired a knowledge of the technicaHties of military science. Students of the history of journalism pronoimce the influence of the wars in the Low Countries upon the development of English periodicals to have been con- siderable. A precedent for the work of the war corre- spondent may be found in the "Swedish Intelligence" which contains entertaining reports about the armies of Gustavus Adolphus. But the first observers to whom it is possible to apply the term are Henry Crabbe Robinson and Charles Lewis Gruneisen, and only the latter was an actual spectator of the events he described. Usually William Howard Russell is called the inventor of war correspondence, and the first professional war correspondent he certainly was. But what is said in the biography of the famous editor of The Times, John Thaddeus Delane, that when Russell was sent to the Crimea the "idea of having a special correspondent with the army, moving with the troops and describing in detail every action and incident of the camp, was an entirely new feature in journalism," is not quite 6 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS true, for precisely that thing was done eight years previously in the war between the United States and Mexico. In America the fact has been almost forgotten and in England it never perhaps has been known, but it is true that in 1846 and 1847 the newspapers of New Orleans were manifesting a degree of enterprise in reporting the campaigns of Zachary Taylor and Win- field Scott which would be entirely worthy of the most celebrated dailies of today. Even a century ago the Duke of Wellington was registering protests against such a mild type of war reporting as that done by Crabbe Robinson in the Peninsula. In 1809 he declared that *' in some instances the English newspapers have accurately stated not only the regiments occupying a position, but the num- ber of men fit for duty of which each regiment was composed; and this intelligence must have reached the enemy at the same time as it did me, at a moment at which it was most important that he should not receive it. " Verily that protest has a most modern sound. Mr. Atkins suggests in his biography of Russell that it may have been because of the repeated warnings of the English commander that there was no correspondent in the later Peninsular campaigns and none at Waterloo. That final conflict of the Napoleonic Wars had a little more than a column in the Morning Chronicle, and three-fourths of that space was devoted to the list of the killed and wounded. Henry Crabbe Robinson really was more of a foreign special than a war correspondent. Between the months of March and August, 1807, he sent letters "from the Banks of the Elbe" to The Times. He took up his residence at Altona, where arrangements were made with a German editor to place at his disposal not only THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 7 all public documents, but a quantity of information which the limits imposed upon the German press pre- vented the editor himself from using, a fact which sug- gests interesting inquiries as to the censorship of a century ago. A very comfortable and pleasurable time he had at Altona, mingling freely in the social life of the town, and sending duly to his paper accounts of the hopes and fears and rumors which made the gossip of the courts of Europe. Napoleon had won Jena and advanced into Poland. It was a time of grave anxiety in every capital. The battle of Friedland was fought on June 14, but the correspondent did not have the news until June 20. The next year Robinson went out again for The Times y and from August, 1808, to the first of the follow- ing February he was dating his letters "from the Shores of the Bay of Biscay." On July 19, immediately after the outbreak of the Spanish Revolution, he started from London with instructions to collect news and forward it by every vessel that left the port of Corunna where he landed on the last day of the month. From a local editor he secured the papers published in the Spanish capital, and the time between sailings was devoted to the translation of pubHc documents and the writing of comments upon them, and to social intercourse with the "grand ladies and noblemen" who were numerous in the city. It is altogether likely that he did not see a shot fired in the whole campaign unless at a great dis- tance. The battle of Corunna was fought and the death of Sir John Moore occurred on January 16, 1809, but he knew nothing of the fighting until he went to dine and found the great room, usually full of gay life, deserted and not a red coat in sight. A waiter said to him; " Have you not heard, sir? The French are come; 8 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS they are fighting." The correspondent walked a mile or more out of town and remained imtil dark, when he went aboard a ship in the harbor. He heard the can- nonading which seemed to "come from the hills about three miles from Corunna," and he saw the wounded and the French prisoners brought into the city. Yet, although the vessel remained for two days, he seems not to have secured any details of the battle nor even to have heard of the death of the English commander. The next war special was Mr. Gruneisen, who, in March, 1837, was sent by the Morning Post (whose foreign department he had managed) to observe the fighting in Spain. He made his start with all the speed of a modem, for within two hours he received his first notice, took his instructions, obtained his passport, and boarded the night mail for Dover. Having reported upon conditions at San Sebastian, he accompanied the British Legion and for some time was attached to the headquarters of Don Carlos. Although he is better remembered as a musical critic, Gruneisen proved him- self a good journalist. He did not spare himself in his efforts to see the incidents of which he wrote, and he was present at several small actions and at the battle of Villar de los Navarros. After one victory the soldiers, contrary to the orders of Don Carlos, were about to massacre a number of prisoners, when the correspond- ent, having tried several expedients in vain, at last managed to save their lives by revealing himself to the commander as a Freemason. He was with the army in the advance upon Madrid, and in the retreat which followed he endured severe hardships and several times was in danger of death. In October was fought the battle of Retuerta, after which he determined to quit Spain, but instead he fell THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 9 into the hands of the Christinos. For a time he was in peril of execution as a Carlist, and once he was actually led out to be shot. He trusted to his neutral position for deliverance, and made no use in his own behalf of the appeal which had saved the Carlist prisoners. After a period of imprisonment at Pamplona and much suffering, the influence of Lord Palmerston and of Count Mole, then the French Premier, effected his release. Gruneisen returned to England in January, 1838. Later he served as the Paris correspondent of the Morning Post, and organized a carrier pigeon service between the French city and London, which was re- garded as a remarkable stroke of energy. In this con- nection it should be noted that in the Carlist struggle The Times received letters from the noted C. F. Hen- ningsen, who fought in Spain as a soldier of fortune, and was also made prisoner by the Christinos. He was liberated at the same time as Gruneisen and upon the same condition, that he stay out of Spain during the continuance of the war. But the custom of sending special correspondents to report campaigns dates in America only from the time of the Mexican War and in Europe from the cam- paign in the Crimea. When General Scott entered the City of Mexico in 1847 there were only a few hun- dred miles of telegraph in the United States, and in the whole Crimean War Russell sent but one telegram, a few words announcing the fall of Sebastopol. Not until November, 1851, was direct telegraphic communication established between London and Paris, and at about that time Algernon Borthwick, later known as Lord Glenesk and then the Paris representative of the Morning Post, wrote his father that the use of the wire "cleaned out his pockets sadly." He went on to ask for £20, as there 10 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS was "a prospect of warm work" and he would *'have to keep the electric fluid constantly flowing." Truly that was the day of small things. Expense accounts have mounted very fast since then. The cable tolls of The Times for despatches from Egypt in 1882 and 1883 when C. F. Moberly Bell was its correspondent footed up more than £18,000 for fourteen months. The cost of cabling Mr. Bell's ac- count of the bombardment of Alexandria was £800. For ten columns of news from Uganda a few years later the paper paid £2200. Among the large sums paid by American papers probably the earliest for the cabling of important news were the $7000 in gold by the New York Herald for the transmission of the whole of the speech of the King of Prussia after the battle of Sadowa in 1866, and the $5000 paid in 1870 by the New York Tribune for its account of the battle of Gravelotte. These amounts have many times been exceeded in the last score of years. At the time of Russell's departure for the East newspaper circulations also were small as compared with today's figures. The Times, in 1852, had a circulation of about 40,000. After about twenty years Shirley Brooks was saying to Sir John Robinson: "You and Bismarck are the only persons who have gained in this war," referring to the enormous increases in the circulation of the Daily News which were the reward of its exertions in the Franco-Prussian War. In one week the paper is supposed to have jumped from a circulation of 50,000 to three times that number of copies. The "war extra" is one of the most common tokens of present-day newspaper enterprise, but one has only to go a little way into the past to see how great is the contrast between the conditions in Fleet Street and THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 11 Newspaper Row a half-century ago and today. To find the very first battle extra, however, the search must be extended back to 1759, when there was pub- lished **by authority" an issue of the London Gazette "Extraordinary" at the Whitehall Palace, telling of the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe. But consider how the news of the battle of the Alma was given to the city of London. The battle was fought on Wednesday, September 20, 1854. On the afternoon of Saturday, September 30, the publisher of the Gazette was in his oflice in St. Martin's Lane when he received a message summoning him to the Secretary of War in Downing Street. He hurried to the War OflSce and found the Secretary greatly excited over the "glorious news" and much concerned as to how the people were to get the news on that Saturday evening as there were no papers. The publisher suggested that a special Gazette be printed and copies sent to the theatres to be read from the stage. It was done and a sudden stop came to most of the performances. The story of the battle had been carried to Constan- tinople and the British Ambassador there had written a telegram which had been sent away by messenger on Saturday, the twenty -third. The nearest place where there was a wire available was Belgrade, and the coiu'ier had ridden over the Balkans and through Servia taking a week for the journey. The special Gazette's report con- tained but a few lines and there were inaccuracies in these. On the Sunday there was a supplement issued with a brief telegram from Lord Raglan and then there was a wait of many days before the long lists of three thousand killed and wounded were received and printed. (^The year 1870, when France and Germany were fighting the war out of which issued United Germany 12 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and the Third French RepubHc, was the transition period in the history of war correspondence. Up to that time the specials won their reputations by the graphic qualities of their descriptive articles. As Forbes says: "They had no telegraph wire to be at once their boon and their curse; for them, in the trans- mission of their work, there was seldom any other expedi- ent than the ordinary post from the camp or the base; or, at the best, a special express messenger.*/ In the American Civil War the telegraph was used to a vast extent. Yet at the outbreak of the campaign of 1870, European journals had no notion of substituting the instantaneous wire for the laggard mail. They thought of the economies of the slower vehicle and relied upon Renter's Agency for their foreign news. Before the war was more than begun astounding feats were being achieved and the whole art of war reporting was being revolutionized. The revolution would not have been possible had there not been able and ingenious men in the field, and of these the most remarkable was Archi- bald Forbes. Yet it is a fact which is not generally imderstood that the celebrated special of the Daily News did not precipitate the change. The idea of substituting the wire for the mail seems to have been carried to England by George W. Smalley of the New York Tribune, But he was unwilling to trust the wire under some circumstances, and, as American corre- spondents had carried tidings from the battle fields of Virginia to Washington and New York City, so he directed his men to come with their copy from France to London. The story is related at length in Smalley 's ''Memories'* with which should be compared the ac- count in "Fifty Years in Fleet Street," by Sir John Robinson of the Daily News. THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 13 Mr. Smalley, who had made himself famous as a special in the American war, hiuried to Europe in 1866 when the news came of the opening of hostilities be- tween Prussia and Austria. By the time he reached Queenstown the war was over. He went on to Berlin, however, where he did what then was regarded as a startling thing. There was a break in the negotiations for peace and the homeward march of the victors of Sadowa was halted. The American special sent a cable despatch of about one hundred words to the Tribune and paid $500 in tolls, which was an unheard-of extrav- agance. Upon his next trip across the ocean, Mr. Smalley went **as the exponent of a new theory of American journalism in Europe, a theory based on the belief that the cable had altered all the conditions of inter- national newsgathering and that a new system had to be created." The outcome of the new system was a series of scores for the Tribune in the early months of the great war which all the world was watching with eager interest, and these scores were commonly spoken of in London as due to the application of "American methods " to the European situation. At the beginning Mr. Smalley made an alliance with the Daily News; the messages from the Tribune's correspondents were to be given also to the Daily News and vice versa. London, a little later, was confused by the arrangement, and the confusion became the greater because one of the specials for the New York paper had also an arrangement with the Pall Mall Gazette, Smalley's plan was to select a few of the most desirable men and to send them out with directions which he himself has described. "The instructions were very simple, but I believe at that time were novel in England," he says. "Each was to 14 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS find his way to the front, or wherever a battle was most likely to be fought. He was to telegraph to London as fully as possible all accounts of preliminary engagements. If he had the good luck to witness an important battle he was not to telegraph, but unless for some very peremptory reason he was to start at once for London, writing accounts by the way or after his arrival. If he could telegraph a summary first so much the better. But there must be no delay. The essential thing was to arrive in London at the earliest moment. He was to provide beforehand for a sub- stitute or more than one who would take up his work while he was absent. Only when in London was a correspondent master of the situation. There was never much chance of sending a full story from the battle field, or from some near town, nor from any capital, not even a neutral capital." ) By faithful adherence to these instructions, what newspaper men exult over as "splendid scoops" were achieved by a Mr. Hands, Holt White, M. Mejanel and Gustave Miiller. The story of the first exploit was thus told by Archibald Forbes: "At Saarbriick, on the French frontier, . . . there was an immediate concentration of momentary interest scarcely surpassed later anywhere else; yet to no one of the correspondents gathered there, whether veteran or recruit, had come the inspiration of telegraphing letters in full. . . . The world's history has no record of more desperate fighting than that which raged the hvelong summer day on the plat- form of Mars-la-Tour. The accounts of that bloody combat went to England per field-post and mail-train; yet the Saarbruck telegraph office, from which the embargo had been removed, was within a six-hour's ride of the field. "The battle of Gravelotte did get itself described, after a fashion, over the wires; but it was no Englishman who accomplished the pioneer achievement. The credit thereof accrues to an alert American journalist named Hands, who was one of the representatives of the New York Tribune, Whether, when the long strife was dying away in the dark- ness, the spirit suddenly moved this quiet little man, or THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 15 whether he had prearranged the undertaking, I do not know; nor do I know whether he carried or whether he sent his message to the Saarbriick telegraph office. But this is cer- tain, that it got there in time to be printed in New York on the day but one after the battle. ... It was, indeed, no great achievement intrinsically, looked back on now in the light of later developments; yet Hand's half -column telegram has the right to stand monumentally as the first attempt in the Old World to describe a battle over the telegraph wires." The detailed story of Gravelotte was the work of Moncure D. Conway, who made a thrilling trip to London, riding for hours stretched flat on the top of a freight car. He had served for some time as pastor of a Unitarian Church in Washington, when he decided to go to England and try to correct the mistaken impres- sions there prevailing as to the justice of the Federal cause in the controversy with the Southern States. At the beginning of the war between France and Germany the New York World cabled for his services as a corre- spondent. With a well-known American newspaper man, Murat Halstead, he watched the battle of Grave- lotte and noted also the demeanor of King William, Moltke, Bismarck, and General "Phil" Sheridan, who was observing the campaign as the guest of the Ger- mans. The morning after the battle Conway and Halstead went over the field. Having slid down a steep bank to drink from a spring, the clergyman- correspondent found it difificult to crawl back again. The handle of a cane was reached down to him and he scrambled up to find that his assistant was no other than Archibald Forbes. The three reporters walked together to Gravelotte, where they had a long talk about the battle with Sheridan. Now Conway was off for London. He started afoot for a French town twelve miles away, getting a lift over 16 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS a portion of the distance in the cart of a peasant. As he neared the town he found the road clogged with ambulances, and past midnight he came to a large square in which the surgeons had established an open- air hospital. At Remilly also he found ghastly crowds, and as he fared on to Saarbriick the difficulties of travel increased. Here was the railway, but the only train was packed with hurt men, and his offer to serve as a nurse for his transportation was refused. As the cars moved out of the station, Conway climbed to the top of one of them. An official shouted a warning: "The bridges are low; your head will be knocked off." But he found that the front edge of the car roof had been flattened, and there was little trouble lying on his back to escape the bridges so long as the daylight lasted. He spent ten hours on the car roof, and six of the ten were hours of thick darkness and chilling mist. For most of that period he was stretched flat, every nerve tense and every faculty alert, gripping the edge of the roof with his hands. On the beautiful Sunday morning which followed, Conway took the military train for Treves. Progress was slow, for wounded and dying soldiers were distributed at stations along the line. At every stop, before the train paused, women would begin to shriek for tidings of their friends. Years after, Conway wrote: "At times I was sick and faint. The earth yawned into one vast grave, the blue sky was a pall, the sun had turned to blood!" From Treves to Luxem- bourg the journey was made by voiture, for the railway bridges were burned. He hurried on to Brussels, caught the night boat at Ostend, and on Monday morning he was in London. Not a paper contained any news of the great battle. Conway's first duty was to cable a despatch to the New THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 17 York World, He then went to the offices of the Daily News where Robinson captured him as the most valu- able man in the world at that particular moment. The American was not permitted to leave the office until he had written the long description of Gravelotte which was telegraphed all over Europe and translated into all the languages of the Continent, making a tremendous sensation. For the New York Tribune .gmalley also acquired it. In spite of the alliance with the London daily there were circumstances which prevented Robin- son's handing the article over to Smalley, whereupon the latter purchased it at a good round figure from the writer. Although not of much military value, the picturesque story remains to this day one of the daring feats of journalism. But Moncure Conway ended his career as a war correspondent then and there, and for weeks his dreams were haunted by the scenes he had witnessed. Thursday, September 1, 1870, was the date of the battle of Sedan. On the afternoon of the Saturday fol- lowing, one of the Smalley specials walked into his offices in Pall Mall with the story of the fighting, as seen from the German side. On Monday afternoon in came the correspondent who had followed the battle with the French. The first to arrive was Holt White, an Englishman; the second was M. Mejanel, whose father was French and mother English. When the former arrived, London had known for about six hours barely the fact that there had been a catas- trophe at Sedan. Robinson of the Daily News and Smalley of the Tribune had been in conference over the situation, and at noon the latter had received a wire from White saying he was due in London that after- noon. 18 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Both Archibald Forbes and Smalley have put on record their admiration of Holt White as a "man who at one supreme moment accomplished one of the most brilliant exploits" of journalism. He was in the saddle from four in the morning until the end of the battle. He was standing near **Phir' Sheridan when the letter of surrender was handed by the French General Reille to the Prussian King, and the napkin that had served the messenger as a flag of truce was given the correspondent as a souvenir. "And then," to quote the language of Forbes, "with dauntless courage he walked right across the battle field, through the still glowing embers of the battle." He was starting to London. He had to pass the lines of three armies, the Prussians who refused him a permit, the French outposts at the north of Sedan, and the Bel- gians who were making a pretence at least of guarding their frontier and preserving the neutrality of their territory. For miles White was riding with his life in his hand. He himself was never able to explain how he got through. Reaching the nearest railway station he took a train for Brussels where he arrived early on the morning of Friday. But the issue of the battle was unknown there. No despatch would be accepted from him. The operators scouted his story. He was crazy or he was trying to influence the prices of stocks. And anything for London or elsewhere would have to be submitted to the censor, and everywhere the censorship is a heartbreaking thing to the reporter. White went on by train to Calais, missed one boat, took the next, missed the connecting train from Dover to London, chartered a special, and was in the English capital on Saturday afternoon. What followed must be told in Smalley's own terms. THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 19 "Seldom have I been so glad to see a man*s face as to see his, but there was hardly so much as a greeting between us. *Is your despatch ready?* *Not a word written.* *Will you sit down at once and begin.^** T cannot. I'm dead tired. I've had no food since daybreak. I must eat and sleep.' He looked it, a mere wreck of a correspondent, haggard, dirty, ragged, incapable of the effort which never- theless had to be made. That was no time to consider anybody's feelings. A continent was waiting for the news locked up in that man's brain, and somehow or other the lock must be forced, the news told. Incidentally it was such an opportunity for the Tribune as seldom has come to any paper. *You shall have something to eat, but sleep you shall not till you have done your dispatch. That must be in New York tomorrow morning.' We went over to a Pall Mall restaurant, and back in the Tribune office just after six commenced work." Down they sat opposite each other. Said White: "I am to condense as much as possible, I suppose?" Smalley replied: **No. You will please write fully." "But — it is going by cable." "Yes." "And it will be several columns long." "The longer the better." "I still don't quite understand." "Then please put the cable out of your mind. Write exactly as if you were writing for a London paper and the printer's devil waiting." Thus Smalley relates the conversation, as indicating how strange was the idea of wiring, much less cabling, even the story of one of the most momentous battles of the century. Holt White wrote a terribly bad hand. Smalley copied the article sheet by sheet, and carried these legible pages to the cable oflSce, taking no chances. Neither knew for a certainty that no other person had come through. White had recognized no rival on the way and he was sure none had traveled on his special, but it was two days since Sedan had been 20 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS fought, and the one thing they could be sure of was that their single duty must be to get the story on the cable. White wrote on with grim determination. Would he take a brief rest before finishing? No; if he stopped he would fall asleep, and if he once slept he would not wake. After two on Sunday morning the last lines were scrawled with fingers almost be- numbed. Monday morning the English papers were nearly a blank as to news from Sedan. Holt White's narrative did not appear in the Daily News because he had an arrangement with the Pall Mall Gazette, an afternoon paper, for which he prepared a shorter account of the battle. On Sunday morning across the ocean the Tri- bune printed "a clear, coherent, vivid battle story," and it was the only report to appear either in New York or in London. The London morning papers first had full accounts of the battle on Tuesday. The situation caused a vast amount of comment and mystification. While Smalley was still almost shouting for joy, on Monday afternoon in walked Mejanel. "An angel from heaven would have been less welcome," says Smalley. The correspondent had seen the battle from the French side. He had taken his chances of being shot in order to get away with the news. He was a prisoner, when once the French surrendered, and he was never able to remember if he was released or if he escaped. If the latter he might have been shot by German sentries or arrested and brought before a court martial. He had been sorely tried getting on to London, and had had no chance to write. He was staggering with fatigue but his nerves were steady. At once he sat down at that small table to THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 21 write. His memory was accurate. He wrote a good English style. His was a picture of the horrors within the French lines and the town of Sedan. Smalley again copied sheet by sheet the despatch, and at midnight, with four columns completed, Mejanel ended his toil. On Tuesday morning that despatch was printed in New York, making ten columns in all of exclusive matter on Sedan. The final exploit of the series which started the making over of the whole method of war reporting was that of Gustav Muller, whose story of the surrender of Metz was published simultaneously in the Daily News and the New York Tribune on October 30, 1870, which was the second day after the capitulation. It was a remarkable account, including a visit to the surrendered city, which "startled all England," to use the language of Archibald Forbes. In London The Times the next morning quoted the narrative in full with a prefatory statement "congratulating our contemporary on the energy and enterprise of its correspondent." That correspondent was long sup- posed to be Forbes, but the actual writer was a German- American whom Smalley had engaged for the Tribune, He saw the dejected troops of Bazaine march out of Metz ; he entered the city with the Germans and saw the confusion which held sway there for a time; and then he rode north along the Moselle valley to the frontier of Luxembourg, in peril all the way, and managed to get through to London. Forbes, who repudiated the credit wrongly assigned him, supposed the story went to London by wire from a Luxembourg hamlet, but Smalley states explicitly that Muller did just what White and Mejanel had done before him. And Forbes, having penetrated into Metz and spent 22 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the night writing a letter, which he sent off by post, was "turned physically sick" by the arrival of a copy of the Daily News with MuUer's story. Thus it was that Europe and the world learned that in modern war correspondence, as in every depart- ment of newspaper work, the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong. Smalley states the case thus : "Putting the question of cost aside, it does not matter how a piece of news is transmitted, whether by rail, steamship or wire. What matters is that it shall get there. Today this is a truism; in 1870 it was a para- dox." Forbes was quick to seize upon the new idea. From Robinson came instructions to send complete stories by telegraph. From that time on Forbes was very seldom beaten. He became "the swift, alert man of action," to use his own phrase, "an organizer of means for expediting news." The improvements in the systems of collecting and transmitting news not only changed the old order but induced also a vastly greater demand for information of every kind. The war correspondent was almost a necessary consequence of the expectations to which the advances of science gave rise. But as the corre- spondents multiplied in numbers, and the competition became ever more keen, army commanders began to encompass them with restrictions. Regulations were framed to meet the dangers of a freedom which might easily degenerate into an irresponsible license. The censorship was mild in the war of 1870. Scores of correspondents roamed and scribbled almost without restraint in Bulgaria in 1877. News men were tol- erated, if not welcomed, by officers in the field. But the press men have been hampered more and more in each successive campaign, until from the Russo- THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 23 Japanese War many correspondents returned home in disgust, and in the late war in the Balkans the men who followed the Bulgars found the regulations, says Mr. Philip Gibbs, "appalling in their severity." The duties of the censors are opposed in most particulars to the duties of the correspondents, so that, unless, upon the one hand, great discretion is shown, and, upon the other, great tact, the relations between the two parties become strained. At an enormous expense the papers equip their specials and maintain them in the field. These bills the newspapers would not pay, except that no war of any magnitude can be fought these days and the whole world not be concerned about it. Meagre oflBcial reports w:ill not satisfy the demand for information. The public want, and ought to have, the details, and from a presumably impartial source. The newspapers that would survive must supply the demand, and the rewards of their endeavors come partly in increased circulation and largely in prestige. Directly upon the beginning of hostilities the censors begin work. Whatever the conditions, theirs is no small task. With gratitude the special correspondents in Cuba in 1898 bore testimony to their cordial rela- tions with several of the censors there. On the other hand, there are not wanting able observers who assert that the military press censorship in the Philippines was "maintained for the sole purpose of protecting the administration and army from popular criticism, * or for political purposes only." The news men were not permitted to use the word "ambushed" in a despatch, we are told, because it would imply negligence on the part of the military authorities. In the Boer War, before the arrival of Lord Roberts 24 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS in South Africa, the commanding general in each of the four zones of action had the option of accepting or rejecting correspondents, and staff officers, with Httle notion of the duties of the position, were appointed censors. There was much confusion in consequence. Julian Ralph, an American, wrote that one censor amused himself by taking the despatches of a young man, who was doing his best to enter upon an honor- able career as a correspondent, and throwing them into the wastebasket for ten days without telling the special of their fate. "It pleased him to insult me," he con- tinues, "by telling me that the only message I could send to England must be the description of a sand- storm." Nor was any attention shown to the order in which correspondents brought in their despatches. The first to submit his copy might have supposed that his energy was to have its natural reward. But often enough the last to file a message would be the first to get the signature, his manuscript being at the top of the stack. With the coming of Lord Roberts the unhappy lot of the specials was abated. Freedom of movement was granted a large number of men. Their long letters were sent forward uncensored, being stamped and sealed at the censor's office to insure their final delivery without examination. The press cables, however, were limited to events which had already occurred and were subjected to censorship. But it was an intelligent censorship. The office was entrusted to Lord Stanley, who proved himself a considerate and courteous supervisor, and his relations with the news men were always agreeable. There is a political side to the story in this war also, in the judgment of some well-informed men, who declare that there was no military necessity for the press censorship. THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 25 For many months after the beginning of the war between Russia and Japan a small army of correspond- ents were left stranded high and dry in Tokio. The government made sure that they cabled nothing and saw nothing. A special for The Times telegraphed that General Fukushima of the General Staff informed the foreign press men that a force had begun to land on the Liautung Peninsula. They wished to know where and in what numbers the landing had been effected. The General merely smiled. They asked again: "In the East, West, North or South?" The reply was : ** Out of the skies from heaven. " Undoubt- edly the Japanese were surprised and embarassed by the great number of press men who flocked to the war. But Bennet Burleigh, in an eloquent defense of his profession, said that the Japanese, as "keen observers of the signs of the times, " realized that they had made a mistake in their treatment of the correspondents, as was indicated by a belated change of policy. In the Balkan War the severity of the press restrictions varied according to the army to which a correspondent was accredited. The Turkish censorship was inca- pable, facilities for forwarding despatches were promised and the promises were not kept, and every effort was made to lead the specials away from the news. The Bulgarian authorities forbade the reporters to give the names of generals or the disposition of troops, the names or numbers of the killed and wounded, the success or failure of the army, the condition of the soldiers' health, or even the state of the weather. The object of the embargo upon publicity is declared! to be to prevent military information from becoming known to the enemy. The justification of the censor- ship is commonly illustrated by the citation of cases, «6 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS some of which, at least, will not bear examination. It long was asserted that Russell's Crimean letters helped the Russians. Years after that war Russell wrote Gortchakoff and asked his opinion, receiving in reply a statement that the papers had been regularly sent him from Warsaw by a cousin, but that he had never learned anything from them which he had not known beforehand. And often the tale has been related that at the critical time in the opening of the Franco- Prussian War, Marshal von Moltke was most anxious to know the exact whereabouts of the army of Marshal MacMahon, that he was in doubt for several days, that at last a paragraph, with a Paris date line, in a London newspaper, told him that the French were concentrat- ing near Sedan, and that the German commander at once modified his plans and initiated the strategy which ended in the capitulation of the French army and the surrender of Louis Napoleon. That story seems incred- ible on its face. It surely does no credit to the organiz- ing genius of the famous German soldier. That the press has at times committed excesses in the name of freedom no one will deny. But the way to keep that freedom within the limits of propriety is not by the use of a muzzle. The whole question may largely be solved by seeing to it that censors shall be trained for their task, just, competent and fair, and that correspondents shall be of the highest level of newspaper men, high-minded, honest and trustworthy. Lord Roberts won the respect of the newspaper men in South Africa by trusting them. In the Indian Mutiny Lord Clyde had no trouble in securing the silence of Russell. He merely trusted him; Russell's honor did the rest. Few indeed are the press men, with the ability to go into the field as war specials, who will THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 27 betray a trust that has been fairly committed to them. As Bennet Burleigh put it: "What a creature that correspondent would be who would betray the host with whom he remains as an honored guest!" But he added, most justly: "And what a contemptible enemy that must be who trusts to the newspapers as their intelligence department, and not to their own and well-organized and costly system of spies, scouts and special service men!" As a matter of fact, no press censorship prevents military plans and secrets from becoming known to the enemy. Spies and secret agents march with every army and have their ears at the keyhole of every cabinet and council of war. Correspondents work in the open; they can be suppressed; but the under- ground routes have never yet been barricaded. Upon the other hand, it would be easy to list a series of valuable services which the war correspondents have rendered the world. Their despatches have been read in Congresses and Parliaments. Russell saved the remnant of the British army in the Crimea. Charles Nasmyth saved the Crimean Allies a campaign on the Danube; Lionel James told the truth about the battle of Liao-yang and hastened the coming of peace. MacGahan in Bulgaria, Creelman in Corea, various correspondents in Cuba, supplied the world with tidings of massacres and oppressions about which mankind had a right to know. To be sure, there have been exaggerations, "fakes," and misrepresentations in many times and places. There have been instances, not a few, of commanders and armies encouraging deliberately the telling of untruths for the booming of personal reputations and the manufacture of spuri- ous victories and maneuvres. There are charges that 28 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the Bulgars in the late war thus put a premium upon the correspondence of unscrupulous and pliant men and discouraged the energies of the specials who sedulously sought to ascertain and to tell the truth. The limitations must be imposed upon all in order that the excesses of the few may be stopped. But these misrepresentations are far from being a modern invention. The eminent American journalist, E. L. Godkin, scathingly denounced the falsehoods sent out from the Crimea, where he served as a war special. German and Austrian papers were describing battles which never were fought and naming commanders who did not exist. In this respect the war correspond- ent has many times been made to suffer for the sins of audacious adventurers who have represented themselves as specials in order to get to the front. As long ago as 1881 the case was well stated by Lieutenant Greene, before quoted, who wrote: "Newspai>er correspMsndents will hereafter form a most important element in every war, every great diplomatic conference, every other great event of every character; and the way to treat them is not foolishly to banish well-trained professional men, as the English tried to do in Afghanistan, and take in place of their reports the crude, biased and incorrect statments of tyros in the form of subaltern oflScers, but to treat the real correspondents with dignity, increase their sense of responsibility, and give them every facility for acquiring correct information of facts that have already transpired and are concluded; in short, to make the position one that will be sought by men of brains, energy, and a high sense of honor, and thus to see that the world, which will have news of some sort, shall have truthful news. " These words, which sound as if they were written yesterday, rather than more than thirty years ago, strike the right note. News of some sort the world THE WAR CORRESPONDENT 29 will have, indeed. And it is not good for militarism to fe^HtSBtf-^ceifipt from criticism. Russell said that "independent civilian opinion is good for army men," and that "the close atmosphere of any society of experts is likely to be the better for a little outside air." Civilization must have an unprejudiced wit-i ness at the front in war. Technical records have no place in the newspapers. Graphic pictures of the life of the camp and incidents of the battle are the stuff that patriotism thrives on. The people like to read about the way the soldier lives, his shaving and his eating, his whistling and his singing, how he behaves under fire, little pathetic or humorous scenes as well as big thrilling episodes. The reporting of splendid disasters never hurts the solemn pride of a people and never lessens the number of enlistments. The story that Forbes wrote of Gravelotte, how as evening fell the result hung in the balance and how the King burst into tears when Von Moltke clattered up and an- nounced the victory; MacGahan's picture of Skobeleff at Plevna, Richard Harding Davis's tale of the httle boy on the battle field in Greece, Kravchenko's des- patch with the thrilling account of the destruction of the Russian battleship at Port Arthur, these, together with the simple statements of numbers, commanders, marches, and all the events of campaigns, are what the people expect the papers to print in war time. /The statesman and the soldier must reckon with the fact that the people conceive themselves to have the right to know about the administration of their government, the spending of their money and the fighting of their wars. The printing press is but another name for publicity and publicity more and more is taking its place as one of the very chief imple- 30 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ments of progress and civilization. This funda- mental principle was stated on a time by Frederic Villiers, the famous war artist and correspondent, in these vigorous words: "Whatever the temptation, whatever the influence or pressure, whatever the government itself, whatever the consequences or personal sacrifice, never suppress the news. "Always tell the truth, always take the humane and moral side, always remember that right feeling is the vital spark of strong writing, and that publicity, publicity, publicity is the greatest moral factor and force in our public life." CHAPTER n SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL " Russell rose like a meteor in the Crimean War.'* — F. Max Mutter. On an evening in February, 1854, William Howard Russell, general reporter and descriptive writer, Irish wit, story-teller and all-round good fellow, was sitting "on call" at his desk in the oflfice of The Times in Printing House Square in the city of London when a messenger brought him a summons to the room of John Thaddeus Delane, the editor of the famous newspaper. Of the conversation which took place in that interview there is no record, but the amazing consequences which ensued make a great chapter in the history of journalism, a chapter the more interest- ing because neither the editor nor the reporter had any notion of what these results were to be. England and Russia were in dispute. The government had decided to prove to the Czar its serious intention of supporting Turkey against aggressions. Troops were going to the Mediterranean. Russell should take passage with the Guards to Malta. Everything would be "very agreeable." He would have handsome pay and allow- ances, his wife and family could join him and it would be a delightful little excursion. Never mind about his law practice; there was not much of it anyhow and what there was could wait. He would surely be back before Easter anyway. What occasion was there for worry? 32 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Russell duly proceeded to Malta, but he went on also to Constantinople, and thence to the Crimea. Ere he returned three Easters had passed, and when finally he came home to make the acquaintance of his children, he found himself famous and his paper more powerful than at any previous time in its history. Of just one thing could Delane be positive, when he despatched Russell as a special with the British troops: he was sure he had made no mistake in his choice of a man. This reporter was already "Billy" Russell, and, in order, he was to become "Crimean" Russell, "Dr." Russell, "Bull Run" Russell and Sir William Russell, the friend of Thackeray and Bis- marck, of Sir Colin Campbell and John Bigelow, a chosen companion of the Prince of Wales, and the most versatile representative of The Times, to whom was assigned a bewildering variety of commissions and especially those which required peculiar powers of observation and description. He was just of age and covering his very first assign- ment for the paper when he showed the qualifications of a first-rate reporter. His cousin, Robert Russell, came to Ireland to "do" the elections for The Times. A staff of young fellows was needed to write simple and accurate accounts of what they might see, and he came to "Billy" with the proposition. He would have letters to the best people, a guinea a day and his hotel expenses. Would he start next week? The yoimg man needed the money and started. At once he manifested that knack for finding the news which some call common sense and others rate as genius, that scent which smells out place and time as an animal follows a trail. Delayed in reaching his first meeting, he missed SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 33 some riotous proceedings. Where was he to get an impartial account of both sides? Where indeed? He recalled that this was an election, and what was most significant, that it was an Irish election, and he went straight to the hospital, where he found repre- sentatives of both parties and got the two versions of the day's occurrences. Five days after its writing his first despatch to The Times was printed, and soon a letter from Robert Russell arrived praising his "capital work." What was more, the paper printed a "leader" based upon the young reporter's '* burning words." Russell was born in the county of Dublin on March 28, 1820. He had been a student at Trinity College when his cousin's offer reached him. The elections over he went to London and wrote stories and articles for the magazines and made himself expert in shorthand. Then The Times gave him a place in the Reporters' Gallery of the House of Commons. His first experience with an army in the field was in the little Danish war of 1850. But "the father of war correspondence" looked upon this as only another assignment and the despatch describing the action at Idstedt, in which he received a slight flesh wound, was anything but a Russell article of the later days. He was sent to Cherbourg for the great naval review of 1850; he went about England with Kossuth; he covered law reports, launchings and theatres; never did he know what might be required of him. His paper used him for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington. The best and most important picture stories were coming his way. Also he was intimate with such men as Douglas Jerrold, John Leech and Charles Reade, and a welcome visitor to the Garrick, and also at the Field- ing Club, where "there was just a suspicion of the 34 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS coast of Bohemia among the habitues." Thus he reached at the age of thirty-four the most eventful year of his life. Said Russell: "When the year of grace 1854 opened on me I had no more idea of being what is now — ab- surdly I think — called a 'war correspondent' than I had of becoming Lord Chancellor." Probably he had less, for he still indulged the notion that the law was to be his permanent profession. But Delane requisitioned him for the trip to Malta and soon he departed upon what was to be the chief illustration to the world of the work of the special correspondent. Dickens and Thackeray were among the friends who gave him a farewell dinner. With the departure of the Guards on February 22 began his mishaps. His permission to sail had not arrived when he reached Southampton. He went by another route to Valetta, whence he wrote gossipy letters to London. Word came from The Times that England and France were to send a joint force to Turkey. But how was Russell to move when the army moved .^ The ships were all in government service and he had no right aboard. A friend came to his rescue. Let him be ready at any moment and this friend in need would engage to see that he got off. On the night of March 20, as he was at the Lodge of St. Peter and St. Paul getting ready for initiation, "an orderly thundered at the door and handed in a slip of paper." The message read: "The Golden Fleece will be off at midnight. Your berth is all right. Get your things on board at once. " He left his friends at the Masonic gathering, and started for Turkey without a horse and minus a servant who stayed ashore with the greater part of his kit. But his heart was almost SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 35 as light as was his baggage. A week after his em- barkation he landed at Gallipoli, and then his troubles began anew. He was nobody's child. The Rifles marched off; he remained behind. He had neither quarters nor rations. Money he had, but there was naught to buy. He spoke no Greek and no Turkish. The life about him was novel and exciting enough; a stream of ships was passing all the time; strange unif<|rms, Turcos, Chasseurs, Spahis; salutes were almost continuous, and dignitaries, French and English, were landing and departing. The tide of war was flowing constantly northward through the Dardanelles, and presently Russell made shift to go to Scutari. Here he was more comfortable for a while. He could buy what he wanted, but — " One evening, returning from a ride, he discovered his tent as flat as a pancake about four hundred yards from camp, " so the story is related. "An official had ordered the tent removed at once. On inquiry Russell found that the Commander-in-Chief and his staff had been inspecting the camp; some one noticed the tent, a non-regulation ridgepole thing. *Whose is it?' *The Times' correspondent's.' Brigadier Ben- tinck at once fulminated: *What the — etc., etc., is he doing here?' And the tent came down." By this time his frank letters about the deprivations of sick soldiers were beginning to expose him to the serious displeasure of the army officers, and more than ever it was becoming hopeless for him to try to get anything needed for himself or those he employed. Delane at length wrote that the government had ordered that facilities should be provided for him, and he went to the quarters of Lord Raglan near 36 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Scutari with some hope of reHef . But Lord Raglan was " very much engaged. " The aide heard his request with what Russell says was an expression half of amusement and half of amazement, and finally told him with the utmost politeness that there was not the least chance of his wishes being granted. Russell gave it up for the time being and went across to Pera and an hotel. Soon he embarked with the expedition for Varna. His position was in no way bettered. He wrote the paper: "I have just been informed on good authority that Lord Raglan has determined not to recognize the press in any way, or to give them rations or assistance, and worse than all, it is too probable that he will forbid our accompanying the troops." The news man was merely a camp follower. His tent was removed and put outside the lines. Thus he was liable to robbery, and, as one outside the army, the men would think him an outcast and the officers would be shy of contact and of speech with him. After a time the Duke of Cambridge saw the lone, little blue-striped tent on a deserted camping-ground. An officer was sent to ask what tent it was and the Duke was astonished by the answer, "It belongs to The Times' correspondent, Mr. Russell." "What is he doing here?" was again the question. But the tent was left until the evening, when Russell packed up again and went by bullock transport from Varna to Devna. At last such directions came as permitted him to draw rations and pay the Commissariat for them. Almost immediately thereafter arrived the orders for the embarkation for the Black Sea peninsula, known as the Crimea. And again Russell was hard put to Sm WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 37 it to stay with the troops. He said: "I probably would have lost touch with the army but that Sir De Lacy Evans invited me on board the City of London. I sailed for the seat of war in an extremely desolate condition — without baggage, man or horse. " He had a few borrowed clothes when he set out on that event- ful campaign, a small bag with a change of linen, and that was about all. He had, moreover, but the vaguest idea of what he was to do. More miserable than ever was his plight when the landing was made. Some officers of the Seventh Fusiliers gave him a bit of biscuit and a swallow of soup. But when he undertook to return to the ship he found the small boats gone. That night he spent under a cart, hearing the splash of the rain, the thunder of the surf, and the striking of the ships' bells. The day before the battle of the Alma an officer rode up to him from a cluster of staff men, and said: "The General wants to know who you are and what you are doing here, sir." Russell explained. **I think you had better come and see the General your- self," said the aide. When Russell explained once more, there was again a volley of profanity. "I had as soon see the devil," said the General. "What do you know about this kind of work and what will you do when we get into action?" And Russell replied: "Well, it is quite true I have very little acquaintance with the business, but I suspect there are a great many here with no more knowledge than myself." And the General laughed and accused the correspondent of being an Irishman. After the battle Russell settled down at Balaclava. He declared forever after that he could not remember how he came into possession of a house in which he 38 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS lived. He had no claim to a foot of ground — every inch belonged to the army. But the boards were fitted to his windows and his roof was tarpaulined by friendly hands. He had the floor for a bed, and his "duds" hung from pegs on the walls. He was allowed at last to draw rations, but often enough he went hungry and cold. Then on a day came an oflScer with orders for the surrender of these quarters. They were said to be needed for "Her Majesty's Service." He might by this time have stirred the people at home to a burst of indignation by writing this fact to The Times ^ but he held his peace and once more became a wanderer. The tents of friends sheltered him at times and some- times he sought a refuge aboard some ship. No wonder that in January, 1855, he sent word home that he was "getting bald as a round shot and grey as a badger" and "near losing his health and spirits." A decent degree of comfort in the end was provided for him by the arrival of a hut from England. The Times had been doing what was possible to secure him reasonable accommodations. But the distance was accounted great in those days and communication was slow. Things sent him went astray and some- times his letters were delayed. How that hut gladdened his eyes! "It was square with a sloping roof, and with windows on two sides, and it was divided by a partition." Later he added a stable, and in summer he actually had a little border of flowers about the place. The shells of the Russians occasionally fell near and one carried away his stable. When he finally left the Crimea, that hut was almost the last building before Sebastopol in which there was a resident. SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 39 I have lingered upon the record of Russell's hard- ships partly to indicate the attitude at that time of military men to a profession of which they knew nothing and for which they cared less, and partly be- cause Russell fathered the business of war reporting in Europe, and, therefore, a degree of interest in the con- ditions under which he did his work may reasonably be assumed. Now for the story of the enormous service Russell rendered the armies of England by his exposures of the privations and sufferings which they were called upon to endure, exposures that resulted in the over- throw of a British ministry, and in the coming to the Crimea of Florence Nightingale and her band of devoted nurses. Even at Gallipoli the correspondent had noted the "beginnings of chaos in the British commissary and sanitary arrangements." He wrote Delane that the mismanagement was "infamous." At Varna he came face to face with the crisis in his life. He must tell what he saw, or he must shut his eyes and hold his tongue. He might have the comparative comforts of toleration from the British oflScers, by suppressing the facts which could not escape his attention and allowing himself to be persuaded that such things were but the dire necessities of war, or he might write the whole story to his paper and accept the consequences. His biographer puts the case thus: "The test which comes sooner or later to every man came to him. In a few weeks he was to be a man of public affairs, engaged no longer in the description of incidents which were of no great importance one way or the other, but concerned in the lives of thousands of human beings, supplying the facts which shook the Horse Guards and the Cabinet to their base, and 40 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS eventually brought the Aberdeen Ministry crashing to their ruin. The oflSce of 'special correspondent* was truly created at that time." The world now well knows the story of the horrors which were chronicled in the letters of Russell to The Times, He wrote Delane that he could not tell all the truth — it was too terrible. Warm clothing for the men came too late. The trenches were filled with filth and water. The colonel of a regiment of dragoons told him that the best stables in England could not now save their chargers — they were so far gone that they must die. The number of sick in the British army in Turkey and Bulgaria in April, 1854, was five hundred and three. In July at Varna the number was 6937. In January following it was 23,076. For every death from other causes there were eight who died from the awful sufferings of that winter in the Crimea. The men were destitute of shelter, of greatcoats, of medi- cines. They were encamped on an open plateau, "a vast, black waste of soddened earth, when it was not covered with snow, dotted with little pools of foul water and seamed with brown-colored streamlets strewn with carcasses of horses." The Russian artillery fire was continuous through all that worst winter the Crimea had known in fifty years. In September Delane himself visited the East, so uneasy was the feeling in his mind, even at that early date. He saw with his own eyes something of the truth of what Russell was saying. The manager also had to endure a hurricane of abuse through the winter for printing Russell's letters, but he always said to his correspondent, "Tell the exact truth." And Russell, telling **the exact truth," was obliged to give to the world such facts as these: SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 41 "As to the town itself, words cannot describe its filth, its horrors, its hospitals, its burials, its dead and dying Turks, its crowded lanes, its noisome sheds, its beastly pur- lieus, or its decay. All the pictures ever drawn of plague and pestilence, from the work of the inspired writer who chronicled the woes of infidel Egypt down to the narratives of Boccaccio, DeFoe or Moltke, fall short of individual *bits* of disease and death, which any one may see in half a dozen places during half an hour's walk in Balaclava. In spite of all our efforts the dying Turks have made of every lane and street a cloaca, and the forms of human suffer- ing which meet the eye at every turn, and once were wont to shock us, have now made us callous and have ceased to attract passing attention. Raise up the piece of matting or coarse rug which hangs across the doorway of some miserable house, from within which you hear wailings and cries of pain and prayers to the Prophet, and you will see in one spot and in one instant a mass of accumulated woes which will serve you with nightmares for a lifetime. The dead, laid out as they died, are lying side by side with the living, and the latter present a spectacle beyond all imagination. The commonest accessories of a hospital are wanting; there is not the least attention paid to decency or cleanliness — the stench is appalling — the foetid air can barely struggle out to taint the atmosphere, save through the chinks in the walls and roofs, and, for all I can observe, these men die without the least effort being made to save them. There they lie, just as they were let gently down on the ground by the poor fellows, their comrades, who brought them on their backs from the camp with the greatest tenderness, but who are not allowed to remain with them. The sick appear to be tended by the sick and the dying by the dying. '* Copies of The Times of course were mailed back to the Crimea. The correspondent knew when his letters had been read by oflficers and friends, even though they said no word. Their faces were averted; they had no longer a smile of greeting for him; hints were conveyed to him in roundabout ways that the commanding 42 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS generals would make no objections to his departure. But he went on with his narrative of the miseries of that winter. The water was a foot deep in the tents of the men, coming through the canvas *'like sieves." Shoes once off would not go back over their swollen feet; they hopped about barefooted in the snow; their sheet-iron stoves would not stand their charcoal fuel. The ** wretched boys" sent out to swell the thinned ranks "died ere a shot was fired against them." Now Russell sent the simple, direct appeal which brought Florence Nightingale to the Crimea. "Are there no devoted women among us able and willing to go forth and minister to the sick and suffering soldiers?" he asked. On November 4, 1854, "the Lady-in-Chief " reached the hospital at Scutari. She had read the letters in The Times. She knew the stories of provisions left to rot upon arrival at the front, of consignments of boots all found to be for the left foot, of hospital supplies left covered with muni- tions of war in the holds of vessels. At Scutari she found a barracks for Turkish soldiers transformed into a hospital, with four miles of corridors in which there lay 18,000 soldiers. And with but thirty-four nurses she had come to clean this Augean stable. In the outcome she taught the world that men and women may be organized to save life, as armies long had been trained and organized to destroy it. The Crimean letters stirred such passionate demands from the people of England that at last a motion for an inquiry into the state of the troops before Sebastopol was carried in Parliament and the Aberdeen Ministry was overthrown. The Duke of Newcastle said later to Russell: "It was you who turned out the Govern- ment. " SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 43 To be sure there were born of Russell's letters and of the policy of The Times controversies that continued for many years. The correspondent was accused of attacking Lord Raglan, even of hounding him to death, and of going far beyond his legitimate province in his criticisms of English commanders. Into the con- troversy this record of war correspondents may not enter. But it may be noted in passing that Lord Wolseley and Sir Evelyn Wood used language as strong as Russell's in denouncing the neglect of the troops. And it seems certain that the facts as to conditions on the plateau at Sebastopol would never have been known save for the bold truth-telling of this newspaper man. He may have made some mistakes; long since it has been agreed that he bravely did his duty. The letters in which Russell described the battles fought in the campaign were read by the world as a new thing in journalism. So vivid and comprehensive were they that they yet remain models of their kind. Their readers felt that they were on the ground; they saw the movements of the men; they heard the cheers of the combatants; they saw the smoke of the battlefield and the bursting of the Russian shells. When the battle of the Alma was fought on Sep- tember 20, 1854, Russell was with the cavalcade that followed Lord Raglan about. An oflScer ordered Russell away; he alone had no recognized business on the field. Other generals also brushed him aside, but he managed to stay at the front. In the saddle for ten hours, his horse bleeding from a cut in the leg and unable longer to carry him, he was not under the necessity of the modem correspondent of going for the wire when the conflict ended, for there 44 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS was no wire. Next morning he began to write on the parapet of a battery, when an officer of engineers saw his predicament, and had a plank placed across two casks for a table. That first letter never reached The Times, but the second, written on the basis of additional information, appeared in the paper. Russell saw the charges, both of the Light Brigade and of the Heavy Brigade, at Balaclava, and a few minutes after each event he was on the field over which they had dashed. From his letter there must be cited some passages of his description of the valor of the famous Six Hundred: "Lord Lucan, with reluctance, gave the order to Lord Cardigan to advance upon the guns, conceiving that his orders compelled him to do so. The noble Earl, although he did not shrink, also saw the fearful odds against him. Don Quixote in his tilt against the windmill was not near so rash and reckless as the gallant fellows who prepared without a thought to rush on almost certain death. . . . There was a plain to charge over, before the enemy's guns were reached, of a mile and a half in length. "At ten minutes past eleven our Light Cavalry Brigade advanced. The whole brigade scarcely made one effective regiment, according to the numbers of continental armies; and yet it was more than we could spare. As they rushed towards the front, the Russians opened on them from the guns in the redoubt on the right, with volleys of musketry and rifles. "They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendour of war. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses! Surely that handful of men are not going to charge an enemy in position? Alas! it was but too true — their desperate valor knew no bounds, and far indeed was it removed from its so-called better part — discretion. They advanced in two lines, quickening their pace as they closed towards the enemy. A more fearful spectacle was never witnessed than by those who, without SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 45 the power to aid, beheld their heroic countrymen rushing to the arms of death. At the distance of 1200 yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth, from thirty iron mouths, a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. "The first line is broken, it is joined by the second, they never halt or check their speed for an instant; with dimin- ished ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which the Rus- sians had laid with the most deadly accuracy, with the halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer which was many a noble fellow's death-cry, they flew into the smoke of the batteries, but ere they were lost from view the plain was strewed with their bodies and with the carcasses of horses. They were exposed to an oblique fire from the batteries on the hills on both sides, as well as to a direct fire of musketry. "Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabres flashing as they rode to the guns and dashed between them, cutting down the gunners as they stood. We saw them riding through the guns; to our delight we saw them returning, after breaking through a column of Russian infantry, and scattering them like chaff, when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them down, scattered and broken as they were. Wounded men and dismounted troopers flying towards us told the sad tale — demi-gods could not have done what we had failed to do. At the very moment when they were about to retreat an enormous mass of Lancers was hurled at their flank. Colonel Shewell of the Eighth Hussars saw the danger and rode his few men straight at them, cutting his way through with fearful loss. With courage too great for credence they were break- ing their way through the columns which enveloi>ed them, when there took place an act of atrocity without parallel in the modern warfare of civilized nations. The Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry had passed, returned to their guns. They saw their own cavalry mingled with the troop)ers who had just ridden over them, and, to the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, the miscreants poured 46 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS a volley of grape and canister on the mass of struggling men and horses, mingling friend and foe in one common ruin. . . . "At thirty-five minutes past eleven not a British soldier, except the dead and dying, was left in front of these bloody Muscovite guns. Captain Nolan was killed by the first shot fired, as he rode in advance of the Hussars, cheering them on. ..." Surely the moderns are not doing any better than Russell in this Crimean letter at the beginning of his career as a war reporter. The letter from which this long excerpt is taken was written immediately after the action. He had been all day without food, and he was "exhausted to the point of dejection." But the mail would leave in a few hours, and write he must. With a saddle for a seat, his knee for his desk, a candle in a bottle for his lamp, he wrote till the candle "dis- appeared in the bottle like a stage demon through a trapdoor. " There were several famous episodes in this battle, and in one of Russell's descriptive passages occurs the classic phrase which Rudyard Kipling has not allowed the world to forget. The Crimean observer was indicating the manner in which the 93d Highlanders met the charge of the Russian cavalry. He said: "The Russians on their left drew breath for a moment, and then in one grand line charged towards Balaclava. The ground flies beneath their horses* feet; gathering speed at every stride, they dash on towards that thin red streak topped with a line of steel. " Later he changed the words, and made the phrase read, *'the thin red line tipped with steel,^* and that has become the standard expression for the writers upon war. SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 47 The battle of Inkerman lingered in Russell's mem- ory long after many a later conflict had been forgotten. On the morning of the battle a lantern flashed in his eyes, and a voice cried, "Get up; we are attacked.'* He crammed some biscuit and cheese into one holster, and a revolver and a flask of rum into the other, and started. At dawn he was under the heaviest artillery fire to which he ever had been exposed, and during the day he saw the Sandbag Battery taken and retaken seven times. Of the final events of the Crimean war, which marked the beginning of the art of war correspondence, Russell saw the attack upon the Redan and the taking of the Malakoff by the French, and the descriptions he sent home to The Times were among the most spirited pieces of writing ever penned by a correspond- ent: "After hours of suspense the moment came at last. At five minutes before twelve o'clock the French, like a swarm of bees, issued forth from their trenches close to the doomed Malakoff, scrambled up its faces and were through the embrasures in the twinkling of an eye. They crossed the seven metres of ground which separated them from the enemy at a few bounds — they drifted as lightly and quickly as autumn leaves before the wind, battalion after battalion, into the embrasures, and in a minute or two after the head of their column issued from the ditch the tricolor was floating over the Korniloff Bastion. " The Russians burned Sebastopol and evacuated the place. The war was over. Russell with great diffi- culty obtained a passage to Constantinople, and thence he made his way to England. For weeks after his home-coming he was still living in the atmosphere of war. He would tumble out of bed at all hours shouting, "Sortie! Sortie!" and his startled wife would 48 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS be soberly assured that he certainly had heard musketry somewhere, and that the Guards must be out at very early drill. The remarks of a later journalist and war corre- spondent, George W. Smalley, make the appropriate conclusion for this narrative of Russell's Crimean services: j "The one great triumph of English journalism in the I Crimea . . . was due to the genius and courage of one man, ! Dr. Russell. ... It was a great public service, the greatest I perhaps which any journalist in the field ever performed. j But it was not exactly journalism. It had little or nothing to do with speed and accuracy in the collection and trans- mission of news, which, after all, must be the chief business of a correspondent. It has never been imitated. It never will be, till another Russell appears to rescue another British army in another Crimea. . . " The reporter's obedience to orders is that of the soldier on duty — immediate, unquestioning and un- flinching. Russell had a rest of ten days and then was off to Russia for the Czar's coronation. Trinity College gave him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and "Dr." Russell he remained to the end of his life. For a little while he lectured, but declared the only lecture he had his heart in was the one given for the benefit of his old friend, Douglas Jerrold. With startling suddenness he was ordered to India to inquire into the reports of the atrocities there. Delane was fully persuaded that the suppression of the Mutiny could only be accomplished after a protracted campaign. Russell obeyed orders, but it was with a breaking heart that he left England on December 26, 1857, for his wife was too ill to be told of his going until some time after he had left. SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 49 A journey of twenty-four days brought him to Calcutta. Of course the early events of the Mutiny by that time were familiar to the world. The Mutiny proper had begun the preceding May, and in a few weeks 90,000 native troops were in rebellion. They slew many officers and hundreds of women and children. They had ammunition, artillery, horses and supplies. In all India were some 40,000 English troops; another 40,000 were shipped from England around Africa and some thousands destined for China were transferred to India. Before Russell arrived Havelock had entered Cawnpore, and, at last, re-enforced by Outram, his heroic band of 3000 men had fought their way to Lucknow, only in turn to be hemmed in and besieged until Sir Colin Campbell succeeded in reaching the Residency. This time the way had been prepared for the correspondent. A servant was awaiting him, who salaamed, and said: "My name Simon! Me Master's servant!" and took possession of his belongings. Lord Canning, the Governor-General, was ready to aid The Times man. Soon he was on his way to Cawnpore and Sir Colin Campbell. Almost on the instant they made thii compact: "You shall know everything that is going on," said Sir Colin. "You shall know all my reports and get every information that I have myself, on condition that you do not mention it in camp or let it be known in any way, ex- cept in your letters to England," and Russell at once accepted the terms. The Commander-in-Chief thereupon showed the correspondent every attention. He kept Russell posted; at all hours of the day or night he would come to the writer's tent with papers and explain the situa- 50 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS tion of affairs. This great soldier certainly knew how to treat a newspaper man. A competent observer whom Russell met in India had this to say of the out- come: *'Dr. Russell availed himself fully of his priv- ileges without in any way abusing his position .... He obtained early and quite authentic information. And then his amazing powers of observation enabled him, though in a new scene, to supply backgrounds and accessories so sympathetically that the true Oriental atmosphere was produced." The Ganges was crossed on February 27, 1858, the day that Colin Campbell began the march for the retaking of Lucknow. Arrived in front of the city, Russell made his way to the Dilkusha where head- quarters were established. He crossed a courtyard, ascended a flight of steps to a great hall, and proceeded through heaps of ruin, broken mirror-frames, crystals of chandeliers, tapestries, pictures and piles of furniture, to the flat roof. Then a "vision indeed" burst upon him — "A vision of palaces, minars, domes, azure and golden, cupolas, colonnades, long facades of fair perspective in pillar and column, terraced roofs, all rising up amid a calm and still ocean of the brightest verdure. Look for miles and miles away and still the ocean spreads, and the towers of the fairy city gleam in its midst. Spires of gold glitter in the sun. Turrets and gilded spheres shine like constella- tions. " The city was said to contain about a million people and a good 150,000 armed men, with trenches and rifle pits by the mile. That roof became the observation tower of The Times special. From it he watched the bombardment; he dared not leave it lest he miss some important SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 51 incident. With the Commander-in-Chief he saw the supreme struggle of the assault. The discipline of the army broke down when the Kaiser-Bagh was taken and the wild scene of pillage that ensued gave Russell one of his best opportunities: "Imagine courts as large as the Temple Gardens, sur- rounded with ranges of palaces, or at least of buildings well-stuccoed and gilded, with fresco paintings here and there on the blind-windows, and with green jalousies and Venetian blinds closing the apertures which pierce the walls in double rows. In the body of the court are statues, lines of lamp-posts, fountains, orange-groves, aqueducts, and kiosks with burnished domes of metal. "Through these hither and thither with loud cries dart European and native soldiery firing at the windows, from which come now and then dropping shots or hisses a musket-ball. At every door there is a crowd, smashing the panels with the stocks of their firelocks or breaking the fastenings by discharges of their weapons. The buildings which surround the court are irregular in form, for here and there the lines of the quadrangle are broken by columned fronts and lofty porticoes before the mansions of the ministry, or of the great officers of the royal household, which are resplendent with richly gilt roofs and domes. "Here and there the invaders have forced their way into the long corridors, and you hear the musketry rattling inside; the crash of glass, the shouts and yells of the com- batants, and little jets of smoke curl out of the closed lattices. Lying amid the orange groves are dead and dying Sepoys; and the white statues are reddened with blood. "Leaning against a smiling Venus is a British soldier shot through the neck, gasping, and at every gasp bleeding to death! Here and there officers are running to and fro after their men, persuading and threatening in vain. From the broken portals issue soldiers laden with loot. Shawls, rich tapestry, gold and silver brocade, caskets of jewels, arms, splendid dresses. The men are wild with fury and lust of gold — literally drunk with plunder. Some come out with china vases or mirrors, dash them to pieces on 52 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the ground, and return to seek more valuable booty. Others are busy gouging out the precious stones from the stems of pipes, from saddlecloths, or the hilts of swords, or butts of pistols and firearms. Some swathe their bodies with stuffs crusted with precious metals and gems; others carry off useless lumber, brass pots, pictures, or vases of jade and china. . . . "Enter three or four banditti of Regiment. Faces black with powder, cross-belts speckled with blood; coats stuffed out with all sorts of valuables. And now commenced the work of plunder before our very eyes. The first door resisted every sort of violence till the rifle muzzle was placed to the lock, which was sent flying by the discharge of the piece. The men rushed in with a shout, and soon they came out with caskets of jewels, iron boxes and safes, and wooden boxes full of arms crusted with gold and pre- cious stones. One fellow, having burst open a leaden-looking lid, which was in reality of solid silver, drew out an armlet of emeralds, diamonds and pearls, so large that I really believed they were not real stones, and that they formed a part of a chandelier chain. . . . "Oh, the toil of that day! Never had I felt such exhaus- tion. It was horrid enough to have to stumble through endless courts which were like vapor baths, amid dead bodies, through sights worthy of the Inferno, by blazing walls which might be pregnant with mines, over breaches, in and out of smouldering embrasures, across frail ladders, suffo- cated by deadly smells of rotting corpses, of rotten ghee, or vile native scents; but the seething crowd of camp followers into which we emerged was something worse. As ravenous, and almost as foul, as vultures, they were packed in a dense mass in the street, afraid or unable to go into the palaces, and like the birds thej'^ resembled waiting till the fight was done to prey on their plunder. " Throughout the day and the night the riot of pillage continued. The place was to Russell a blend of the Tuileries, the Louvre, Versailles, Scutari, and the Winter Palace, with an entourage of hovels worthy SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 53 of Gallipoli, and an interior of gardens worthy of Kew. He wandered through the zenanas; everywhere he found materials for his facile pen. Page after page of the letters he sent home is devoted to the scenes he witnessed here. He said it was beyond the bounds of imagination to reckon the value of the property taken out of the city by soldiers and camp-followers. Sickness attacked the correspondent, and he was obliged to take to a dooly in which he was carried down to Cawnpore. Upon his recovery he made extensive marches with Sir Colin Campbell, and in the course of one of them an accident befell him from which he was long to suffer. He was trying to protect his horse from some "uproarious stallions" when a powerful Arab kicked him in the stomach and thigh. For days again he had to be carried. He wrote that ** looking out from his portable bedstead he could see nothing but legs of men, horses, camels and elephants moving past in the dusk," adding that as "the trees were scanty by the roadside and there was no shade to afford the smallest shelter from the blazing sun" he had " all the sensations of a man who is smothering in a mud bath." All this time he was looking for facts as to events which he had not witnessed and to ascertain which he primarily had been sent to India. He secured a quantity of evidence as to the appalling enormities of the Sepoys, how they had blown English women from the mouths of their cannon and made practice targets of children. There was proof enough of massacre and barbarity, but Russell would defend in no single sentence the English policy of reprisals. He had no patience with the argument that provocation was unprecedented and that excess must be met with excess. 54 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS He wrote: "I believe we permit things to be done in India which we would not permit to be done in Europe, or could not hope to effect without public reprobation. " This was all characteristic of the independence of judgment of this man of quick emotions and prompt actions. But the officers and men of the little columns which had fought their way through the masses of mutineers to the rescue of their countrymen had no sympathy with his views and many of them and their friends criticized him bitterly. With the coming of the "war in the States" The Times requisitioned him once more. Dr. Russell came to America with a great reputation to sustain, repre- senting what was admittedly the most powerful news- paper in the world, and that paper was defending the Southern cause. In the book which he published in 1863 containing, in an amplified and somewhat modi- fied form, his diaries, he said: "I had no theories to up- hold, no prejudices to subserve, no interests to advance, no instructions to fulfil; I was a free agent." In spite of the policy of his paper he was received pleasantly everywhere and invited to meet the repre- sentative men of the nation. But he was singularly unlucky during his stay, and at times lacking in tactfulness, while, as was the case wherever he went for his paper, he criticized freely what he saw that in his judgment merited criticism, and he made much of the more amusing side of American life and man- ners. Immediately he set about his work of investiga- tion and soon he found that his opinions upon various important issues were not those of the London daily. At Washington he met President Lincoln, Secretary Seward, and other statesmen. From the capital he went to Baltimore, Norfolk and Charleston. He made SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 55 entries in his diary which prove that at least at the time he did not appreciate the mighty sentiment in the North which at last would produce a great and victorious army, writing that "he was more than ever convinced that the Union could never be restored as it was." In Montgomery he called upon Jefferson Davis. He journeyed to Mobile and in a small coast- ing steamer voyaged to Fort Pickens. In New Orleans he found Zouaves, Chasseurs and Turcos thronging the streets and placards of the organization of volunteer companies covering the walls. In a store the mistress and her sewing girls were too busy stitch- ing flags to sell him some shirts. Going up the Mississippi he passed within the Federal lines at Cairo. Here he found of course an amazingly different atmosphere. In New Orleans the Northerners had been "assassins," "cutthroats," and "Lincoln's mercenaries;" here the Southerners were "conspirators," "rebels," and "slave-breeders." By the third of July he was back in Washington. Soon there followed the conflict and the letter to The Times which gave him his nickname of "Bull Run Russell." By this time his paper was detested throughout the North as a Secession organ. It was becoming hard for him to have his requests attended to. How was he to go to the front now that the army was about to move? There was no precedent for the supply of the needs of correspondents from Government stores. He could get no order for rations for himself or his animals. American newspapermen could get along; most of them had friends with the army, but the case was very different with Russell. On the morning of the 19th of July he left Washing- 56 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ton for the scene of the expected battle. A thirty-mile ride brought him into the midst of "an increasing stream of fugitives." In his long description of the events of the day he said: **The scene on the road had now assumed an aspect which has not any parallel in any description I have ever read. . . . Infantry soldiers on mules and draught horses, with the harness clinging to their heels, as much frightened as their riders; negro servants on their masters' chargers; ambulances crowded with unwounded soldiers; wagons swarming with men who threw out the contents into the road to make room, grinding through a screaming, shouting mass of men on foot, who were literally yelling with rage at every halt. . . . "There was nothing for it but to go with the current one could not stem. I turned round my horse from the deserted guns. ... It never occurred to me that this was a grand debacle. All along I believed that the mass of the army was not broken, and that all I saw around me was the result of confusion created in a crude organization by a forced retreat. ..." Late in the night the correspondent got back into Washington. In the morning he looked through his windows upon a day of pouring rain, and saw "a steady stream of men, soaked with rain and covered with mud, who were passing without any semblance of order to- wards the Capitol." He noted that they belonged to various regiments, that many were without knap- sacks, belts and muskets, that some had neither greatcoats or shoes, and that others were covered with blankets. He wrote his letter to The Times, with the Army of the Potomac straggling by all day long. That night he worked upon a second letter, interrupted often by soldiers who saw his light and came to ask for water. A month later the mails brought the English paper SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 57 with Russell's description of the rout of the first battle of Bull Run. Instantly the North burst into denunciation of The Times and its reporter. There was scarcely a Union paper which did not upbraid Russell. Anonymous letters threatened him with bowie-knife and revolver. General McDowell, who had commanded the Federals at Bull Rim, said laugh- ingly to him : " I must confess I am rejoiced to find you are as much abused as I have been. . . . Bull Run was an unfortunate affair for both of us, for had I won it you would have had to describe the pursuit of the flying enemy and then you would have been the most popular writer in America and I should have been lauded as the greatest of generals. " About the head of the unhappy special the storm raged furiously and long. Frowning faces were turned upon him in the street. He was pointed out in stores as "Bull Run Russell." Becoming convinced by mid-September that General McClellan intended no movement for the time, he undertook another extended journey for the study of political conditions, going as far as Illinois and returning by way of Canada. Back in Washington he judged that McClellan was about to move and his principal concern therefore was to get permission from Secretary Stanton to go to the front and to draw rations. No officer was willing to assume any responsibility for a man shadowed as was Russell in popular estimation. He failed to obtain permission to accompany McClellan, and, moreover, orders were issued by the War Department which prevented his sailing for Fortress Monroe. He conceived his situation had become untenable, that his usefulness was at an end. He was identified with an opprobrious name and it seemed to him 58 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS impossible to continue under such conditions. Early in April, 1862, he sailed for home. Letters from Delane, written after his embarkation, reached him finally in England, in which he was urged not to think of coming back. The manager and the editor of the paper were surprised in anything but an agreeable fashion when Russell walked in upon them. Never- theless these were appreciative men for whom he labored. They had reminded him many times of his "great fame" and the necessity of doing nothing to lessen his prestige in the eyes of the world. They also realized that their correspondent had done much for The Times. Their good will found expression in November in a pension of £300 which they settled upon Russell for life without any claim upon him for labor. Every American must regret that the famous descriptive writer did not see some of the mighty struggles of the Civil War, and that he had no further chance to study the character of the President. It is almost certain, also, that if he had continued in America he would have influenced at least to some extent the sentiments of his paper. It has been said by the biographer of Delane that "Russell's foresight told him not only that the North must win in the end but that it deserved to win, and his letters gave no en- couragement to the belief which was shared by Glad- stone that ultimate victory was assured to the South. " Russell himself in Jime, 1865, wrote this in his diary: "Had The Times followed my advice how different our position would be — not only that of the leading journal but of England." But many times this observer expressed the con- viction that the Union could not be restored. His SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 59 estimates of situations contained much that was penetrating and much that was rash. Russell returned across the ocean without having added to his fame, to face editors who were chagrined by his action. It is quite certain that the correspondent's impetuosity- betrayed him in this instance. Clearly enough he was not to be allowed to stay with the Federals at the front. But his duty was, what is the duty of a news- paper man always, to await orders and to obey them when they came whatever their nature. At the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian war, in Jime, 1866, he took the field again. Arriving at Vienna, attentions were so freely bestowed upon him that he declared, "It is almost as though I were doing the Austrians a service by being here. " The Times had several men with the contending armies: Captain Brackenbury was with Russell and Captain Hozier represented the paper with the Prussians. The one great event of this Seven Weeks' War was the Battle of Sadowa, fought by 220,000 Austrians and 240,000 Prussians. From a lofty tower Russell beheld one of "the most obstinate and decisive battles of the world," looking, he said, as "if on a raised map," on the whole scene. After the battle Russell went to Brunn and the confusion was so terrible that to cover the thirty- eight miles fifteen hours were required. He was back in Vienna on July 6 and spent two days writing a full narrative of the defeat of Benedek and the Aus- trians. By the end of the month the war was over. Constantly he sent letters arguing the advantages of the "needle-gun" and "fixed ammimition. " Nor were his words thrown away. They were cited in the House of Commons, and it was declared to be prob- 60 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ably the first time "in which any newspaper corre- spondent, and that correspondent a civilian, was spoken of by a Minister of the Crown as a person most capable of giving an opinion — and whose opinion was entitled to great weight on a purely military subject. " A few hours after Louis Napoleon declared war on Prussia in 1870 Russell made up his mind to accept the proposal of The Times that he represent the paper in the campaign. He was made welcome at Berlin and at Potsdam, and Bismarck received him "with the most charming frankness." He had his troubles before he made satisfactory connections with the army, but he was on the move with the headquarters staff before any fighting of consequence took place. The night before Sedan he was sent for and a hint given him as to what he might look for next day — what the present day reporters call a "tip." Luck led him through the mists of the following dawn to a ridge where he found King William himself with Moltke and Bismarck and others of distinction, among them General "Phil" Sheridan. Russell stayed some time near the King. He was watching the monarch and his two attendants, "the three terrible Fates before whose eyes the power of France was being broken to atoms." He says: "I sat surrounded by officers more excited than myself, whose eyes roamed over the battle-field, and whose lips quivered as they whispered like men in deep suspense, 'The French are making a great stand there. It is a hard fight. See how grave His Majesty is!' " Not only did Russell observe; he was himself observed. "The men who are around me," he said, "gaze curiously as, with watch in hand, I note down every five minutes the apparent changes in the fight." SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 61 A while before noon Russell's friend Seekendorf guided him to the observation point from which the Crown Prince was watching. Here he could follow yet more completely the desperate fighting of the French. Gradually the German circle was closed in about the doomed Emperor. In his little notebook, from which he tore a sheet at a time to be stored away in an envelope ready for mailing, he wrote: "The toils were closing around the prey. Indeed, it occurred to me over and over again that I was looking at some of those spectacles familiar to Indian sports- men, where the circle of hunters closes gradually in on the wild beast marked in his lair. The angry, despairing rushes of the French here and there — the convulsive struggles at one point — the hasty and tumultuous flight from others — gave one the idea of the supreme efforts of some wounded tiger." The Crown Prince summoned him to dine with him that night, and then Russell learned that Napoleon III. was a captive. Two days later occurred the famous and amusing incident of the competition with Hilary Skinner of the Daily News to be first in London with a complete account of the battle. The story is one of the best in its entertaining aspect to be found in the history of war correspondence. Says Russell: "There Mr. Skinner and myself sat writing, or pretend- ing to write, for hours, he having decided on the same plan that I had conceived and wishing to conceal any indication of it, and I equally reticent as to my intentions, but haunted by the notion that he had divined my purpose. The church clock struck and recorded the flight of one hour after the other; I could see that my colleague's eyes were now and then scanning my face as I wrote. The candles burnt low. . . . He made up his packet. Tf you finish in five 62 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS minutes,' said he, *I will wait for your letter and take it to the field post where they know me and will take it in order to oblige me; otherwise you are late.' I was Very much obliged' of course, but said recklessly that I could not finish in time, and could not send by that mail at all. " The Daily News man disappeared for a space, returning to find The Times correspondent seemingly asleep. Next morning the one special asked the other in the most innocent manner what he had done with his letter. He was told that it had been deposited in the mail after all, having been sent while he had been out the night before. At the same instant their horses were led forth, and the holsters and pockets were stuffed with food. The Daily News and The Times would "just have a look at the field." One decided to ride into the town for a cup of tea. The other decided he would have one also. Riding out of the town side by side, as by a common impulse, The Times and the Daily News looked full into each other's faces. Then the decep- tion broke down and they burst into peals of laughter. Each had intended from the very first to go right through to London. They went on together. Now Russell was to begin a course of bitter experi- ences. He found that the papers of two days before had had telegrams about the battle, and that the enormous disaster which had befallen France was news of the day before yesterday, which is called nowadays in newspaper offices "ancient history." Russell, however, had brought the first comprehensive account of the whole great series of events. He had written much of the story on the way and he dictated the rest until the hour the paper was obliged to go to press. Sm WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 63 But Russell saw that times had changed; the world wanted every morning at breakfast news of the battles fought the day before. The old postal methods of sending tidings were becoming antiquated. He had been accustomed to send complete accounts of the scenes he had witnessed, written with care both as to accuracy and style; now the struggle was to be first with the leading fact. Who won? Get that on the wire. Then if more facts could be sent, give in the simplest schoolboy English the numbers killed, wounded and captured, and the disposition of the armies after the battle. Russell had cultivated his self-respect by making his work the best possible for him to do, but letters lost their power when they came the day after the publication of even the most wretchedly composed article which nevertheless contained the fundamental facts. Editors were beginning to clamor for speed. As Russell settled down to watch the siege of Paris he found the new conditions yet more impressive. There were scores of correspondents about and they were on the alert night and day to hold their own against each other. Archibald Forbes was laying the foundation for his great reputation and the despatches of the Daily News were the amazement of London. The manager of The Times wrote Russell, "The express manager of the D. N, is more acute than we are here, or else he has the devil's own luck," and again, "I beg you to use the tehgTSLph freely, " When the King of Prussia with Bismarck and Moltke arrived at Versailles they treated Russell with so much cordiality that Matthew Arnold indulged in the well-known bit of satire, about the King hoisting the correspondent into the saddle while Bismarck held 64 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS his horse. But with all these gratifying attentions Russell was sorely perplexed and annoyed. The Daily News kept, on scoring; he could not penetrate the secret. At one time he believed that the ambu- lance men and even the nuns were used as despatch bearers. How else could these messages get through with such celerity? The manager and the reporter constantly exchanged letters of chagrin. They were determined that something big must be "pulled off" before the end to redeem their prestige. There is no question that Russell could not have worked by the methods of his rival. He aimed at comprehensiveness and accuracy, and Forbes, remark- able as were his letters, had to sacrifice in some degree these values. And all the luck was against Russell, seemingly. His messengers were delayed, and one, a lady, was captured and subjected to considerable annoyance. The perplexed special continued to send brilliant narratives to London, however. He saw the proclamation of Wilhelm as German Emperor in the Palace at Versailles. From his spirited description of the scene a few sentences may be cited: "This gallery was expressly devoted to the glorification of Louis XIV. It is a blaze of gilding, mirrors, allegorical pictures, glass panels, — which now encadred the black- robed Lutheran priests and the steel-bearing soldiers of Germany. . . . "On the right of the King was the Crown Prince in the uniform of a Field-Marshal, and then right and left were the leaders of the hosts which have made that King Emperor. Or — stay ! was it he who stands there apart — not a soul near him by a yard in all that vast throng — stands there proudly in front of the extreme left of the semicircle of which the King is the centre — so deadly pale — yet firmly SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 65 planted on his massive legs as a man of iron — with one hand on the pommel of his sword — the soldier-minister who has risen from a bed of pain to assist at the work of which he has at least some share. Count Bismarck? . . . "And then amid such waving of swords and helmets, hurrahs as meetly greet great conquerors, Wilhelm, King of Prussia, was hailed Emperor of Germany, and with tearful eyes received the congratulations of Princes, Dukes and Lords of the Empire. . . .'* At last a bit of luck was vouchsafed to Russell. In the street he met a friend who was extremely agitated. The correspondent was besought to say what it meant that Jules Favre was there. Russell was astounded. At headquarters he obtained con- firmation of the information. Immediately he sent off a telegram that negotiations had begun for the capitulation of Paris. The presence of Favre in Versailles could mean nothing else. Now the manager of the paper was able to write Russell congratulations on a clean "scoop." What was fondly hoped would be the means of giving The Times the first account of the formal entry of the Germans into Paris was planned with great care by the anxious correspondent. For him that March 1, 1871, was a day of severe stress. He saw the 30,000 Prussians and Bavarians march past the grandstand at Longchamps and arrive at the Arc de Triomphe. Twice on his way to the Embassy to write his account he was stopped by furious Frenchmen. For a time he was in danger; the crowds were beyond control. He got rid of his horse for on foot he attracted less attention. As no time remained to to go the Embassy, he hurried to meet the traveling companion who was to be his amanuensis, and they scurried for the Gare du Nord whence a special train was to carry them to Calais. 66 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Once aboard the train Russell dictated until the port was reached and a special steamer took the sheets across the Channel. But he had not finished, and by wire he sent the balance, writing sheet after sheet until far beyond midnight. Even then The Times did not make a clean score. For, as has been told in another chapter, Forbes made the trip through to London, and was suspected, indeed, of having traveled as a fireman aboard Russell's special train. After all, he came out of the war with laurels dimmed but little, and his manager wrote him "there is general consent about the superiority of an old hand who goes by the name of 'Little Billee.' " And Bismarck in his "Autobiography" has this remark: "Russell . . . was usually better informed than myself as to views and occurrences . . . and was a useful source of intelligence." There is much of interest and much that suggests the varied usefulness of a competent special in the story of the years that remained to Russell after this war was over. He made the tour of India, Egypt, Greece and Portugal, with the Prince of Wales. Then once more he started on the war path. It was in 1879 that his friends were astonished to learn that he was going to South Africa with Sir Garnet Wolseley for the Daily Telegraph, The Times did not require him and he considered himself at liberty to make other engagements, although the journal which he had served so long was not very pleased at his decision. The Zulu war was about over when he arrived on the scene. His leg had never mended entirely from the kick of the stallion and an accident while crossing a swollen stream now lamed him for life. The only important incident for Russell in the campaign had to SIR WILLIAM HOWARD RUSSELL 67 do with the charges of misbehavior which he brought against some of the British troops, and out of which came a protracted controversy with Lord Wolseley. In Egypt in 1882 the veteran found himself in the presence of war, yet without any professional part in it. He made a tour with Colonel North, "the Nitrate King," in Chile, in 1889. The Queen's Jubilee came on and The Times turned to him for the description of the principal ceremonies, but his strength was on the wane and he declined the commission. The very last entry in his copious diaries was made imder date of December 21, 1904, but it was more than two years later, on February 2, 1907, that he died. "Billy'' Russell was the kind of man who would win and deserve such an affectionate nickname. E. L. Godkin has written of his social qualities, his fund of Irish humor and his great abundance of good stories which he related with inimitable drollery. And Kinglake says he was "a great humorist, and, more, an Irish humorist, whose very tones fetched a laugh." Both these writers pay tribute to his ability to pen powerful narratives and maintain his opinions in the face of criticism. That distinguished English officer. Sir Evelyn Wood, said that he "combined the accuracy of an Englishman, the shrewdness of a Scotchman, and the humorous wit of an Irishman." Five Euro- pean countries, besides England, bestowed orders upon him; in 1895 he was knighted, and in 1902 King Edward slipped over his head the ribbon of the C. V. O., whispering meantime to the veteran of eighty years who had been his intimate friend, "Don't kneel, Billy, stoop," and giving him a warm grasp of the hand. 68 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS A great gift for prolonged and keen observation, a gift equally great for picturesque writing, a decided knack for friendship, a mind of no mean calibre and an almost unlimited capacity for toil, boldness which sometimes became impetuosity, absolute independence of judgment; these were some of the qualities which met in rare combination in William Howard Russell. To few newspaper men is there given such an opportunity as came to him in the Crimea. His chief distinction always will be that he told England the truth about the horrors of that winter on the plateau before Sebastopol and saved for his country the remnants of her army. It may well be that the majority will agree with the verdict inscribed upon the memorial in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral: "THE FIRST AND GREATEST OF WAR CORRESPONDENTS. " CHAPTER III ARCHIBALD FORBES " The incomparable Archibald " — William Howard Russell. "The most remarkable personality I have come across was the late Archibald Forbes. , . . He was by nature an ideal war correspondent, for he could do more work, both mentally and physically, on the smallest pos- sible amount of food, than any man I ever met. Amidst the noise and din of battle, and in close proximity to bursting shells, whose dust would sometimes fall upon the paper, I have seen him calmly writing his descrip- tion of the battle, not taking notes to be worked up afterwards, but actu- ally writing the vivid account that was to be transmitted to the wire, and that work was always good. His one great aim was to get the first and best news home of any fighting that might take place, and he never spared himself till this was done. It was a sheer impossibility for a colleague to compete successfully with Forbes. . . .** — Frederic VUliers. In Fleet Street in the city of London a man stands spinning copper coins and watching them as they fall upon the pavement at his feet. Upon the toss of those coins depends his future, a fact which he appre- hends but dimly, although he already has laid the solid foundations of the career which is to make him famous as one of the most enterprising and capable of war correspondents. He has news in his possession on this September day of 1870, news of enormous interest to the whole world. The Germans are at the gates of Paris. Some of the most momentous events of the century are im- pending. And this aggressive looking man, "in somewhat dilapidated boots," impatiently flipping coins in a busy London thoroughfare, has in his keep- ing the information for which all Jjondon is waiting; 70 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS indeed, he is the sole man in the city, aside from the German Embassy, who can tell how the German troops are disposed in the cordon which they are weav- ing coil upon coil about the French capital. Twice he has tried to market his wares. He has offered his story to James Grant, editor of the Morning Advertiser, the paper which a few weeks before- had sent him to observe the movements of the German armies at the beginning of the war, and Mr. Grant has rather curtly declined the article. He goes to The Times with his offer of news, hastily scrawling on a visiting card: "Left German front before Paris three days ago, pos- sessed of exclusive information as to disposition for beleaguerment. " And a doorkeeper comes back and says that "the proper course is to write the article in the ordinary way, when the editor will have an oppor- tunity of judging of its eligibility." The man from the front is chagrined and some- what bewildered. Is it possible that editors have lost the scent for news? Can they not spare the time, even in the early part of the day, at least briefly to quiz a man who claims to have tidings that ought to be the big news feature of the daihes the following morning? He will make one more try, just one. He will not hawk his wares all over Fleet Street. There are three other daily papers, the Daily News, The Daily Tele- graph, and The Standard. The coins shall determine to which of the three he goes. If once more he is "turned down" he thinks in his soreness of spirit he will go back to the weary drudgery of compiling the marriage and death notices of the London Scotsman, the little paper which he has started with his own money and to which he has been the sole contributor. ARCHIBALD FORBES 71 All three papers are strange to him, except that the Daily News has once paid him nine pence for a para- graph. By the simple process of elimination known as "odd man out," the Daily News wins the toss, and to the Daily News in Bouverie Street goes Archibald Forbes with his "scoop." He asks for "Mr. Robinson," having a casual recollection of having heard the name mentioned in connection with the daily. There is a "Mr. Robin- son, a quiet-mannered man, with a high forehead, who looks steadily at him through spectacles as he speaks, and makes reply in these terms: *Yes, that sounds very interesting and valuable. Will you oblige me by writing three columns on the subject, and will you consider five guineas a column adequate remimeration?' " To his chambers in Tudor Street goes Forbes to prepare his copy, and every hour a boy comes round to carry it to the offices of the Daily News. "In those days," Forbes said years after, "I had the gift of writing like a whirlwind, and I always found that the faster I wrote the better I wrote. ... In three hours' time or thereabouts I had written the allotted three columns, but the canvas allowed me would not hold half the picture. ... I determined I would go round and see this considerate Mr. Robinson, and offer, rather than spoil my picture, to finish it in a fourth gratuitous column if he would have the charity to spare me the space." He finds an acting editor reading proofs. It is his copy. To his query the acting editor says: "We'll take as much of this kind of stuff as you care to write. " That laconic utterance is the warrant for three more 72 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS columns, and all six columns are read with intense interest by all England next day. But next day there is another episode that nearly ruptures the relations tentatively established between Forbes and the paper the night before. Forbes had read his proofs and gone away from the office walking on air. He breakfasts next morning with one of the editors and a subject for a further contribution is decided upon. Later he calls at the office and is shown in to "Mr. Robinson," the man known to the world as Sir John Robinson, a veteran of the newspaper field and a journalist of the first ability, who says with a little drawl: **I don't think we'll trouble you to write those contributions. " Forbes is astonished. His temper gets the better of him. These editors are making a fool of him. He consigns "Mr. Robinson," in language more vigorous than courteous, to a region where coal is not a com- modity of commerce, and hustles downstairs and into the street. Up Bouverie Street he strides, fuming be- hind his beard, when a hand comes down on his shoulder, and a voice says: "Don't be a fool! I was going to say that I want you to start tonight for Metz. " Forbes that evening at seven meets Robinson. The editor wishes him luck and fills his pockets with banknotes. When he leaves England that night by mail steamer his career as a war correspondent really has begun. Sir John Robinson also tells the story in his remin- iscences. Long before his vigilant eye had noted an article in a small magazine written by a man whose name he took pains to ascertain. When Forbes's name came in that day at the office he knew his man and struck his hands together with pleasure. He saw ?*>?vi ARCHIBALD FORBES ARCHIBALD FORBES 7B that the man whom later he called "the wonderful Forbes" was "not in the best of tempers," but when the errand was stated he "could scarcely conceal his excitement and anticipation." But the editor's mem- ory differed from that of Forbes as to one or two particulars. Sir John in his book thinks that a room was assigned for Forbes in the newspaper plant and that a steak was sent in to him; also that the reporter did not bolt into the street, but that they had it out in the editorial offices. However, while in their printed tales they differ in these respects, they agree in the essential facts that a windfall of fortune gave Forbes to the Daily News and that the Daily News very nearly lost him over a petty misunderstanding. In later years Forbes made this comment upon the engage- ment he made that day to serve the Daily News at £20 a week: "It is possible that had I declined I might have been a happier man today. I might have been a haler man than I am at forty-five, my nerve gone, and my physical energy but a memory. Yet the recompense! To have lived ten lives in as many short years; to have held once and again in the hollow of my hand the exclusive power to thrill the nations; to have looked into the very heart of the turning- points of nations and of dynasties! What joy equal to the thrilling sense of personal force, as obstacle after obstacle fell behind one conquered, as one galloped from the battle- field with tidings which people awaited hungeringly or tremblingly!" How did Forbes come to be possessed of information and of powers of rapid narration that made him on twenty-foiu* hours' notice a war reporter for a paper of great prestige whose war news was the talk of the town? It was rather by what seemed a chance com- bination of circumstances than by deliberate mold- 74 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ing of events to a predetermined purpose. He had been something of a drifter, somewhat reckless of consequences, and a bit impatient of the methodical organizing of life. He was one of the men who thrust poverty upon themselves. His father was a Presbyterian clergyman in the north of Scotland. At Aberdeen the boy excelled in the classics, but his dislike of mathematics was so great that in later years one of the professors would not consent to the bestowal of an honorary Doctor of Laws upon him because he had been "ploughed" in his mathematical examinations. When his father died, leaving but little money and nine children, Forbes went to Edinburgh, where he spent all his funds before he chose a profession. And when upon his majority in 1859 £2500 fell to him he went to Canada where a love affair in Quebec is said to have made havoc of his good intentions, so that with but eight shillings in his pocket he shipped as a sailor for Liverpool. The sale of a field glass got him the money to go on to London, and there he enlisted in the Royal Dragoons, moved by a lecture of William Howard Russell's, and by the description of the charge of the Light Brigade which that reporter of wars had written. Soon he came to realize that wild and desperate charges are made but seldom and that the life in barracks furnishes but little copy for the papers. As an educated man he became the school-teacher for his company and the acting quarter-master sergeant, an appointment due to his ability to solve the following terrific problem: "K one man is allowed the thirty- seventh part of an ounce of pepper per day, what is the amount to be drawn for two hundred men per week?" Several articles, written in the din and turmoil of the ARCHIBALD FORBES 75 barrack room, appeared in the periodicals. It was one of these that drew the attention of Sir John Robinson. After five years Forbes's health broke down, and then after many months in an army hospital he audaciously started the London Scotsman, of which he was the sole proprietor and the entire staff. He even leased two hours a day of the time of a veteran of the Indian Mutiny and on this basis wrote a novel which Sir Henry Havelock declared must have been written by a deserter, so complete was its local color. The battle scenes of this tale procured for the author his first commission as a war correspondent. A considerable amount of casual work had been given him by James Grant of the Morning Advertiser, and on the day in 1870 that France declared war ' against Germany Mr. Grant said to him: "I've concluded to offer you a position as war correspondent. Choose whichever side you prefer." Said Forbes in later years : "Far off, as a child might sigh for the moon, this work had been the dream of my life, ever since I had come to realize I could write matter that men would print and that other men would read. It had never been more than a dream. ... I grasped Grant's hand in a rapture of gratitude; I stipulated for no remuneration save that he should pay a modest subsidy for the maintenance of those I was leaving behind. I took £10 for outfit and £20 in my pocket as campaigning expenses; bought a knapsack and note-book, and started by the mail train (second class) the same night. ** Forbes had studied German tactics; he knew something of the German language, and he was con- fident the Germans would win. He went at once to Saarbrlick where he witnessed the "baptism of fire" on August 2. Experienced correspondents would have told him 76 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS many things about credentials, what the Germans called "legitimation, " the necessary permits to go along with the armies in the field. The veterans in the profession were waiting outside office doors for their papers, while Forbes, with the audacity of ignorance, called upon General von Goeben on the way through Coblentz to the front, and got a scrap of paper by virtue of which he saw about all there was to see up to Gravelotte. And when after Gravelotte he got the voucher known as the "Great Headquarters Pass," signed by the grand-quartermaster-general of King Wilhelm's staff, he got it not by influence or intrigue, but by the most direct methods. He simply called at the proper bureau, left the Von Goeben credential, came back in an hour, and found the impressive- looking and precious "legitimation" awaiting him. Luck seemed to befriend him throughout the campaign; indeed, no war correspondent ever was luckier than Archibald Forbes. He had the knack of turning up at the right time in the right place. He was a raw recruit, but he was daring and resourceful. Also he had the valuable faculty of making friends. With Jacob de Liefde of the Glasgow Herald he made his way as a reckless pedestrian "into the very heart of everything that was most sensational in those sensa- tional days." He sent his paper from the first good stirring pictures of events. Men were delighted with his accounts of the battles of Courcelles, Vionville, and Gravelotte. As an example, this is what they read of the climax of the last-named struggle. It is a famous passage: "The long summer day was waning into dusk, and the fortunes of the battle still trembled in the balance, when ARCHIBALD FORBES 77 the last reserve of the Germans came hurrying forward to the brink of the abyss. In the lurid glare of the blazing village the German King stood by the wayside and greeted his stalwart Pomeranians as they passed him. High over the roll of the drums, the blare of the bugles, and the crash of the cannon rose the eager burst of cheering, as the soldiers answered their sovereign's greeting, and then followed their leaders down into the fell depths of the terrible chasm. The strain of the crisis was sickening as we waited for the issue, in a sort of spasm of sombre silence. "The old King sat, with his back against a wall, on a ladder, one end of which rested on a broken gun-carriage, the other on a dead horse. Bismarck, with an elaborate assumption of coolness which his restlessness behed, made pretence to be reading letters. The roll of the close battle swelled and deepened till the very ground trembled beneath us. The night fell like a pall, but the blaze of the adjacent conflagration lit up the anxious group here by the church- yard wall. "The hoofs of a galloping horse rattled on the cause- way. A moment later Moltke, his face for once quivering with emotion, sprang from the saddle, and, running towards the King, cried out, Tt is good for us; we have carried the position, and the victory is with your Majesty!' The King started to his feet with a fervent *God be thanked !' and then burst into tears. Bismarck, with a great sigh of relief, crushed his letters in the hollow of his hand; and a simultane- ous hurrah welcomed the good tidings. " For a while the news man drifted about but he got in touch with the army again in time for Sedan. Quite by chance on the morning of September 12 he heard where fighting was going on in the valley of the Meuse, and, mounted by this time, he rode forward with his Dutch comrade, and reached a point commanding a view of the scene, just in time to see the last of the series of cavalry charges by the French Chasseurs d'Afrique. Later in the day Forbes made the acquaint- ance of the American General Sheridan. Forbes tells 78 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS how Sheridan noted the repulse of the cuirassiers as they charged headlong down the slope of Illy, closed his glass, and said quietly, "It's all over with the French now," and how the members of Wilhelm's staff shook his hand for that word. Next morning there befell the adventurous writer of fortune the most amazing of all his strokes of luck. Before the clock struck six he had a glimpse of Bismarck in a blue military cloak and the undress of a cuirassier regiment, mounted on a powerful bay horse and riding across country. Where Bismarck went there was sure to be news, so Forbes followed. Soon appeared a shabby open carriage without escort containing four French officers. Yet, one of the four Forbes instantly recognized, his face *' impassive and sphinxlike as ever, but with its lines drawn and deepened as if by some spasm." It was Louis Napoleon, the Emperor of the French. Thus it came about that with Jacob de Liefde Forbes was the only civilian who saw the surrender of the French Emperor and the interview with Bismarck at the weaver's cottage. It was Napoleon who suggested that the stop be made at the cottage. "I saw him turn round in his seat and heard the request he made to Bismarck, that he be allowed to wait in the cottage until he should have an interview with the King," says Forbes. Watch in hand Forbes made notes of the incidents of that interview: "Two chairs were brought out in front of the cottage by the weaver living on the ground floor; the two men sat down facing the road . . . and the out-door conversation which lasted nearly an hour began. Bismarck had covered himself in compliance with a gesture and a bow from the ARCHIBALD FORBES 79 Emperor. As they sat, the latter occasionally smiled faintly and made a remark, but plainly Bismarck was doing most of the talking, and that, too, energetically. From my position I could just hear the rough murmur of Bis- marck's voice when he occasionally raised it; and then he would strengthen the emphasis by the gesture of bringing a finger of the left hand down on the palm of the right. The shabby-bearded weaver . . . was all the while overlooking the pair from a front window. After they had parted I asked the man what he had overheard. ^Nothing,' said he. *They spoke in German of which I know but few words.* ** When Bismarck rode away the news gatherer watched Napoleon III. saunter up and down the cottage potato plot, limping slightly and smoking hard. He saw the Prussian cuirassiers arrive, and he noticed how the Emperor's face flushed for the first time when two of them took their places with drawn swords behind his chair. He saw Bismarck return in full uniform accompanied by Moltke, to inform Napoleon that Wilhelm accepted the proposed terms of capitulation but that he could not see the French Emperor until they had been accepted by the latter. And he saw the French monarch enter the carriage and drive slowly to meet the conquering German. He saw their greeting, but the interview within the chateau was shared by none. Yet, with all his luck and his ability to make "good copy," this was not the Forbes of Ulundi or of the daring Balkan rides, nor even the Forbes who scored so regularly a few months later before Paris. He had not yet learned, or rather helped to invent, war corre- spondence in the modern sense of the term. If he had had at his command in those early days the resources that later he used he might have scored such a series of "scoops" as would have made every city in the 80 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS world ring with his name. But he had no money for couriers or telegraph tolls. Letters were posted with a sort of vague notion that somehow they would get to London. He was still a sort of journalistic tramp, promenading about with his baggage on his back much of the time and a tiny bunch of coins in his pockets. After Sedan the German armies deployed into the grand line for the advance on Paris and there came to Forbes a letter which paralyzed him, an order to come home. His editor actually expected the Paris corre- spondent of the paper to report the siege. On the third day after he had seen the receding dome of the Luxem- bourg Forbes stood forlorn and disconsolate in Fleet Street tossing coppers. He had been gone just six weeks. As already related he was back with the army in a very few days, this time as the correspondent for the Daily News, with an abundance of money and the most unrestricted orders to be enterprising. He pro- ceeded to be enterprising; he did new things constantly. For weeks he lived on f oreposts within easy range of the French cannon at Metz. He was "at home" with a regiment of Prussian infantry, sleeping on straw in a corner of a chateau drawing room. Like the war horse he sniffed battles from afar. He was the only spectator of the fight of Mezieres-les-Metz, but still he could send only a half -column over the wire to London. He got a flesh wound in the leg and suffered from fever. Entering Metz even before the capitulation, he joined in an informal fashion the sanitary volunteers. Gan- grene attacked his leg and had to be burnt out with acids, but he carried a vinegar sponge in his mouth and ARCHIBALD FORBES 81 managed to keep going. Finally he had to go to England lest amputation become necessary. Now he let slip a great opportunity. He saw the surrender of Metz and watched Bazaine drive away from the railway station. All night he wrote in his room but he did not hurry over the forty-five miles to Saarbriick. It was then that the German-American, Muller, carried to London the despatch, long ascribed to Forbes, which indicated to Forbes and the others what they might have been doing all the time, and from then on the pace and the competition quickened. During his brief stay in London, his chief, Robin- son, said to Forbes: "As a fellow-man I say you ought to lay up for six months; as a newspaper manager I wish you would start for the siege of Paris tonight." He started and his leg got well. Adventures in great variety befell him during the months of the siege. He began to display his remarkable ability as an organizer. The Germans were bewildered by the unaccountable speed with which his letters appeared in London. So short was the interval between the time of events described and the time of the Daily News reports that one rival, concluding Forbes had tele- graphic facilities denied to the others, made formal complaint. The Chief of Staff of the Crown Prince of Saxony informed Forbes of his rival's dissatisfaction and under promise of secrecy Forbes disclosed his method to the staff officer. Soon after at a dinner an officer accused the correspondent of post-dating his letters and thus faking their freshness. Forbes made his usual laughing reply that he carried his own private wire about with him, and placed a bet then and there that if a piece of information was communicated to him it would appear in the Daily 82 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS News the second morning after. The officer told him of a movement of the troops and at once left the room. When Forbes visited the military telegraphic head- quarters he found his guess of the errand of the officer verified; the operator grinned and said, "No, I am ordered to take no message from you." Nevertheless after a few days Forbes handed the officer a copy of his paper of the date stipulated in the bet and con- taining the item upon which the bet was based, where- upon the officer stared and paid over the stake. The mystery was explained by Forbes himself in these terms: "My secret was so simple that I am ashamed to explain it, yet with one exception I had it to myself for months. When before Metz I had done my telegraphing from Saar- briick, depositing a sum in the hands of the telegraph master and forwarding messages to him from the front against the deposit. Before leaving the frontier region I learned that a train started in the small hours of the morning from the rear of the German cordon on the east side of Paris and reached Saarbriick in about fifteen hours. The telegraph- master would receive a letter by this train soon enough to wire its contents to England in time for publication in the London paper of the morning following. I put a consider- able sum into his hands to meet the charge of messages reach- ing him, and arranged with a local banker to keep my credit balance with the telegraph-master always up to a certain figure. Every evening a field-post wagon started from the Crown Prince of Saxony's headquarters on the north side of Paris, picked up mails at the military post-offices along its route, and reached the railroad terminus at Lagny in time to connect with the early morning post- train for the frontier. At whatever point of my section of the environ- ment of Paris I might find myself, a military post-office served by this post-wagon was within reasonable distance, and my letter, addressed to the Saarbriick telegraph-master went jogging toward the frontier once every twenty-four hours, with a fair certainty of its contents being in England ARCHIBALD FORBES 83 within twenty-four hours or thereabouts of the time of its being posted. " Almost thirty years after the war Forbes wrote his rival and friend "Billy" Russell of the prearrange- ments by which a noted "scoop" was "pulled off." He sent on in advance complete details of the arrange- ments for the St. Denis bombardment. On the morning that it began the Crown Prince stood on the steps of his chateau, and Forbes in the door of the house in the grounds used as a telegraph office. As the first gun was heard the Prince raised his hand. Forbes instantly shouted to the operator inside, "Go ahead!" Those two words alone were wired, but full details of the positions of the batteries and the com- plements of artillery appeared in the noon edition of the Daily News that same day. The matter, of course, was already in type, but carefully locked away until the word came. Now for the story of two of Forbes's great feats. Through the winter of the siege of Paris he remained at the headquarters of the Crown Prince of Saxony in a small village due north of the beleaguered city. There was kingly pomp at Versailles. The village picture was drab in contrast but it had the atmosphere of war. Forbes rode about the lines of investment and saw the depopulation of the environs of the city. During the great sortie he watched with alert eyes. He saw the thirty civilians who had come to offer King Wilhelm the German crown. Christmas passed, the bombardment piled the walls of St. Denis in ruins, and at last on the evening of January 28, while the head- quarters staff were assembled in the drawing-room of the chateau of the Crown Prince, an orderly brought in a telegram from the Emperor. It announced that 84 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS two hours before Count Bismarck and M. Jules Favre had set their hands to a convention in terms of which an armistice to last twenty-one hours already had come into effect. The correspondents nerved themselves to a desper- ate venture. The capitulation was imminent. The reporters watched each other suspiciously. How to get into Paris; how to be the very first to enter the city; how to get out of the city with the news, and how to get the news to their papers — these were their problems. The world was on tiptoe for tidings from the inside of the plight of Paris. The balloon post and the carrier pigeons had come far short of telling the world the details of the awful experiences of the besieged city. Henry Labouchere told how Forbes startled them, "quite as much as Friday did Robinson Crusoe," when he suddenly appeared from without the walls. They welcomed him with enthusiasm, "for he had English napoleons in one pocket and some slices of ham in another." His German friends shook their heads and took pathetic leave of him when he announced his intention to try for Paris. There were fifty correspondents waiting on the Versailles side to enter the city. Forbes planned to get in by the north through St. Denis. He was dressed so as to be readily mistaken for one of the hated Germans as he cantered along a road crowded with Frenchmen. He came to the Porte de la Chapelle and found a closed gate and the drawbridge up. No- body knew when the gate would open; he waited a half-hour in a big crowd, and moved on to the next gate where he found gendarmes examining passes. Said Forbes: "I rode on slowly, looking straight ARCHIBALD FORBES 85 between my horse's ears, and somehow nobody stopped me." Just inside he had a narrow escape. A train on the Cincture Railway came puffing along, just as an officer started forward to halt him. He encouraged his horse to indulge in capers. The officer clearly liked a good horse, and ere he forgot his admiration of the animal and remembered his duty of intercep- tion, Forbes was over the bridge. He was inside, and inside he remained for eighteen hours. His hurried investigation of the misery and the heroism of Paris gave the world one of the most thrilling stories a daily newspaper ever printed. In his long despatch he said: "There needed no acuteness to discern to what a plight of hungry misery she had been reduced before she had brought herself to endure the humiliation of surrender. That night she was alone with her grief and her hunger; not until the morrow came the relief and consolation which the sympathy of Britain so promptly forwarded to the capital of the ally with whom she had endured the hardships and earned the successes of the Crimean War. Wan, starved citizens crept by on the unlit boulevards, before and since the parade of luxury and sleek affluence. No cafes invited the promenader with brilliant splendour of illumination and garish lavishness of decoration, for there were no promenaders to entice, no fuel to furnish gas, no dainty viands wherewith to trick out the plateglass windows. "The gaiety, the profusion, and the sinfulness of the Paris which one had known in the Second Empire Days had given place to quiet, uncomplaining dejection, to utter depletion, to a decorum at once beautiful, startling and sad. The hotels were all hospitals. The Red Cross flag floated from almost every house . . . bandaged cripples limped along the streets, and the only traffic was furnished by the interminable procession of funerals. "I had brought in, stowed in a wallet on my back, some five pounds of ham. The servants of the place where 86 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS I stayed put the meat on a dish with a cover over it, and showed it up and down the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore as a curiosity, charging a sou for Hfting the cover. " His story in hand Forbes faced his next problem — to get out of the city and reach the end of a wire. People told him he must have his passport vised at the Embassy, then get a permit from the Prefecture of Police, and finally undertake the passing of all the Prussian lines. He got the vised passport, and left the rest to luck. At the Vincennes Gate he looked innocently about him and began to whistle as he met a cordon of soldiers, and the instant he was out- side he broke into a full trot through the suburbs. Ever lucky, he met at the f orepost line an oflficer whom he knew, and he was passed through in spite of the orders to turn back all who came from Paris. The way was clear. Now for the ride of twenty miles to catch the train at Lagny for the frontier. The ride almost cost the life of his horse. He found the roads in bad order, long neglected as they had been, and much scored by the trenches of both armies. One shoe after another was torn from the hoofs of the laboring animal. He was dead beat when Forbes galloped to the station barely in time to con- sign him to the care of a German cavalryman and swing aboard the train. He was trusting no post service for this cowp. The following morning about two he was across France and in Carlsruhe where he knew there was an all-night telegraph office. For eight hours he re- mained there, supervising the work of the girls who had the night shift. The instant the message was gone he went aboard the train again, and forty hours after he had left Paris he was back in the city. ARCHIBALD FORBES 87 Two correspondents who had just managed to wriggle into the capital from Versailles chaffed him considerably, but a few days later when he saw them absorbed in a copy of the Daily News they had nothing to say. He scored again, although beaten a few hours by Russell, when the German troops made their formal entry into the city on March 1, 1871. The Times special saw the Longchamp review and then left by chartered train for Calais. But Forbes was not beaten very badly. His story was in the second edition of the Daily News, selling on the streets at eight that morning. For years people insisted that Forbes stole a ride, disguised as a fireman, on The Times special train. Far more severe was the strain to which he was subjected, for the Daily News had no influence with the Directorate for a special. Forbes did without such facilities. He witnessed the review at Longchamp and in the Champ Elysees he was addressed by the Crown Prince of Saxony at the head of his staff. The incident was noticed and a party of Frenchmen attacked him the instant he left the protection of the German troops. The police rescued him at the point of the bayonet. But half of his greatcoat was torn from him and along with it had gone his notebook. That meant the loss of two columns of copy. In a twinkling the tragedy became comedy. Luck once more. Into the police station rushed a citizen with the missing note- book, calling loudly that here was the evidence that the reporter was a spy. Says Forbes: "His face was a study when in my gladness I offered him a reward. " A magistrate examined his credentials and liberated him. While in the home of the magistrate's sister 88 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS washing away the stains of the mob's roughness, the throngs raged outside. The sister led him to a quiet side alley. Forbes repaid her on the spot for her goodness. Her brother was entitled to a good salary, but for six months not a franc has been paid and they were almost starving. Forbes was an accredited sub- almoner, and was able in a few minutes to have a hamper of food placed at the disposal of these friends in need. It was now high time to be off for England. He had waiting a dog-cart with a stout horse. The ride through the city was not very safe but he reached the St. Denis gate, and once outside he lashed the animal and covered the twelve miles to Margency at good speed. Thence he was permitted for once to wire a fairly long message to London. But this was not enough; he was going on himself, so he hurried back to St. Denis and caught the regular Calais train. Every moment of the journey he wrote at feverish speed. In the early morning he was in the English capital. When the Daily News special edition was out, and the boys were crying it on the streets, the weary correspondent went into the room of the editor-in-chief to sleep. Some hours later he woke to find the manager and his staff standing over him and considerably concerned as to his condition. He was stretched on the floor with the bulky London Directory under his head for a pil- low. His clothing still bore the marks of his scuffle with the Paris mob. Nevertheless he started back that same evening. The final exploit of that period was achieved at the close of the Commune. France had been at war with her own capital, and the second siege of the city ARCHIBALD FORBES 89 was twofold more terrible than the first. Forbes was hard at work in London on his first book. His con- tract with his publishers and his desire to see his story in permanent form enabled him for two months to hold out against the importunities of the manager of the Daily News, At last on the afternoon of May 19, 1871, by writing and revising ten and twelve hours a day, Forbes finished his book, and that same eve- ning he was a passenger in the Continental Mail for Paris. When he undertook to enter the devoted city he was twice turned back. Foreigners were supposed to be directing the Commune's defense, so no more foreigners should enter Paris. The gendarmes and the commissaries of police made no difference in the case of a newspaper man. Forbes spent a night in a hay-loft near St. Denis, and on the morning of May 21 he took the wagon road and walked into Paris without hindrance. What was probably the last permit issued to a corre- spondent to go everywhere and see everything was given to him. Now he did his work under far worse conditions than those of battle. The Commune was almost crushed by the army under MacMahon. All was imcertainty and turmoil. Bullets came from rear, front and flanks. Time-fuse shells were bursting in white puffs all over the city. Intricate barricades blocked the streets. The permit after all was of slight use. The horse which he had left comfortably stabled when the armistice began had been requisitioned by the Parisians. From the stable Forbes went to the War Ministry of the Commune, where he found the famous Dombrowski, the last of the many general- issimos, who had been in command for about a day and 90 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS a haK. Shells were dropping in the street and striking the house itself. The press man mounted to the observatory on the roof and at once came under fire. Messengers were hurrying to the commander asking for help for various points in the city, and Dombrow- ski left the chateau on a charger with Forbes tramping at his heels. As he watched the rushes and stampedes of the almost hand-to-hand fighting the adventurous Englishman lost sight of the generalissimo, and soon after heard that Dombrowski had been killed. Almost wandering about the city Forbes realized that the supreme hour had come at last. Clearly the Commune was dying, but dying hard, "with dripping fangs and every blood-claw protruded." At mid- night the correspondent heard shouts: "We are sur- rounded. The Versaillists are pouring into the city. " A panic began. Arms were thrown aside, soldiers and many officers ran at top speed. Sometimes men fired away indiscriminately and clubbed their guns at one another. At one time that night, in the general distraction and through his ignorance of that part of Paris, Forbes had no notion of where he was or whither the stream of fugitives was bearing him. The first flicker of the dawn found him on the Place du Roi de Rome, alone in a dense fog. He went to the Champs Elysees and ran the gauntlet of the field bat- tery which was sweeping the street. By devious paths Forbes made his way to the Palais Royal. Here barricades were being constructed of mattresses, furniture, cabs and omnibuses. A soldier ordered Forbes to go to work or to stand up and be shot. He rectified the omission of an embrasure in the barricade, his work was approved, and he was allowed to depart. At the Boulevard Haussmann he found ARCHIBALD FORBES 91 crowds of Communists on each side of the street and the Versaillists in position a thousand yards away raining rifle bullets down the open space between the crowds. The Englishman ran across. A bullet passed through his coat-tail and perforated a tobacco pouch in the pocket. He purchased breakfast and wrote for two hours. Then as he headed for the Gare du Nord a bullet pierced his hat and a shell splinter whizzed by closely enough to blow aside his beard. The railway employee whom he hired to walk through the railway tunnel with a letter to deliver to a friend in St. Denis for forwarding, departed whistling cheer- fully, but Forbes never saw or heard of him again. Returning, Forbes watched from safe doorways the stretchers being carried to the hospitals at the rate of one a minute. Frederic Villiers tells how, many years after the French Republic was established, he was seated in a cafe in Paris when an Englishman whom he chanced to meet told him how Forbes had saved his life during these perilous hours of the end of the Commune. At this time occurred the adventure which a recent writer upon the history of the news- paper declares "must stand on the summit of all the hairbreadth dangers of a correspondent." Forbes himself described the situation thus: " When I reached the Place, in the center of which stands the Church of Notre Dame de Lorette, I found myself inside an extraordinary triangle of barricades. There was a barricade across the end of the Rue St. Lazare, another across the end of the Rue Lorette, and a third between the Church and in front of the Place looking into the Rue Chat- eaudun. The peculiarity of the arrangement consisted in this, that each of these barricades could be either enfiladed or taken in reverse by fire directed against the others, so that the defenders were exposing themselves to fire from flank and rear, as well as from front. " 92 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Up came the officer in command, and ordered Forbes to pick up the musket of a man who had just been killed, and aid in the defense of the barricades. The correspondent refused, affirming himself a foreigner and a neutral. The officer instantly ordered that he make his option between obedience and execution. The press man laughed, having no idea that the soldier was serious. But the officer merely called to four of his command, Forbes was stood up against the church wall, and the four paced off the distance and con- stituted themselves a firing party. Just in the nick of time a rush of the Versaillists over the Rue St. Lazare barricade took place. The defenders pre- cipitately evacuated the triangle, and the firing party went with them. But the regulars in a twinkling seized Forbes, who had been glad indeed to get away from the Com- munards. The weapon was in his hands. Clearly he was one of the defenders of the barricade. The bewildered correspondent was again stuck up against the church wall. He had escaped shooting at the hands of the Communards apparently only to be shot by the Versaillists. He protested with all his might. The "people in the red breeches" were about to end his career when he saw a superior officer and appealed to him. The officer inspected his thumbs and fore- fingers. They were clean. The chassepot then in use always threw a spit of black powder on the hand from the breech for every shot fired. These stains were the brand of the Communard. Forbes was free. But had he fired one shot to save his life on the first occasion he would have lost his life on the second ! Not a scrap of news had Forbes or any of his com- petitors been able to get out of Paris. They were ARCHIBALD FORBES 93 on duty at the death of the Commune, but their professional purposes were imattained. They were sick with anxiety. Several tried to leave the city. One was denounced as a spy and narrowly missed being shot. Forbes saw the Tuileries burning. The Louvre was in danger. Then he devised a scheme which worked. Lord Lyons had gone to Versailles. To the Second Secretary, England's representative in Paris, went Forbes asking for something to carry to Versailles. Warned that two messengers had been fired upon and turned back, he insisted, and was furnished with a big official envelope addressed to "Her Majesty, the Queen of England." As he went on his way his half-starved horse fell and the correspondent's ankle was dislocated. Soldiers dragged him into a cabaret. He paid for wine, and was lifted to the saddle and allowed to proceed. But at the gate he was stopped by a colonel who would recognize nothing but a permit from Marshal Mac- Mahon. The colonel was sent away presently and Forbes addressed himself to a major who wore the Crimean medal. The wily press man dwelt upon the comradeship of the English and French troops in the trenches before Sebastopol. The old soldier looked about cautiously. He listened to the plea of the courier of the Queen whose decoration he wore. With- out speaking a word he pointed over his shoulder and Forbes was off through the gate and soon in a carriage for Versailles. Diplomatic Forbes! The despatches were duly handed to the First Secretary and Forbes bolted a morsel of food. Then he was away, on wheels, of course, by a circuitous route to St. Denis and the railway. All the way to London he worked hard in train and boat. On the 94 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS early morning of Thursday, May 25, he arrived with his big budget of thrilHng news. Next day he was back in Paris, but all virtually was over. After one week of fighting MacMahon was master of the city. The next great war to which Archibald Forbes went for his paper was the Russo-Turkish conflict of 1877, although in the meantime he was not idle. In 1874 he spent eight months in the Tirhoot district in Bengal in the famine times and came home invalided by sunstroke. Then he followed Prince Alfonso from Madrid to Navarre in pursuit of the Carlists, making in all three campaigns in the Peninsula. Once more India called him; he went there with the Prince of Wales in 1875. Next the Balkans. But the first season in southeastern Europe was given, not to the tremendous struggle of 1877 and 1878, but to the Servian campaign of 1876. The world was not greatly interested in that little war, but, comparatively unimportant as the fighting was, it gave Forbes the opportunity to achieve one of his most remarkable feats of enterprise and endurance. Servia was making war against her Turkish suze- rain. For three months at Deligrad, one hundred and forty miles from Belgrade, General Tchernaieff, with his Russian volunteers and rough Servian levies, faced the Turkish army of Abdul Kerim Pasha. The life of the correspondent with the Servians was almost comically squalid. The headquarters was a ruined school-house. The staff lived in holes dug out of the ground and thatched over with reeds. The news men lay on the ground about a great fire which occasionally burned the roof over their heads. Fred- eric Villiers, the artist-correspondent, also was at the ARCHIBALD FORBES 95 front, and he has left an amusing portrait of the Forbes whom he then met for the first time. "Begin- ning to sketch a motley group of men in Turkish trousers, zouave jackets profusely braided, with yat- aghans and knives stuck in the capacious pockets of their belts, I saw a figure towering above the crowd of men and women on the sidewalk," says Villiers. "The individual wore a Tam O'Shanter cap, had a briar-root pipe in his mouth and sauntered firmly through the crowd of peasantry, always steadily keep- ing his course. The people seemed instinctively to make way for him, and though his stature and suit of quiet Scotch tweed made him a conspicuous figure standing boldly out from the gaudy and buccaneer- like persons around, he was not looked upon by the peasantry with any surprise. They all appeared to have been famijiar with him for years. To me he was the oddest, out-of-the-way looking individual in that market-place. *Why, he must be Forbes,' I said to myself." And Villiers presented his letter of introduction, and forthwith their friendship began. The final conflict of the war lasted several hours. The Servians behaved none too well and were badly beaten. At the close Forbes rode through the belt of Turkish skirmishers to escape being cut off. Servia was at the mercy of the Turks. Let the correspondent relate the story of his coup in his own graphic style: "At five in the afternoon, when I rode away from the blazing huts of Deligrad, more than 140 miles lay between me and my point, the telegraph office at Semlin, the Hunga- rian town on the other side of the Save from Belgrade. I had an order for post-horses along the road, and galloped hard for Paratchin, the nearest post-station. When I got there the postmaster had horses, but no vehicle. . . . The Servian post-nags were not saddle-horses, but sharp 96 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS spurs and the handling of an old dragoon might be relied on to make them travel somehow. All night long I rode that weary journey, changing horses every fifteen miles, and forcing the vile brutes along at the best of their speed. Soon after noon of the following day, sore from head to foot, I was clattering over the stone of the Belgrade main street. The field telegraph wires had conveyed but a curt, frag- mentary intimation of disaster; and all Belgrade, feverish for further news, rushed out into the street as I powdered along. " But I had ridden hard all night not to gossip in Belgrade but to get to the Semlin telegraph wire, and I never drew rein until I reached the ferry. At Semlin, one long drink of beer, and then to the task of writing hour after hour against time the tidings which I carried down country. After I had written my story and put it on the wires, I lay down in my clothes and slept twenty hours without so much as turning. . , I had seen a battle that lasted six hours, ridden 140 miles, and written to the Daily News a tele- graphic message four columns long — all in the space of thirty hours. '* When the conflict between Russia and Turkey summoned Forbes war correspondence was coming to its golden prime. Editors, publishers and news gatherers were straining every nerve and inventing all manner of devices to get the news and to be first at the telegraph key. Both in the Old World and the New the great dailies resolved to put forth their utmost powers of organization for the speedy transmission of tidings. And the men at the front were accorded facilities which rarely have been granted since. There was to be no field censorship; correspondents were put on honor "not to reveal impending movements, concentrations and intentions." Otherwise they were permitted to write and send what they x;hose, but each had to send a file of his paper to headquarters. ARCHIBALD FORBES 97 "and a polyglot officer was appointed to read all those newspapers and to be down upon the reporters if they transgressed what he considered fair comment. " They then were warned, and in case of grave offense they were expelled. Each correspondent was numbered, and in addition at the outset they carried big brass badges on their arms. But the French notion of the fitness of things could not stand this method of designation, "so at the instance of the correspondents of that nationality there was instituted a more dainty style of brassard, with the double-headed eagle in silver lace on a yellow silk background." Each man's permit was written on the^back of his photograph and the great seal of the headquarters was stamped upon the breast of the picture. At headquarters was kept a correspondents' album in which were placed dupli- cate photographs of the entire force of specials. Says Forbes: "When I last saw this book there were some eighty-two portraits in it; and I am bound to admit that it was not an overwhelming testimony to the good looks of the profession. I got, I remember, into several messes through having incautiously shaved off some hair from my chin which was there when the photograph was taken. ... I had to cultivate a new imperial with all speed." Forbes used to say that war correspondence at this stage might be considered to have reached the degree of professional development of a fine art. Some attention may therefore be paid to the methods of organization which were used by the men who were sent to the front by the Daily News, a journal whose remarkable success in reporting the operations in the Balkans gave it great prestige ^ throughout the English- speaking world. At the outset there was a reciprocal 98 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS alliance between the London paper and the New York Herald, Forbes and MacGahan were with the Rus- sians for the Daily News, Frank D. Millet and John P. Jackson for the Herald, In September a new arrangement enabled Forbes to secure Millet also for the Daily News, In friendly conclave they planned their scheme of action. The first consideration was to make sure of a base of operations where they could always depend upon finding a wire and a despatcher. This point clearly was the city of Bucharest, but no correspondent, however, could continuously go back and forth between the city and the army. Forbes telegraphed for a young man who had acted as his base manager in Servia. A correspondents' headquarters was fitted up in the city, copyists were hired to be ready at any time to write out in bold and readable script all messages that came over the wire and all despatches that were sent in by the men at the front. So uncertain were these men of the disposition which the censor at Bucharest might manifest to their mes- sages that they decided to try for more than one method of communication. And their scheme was nothing else than a pony express. Jackson suggested an ex- press across the Carpathian Mountains to Kronstadt in Transylvania where a wire might be had which would carry any message that the censor might obliterate. The distance was eighty miles. Eight horses were secured for stages of ten miles each and eight men were engaged to care for the animals. Only once was this express system used. Forbes reached Bucharest on August 2 with the story of the Russian reverse before Plevna on July 31. The manager in charge of the bu- reau told him the censor would surely hold up the message. The correspondent turned to his ponies and ARCHIBALD FORBES 99 from the town in Hungary the facts of the disaster were wired. In the end the Russian authorities signified their entire approval of that message. The News men thereupon realized that the censor would not be likely to interfere with them and abolished the pony express. "It had lasted nine weeks," said Forbes, "and cost abominably, but the decision was that it had been worth its keep." Let it not be supposed that these reporters at the front had much experience of the soft side of life. Once across the Danube, they "had to abandon the flesh-pots of Egypt, in the shape of the civilization, beauty and good cooking of Bucharest." Villiers and Forbes shared a small wagon which they covered with leather and fitted up as a dining room, sleeping room and drawing room, and here they entertained some very distinguished callers upon occasion. For cooking utensils they had a stew pan and a frying pan. Their joint attendant was an old Servian called Andreas, who had " a mania for the purchase of irrelevant poultry and for accommodating the fowls in the wagon, tied by the legs against a day of starvation." The wagon bed was rather narrow for two able-bodied men to sleep in, but Forbes and Villiers managed it, although Forbes found some inconvenience in the artist's practice of going to bed with his spurs on. At the outset the Daily News force divided the territory, so that the whole field might be covered without duplication or interference. Millet was for some time in the Dobrudscha and after the fall of Plevna he went into the mountains with Gourko. His courier service proved of such efficiency that the Russian generals themselves were fain to send their despatches by his messengers. MacGahan most of 100 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the time was with Skobeleff. Forbes had the benefit at times of valuable hints from General Ignatieff. He saw the crossing of the river, the battle of Plevna, and the fierce conflict in the Shipka Pass, but after the September attack upon Plevna he was struck down by fever. Villiers was his constant companion through these months. During the opening weeks of the campaign, while MacGahan was away with Gourko and Millet was with Zimmermann, it fell to Forbes to cover the Russian advance from flank to flank. He was in the saddle at this time morning, noon and night, and much of the time he was his own courier back to Bucharest. General Ignatieff fancied him and his paper, and to this Russian commander Forbes was indebted for several *Hips," much as MacGahan came under obliga- tion to Skobeleff. These were days of tremendous toil of body and brain. Years after Forbes wrote: "To this day I shudder at the recollection of those long weary rides. . . It was mostly night when I reached the Danube where the bridge of boats was. Leaving my horses at Sistova, I would tramp in the darkness across the bridge, and over the islands and flats, ankle-deep in sand, the three miles trudge to Simnitza, the village on the Roumanian side of the great river. I have reached Simnitza so beat that I could scarcely stagger up the slope. Once when I got to the bridge I found that it was forbidden to cross it. Two pontoons in the centre, said the officer, were under water, and there was no thoroughfare. . . . I represented that I did not belong to the Russian army. . . . He laughed, said if I drowned it was no affair of his, and . . . that I might go to the devil if I had a mind. I found the two pontoons submerged as he said, and a fierce current running over them, but the hand-rope was above water. This I clutched, and crossed the interval, hand over hand along it, sloshing down with the current as the slack of the ARCHIBALD FORBES' '•*■''' ' Toi rope gave to my weight. Simnitza reached somehow, there was still about ninety miles to Bucharest. Off then to Giurgevo, fifty miles' night drive in a rattletrap drawn by four half-broken ponies harnessed abreast. I have been upset freely all along this dreary plain; spilt into a river . . . overturned by a dead horse into a dismal swamp. During the railway journey from Giurgevo to Bucharest it was possible to begin my round-hand telegram, writing a few words at a time when the stoppages occurred. . . . Bucharest finally reached I had to finish my message without delaying even to wash, that it might be in time for next morning's paper in England." Villiers and Forbes were the only civilian spectators of the desperate and futile assault of July 31 upon Plevna. Up among the oak shrubs on the height, while the cannon thundered over their heads, they watched. Below in a hollow snug among the foliage lay Plevna with the sun glinting on the spires of its min- arets. Close to them the General "with set face and terrible, eager eyes, " his fingers and lips working, had his post. They watched "the swift rush, the upheaval of the flashing bayonets, and listened to the roar of triumph, sharpened by the clash of steel against steel. " Looking on as the shell fire tore gaps in the Russian ranks and hearing the shouts of "God and the Czar!" that came on the wind, Forbes was trying to make his notes. For three hours there was a steady current of wounded up the hills from the battle. The debris straggled sullenly back. The Turks spread over the field, slaughtering as they advanced. They threatened to carry the ridge on which the observers stood. Dragoons from the reserve reached them and assured their safety. Cossack and correspondent bivouacked together, only to be routed out by the alarm of the coming of the Bashi-Bazouks. With the dawning of I()fe 'tAMOUSr WAR CORRESPONDENTS the next day, Forbes was off to Bucharest. "Mile after mile of that dreary journey my good horse covered loyally, weary and foodless as he was," he wrote in later years, "but I felt him gradually dying away under me. The stride shortened and the flanks began to heave ominously; I had to spur him sharply, although I felt every stab as though it had pierced myself. If he could only hold on until Sistova rest and food awaited him there. But some three miles short of that place he staggered and went down. I had to leave the poor gallant brute where he fell and tramp on into Sistova with my saddle on my head." It is an orderly and comprehensive account of the battle which Forbes wired to his paper, nevertheless. And when he got back to the front he learned that the warnings that had disturbed him again and again on the night of the battle were not needless, for the Turkish marauders did massacre many wounded whom they found on the field. Forbes himself, for personal courage in aiding the Russian wounded, was decorated with the order of the St. Stanislaus. It was at this time that Forbes made use of his pony express service across the Carpathians, warned by his despatcher at Bucharest of the unlikelihood of the censor permitting the story of the reverse to be wired. After three weeks Forbes distinguished himself yet more, for he bore the tidings of the Shipka Pass not only to the world of news readers but to the Czar of Russia himself. On the morning of August 22 he learned at the Imperial Headquarters that Suleiman Pacha with forty battalions was threatening the Shipka. He at once headed for the impending battle and arrived in time to see the prolonged and desperate fighting by which the Turks were repulsed. It was ARCHIBALD FORBES 103 always said of this correspondent that he had the intuition of battle. He felt now that important news was bound to be the reward of his labor, and this time he made arrangements in advance to secure a couj> for his paper. He started with four horses and three men. At intervals of twenty miles he dropped a man and a horse. Each man had orders to be on the alert every hour. Then with a hired pony he rode from Gabrova to the beginning of the Pass, and spent a day in the Pass itself where no horse had much chance to stay alive. Strictly the Shipka is not a pass at all, but a cross spur of the Balkans with deep, precipitous valleys on each side, with other spurs beyond them. The Russians were on a few knolls at the top of the central spur thousan(Js of feet above the level of the sea, and on each side along the parallel spurs were the Turks commanding completely the Russian position in three directions. Before daylight the sound of cannonading reached Forbes. It swelled louder, seeming to come down from the clouds. The road became tortuous, twisting, turning and wriggling upward. Forbes went on to the skyline and sat down to study the scene below him. In an instant his white cap-cover drew bullets from a half-dozen rifles. He was under fire all day for the fight lasted until dark. In his wire to the paper he said : "At length, as the sun grew lower, the Turks had so worked round on both the Russian flanks that it seemed as though the claws of the crab were about momentarily to close behind the Russians, and that the Turkish columns climbing either face of the Russian ridge would give a hand to each other on the road in the rear of the Russian position. "The moment was dramatic. . . . The two Russian generals, expecting momentarily to be environed, had sent, between the closing claws of the crab, a last telegram 104 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS to the Czar, telling what they expected, and how that, please God, driven into their positions and beset, they would hold these till reinforcements should arrive. At all events, they and their men would hold their ground to the last drop of their blood. " The two Russian generals were on the peak. They were scanning through their glasses the steep brown road below. "It is six o'clock; there was a lull in the fighting of which the Russians could take no advantage, since the reserves were all engaged. The grimed, sun-blistered men were all beaten out with heat, fatigue, hunger and thirst. There had been no cooking for three days, and there was no water within the Russian lines. The poor fellows lay panting on the bare ridge, reckless that it was swept by the Turkish rifle fire. Others doggedly fought on down among the rocks, forced to give ground, but doing so grimly and sourly. The cliffs and valleys send back the triumphant Turkish shouts of *Allah il Allah!' " Suddenly the generals clutched each other and pointed down the Pass. There was an electric thrill of excitement even in the gesture. "The head of a long black column was plainly visible against the reddish-brown bed of the road. *Now God be thanked!' says Stoletoff solemnly. Both generals bare their heads. The troops spring to their feet. They descry the long black serpent coiling up the brown road. Through the green copses a glint of sunshine flashes, banishes the sombreness, and dances on the glittering bayonets. " Such a gust of Russian cheers whirls and eddies among the mountain gaps that the Turkish war cries are wholly drowned in the glad welcome which the Russian soldiers send to the comrades coming to help them. " The rescuing brigade had marched fifty-five kilo- meters without cooking or sleeping and they went into action without a breathing halt. The crisis of ARCHIBALD FORBES 105 the conflict came next day. The Russians carried the Turkish position. The Turks were sure to renew the fight the following day, but Forbes, convinced that Radetzky could hold his place, decided it to be safe to leave with his news. His horses were ready at the relay stations. Pony express fashion, he rode and changed, always going at high speed. Riding hard all night and all day, stopping neither for rest nor food, he came back to the Imperial Headquarters in advance of any of the aides-de-camp who had been sent to the fighting region to report the progress of events. In the message which Forbes sent his paper he told the story of his interview with the Czar: "Having communicated some details to the officers of my acquaintance on the Imperial staff, General Ignatieff acquainted the Emperor with my arrival, and His Majesty did me the honor to desire that he should hear what I had to tell from my own lips. . . . Answering the questions of His Imperial Highness was like going through a competitive examination. He was fully master of the subject, and if I had not taken pains in gathering my facts from a wide area, I should have felt extremely foolish. As it was I was able to draw a plan of the operations and to illustrate my unskilful draughtsmanship by verbal explanations. ..." As a matter of fact Forbes had to convince an Em- peror who wondered how he could have been to the Shipka when not one of seven aides-de-camp had been able to get through. In the end he did convince the Czar of the soundness of his judgment. The Emperor thanked and complimented him and the officer who later became Prince Charles of Bulgaria sent him down to the Danube in a carriage. George W. Smalley had the story in later years from Forbes himself, and the American correspondent thus tells the climax of the tale: 106 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS "Crossing the Danube at Rustchuk he rode on to Bucha- rest. . . . He arrived at eight o'clock in the evening. He had been three days and nights either in the saddle or in the Shipka trenches under fire, without sleep, often without food. *I was dead tired,' said Forbes. *Not a word of my despatch was written, and I had news for which I knew the world was waiting — news on which the fate of an Empire and the fortunes of half Europe depended. And it was as much as I could do to keep my eyes open, or sit up in the chair into which I had dropped. . . . " *I told the waiter to bring me a pint oi dry champagne, unopened. I took the cork out, put the neck of the bottle into my mouth, drank it with all the fizz, sat up and wrote the four columns you read next morning in the Daily News.* "As a piece of literature the four columns were of a high order. As a piece of news they were one of the greatest * beats ' ever known. Taken together, and with all that history of those three days, they would entitle Forbes, even if he had never done anything else, to that place at the very head of his profession to which he had many other titles scarcely less valid." As Forbes left the Shipka on the evening of the 24th he knew that MacGahan would be likely to arrive the following morning. The American came and saw the fighting of that day, and on the evening of the 25th he in turn quit the Pass, and by almost incred- ible exertions, lame as he was, got to Bucharest, and then back to Plevna in time for Osman Pasha's furious sortie of the morning of the 31st. In similar fashion Forbes and MacGahan divided the duty of watching and reporting the series of September battles which made the third Russian assault upon Plevna. It was merely a little town of a thousand houses on crooked and wandering streets. From the hills it was just a clump of red-tiled roofs and whitewashed walls, with several staring white minarets and a green-painted Christian church sur- ARCHIBALD FORBES 107 mounted by gilded crosses. Two brooks meandered to a meeting in the town. Its military importance was due only to its being the junction of two high- roads and several smaller ones. But for months it held the attention of the whole world. After five days the Russians acknowledged the fruitlessness of their assaults. Todleben was sent for and the long and weary siege operations began. But Forbes now was shattered by exposure, fever and fatigue. At one time in Bucharest he was near death and he was forced to leave the field to his Amer- ican confreres. Millet and MacGahan. Very soon, however, he was again on the war path. The Daily News sent him to the Afghan War in 1878. He had been with Sir Garnet Wolseley in Cyprus and the fever had had him, like nearly everybody else, on his back, but he got to Simla in time to join the expedition. During a lull in the fighting in the winter of 1878 Forbes made a long ride with two companions and some servants and extra horses to spend Christmas at Jelalabad. It was a tedious and a perilous trip. No man was safe a thousand yards beyond the British lines, but they took their chances and got through the Khyber Pass, reaching their friends on Christmas eve. The festivities over, the restless Forbes hurried to Burmah to interview King Theebau, who had just succeeded to the title of Lord of the White Elephant and Monarch of the Golden Umbrella. As he came down the Irrawady he saw a telegram which told of the massacre of Isandula, and an hour later he was not greatly surprised to receive the curt message, "Go and do the Zulu war." At once he was away, across India from Calcutta to Lahore, down 108 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the Indus to Kurrachee, from Kurrachee by steamship to Aden, thence to Zanzibar, and finally down the south-eastern coast of Africa to Port Durban. That war bore heavily on the newspapers because of the expense of wiring the news. The massacre, the death of the Prince Imperial, and the battle of Ulundi were events of the first importance, and the messages were correspondingly long. Forbes was one of the first party after his arrival which visited the scene of the massacre. There he found " a thousand corpses had been lying in rain and sun for four months. " He wandered about over the field; it was a horror far different from that of a fresh battle ground. A strange dead calm prevailed. The line of flight could be easily traced. "It was like a long string with knots in it; the string formed of single corpses, the knots of clusters of dead, where, as it seemed, little groups had gathered to make a hopeless, gallant stand, and so die fighting." In the long grass he stumbled over skeletons that rattled to the touch of his feet. Some bodies were mere heaps of yellowed bones. Others were covered with leatherlike skin under which the flesh had wasted away. Mournful relics were carefully collected by the members of the party, some books, photographs, and, saddest of all, letters from families and friends at home. On the August morning in 1870 when the Prince Imperial received what his father had called the "baptism of fire," Forbes had stood on the heights of Saarbruck when the first gun was fired by the Germans. Now after nearly nine years, when the son of Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie had reached the age of twenty-one, the correspondent stood with bared head before the young man's body ARCHIBALD FORBES 109 in Zululand. The Prince had gone out with the British troops to have a glimpse of real war. He was surprised when out with a small party and slain by the stealthy Zulu warriors. Consternation reigned in the camp of the British when the news reached them. At once a searching party was organ- ized and several war correspondents were among the large number of men who were spread out over a wide territory seeking for the body of the fallen Prince. Melton Prior has told how he rode with Forbes and how, when a man raised his hand and signalled, Forbes called to him and was off at a gallop, being one of the very first to reach the body. It was covered from head to foot with assegai wounds. Says Forbes: "We found him lying on his back, stripped, his head so bent to the right that the cheek touched the sward, the right arm stretched out. His slayers had left a little gold chain which was clasped round his neck, and on which were strung a locket containing a minia- ture of his mother and another enclosing a relic. The relic was that fragment of the true cross which was given by Pope Leo the Third to Charlemagne on his coronation, and which dynasty after dynasty of French monarchs have since worn as a talisman." Now came the battle which ended the campaign and the last and perhaps greatest of the exploits of the Daily News man. The brunt of the battle of Ulundi was borne by a column of fighting Zulus who had been a terror to every tribe in that part of the continent. They were worked up to the height of native madness. The night before the battle the British camped within sight of the town and all night they heard the chanting of weird and wild war songs and shouts of defiance. There was a strange bit of panic, but in the morning 110 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the troops were marshalled in good order and marched forward in the form of a great square. Out of the circular kraal of Ulundi, the capital of Cetewayo, the King of the Zulus, poured the warriors in black masses. They came on regardless of the volleys of the Gatling guns and Forbes declared their valor and devotion unsurpassed by the soldiery of any age or nationality. They converged on the British square like a whirlwind, halting to fire, then rushing forward in spite of artillery and musketry. One rush which came within a few yards of the square was the last charge of the brave blacks. After they had retired from that corner which had been the point of attack, leaving a heap of dead behind. Melton Prior, the war artist, went out and paced off the distance to the nearest body and found it to be nine paces. The Zulus could not endure the appliances of civilized warfare with which this expedition was equipped. They began to waver. Lord Chelmsford saw that the instant had come for the cavalry to bolt from the square. He gave the word. The foot soldiers made a gap in the line and cheered as Drury Lowe and the Lancers poured through. With Buller's Horse they rode upon and through the fleeing Zulus while yet they were in the long grass racing for the comparative shelter of the rough ground beyond. The correspondents also left the square. Forbes and Prior rode together for the kraal and entered it together, but they got separated as the huts began to burn. Later when they met Forbes told the artist that he had learned that Lord Chelmsford did not intend to start a courier for the coast with the tidings of the victory until the following morning. Here was his opportunity, one of those great openings for which ARCHIBALD FORBES in the newspaper man sometimes waits for years. Forbes would go; he would start almost immediately for the wire. The nearest telegraph office was at Lands- mann's Drift, and between Ulundi and this telegraph key there yawned one hundred and twenty miles of unmapped country. No matter; he must go. Only thus would his account be the very first to reach England. He allowed himself a half-hour in which to make ready. If Prior could draw a sketch in thirty minutes Forbes would take it along and place it in the mails. The artist lost not a second. On the ground he stretched a large sheet of paper and in the course of half an hour he made a rough outline sketch, to be elaborated into a drawing for publication in the offices of the Illustrated London News, Ere he started Forbes offered to take messages and information from Lord Chelmsford round by way of Durban to General Crealock and the offer was accepted. As he was about to swing into the saddle a young officer offered an even bet that he would not get through, and when Forbes accepted the soldier insisted that the stakes be put up, cheerfully saying that he did not expect to see the correspondent alive again. Then Prior and a few news men and officers cheered the bold reporter as he left the camp upon a ride that is held by many to be as great a feat as any war corre- spondent has ever achieved. For about ten miles the going was decidedly perilous. The only road was the trail left in the grass by the wagon wheels of the British expedition on its way to the Zulu capital. There could be no doubt but that hostile stragglers in plenty would be prowling about in the bush. The way led near the kraals which 112 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS had been burned by the British and to the neighborhood of which their former occupants might be expected to make their way under cover of darkness. The first hour or two the night was very dark. Against the blaze of several fires in the vicinity of destroyed kraals Forbes saw the dark figures of little groups of Zulus. The slight breeze brought to his ears the shouts of the enemy, sometimes from the rear and some- times from the front. The bush was thick in places and in the gloom he had hard work to trace the wagon- wheel trail. Finally he lost the track altogether. Clearly he was off the line, for neither could he see a rut nor could the naked hand discern one as he dismounted and felt his way about the grass. The only thing to do was to halt in dead silence and await the rising of the moon. Forbes always said afterward that "the longest twenty minutes of his life was spent sitting on his trembling horse in a little open glade of the bush, his hand on the butt of his revolver, waiting for the moon's rays to flash down into the hollow." Any instant might bring the enemy. After what seemed an inter- val of hours rather than minutes the moon rays reached the glade, the right path was found, and the rider fared on cautiously, afraid to try for speed until he was clear of the belt of greatest danger, the near region of the hostile blacks. In less than an hour he rode into the reserve camp at Etonganeni and told his news. Now he must spur and ride for dear life against time. There was comparatively small danger on the back trail, although later Forbes learned that a British lieutenant and a corporal were cut down by the Zulus that same night on the road over which he plunged ARCHIBALD FORBES 113 at a hard gallop. But there were forts at intervals of about fifteen miles and fresh horses were available with the chance to bolt a morsel of food and drink. Through the whole night he rode at top speed, sparing himself not a whit, knowing he was in advance of all others, but determined his paper should have his wire at the first possible moment. The exertion, he said, "was prolonged and arduous." After twenty hours he rode into Landsmann's Drift. Only the magnificent rider whom Prior described Forbes to be could have accomplished the distance through that country in that time. Here was the wire and in a few minutes the despatch was filed and the key was clicking it off. But the correspondent's labor was not yet over. Not only did he send his tidings to his paper, but he wired them also to Sir Bartle Frere and to Sir Garnet Wolseley. The former put the message on the cable and sent it to the London offices, and amid loud cheers the despatch was read both in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, "a proud moment," said The Times, "for the confraternity of special correspondents." Thus the news of Ulundi first came to England. But Forbes meanwhile was off again. He rode on to Ladysmith alone, where he borrowed a buggy and a span of horses with the promise of a payment of £100 if they were returned in a damaged condition. Thence he fared on to Estcourt and Maritzburg, whence he reached Durban by post-cart and rail. The addi- tional one hundred and seventy miles from Lands- mann's Drift was done in thirty-five hours. Not only did Forbes score with a long description for his paper, but he put Prior's sketch into the mails and it appeared in the Illusirated News a week ahead of all 114 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS rivals. But Forbes, when his task was completed, was in a state of utter exhaustion; even his iron will could compel his body to do no more. After that achievement Forbes did little of con- sequence in his profession. He wrote and lectured and talked over the "good, old days" with his fellow reporters. He had depleted even his tremendous physical strength by his ten years on the war path. Finally he died quietly in London in 1900 and was buried in Aberdeen. A tablet with a medallion portrait was placed in his honor in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral. Courage and energy, with a ready wit, an active brain, and a facile and powerful pen made Forbes the really great special that he was. He had his enemies. He was not always very modest and he never hesitated to criticize the plans of a general if he did not approve of them. He has been accused of appropriating to himself the feats of other corre- spondents. But if he had not possessed self-confidence along with his tenacity of purpose and his resolution he never would have placed to his credit the long series of reportorial feats which belong to him beyond chal- lenge. He had the genuine military instinct. He could write a vivid and moving article on the shortest notice and under the most adverse conditions. Kipling hits him off very well when he refers to him as "The Nilghai, the chief est, as he was the hugest, of the war correspondents, and his experience dated from the birth of the needle-gun. Saving only his ally, Kenen, the Great War Eagle, there was no man mightier in the craft than he, and he always opened the conversation with the news that there would be trouble in the Balkans in the spring." CHAPTER rV JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN "Of all the men who have gained reputation as war correspondents, I regard MacGahan as the most brilliant." — Archibald Forbes. Only once has the body of a war correspondent been brought across the Atlantic by an American war ship that his final resting place might be in the land that gave him birth. The Legislature of the State of Ohio appropriated the money for the payment of the necessary expenses; the United States ship Quinnebang brought the casket containing the remains of Januarius Aloysius MacGahan from Constantinople to Lisbon, whence the cruiser Powhatan conveyed it to New York City. His foreign grave in the little cemetery on the hill behind Pera had been wept over by the hero of the Russo-Turkish War, General Skobe- leff, by the soldiers and war correspondents of a dozen nationalities, and by the oflScial representatives of the United States. Upon the arrival of the casket in New York it was received by a guard of honor made up of press men who had been in the field in the Civil War, and thence, with appropriate ceremonies, it was taken to the Ohio village where "the Cossack correspondent" was born. Year after year the praises of this bold adventurer and vivid writer are chanted in rude verse by the peasants of the Balkans, and every year the anniver- sary of his premature death is commemorated by the singing of a requiem mass in the cathedral at Tirnova, 116 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the ancient capital of Bulgaria. When he was riding among the Bulgarian villages in war time the peasants used to crowd about him and kiss his hands, hailing him as their liberator, and there were many of the Bulgars who agitated for the choice of this wandering writer as the head of the principality whose creation his despatches had done much to make possible. MacGahan's most romantic exploit was his ride through the deserts of central Asia in chase of the army which was marching against Khiva, defying the absolute prohibition of the general in charge of the column, keeping well ahead of the troops of Cossacks on his trail, and venturing amid perils that proved too much for several of the expeditions of Russia. The Russians knew audacious bravery when they saw it, and whenfhe had out-generaled and out-dared them again and again, they made MacGahan their friend and comrade, and the emperor sent him the decoration of the St. Stanislaus. At Khiva began the romantic friendship of Mac- Gahan and General Skobeleff. Physically both were giants, the Russian standing six feet two inches in his military boots and the American six feet three. Both were reckless of peril, careless of comfort and indomitable of will. Both were able to converse in a dozen tongues and dialects. Brothers they soon became, eating in the same mess, sleeping in the same tent, each in his own way doing his duty to the hilt. In 1876 the American wrote the letters upon the atrocities of the Bashi-Bazouks which changed the map of eastern Europe. They were so simple a recital of things seen, so earnest, so clear, so pathetic and awful in their narration of barbarities undreamed of in the lands beyond the Balkans, that they took JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAIIAN AND FRANCIS D. MILLET From a photograph loaned by J. B. Millet, Esq. JANUARroS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 117 hold upon the hearts and consciences of men. England was profoundly stirred. Gladstone was roused to a fury of passionate indignation. And the end was an independent Bulgaria. The army of the Czar gave the Bulgars their freedom, but it was the American correspondent who put the army upon the field. When the war came MacGahan was hampered by an ankle which had to be set in a plaster of Paris cast. The small bone which made the trouble was broken a second time, but the imperturbable reporter had himself hoisted on a gun-carriage, and so endured the whole hard raid with Gourko over the mountains soon after the crossing of the Danube. He managed also to go through the entire campaign before Plevna. Orders came for him to "cover" the Berlin Conference where the Powers were to apportion the spoils of war, when his unselfish devotion to an American friend down with typhoid fever cost him his life. He used to be called "the Cossack correspondent" because of the swiftness of his movements. Frank Millet named him "the will-o'-the-wisp of war writers. " George Augustus Sala pronounced him one of the most cosmopolitan men he ever had met — "a scholar, a linguist, a shrewd observer, a politician wholly free from party prejudice, a traveler as indefatigable as Schuyler, as dashing as Burnaby, as dauntless as Stanley." Such a future no one would have predicted for the Irish boy who was born amid the hills of Perry County, Ohio, on June 12, 1844. His mother was widowed when the boy was seven years old, and she decided to use the little money that fell to her in the education of her children. This lad grew up to hate oppression. The name he bore indicated the extraction and the 118 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS faith of his parents. His father had come from Ireland, and the boy's sympathies were due in part to the*paternal teaching regarding the injustices inflicted upon the fatherland. At the age of twenty-four MacGahan went to Europe, to improve his general education and to study law. At various times he resided in Brussels, in Germany and in France. When Louis Napoleon declared war upon Prussia he was at work in the Belgian city. One day the representative of the New York Herald came to Brussels, and MacGahan ventured to him with an offer of his services as a special correspondent. He was "taken on," and almost immediately he began to make his record of "scoops." He reached the headquarters of the old Algerian hero Bourbaki in time to witness and record the disastrous defeat and subsequent dispersion of the demoralized troops in Switzerland. Thence he pro- ceeded to Bordeaux and wrote a series of interviews with the leading statesmen of France which attracted wide attention in America and Europe. Chief among them were detailed and carefully written conversations with Gambetta, Louis Blanc and Victor Hugo. When the Assembly adjourned its sittings to Paris, MacGahan hurried to the capital, arriving at daybreak on the 18th of March, 1871, the memorable day of the attack on Montmartre. He noticed an unusual commotion in the streets, and by following a regiment of the line he had the good fortune to be the only reporter present at the opening of the Commune. The behavior of the young American throughout those days of peril, his courage, tact and industry, made him famous in the JANUARIUS ALOYSroS MacGAHAN 119 city. He sent out graphic and accurate letters which were copied by the papers of many countries. K the Communists hked him could they be blamed? He found time always to do generous and kindly deeds. Always and everywhere, therefore, he was sure of a hearty welcome. From the time he began service as a newspaper correspondent until his fellow reporters stood by his grave beside the Bosphorus, he won the favor of all whom he met, going from one knot of companions to another with all the ease and innocence of a child, leaving affection and admiration behind him. He had to take his turn in prison when the Ver- sailles troops entered the city, for while a fierce battle was raging in the streets he was taken into custody. During the War of the Commune he had been a great deal with that singular champion of the people, the Pole, Dombrowski, and for that comradeship he several times nearly paid with his life, and he was de- nounced repeatedly to the authorities by those who knew of the fellowship of this odd pair. By the inter- cession of Elihu Washburne, the American minister, who earned the admiration of all foreign governments by remaining in Paris alone of the ambassadors through the siege and the Commune, MacGahan was saved. Washburne went at midnight to the Place Vendome and made formal application to General Douay for the release of his countryman. Now for several yfears MacGahan led a somewhat wandering life. He penetrated into some of the most remote comers of the Continent, constantly finding picturesque materials for his ready pen and sending letters to the Herald. In the fall of 1871 he was in the Crimea, staying at the summer residence of the Czar. 120 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Here almost by chance began the influences which made MacGahan the strong friend and defender of the Russian people. Life was easy at the summer court; ceremony was relaxed somewhat; many of the entourage were considerably bored. Suddenly appeared an American newspaper man who had been through the great war in France, the course of which had been followed with intense interest by Russian society. Moreover, this young man was of imposing yet modest presence, an educated gentleman, able to narrate his adventures in a style calculated to rouse the attention of the most phlegmatic listener. An accident befell MacGahan while in the company of an aide-de-camp who was guiding him among the beautiful places along the coast. Climbing among the rocks, the American stumbled and broke his foot. For three weeks he was in bed. And his bedroom forthwith became the most popular clubroom in Yalta, where every man who had nothing to do might be found and the most lively and diverting conversation. It was not strange, then, that when at the beginning of December the court went back to the capital MacGahan accompanied his new friends. That winter he spent in St. Petersburg. In the spring with the party of General Sherman he went to the Caucasus, whence he wrote a series of letters. From the Russian capital again he was ordered to Geneva to "cover" the meeting of the Alabama Claims Arbitration Commission. Then for a time he went about Europe wherever there seemed to be a promise of news. Ere long he saw and seized the opportunity which enrolled his name for all time in the lists of distinguished journalists. JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 121 Eugene Schuyler, author of a standard work on Turkestan, many times indulged in unrestrained eulogy of the man who made the ride through the desert in quest of a Russian army which not even a Cossack would have dreamed of pursuing. Said Schuyler: "His ride across the desert was spoken of everywhere in Central Asia as by far the most wonder- ful thing that had ever been done there, as he went through a country which was supposed to be hostile, knowing nothing of the roads or of the language. Even the officer whose scouts had failed to catch MacGahan was delighted at his pluck." Other journals abandoned the idea of sending reporters with the expedition into a remote and mys- terious land in Central Asia, when they learned that the Russian authorities had decided not to permit corre- spondents to accompany the column. The one English correspondent who did make the effort failed to pene- trate any distance into the country. MacGahan, with two or three attendants who did not understand him and whom he did not understand, well armed but indifferently provisioned, made a march through the terrible desert, where almost every hour death threat- ened him by sunstroke or thirst or massacre. Cossack horsemen chased him for nearly nine hundred miles, reaching his halting places always a few hours after he had left them. Day after day he rode on his weary way, sometimes obliged to walk in sand into which he sank to his knees, and daily the dread of failure weighed more and more heavily upon him. On the twenty-ninth day, worn to the bone with fatigue, he reached the camp of General Kauffmann. Twice he was arrested and twice he defied the positive orders against correspondents going with 122 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the expedition. Finally, because the interdiction was directed against the representatives of English papers especially, and he was an American, and in part through the intercession of his new friend Skobeleff, he was for- given by the general in command. The story is told in large part in his book, "Campaigning on the Oxus," although to get it all one must hear such men as Villiers discourse of the tales they extracted from their fellow campaigner. In his picturesque style MacGahan thus began his vivid narrative : "A bright, sunny afternoon. A wide, level expanse of plain, cut up here and there by canals, and dotted with clumps of brushwood; on the south, extending to the horizon, a sedgy marsh, over which flocks of waterfowl are careening in swiftly changing clouds that sometimes hide the sun; to the west a caravan with its string of camels, creeping slowly along the horizon's edge, like a mammoth snail; to the east, the walls of a mud-built town, over which, leaning up against the sky like spears, rise the tall, slender masts of ships. "The place is Central Asia, near the Syr-Darya River, or Yaxartes; fifty miles east of the northern shores of the Aral Sea; the time the 19th of April, 1873. "In the foreground there is a tarantass — a long, low, black vehicle — in the midst of a swiftly-running stream; six or eight horses are splashing and running wildly about in the water, systematically refusing with exasperating persist- ence to pull together; four or five Kirghiz postillions, some on the horses, some in the water up to their waists, are pushing at the wheels, shouting with savage energy, while the wheels sink deeper and deeper at every movement of the maddened beasts. In the tarantass two disconsolate- looking travelers, wrapped up in rugs and sheepskins, who watch dejectedly but resignedly the downward tendency of the wheels, awaiting despondently the moment when the water will be running into the box, over feet, rugs, arms and provisions. "The two travelers are Mr. Eugene Schuyler, charge d* affaires of the United States at St. Petersburg, on a tour JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 123 of observation in Central Asia, and the writer, on his way to Khiva." And why should he wish to go to Khiva? For divers reasons: the New York Herald wanted to satisfy the American desire for information about that distant and little-known region; it was an adventurous under- taking and promised to provide an abundance of " copy " of an altogether unusual kind. Russia ** wished to reduce to subjection the only remaining Khanate in Central Asia which still refused to acknowledge her supremacy, as well as to advance her frontier to the Oxus, and gain complete possession of the river as far up as the boundary of Bokhara." The fall of Khiva would exercise a strong moral influence upon all the Mohammedan populations of Central Asia. It was considered impregnable and inaccessible; it was the last great stronghold of Islamism in Central Asia after Bokhara had fallen; and its conquest would tend to confirm the belief, already widespread in those countries, that the Russians were invincible. Such considerations as these influenced St. Peters- burg to send various bodies of troops from several starting points into the desert, with the expectation that they would converge on Khiva. The Grand Duke Nicholas was to start from Kazala. General Kauffmann, with 2500 men and a train of 4000 camels, was to march to Khiva from Tashkent. The nerve of this able commander and the endurance of his men were tested to the utmost before they reached the Oxns. To reach the point mid-stream to which MacGahan referred he had made the long journey from the Volga. "Day after day, night after night, week after week, he had glided over snowy level plains over which the 124 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS icy Siberian winds rushed in furious blasts." Ice and snow gave place to heat and sand as he went farther and farther south. At length he made his real start with Schuyler as a companion for the first stage of the journey. They waited many hours there mid- stream and soon after being extricated they were in the streets of Kazala. MacGahan had hoped when he left St. Petersburg that he might be in time to join the column of the Grand Duke there. He was almost a month too late. The column was three hundred miles away in the desert. The two forces, one from Tashkent and one from Kazala, were to meet in the mountains one hundred miles from the Oxus. What was the belated correspondent to do.'' He decided that he would venture alone upon the trail of the Kazala detachment. If he reached the Oxus after the army had crossed he would trust to his star for getting over somehow and evading the Khivan cavalry which would probably be hanging on its rear. Camels he could not get. With them his sojourn in the desert might have been comparatively pleasant, for he then might have carried a tent, carpets, provisions and clothing. Horses meant the loss of even the comforts of the nomads, but with them he hoped to make the distance in half the time. On the 30th of April he bade Mr. Schuyler farewell and crossed the Yaxartes at a point several days journey from Kazala. With him were an old Tartar interpreter, a guide, and a young servant to look after the baggage and the six horses. Of his armament he discoursed in racy style: "Being a man of peace I went but lightly armed. A heavy double-barreled English hunting rifle, a double- barreled shotgun, both of which pieces were breech-loading, JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 125 an eighteen-shooter Winchester rifle, three heavy revolvers, and one ordinary muzzle-loading shotgun, throwing slugs, besides a few knives and sabres, formed a light and unpreten- tious equipment. Nothing was farther from my thoughts than fighting. I only encumbered myself with these things in order to be able to discuss with becoming dignity questions relating to the rights of way and of property with inhabitants of the desert, whose opinions on these subjects are some- times peculiar. '* The first day brought him into the midst of the Kirghiz, a people having a very sinister reputation even for that region. He had enough property to make a rich prize. He knew he must adopt one of two systems in dealing with this people, either fight them or throw himself entirely upon their protection and generosity. Choosing the latter policy, he would enter a tent, unsling his Winchester and hand it along with his belt and revolver to his host, and then throw himself on the rugs before the fire. Even on the second day he began to suffer from thirst. Wild stretches of sand were about him. The fifth day, for the first time but not for the last, he lost his way and found himself going back over the trackless sand toward Kazala. That day, too, the agonies of thirst became almost unendurable. He was fresh from the snows of Siberia and had been riding fifty miles a day. No wonder that without water for twenty-four hours his throat seemed to be on fire, fever mounted to his head and his eyes grew inflamed. A shallow pool of muddy water, which coated his mouth, throat and stomach with slime, was his only resource. At three in the morning they saddled their horses under the stars and fared on. That day brought them to a little Russian fort, but they found no news 126 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS either of the column of the Grand Duke or of Kauff- mann. Now he entered the part of the desert offering the greatest danger to travelers and surrounding them with the greatest horrors. The friendly rivers and the fre- quent pools and wells of water were left behind. Once lost in the desert ocean and he might wander for days until himself and his horse should sink exhausted to die of thirst. "The angry sun sinks slowly down the western sky," wrote the correspondent, "as though loth to leave us, and then suddenly drops below the horizon. The shades of evening gather, the desert fades into the gloom of night, and then suddenly reappears again, weird and spectral in the shadowy light of the rising moon. The hours slip by; we pass the silent tents, and smouldering fires, and crouching camels of the Khivan ambassador, who has camped here hours before; and though the moon has now mounted to the meridian we still continue our rapid course. "A hurried nap, and again we are on our way. The red sun flashes angrily up the eastern horizon, and now there is scarcely any vegetation — not even the poisonous upas-like weed. Hotter the sun grows as we advance, and more fiery, until he reaches the zenith, and glares fiercely down on us from the pitiless sky. The sands gleam and burn under the scorching heat like glowing cinders; the atmos- phere turns to a misty fiery glare, that dazzles the eye and bums the brain like the glow from a seven times heated furnace; low down on the horizon the mirage plays us fan- tastic tricks with its spectrum-like reflection of trees and water — shadows perhaps of the far-off gardens of Khiva and the distant Oxus; our - horses plod wearily forward through the yielding sand, drooping heads and ears, until at last I find myself, as evening approaches, lying exhausted on the sand by the well of Kyzin-Kak. " The seventh day brought him a staggering blow. The leader of a caravan which he met told him he was JANUARIUS ALOYSroS MacGAHAN 127 almost as far from KauflFmann after these marches through the desert as when he started. He was within a day's march of the mountains where he supposed Kauffmann would form a junction with the column of the Grand Duke. Not so! Kauffmann had taken a different route. He had started ten days before due south for the Oxus rather than northwest to the mountains. With many misgivings MacGahan decided to go on. Going back was almost as difficult as going forward, but it might be weeks before he overtook the Russian troops. He pushed on, however, staying all night in the saddle, and at sunrise caught his first glimpse of the mountains twenty-five miles away. On the ninth day he met a party of guides who had been with the column of the Grand Duke. And again, alas! The Grand Duke had met Kauffmann more than a week before, and the two had marched for the river together. Again he traveled most of the night. Next day he heard a recital of the depredations of the marauding Turcomans. He changed his route once more, hoping by a diagonal course to shorten his distance. Provok- ing delays of three days were due to the difficulties of getting sheep for food. The guide proved intractable and treacherous. Nights were passed in the sand with- out shelter. The horses sank to their knees and began to show great fatigue. Loads were lightened, but one horse stumbled and fell his length in the sand with a groan, to be left alone in the gloom of the desert. This phantom chase could not continue much longer. The death of the animal seemed but the harbinger of doom to the determined correspondent, as the horses panted up steep ascents, slid down into hollows and wrestled with the inexorable sand. 128 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS On the seventeenth morning MacGahan saw through the field glass tents shining in the sunlight and masses of soldiers and the glitter of bayonets. It must be Kauffmann, he thought. But it was not! He had struck Kauffmann's trail at last, after a chase of more than two weeks and a ride of five hundred miles, but Kauffmann had marched from this camp five days before! "And by the time I can reach the river he will have crossed it and taken Khiva," MacGahan miserably concluded. The oflficer in command here was Colonel Weimarn, and for the first time the American news man was treated rudely by a Russian. Colonel Weimarn refused to allow MacGahan to go on without the written permission of Kauffmann. That permission could only be had from the general himself. And the general was well on his way to Khiva. The correspondent was here in the rear with the general getting farther away all the time. Colonel Weimarn would examine no credentials, listen to no expostulations, render no assistance. MacGahan's spirit rose to meet the emergency. He could get no Russian escort to go forward on the trail of Kauffmann. He would go on alone. Cossacks would pursue him, no doubt; and he would have to dare the Turcoman cavalry who would be hanging on the rear of the Russian column. He began to recall pictures he had seen of Turcomans emptying human heads out of sacks on the grand square of Khiva to the admiration of a smiling crowd! Nevertheless he decided to flit between sunset and sunrise, and once more take up the chase of Kauffmann. Five days passed. It was clear that Colonel Weimarn would deal severely with the American if JANUARroS ALOYSroS MacGAHAN 129 he caught him trying to escape. He even would not give any grain whatever to the horses of the corre- spondent, and they were now in a most miserable plight. At one in the morning of May 24 MacGahan and his men dropped silently to the rear of the Cossacks who were now on the march, turned their horses' heads to the north and plunged into the darkness. The pole star was their guide. When dawn came they could dimly discern the Weimarn detachment on the horizon. They hurried on, floundering through huge drifts of sand twenty and thirty feet high, which "piled up in all sorts of fantastic shapes, exactly like snow- drifts, were continually changing their form, and moving about under the action of the wind. The wind kept sifting the sand over them in little clouds, and the drifts were so deep and so high that working their way over them was most difficult and toilsome. The horses sank nearly to their bellies. They were obliged to dismount. Even then they only struggled through by a succession of plunges while their masters themselves sank to their knees. This con- tinued for nearly two miles. One of those storms which so often sweep over the desert would have sent these huge drifts rolling over them, and in an instant buried them twenty feet deep, leaving not a trace behind. " Another horse was left to die. Of the others, two could go not more than another day. Intolerable thirst assailed them all. Next morning after two hours' ride bayonets were seen glittering in the sunlight. He had overtaken a rear detachment of Kauffmann's troops. The main body had left this camp six days before. MacGahan was glad enough to rest a few hours and enjoy some refreshment. But there was danger in tarrying, for messengers from Weimarn might overtake him at any minute. He got barley for his horses, and "to tell the truth," 130 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS he said, "matters had arrived at such a point that success or failure, and perhaps my own life, depended upon a bushel of barley." Next day at noon he again was in the saddle on the way to the Oxus. His hosts assured him the Tur- comans would get him. He found the road broad and plain and dead camels at every few yards served as guide-posts. The horses again sank to their knees in the yielding sand. At last he reached the river, and at the very spot where Kauffmann had taken off his cap and devoutly crossed himself at sight of the longed-for water. In the morning he could see up and down the river for twenty miles; about him were the dead ashes of many campfires, and that was all. He had now been seeking the ever-receding Russian commander for twenty-nine days. At the outset he had expected to overtake him in five. But — it must be forward again, ascending stealthily every little hillock, and peering cautiously over before advancing, and through fieldglasses surveying continuously the opposite shore. Through the night the march went on with no signs of Kauffmann but burnt-out campfires. Nerves were tightly strung. The situation was critical. Twice his little party had been seen from across the river. At last when the horses had made forty-five miles MacGahan decided to camp. His men refused to stand guard. So all night long the young American kept his gloomy watch in darkness so dense that he could see only a yard before him. Daylight came, and as they started on a half -hour after sunrise their ears were struck by a report that went through them like an electric shock. Another and JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 131 another came rolling up the valley of the Oxus at short and regular intervals. It was the roar of cannon! This time it was Kauffmann sure enough. But the Turcomans were with him, and now was the most critical moment of the whole journey. Mac- Gahan peered over hill after hill, advancing with utmost care, trying to locate the position of the contend- ing parties and to avoid the Khivans. Luck helped him a little; daring did the rest. He bolted through an opening in the lines of the Turcomans and in safety reached the Russian outposts. Anofficer advanced and cried: "Vuikto?" "Who are you?" "Americanetz," replied the correspondent. In a little while he was in the presence of the man he had trailed. General Kauffmann was taking tea and smoking a cigarette. "A molodyetz, a molodyetz," "a brave fellow, a brave fellow, " he exclaimed, as he heard the tale of MacGahan, and a "molodyetz" MacGahan remained always thereafter wherever in Russia he was named. From a Russian there could be no higher encomium. The next call was upon the Grand Duke Nicholas, who was found living in a Khivan mud-house, which was the first house he had occupied for three months. All welcomed the American heartily. That night he had the first tranquil and prolonged sleep that had been his for more than sixty days. But what about the pursuing company of Cossacks? MacGahan's presentiment of danger was well-founded. After some days at Khiva he learned that but a few hours after he had left Alty-Kuduk an officer at the head of twenty-five Cossacks had arrived, breathless. 132 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS with an order to arrest, disarm, and take him back to Tashkent. The officer had come all the way from there, about six hundred miles, hoping to intercept the correspondent in the desert. From passing cara- vans and wandering Kirghiz he heard from time to time of the hurrying American. He got on the trail and lost it, found it and lost it again, found it once more, and, having killed several horses, he reached Alty-Kuduk a few hours too late. There they laughed at him, telling him to follow if he dared, but assuring him that the American was either with Kauffmann, or the jackals, and in either case out of his jurisdiction. MacGahan explained the reason for all this trouble on his account. The Russians claimed that every foreigner who ever had gone into Central Asia and gotten into trouble had invariably accused them of having a hand in it. Sometimes they had caused the Czar considerable difficulty. Therefore to save time the Emperor ordered that no more Europeans be allowed to enter Turkestan. But MacGahan was an American! He argued that the prohibition did not apply in his case, and he stayed with the column. He was with the Russian army until the end of the campaign against Khiva, and after that during the war with the Turcomans. He met with kindness from all, from the Grand Duke down to the smallest officer in the detachment. On June 1 he crossed the Oxus with Kauffmann and his staff. Soon they entered a region of cool shade and fresh verdure which seemed Edenic after the red-hot glare of the desert. On June 10 the troops entered the city of Khiva. MacGahan was at home everywhere, in the streets, the palace, even in the harem, and there, when he saw JANUARIUS ALOYSroS MacGAHAN 133 the eyes of a Caucasian sultana turned upon him in a half -imploring way, he had an adventure which seems very like one of the tales out of the Arabian Nights. He could not forget the "calm, majestic figure, as she stood in the midst of the enemies of her race and religion, with weeping women and children relying upon her for protection," and he determined to help her if possible. That night he accomplished the feat of entering the harem alone and unguided. Near midnight, when the sleeping city was "bathed in a flood of glorious moonlight, and the whole place was transformed, the flat mud roofs turned to marble, and the tall, slender minarets rising dim and indistinct like spectral sentinels," the whole region "seeming but a leaf torn from the enchanted pages " of an Oriental tale, he broke down the padlocked door in the tower overlooking the court of the harem, and descended a stairway that seemed to lead to its inner apartments. Revolver in hand, he moved along in the darkness, through many rooms and along the walls of various courts, involved soon in a hopeless labyrinth of doors and halls. A flickering match revealed that he stood on the verge of a well with a very low curb, into which a dropped stone found water fifty feet below. In another room a bit of candle disclosed a pile of black earth. He picked up a handful, and dropped it in terror — it was gun-powder ! There was enough powder in the pile to blow the whole vast palace to atoms. Feeling that he had narrowly escaped death twice, and that that was enough for one night, he was about to give up his adventure, when he heard voices beyond a closed door, and, upon knocking, it was opened, and 134 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS he stood in the presence of the sultana, who held over her head a stone lamp, and gazed long at him. And there in a handsome room adjacent to the grand court of the harem he had tea with the sultana and eight of her attendants. Zuleika — for she bore that poetic name — conversed with him for two hours — in signs. The Khan had fled when the Russians entered the city. MacGahan was suspected to be an agent sent out by the English government, and there- fore he was received with kindness by these Orientals. As he mounted the stone stairs to depart, Zuleika kissed her hands to him and disappeared in the dark- ness. Next morning when food was sent into the harem it was found to be empty. The women had escaped! That was the end of this romance of the war correspondent. MacGahan discreetly forgot to report the adventure to the Russian commander; Kauffmann learned of it a long time after when he read the story in the American's own account of the campaign. MacGahan interviewed everybody within reach, including the Khan, who returned after a time to the city. He rode with the foremost in the campaign against the Turcomans, the bravest and most warlike race of Central Asia. He witnessed the signing of the treaty between Kauffmann and the Khan. Then he voyaged down the Oxus and across the Sea of Aral. And there he found the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, who had been sent on the same mission, but who had not been able to penetrate the desert. On the 29th of September, MacGahan was back in Orenburg. One thing more, and a very important thing, is to be chronicled of the campaign in Asia. At Khiva, MacGahan and Skobeleff met for the first time. They JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 135 parted to meet again in Paris and finally in Rou mania in the great war between Russia and Turkey. They were the last two to leave Khiva. In the letters which MacGahan sent the London Daily News during the war, he described his friend and told the story of one of his daring Asian exploits as follows: "He would attract attention anywhere. He is a tall, handsome man, with a lithe, slender, active figure, a clear, blue eye, and a large prominent, straight nose, the kind of nose it is said Napoleon used to look for among his officers when he wished to find a general, and face young enough for a second lieutenant although he is a general — the youngest in the army. "When I saw him last he was Colonel Skobeleff, and had just returned from a remarkable and daring expedition, for which he had received the Cross of St. George. Kauff- mann wished to ascertain whether Markasoff, whose column had been obliged to turn back in the desert for want of water, would be able to reach Khiva by a certain route. But the Turcomans whom he had just been fighting had all fled in that direction. "To have explored the route with safety it would have been necessary to send a large column, which Kauffmann did not think the importance of the matter justified. The only alternative was for a small party to make the attempt at the risk of falling into the hands of the exasperated Turcomans. This Colonel Skobeleff volunteered to do. He took three friendly Turcomans with him, disguised him- self in the costume of a Turcoman, and started on his perilous enterprise. "He did not return for ten days, and everybody had given him up for lost, when he finally appeared at Khiva the day before Kauffmann's evacuation of the capital. He had managed to elude the Turcomans, and to reach the point where Markasoff had turned back; he explored the way, measured the depth of the wells and the amount of water they could supply, and returned safely, almost exhausted by his long ride. "He wished, of course, to write his report immediately. 136 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS but, as the army was moving next day, he determined to stay behind for that purpose in one of the Khan's palaces, and he asked me to keep him company, which I very wiUingly undertook to do. We remained there a day and a night after the departure of the army, and thus it came about that we were the last two of the invading expedition to look upon the Khivan capital. " Thus ended MacGahan's work in Central Asia. The story of his desert ride has never been forgotten in that region nor in all Asia. Francis Vinton Greene in his writings has much to say of it, declaring that "the wonderful ride . . . would never have been credited, so impossible did it seem for a man to make such a journey alone, but for the two incontrovertible facts that he disappeared suddenly from a little post on the Yaxartes, and reappeared, as if from heaven, four weeks later among Kauffmann's men on the Oxus." Three weeks after his return from Khiva, MacGahan was ordered to join the American squadron at Nice and proceed to Cuba, where he described for his paper the Virginius complications. In March, 1874, he was back in London, where he worked several months on his book about his Asian experiences. In July he was ordered to Spain to join the expedition of Don Carlos. He was ten months in the Pyrenees, and hard and dangerous campaigning it was, the days spent in the saddle and the nights in the open air. There is a peculiar element of peril in guerilla fighting, and in Spain in those days almost every furze bush held a sharpshooter. The most marked difference in the general appearance of the Carlists and the Republicans was the color of their boinas, or large, muffin-shaped caps, those of the latter being red while the former wore blue. More than one correspondent wore onQ JANUARIUS ALOYSroS MacGAHAN 137 color and kept the other handy in his pocket for emer- gencies. The American news man, however, wore the Carlist color, and when he was captured amid the mountains and apprehended as a follower of Don Carlos be- cause of his boi^, he was thrown into prison with another corresponident. They spent a day and night in a cell swarming with vermin, and next morning were told to prepare %or death. MacGahan knew the Republicans had never shown any mercy to the Carlists and expected to die. At sunrise he went out, as he supposed, to face attiring squad. But once more he made a narrow esca^. Again an American official had intervened. What Washburne had done in Paris the American consul at Bayonne did here. Having heard the rumor of the arrest of the two press men, he hastened to their rescue, arriving barely in the nick of time. The chief battle of the campaign was the three days' struggle for Estella. This little mountain town is famous in the history of the Carlist wars, and, says Sir John Furley, "presents a wonderful conglomerate of houses pressed together in narrow streets, and closely surrounded by perpendicular rocks which prevent it from being seen from any side at a distance of more than two hundred yards. " There were 45,000 men and eighty guns in the assault, and 16,000 Carlists, with the advantage of position, defended the place. The defenders were completely victorious. It was a wonderful military spectacle, and could be witnessed from a little plateau in every detail. The Carlists made it almost as merry a scrimmage as a snowball battle. Women and children with all movables had been hidden in the mountains. There were seven 138 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS villages at one time in flames on the third day. The Navarrese charged down the mountains five times through cornfields and vineyards. The Spanish cavalry horses leaped about among the rocks like goats. But the Carlist position was worth thousands of men, and they won the battle of Abarzuza-Estella. After months of this desultory and picturesque fighting MacGahan was sent to the frozen North. The expedition was promoted by Captain Allen Young, who sixteen years before had begun his Arctic career; by James Gordon Bennett, who was represented by MacGahan; by Lieutenant Innes Lillingston, R. N., the second in command; and by Lady Franklin, who insisted on sharing the expense of the enterprise, hoping tenaciously for tidings from her long-lost husband. The ship was the barque Pandora^ and the object was to try for the Northwest Passage, as MacGahan stated it, "to pass round the northern coast of America, and come out through Behring's Straits into the Pacific Ocean — a feat which has been the dream of navigators for centuries, but only a dream. It is our ambition," he added, "not only to accomplish the undertaking, but to accomplish it in a single season." As the sequel shows, the world waited yet thirty- seven years ere Amundsen conquered the difficulties of the voyage around the northern extremity of the American continent, and he was three years in making the passage. A lively and circumstantial account of his voyage was written by the correspondent with the title "Under the Northern Lights." He gave delightful glimpses of the sunny side of life in the Polar regions. The per- sonality of the author appears very distinctly in the JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 139 work. It is full of the most kindhearted humor, and one is able to form a pretty accurate idea of his charac- ter from it. The voyage took him through Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait, into Peel Sound. The party reached the farthest point attained by Ross and McClintock in 1849 in their search for some traces of Sir John Franklin's expedition. The record left in their cairn at this point was taken from the tin tube, in which it had been enclosed for twenty-eight years. Said MacGahan: **I think there is nothing impresses one more forcibly with the utter loneliness of these regions than the finding of such a document. A scrap of paper, placed here in a prominent position on purpose to be seen and found, but which has remained all these years just as it was placed on this heap of stones by a hand long since turned to dust. Captain Young opened the tube, which was sealed up with red lead, and found a quarter of a sheet of blue foolscap, bearing a brief record, dated June 7, 1849. Strange, indeed, are the chances of Arctic navigation. Ross was within two hundred miles of the spot where only a year before the crews of Franklin's ships, the Erebus and Terror, had aban- doned their vessels. These few hurried lines in the cylinder, upon which with profound emotion we were gazing, written in the cold with benumbed fingers, carry us back to the time when the excitement about Sir John Franklin was just beginning, an excitement which moved the world to enthu- siasm and pity, and which led to sending out ship after ship in search of the lost expedition, and to the most superhuman efforts to save it; all, alas, without avail!" Now the Pandora's party had to take their turn in enduring the perils of Arctic exploration. They were in Peel Strait, their way to the west blocked by the ice-pack. The eastern entrance through which they had come might close and cut off their retreat; there 140 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS was no harbor in which the ship could lie in safety. They waited three days, knowing that even an hour's delay might mean a stay of eight or nine months through the winter in a most unfavorable situation. Bitterly disappointed that no way opened ahead, they steamed at full speed on the back track with the ice- pack close at their heels. They reached the outlet in the last minute of time. Old floes were being welded together by new ice rapidly forming. The iron beak of the Pandora tore its way through the final barrier and dashed into the open waters of Barrow Strait. They were free. The greatest service of MacGahan's career now summoned him to Constantinople. In London the Eastern Question was the absorbing topic of the hour. The sympathies of the American newspaper man with the Slavs in their efforts to throw off the Turkish yoke were deep and keen. Events of world interest were occurring in the Balkan region. He could not bear the notion of following their course from Paris or London. But for some reason there was disagreement between MacGahan and his employer, James Gordon Bennett. The correspondent went to the oflSce of the London Daily News, a few doors away from the New York Herald's bureau, told what he knew of the Eastern situation, offered his services, and was at once "taken on." The time was opportune and the paper's policy congenial. Lord Beaconsfield was then in power and the leader of the opposition was Gladstone. The Daily News was a through-thick-and-thin supporter of the Liberal party and especially of the leader of that party. The Hebrew and Oriental sympathies JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 141 of Beaconsfield were with the Sultan, for the Russians had persecuted his race. Now by a windfall of fortune came the enterprising MacGahan to the organ of the Liberal party. For more than a year the Balkan volcano had been in full eruption; Bosnia and Herz- govina had revolted; Servia had gone to war with Turkey. The ruling pashas were making life intoler- able for the Bulgarians, the most industrious and progressive of the Christian populations of the Sultan's dominions. The Turkish government took away all arms from the Christians of Bulgaria, and brought into the prov- ince a large force of Kurds, Bashi-Bazouks and Asiatic barbarians. Satisfied that the cause of the Porte would never be deserted by England, the Bashi-Bazouks were let loose on the helpless people of southern Bulgaria. Reports began to filter into Constantinople of the wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. The representative of the Daily News in that city made known through the paper the dark rumors which were whispered about in the Turkish capital. His despatch made a sensation. The Turkish government denounced the News man. The English government declared the reports lacked official confirmation. Then MacGahan was sent to make an independent investigation. He was to get the exact truth and tell it without reserve. The letters which he sent his paper under dates ranging from July 28 to August 16, 1876, are among the most brilliant ever penned by a correspondent on the field, pre-Raphaelite in their accuracy of detail, so powerful that they gave Russia the excuse the Czar wanted for a declaration of war on Turkey in the interest of civilization. The letters startled humanitarianism 142 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS in England into a flame, in a few weeks wrought in the English people a sentiment which caused a complete reversal of what had been the traditional policy of English statesmen, and secured for Russia sympathy in quarters where she had no reason to expect it, doing more than anything else to precipitate the conflict that ended with the partial dismemberment of the Sultan's empire. The little volume containing the letters even after forty years makes moving reading. MacGahan went step by step over the district from which the tales of horror had come. His work was made easier by his knowledge of the Slavonic languages and those of western Europe. He possessed a rare combination of physical energy, capacity for observation, quickness in composition, and power of graphic expression. He vividly reproduced conversations with persons of all ranks. He "interviewed" hundreds of the surviving victims of Turkish barbarities. More than fifty villages had been burnt, without counting those which had been only pillaged, and fully 15,000 persons had been slaughtered. He had information from the different consuls at Philippopolis (a city in which England had no agent at all), from German railway officials, from Greeks, Armenians, priests, missionaries, and even from Turks themselves. Much of what he saw and learned it was impossible to print. Everyone in England read MacGahan's letters. They were copied by papers all over the world. In public meetings resolutions of thanks to the Daily News were passed, and they were transmitted to the writer of the reports. Later the American consul- general, Eugene Schuyler, confirmed the statements of the news man. The British consul also bore out JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 143 only too fully the conclusions of the London special. Gladstone threw himself into the agitation that fol- lowed, and again became Prime Minister. In Russia there was even greater excitement. War was inevitable, and war was declared on April 29, 1877. The hero of the war was Skobeleff, and Skobeleff's intimate comrade through a large part of the campaign was the correspondent for the Daily News, Orders came in February for MacGahan to go to St. Petersburg and there follow the preparations for the Russo-Turkish conflict. On the beginning of hostilities MacGahan went forward with the Russian army and most of the time until peace was declared he was with one division or another. Throughout the war MacGahan was laboring at great physical dis- advantage. At the outset he had an ankle set in a plaster of Paris cast, due to a fall when riding a wild horse. He merely said he "never had cared much for walking and now he would ride the more." When the time came that he could not even ride he was still able to find ways to see much that was going on. While with Gourko on the Balkan raid his horse slid over a bank in a narrow pass and fell on him, so that the half- set bone was broken again. It was then he was lifted upon the gun-carriage, thus going through the expedi- tion, and, helpless himself, witnessing several actions, in one of which he nearly fell into the hands of the enemy. The driver of a transport wagon in which the correspondent found a refuge went too close to the edge of a mountain road and the side wheels began to slip. MacGahan, expecting wagon and horses would go over the precipice, rolled off his seat and fell heavily upon the rocks. For a time he was entirely disabled and had to be sent back to Tirnova. 144 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Of his fidelity to duty Frank D. Millet, the corre- spondent of the New York Herald, said: "Half the time at Plevna he was on his back unable to rise. During a battle he would pull himself together and face the bullets and the certain danger of exposure to the weather with cheerfulness and even gayety, for his heart was all in his work. . . Crippled and subject to bi-weekly attacks of Danube fever, he crossed the Balkans in January, and kept at his duties until his last illness. . . His whole nature was stirred by the sufferings he had witnessed, and this was the spring of his energy which endured no check. He recognized the cause as worthy the sacrifices of the war, and, if necessary, the sacrifice of his own life. Well may the Bulgarians call him their champion and their prophet and write poems and memorials of him." Every person who has written of that war has yielded to the fascination of the personality of Skobe- leff. They have spared no adjectives in their descrip- tions of his prowess and his generous dealing with his men. The American historian, Greene, said: ^*His personal bravery was of the most reckless character. . . He always wore a white coat, a white hat, and rode a white horse in battle, simply because other generals usually avoided these target-marks. He never lost an opportunity of displaying courage. . . Yet all this was not mere bravado and nonsense, but was the result of thought and almost cold-blooded calculation. It was intended to impress his men and it did so. They firmly beheved he could not be hit. " It speaks loudly for the character of the American reporter, therefore, that he was the intimate of such a man, and that the Russian was not ashamed of his tears when he stood at the grave of his friend. JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 145 Just how practically useful Skobeleff's friendship was on two or three occasions is indicated by the incident related years ago in the columns of a German periodical by one who knew them both well. The writer was in a boat crossing the Danube when he espied the newspaper man coming down the hill and making signs that he also wished to cross to Simnitza. The boat was stopped and in jumped MacGahan. In his hands he held a roll which seemed to give him much pleasure. Almost like a child eager to tell his secret he opened the papers. They were nothing less than Skobeleff's confidential report loaned to the reporter for a night while a telegram arrived at the imperial headquarters explaining a few hours' delay. Thus it happened that the readers of the Daily News had oflficial particulars of the famous crossing of the Danube on June 27, 1877, before the Russian Emperor or any Russian newspaper had a word on the subject. It made an immense sensation throughout Russia that an English paper thus cornered the greatest item of news at the opening of the war. The deduction then is that if the correspondent would shine as a getter and transmitter of exclusives his policy should be to cultivate the friendship of the generals and then take what they confide? No; while there have been a number of instances of the communication of most valuable " tips, " as in the career of Russell through the Franco-Prussian war, the corre- spondent has to rely in almost every case upon his own instinct and his ability to read the signs of the hour. It was so with MacGahan, too, although SkobelefF wanted to bestow favors upon his messmate whenever opportunity offered. At the outset of the campaign MacGahan bought 146 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS his outfit in Bucharest. Archibald Forbes told how he purchased saddle-horses and a wagon and team, and how he stored the vehicle with supplies and engaged a trusty coachman. "With these," said Forbes, "he duly traveled down the Danube, left them behind when he crossed the great river, and never once saw the vehicle until after the fall of Plevna, six months later, when he kept it for two days, and then lost it for good. His wretched coachman was a standing joke among the correspondents; a forlorn Wandering Jew, ever in vain search after his meteoric master. At all sorts of unlikely places poor Isaac would turn up, following some phantom trail, with the melancholy, stereotyped question, 'Have you seen my master.^^' followed by a request for a little money to keep him and the horse alive. For aught I know, " added the English writer, "Isaac and the wagon may be haunting Bulgaria to this very day. " MacGahan never hesitated to take his chances with- out any consideration of personal comfort or safety. He had the clothes in which he stood and a clean shirt in his saddle-bags by way of baggage. But his fellows said he had the faculty of avoiding the travel-stained and dingy look of most of them, however complete their outfits. And MacGahan never bothered to make any definite arrangements for a personal comis- sary department. In this respect, too, he took his chances. Rarely had he a meal ahead from his own resources. He was sure of food, however, though not of a very attractive meal according to fastidious stand- ards, whenever he came upon a Bulgarian hut or a group of Russian soldiers. How the imperturbable special would sing his way through the dreariest day was related by Frederick JANUARroS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 147 Boyle. For some time there were four of the corre- spondents resident in what Boyle called "the kraal." When they awoke at dawn they would hear "the cheer- ful song" of MacGahan and the song would also "chase them to their beds at night." At daylight there would be MacGahan rolled in his rugs upon the hay merrily trolling his lays. He would sip his break- fast tea between stanzas. He would puff his cigar- ettes alternately with his tunes. Through the day the songs would hardly ever cease. Said Boyle: "Solo- mon's ditties were a thousand and five but no man hath numbered MacGahan 's." And when, splashed to the neck with mud, they would canter in from their rides and find Skobeleff waiting to share their meal, the Russian general would declare with comic rage that "MacGahan had learned nothing since they rode together through the Khivan desert except some new bits of song more abominably stupid than the old assortment. " At daybreak on the morning of Sept. 1, 1877, Lieutenant F. V. Greene, then the military attache to the United States legation at St. Petersburg, and several other foreign officers, were waking from a few hours of sleep after a long ride toward Plevna, where a great battle was expected, when a man riding a rough shaggy pony, wrapped in a great ulster and wearing upon his arm the correspondent's badge, came ambling along the road. It was MacGahan, who had passed the entire preceding day watching the desperate sortie of Osman Pasha. He had spent the early part of the night writing his despatches and had started at two in the morning to carry them over the forty-five miles to the Danube, where the courier was waiting to take them to Bucharest, the nearest point where a wire 148 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS could be found available for business. The corre- spondent gave the military man a hurried and vivid account of the fighting and was off again. Before me is the despatch which was read next morning by everyone in London and New York, a despatch beginning "another battle of Plevna has been fought . . . one of the hardest-fought combats of the war." This despatch, like all his Balkan reports, reads well. Greene states no more than the truth when he says: "Considering the haste with which that large portion of the two volumes of the 'War Correspondence of the Daily News' which came from his pen was necessarily written, there is remarkably little in it which even at this day needs correction." One of the most impressive illustrations of the power of the swiftly-written record of MacGahan's observations is found in the long letter in which he told what he saw on the September day when Skobeleff, refused re-enforcements, was obliged to retreat from the double redoubt which he had captured the day before. Two or three passages may be quoted : "It has been said that nobody ever saw a battle. The soldier is too much excited with the passions of the fight as well as enveloped in smoke to see far around him. The general is too far away from the actual conflict, too much busied with the news from different parts of the field and with giving orders, to see the battle, although he knows it better than any one else. It is only the correspondent who is daring enough to take and hold a good position who really sees a battle; but today, owing to the dense fog, no correspondent can say he saw more than an occasional scene or episode in this terrific struggle. "A little to my right, where General Kriloff attacked the redoubts near Plevna, invisible from the point where my colleague took his stand, the fire had been raging with fury for nearly two hours, a steady, continuous roll and crash. JANUARIUS ALOYSroS MacGAHAN 149 intermingled with the louder thunder of cannon, which filled the air with the uproar of bullets and shells. During all this time there was Uttle to be seen along the crest of the Radisovo ridge, where the Russian guns could be perceived at work, with figures flitting round them dimly seen through the smoke, strangely magnified by the intervention of the fog, until the gunners appeared like giants, and the guns themselves, enlarged and distorted by the same medium, appeared like huge uncouth monsters, from whose throats at every instant leaped forth globes of flame. There were moments when these flashes seemed to light up everything around them. Then the guns and gunners appeared for an instant with fearful distinctness, red and lurid, as though tinged with blood. Then they sank back again in shadowy indistinctness. The uproar of the battle rose and swelled until it became fearful to hear — like the continuous roar of an angry sea beating against a rock-bound coast, combined with that of a thunder-storm, with the strange unearthly noises heard on board a ship when laboring in a gale. . . . "Into this storm of bullets plunged the Russians, with a shout as though of joy, and then disappeared into a little hollow, and for the moment were lost to view. Then they emerged again, disappeared in the low ground at the foot of the glacis, rushing onward as though the bullets were but paper pellets; but, alas ! sadly diminished in number. Would it be possible for them to reach the parapet? Was it possible for flesh and blood to break that circle of fire? To me it seemed utterly out of the question. Did but one bullet in ten find its billet, not one of those gallant fellows would return from that cornfield. While waiting to see them emerge from that little hollow, my excitement was so great, my hand trembled so, that I could not hold my field-glass to my eyes, and for the moment was obliged to trust my naked vision. They were evidently very near the redoubt. Victory was almost within their grasp, but they required a fresh accession of strength; a rush of new men from behind; another wave coming forward with new impetus to carry the first up over the glacis; a second wave, and perhaps a third, each bringing new impulsion, new strength. I looked for this wave of reserves. I looked to see if reinforcements 150 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS were coming up — if the General was doing anything to help the gallant fellows struggling there against that circle of fire. ... " Skobeleff had now only two battalions of sharpshooters left, the best in his detachments. Putting himself at the head of these he dashed^ forward on horseback. He picked up the stragglers; he reached the wavering, fluctuating mass, and gave it the inspiration of his own courage and instruc- tion. He picked the whole mass up and carried it forward with a rush and cheer. The whole redoubt was a mass of flame and smoke, through which screams, shouts, and cries of agony and defiance arose, with the deep-mouthed bellow- ing of the cannon, and above all the steady, awful crash of that deadly rifle-fire. Skobeleff's sword was cut in two in the middle. Then a moment later, when just on the point of leaping the ditch, horse and man rolled together to the ground, the horse dead or wounded, the rider untouched. Skobeleff sprang to his feet with a shout, then with a formid- able, savage yell the whole mass of men streamed over the ditch, over the scarp and counter-scarp, over the parapet, and swept into the redoubt like a hurricane. Their bayonets made short work of the Turks still remaining. Then a joyous cheer told that the redoubt was captured, and that at last one of the defences of Plevna was in the hands of the Russians. ..." But that was not the end. The end came when the troops, re-enforcements having failed to reach them, exhausted by forty-eight hours of incessant fighting, were driven out of the redoubt. This final passage Mac- Gahan then wrote, a passage which has been cited from time to time for its description of Skobeleff: "It was just after this that I met General Skobeleff for the first time that day. He was in a fearful state of excitement and fury. His uniform was covered with mud and filth; his sword broken; his Cross of St. George twisted round on his shoulder; his face black with powder and smoke; his eyes haggard and blood-shot, and his voice quite gone. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. I never saw JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 151 such a picture of battle as he presented. I saw him again in his tent at night. He was quite calm and collected. He said: " *I have done my best; I could do no more. My detachment is half destroyed; my regiments do not exist; I have no officers left; they sent me no reinforcements, and I have lost three guns.' " *Why did they refuse you reinforcements?* I asked. *Who was to blame?' " *I blame nobody, it is the will of God,' he replied." This is the passage which Archibald Forbes called the "most vividly lurid picture of battle" which he had found anywhere. And Forbes noted that in the copy as originally penned MacGahan had said, what was quite true, that Skobeleff's tongue was hanging out of his mouth, but that in revising rapidly he crossed that statement out, his quick perceptions telling him that that phrase would make the passage ridiculous and ruin its effect. Frank D. Millet told of the interview in the Gen- eral's tent and of the events that followed. He says that MacGahan knew the impossibility of finding his way to the Danube in the dense fog and that he tarried therefore to write his story of the battle during the night. Next morning the correspondent was off for the wire. He started for Poradin and Simnitza alone, riding a little Turkish horse that would follow him about like a pet lamb. Thirty miles or more brought him to the river. It was customary when about to cross the bridge for correspondents to greet the com- mandant and formally ask permission to go over. Leaving his horse which bore his saddle-bag and his little personal luggage and the long letter for the London paper, and trusting the training of the animal to stay in the road, MacGahan walked up to the 152 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS commandant's hut. Of course the last news from Plevna was wanted and the reporter had to take about five minutes to tell the story of the great battle. When he emerged from the hut his horse was gone! And with the horse had gone his despatches. Some wretched Bulgarian had stolen them. The corre- spondent never saw them again. He smiled somewhat mournfully, and started, lame as he still was, to cross the long bridge, knowing that he had no time to look for his horse if he wished to get his news to London that night. When he reached Bucharest he sat down at the end of the telegraph wire and wrote again his story, and it was this rewritten account that appeared in the daily, and from which the citations above are taken. Those days of exposure broke Archibald Forbes down and he was invalided home. He reached Bucha- rest on his way just in time to arrange the sheets and put on the wire the despatches in which his confrere recounted the final attempt of Osman to break out of Plevna, and the surrender which followed upon its frustration. Written with great speed were the copious narratives which went over the wires to London, telling of the Russian preparations for the expected sortie, of the heavy fall of snow through which glimpses of Plevna were caught, and of the coming of the de- cisive moment with "the grey light of the morning." MacGahan described the cannonade, and the fighting "hand to hand, man to man, bayonet to bayonet." Then he spoke of the silence, of the lifting of the smoke that followed the cessation of the crash of the infantry and the* bellowing of the artillery. And then "a white flag was seen waving from the road leading around the cliffs beyond the bridge. JANUARIUS ALOYSIUS MacGAHAN 153 Plevna had fallen. Osman Pasha was going to sur- render." After the fall of the town MacGahan was delayed so long at Bucharest by the aggravating nature of his injury, which had resulted in stiffening the knee- joint, that he was unable to overtake the rapidly advancing columns before they reached Adrianople. He came on with the advance guard, however, which arrived at Constantinople in February. His friend, Lieutenant Greene, whom he nursed through a severe illness, thus speaks of his death: "It was sudden, although mainly due to overwork during a long period. He came in from camp to Constantinople to nurse me when I was ill of typhoid fever. Two days later he fell ill himself, the disease taking the form of typhus with spots. It attacked his brain, which was the most vulnerable part of him by reason of long protracted mental strain, and he died in convulsions at the end of a week. " The burial service took place on the 11th of June, 1878, in a little Greek cemetery on a hillside at Pera. The pallbearers were his brother correspondents and the coflSn was followed by representatives from all the embassies. The United States minister was pres- ent, officers of the American ship Despatch, then in the harbor, and a large number of Russian officers. In the Czar's capital and other cities throughout the Empire masses were said for his soul. When the actual inter- ment took place very early next morning "Dobson of the London Times," says Frederic Villiers, "Pearse of the Daily News, and myself were present. Skobeleff was broken down and sobbed like a child. We had some difficulty in getting him away from the grave." Five years after, the Powhatan, with flag at half 154 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS mast, brought the leaden casket into New York har- bor. The body lay in state in the City Hall and then was borne to Ohio. The funeral at New Lexington on September 11, 1884, was attended by many thousands of persons. The grave is on a hill with a far view of the surrounding country. On Independence Day, 1911, a monument was unveiled by MacGahan's only son, Paul, whose mother was a Russian lady whom he first met at Yalta. The paragraph in which Lieutenant Greene esti- mated the character of the correspondent a short time after his death needs no revision in the light of subsequent studies of his career. He said: "No man of his age in recent years has done more to bring honor on the name of America throughout the length and breadth of Europe and far into Asia; no man has more faithfully served the English-speak- ing races by telling them the truth about great events in attractive form in their daily papers. . . . The secret of his popularity [with the Russian army] lay in the simple fact that he applied the plain rules of ordinary morals and business honesty to his calling as a correspondent. No one has criticized more freely than he the mistakes of campaigns or the faults of individual men, but he never did so with malice. Not one of his criticisms ever gave offence, but I have heard the justice of some of the most severe of them freely acknowledged by the Russians themselves." And he added: "I suppose that he and Skobeleff stood at the head of their respective professions." CHAPTER V FREDERIC VILLIERS "The most conscientious worker I have met during the nine years of my life passed as a war correspondent." , _ , — James Creelman. Frederic ViLLiERS,the pictorial journalist, is equally facile with the pen and the pencil. He usually refers to himself as one of the world's most vagrant artists, and upon his pictures his fame is founded, but he has written many pages of " good stuff," although he is not a war correspondent in the sense in which the name is applied to men of the type of Forbes and Burleigh. Wherever he appears he is bound to excite curiosity and command attention. With an army in the field he will keep industriously at work making sketches, but the close observer might alone detect his occupa- tion, for his methods are quite his own. Much of the time he makes his drawings in tiny sketch books, so small that he may hold them in the palm of his hand. Thus he files away multitudes of what the reporters call "notes," and he uses them for precisely the same purpose for which the news writers use theirs. If he comes absolutely under fire he may produce a somewhat larger sketch book and make drawings on a bigger scale, working in, quite likely, many of the ideas in the diminutive pad. His chief purpose is to get a pictorial record of the stir and excitement of battle. His work is done with great rapidity. His eye is quick and keen, and his pencil almost keeps pace 156 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS with it. He differs with the artists who believe in elaborating their impressions after the conflict is over. Most of his pictures are made on the actual scene. He prefers even a hasty and imperfect sketch if it conveys the impression of reality and action. No one knows just how many miles he has covered in his peregrinations about the globe. But in one decade of a professional life which began almost forty years ago he covered 80,000 miles. He has seen more battles than any soldier living and endured more privations. His toughest scrimmage, probably, was in the broken square at Tamai in 1884. Many govern- ments have bestowed decorations upon him, but he has an equal degree of pride in the fact that he introduced the bicycle into the Soudan and that he was the first to use the cinematograph in making records of cam- paigns. There is much of Villiers to be found in the characterizations which Kipling put into "The Light that Failed," and Sir Forbes Robertson came to him when that novel was staged to have the aid of the experience of the veteran in arranging the correspond- ents' scene. As an indefatigable traveler, with eyes always quick to note the peculiarities of men and races, Villiers has been used extensively for pictorial reporting of important events of every kind. But essentially he is a war correspondent, and if you can tell just where the war drum will throb next you will know just where you will be likely to find Villiers whistling cheerfully at his chosen work. Frederic Villiers was born in London in 1852, and educated in France. As a lad he used to color his Italian skies a deep blue and put brilliant scarlet on the jacket of the Red Rover of the play. When Copyright by Elliott & Fry, Ltd., London, W, FREDERIC VILLIERS FREDERIC VILLIERS 157 convalescing from measles he would draw regiments of soldiers with fixed bayonets on his school slate, and his physician predicted for him a military career. At seventeen he made up his mind to go in for art in earnest, and he began by growing long hair and culti- vating a mustache. His industry secured for him admission to the schools of the Royal Academy. He over-worked and under-ate in his enthusiasm for study. The result was chronic dyspepsia and dyspepsia made him a war artist. He was so depressed that life seemed a burden. His labors were not productive of cash. Then one day he saw a man mending a telegraph wire on a pole, topping the roof of a house. He made notes, hurried home, induced an accommodating cousin to balance himself on one of the four posts of a bedstead, with arms hanging down one side and legs the other. With the resulting sketch he went to the editors of the Graphic. It was not accepted. But the story had a sequel. One afternoon he saw a crowd around a news- paper poster. The large black type said that Prince Milan of Servia had declared war against Turkey. Villiers was in gloomy spirits, induced by his dyspepsia. Why not go to the fighting and get killed and have it done with? Why not, indeed? In racy style he has himself told the tale. "I rushed back," he says, "and immediately addressed a letter to the editor of the Weekly Graphicy offering my services for the coming campaign. Early next morning I received a telegram: *See me private address. Thomas.' I jumped into a hansom and in a few minutes was ringing loudly at the famous editor's door. As I entered his study Mr. Thomas at once came to business. " *Can you speak French or German?' he asked. 158 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS " *I can get along fairly well in French,' I replied. " *That will do; when can you go?' " *At once,' I answered. " *Then please leave by this evening's mail. You will find money for your journey and outfit at the oflfice.' "A short interview but a very sweet one to me. That night I left Charing Cross station by the Continental Express for the seat of war. With a pocket full of money, a brand new kit, and the world before me, I thought, now I will do great things. " The young artist left London with two letters of introduction, addressed respectively to the English ambassador at Vienna and to Archibald Forbes. In the Austrian capital the diplomat provided him in turn with a letter to the English consul at the capital of Servia and sent him by steamer down the Danube. Servians were hurrying from every part of Europe to the aid of the fatherland. When the walls of Belgrade loomed out of the river mists the excitement aboard the boat was intense. Says Villiers: "Even as we landed the clang of war reverberated through the old streets. The ringing noise of the smith's hammer, the rolling of gun timbers over the rough stones, the tramp, tramp of the troops, the clanking and clatter of the orderlies as they hurried hither and thither, were heard on all sides." Villiers hurried away on the trail of Forbes, who was at the headquarters of the army at Paratun. He was provided with riding boots, spurs and a big bulldog revolver, as he says, to stamp himself in the eyes of the veteran as a very determined young fellow. Amid the motley crowd in the market place of Paratun he had no trouble in finding the Daily News man; they very soon became fast friends and agreed to make the campaign together if possible. But at the outset they were FREDERIC VILLIERS 159 separated, Villiers to go with the army of the Ibar and Forbes with that of the river Timok. The eye for color and picturesque detail which Villiers possesses is shown by his records of this early campaign. He says: "I had to journey in springless country carts for three days through a land sunny with ripening Indian corn, studded with picturesque villages. The porticos of the cottages were strung with pepper pods of variegated hues, and melons and gourds of quaint shapes. The men, with red skull-caps, white frocks bound round the waist with red sashes, were well-built and athletic and toiled in the fields. Their womenkind, sitting spinning on the verandas of their houses, were dressed in pretty national costumes — white gowns embroidered at the breast; from the waist aprons of various colors were worn. . . But there was the shadow to all this sunshine. The men looked stern and the women were sad. For far away over the smiling fields and happy homesteads a long wave of dust was incessantly rolling, which betokened the highway to death. The first shots had been exchanged on the frontier and the bloody war had begun. . . On arriving at the town of Ivanitza I turned out of my wagon, hired a saddle horse, and journeyed up the mountain to the Servian camp, pitched 4000 feet above the town." This war, by the way, cured his dyspepsia. His first efforts were those of a gloomy man who intended to get himself shot, and his "desperate endeavors" in that direction built up for him a " bogus reputation for bravery." After some weeks he found himself strong and of good cheer. He has not suffered from dyspepsia since. His first battle was a revelation in more ways than one. He knew only about a dozen words of Servian. Of the disposition of the troops in action he was even more ignorant than of the language. He was on foot, having been obliged to return his horse to Ivan- 160 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS itza. A few shots like the letting off of fire-crackers were heard at a distance. On the edge of a pine wood on top of the mountain he found a Servian battery behind an earthwork and began to make a sketch of it. He could not see that they were firing at anything in particular, for the morning was heavy and the smoke long in lifting. Soon he himself was under fire. "Pres- ently the air was filled with a curious rushing sound like that of a low-toned fog-horn, followed by a terrible explosion and a flash of fire," he wrote. "Then the top of one of the pine trees flew in splinters. The noise from that mutilated tree was as if a huge tuning fork had been struck. The vibration made the ground tremble. It was one of the enemy's shells. " For some time the shells continued to splinter the pines. The Servians limbered up and retired, going slowly, then at a trot, and finally galloping furiously down the road. Villiers was mystified. He stared in astonishment, until suddenly there came through the fog of smoke a rush of infantry, making for the pass through the wood down which the battery was going. As they poured into the road they were packed to- gether rather closely and a shell burst amid them. The young artist then had a glimpse of the stern realities of war. Before the report of the exploded shell had passed away "half a dozen poor fellows lay writhing, almost torn to fragments with the splintered segments, drenching the turf with blood." He grew faint at the sight and stared fascinated. But not for long. All about him sounded a buzz and a hiss, and right in front of him were little puffs of smoke floating upward like soap-bubbles. Behind the bubbles flashed the red fez of the Turk. He was within a hundred yards of the enemy; there were only FREDERIC VILLIERS 161 a few boulders intervening. Villiers seems, curiously enough, to have forgotten about the dyspepsia and his melancholy longing for death. He bolted. The retreat was a regular rout. "The way was crowded," wrote Villiers, "with infantry, baggage wagons, ambulances, cavalry and artillery, all hurry- ing down the mountain like an angry torrent, arrested a moment here, then surging up, breaking its way, cutting fresh courses, spreading itself down the pre- cipitous sides to the base of the mountain, at least 4,000 feet below." With the night came a terrific thunderstorm, and hundreds of cattle loosed from the mountain camp raced down the path, trampling the wounded into the mud as they ran. The Turkish cannon bombarded the fugitives and the shells wrecked hundreds of carts and wounded and killed scores of men. Villiers was "breaking into the game" with a vengeance. He wore an ulster which, drenched with rain, was weighing him down. He clung, dead beat, to a wagon wheel and plodded on. A voice from within the cart asked him to scramble up. An officer, speak- ing a little English, was lying on the straw in the box, badly wounded. Villiers fell asleep. In the morning down in the plains, the pursuit abandoned, he dis- covered by his side the kind-hearted Servian cold in death, and over himself the waterproof cloak which the wounded man had taken from his own shoulders for the protection of the stranger. To his delight, upon his return to Alexinatz, Villiers found Forbes. The schoolhouse near the inn had been transformed into a hospital and a lot of young English surgeons were hard at work there. Day by day the artist and the correspondent observed the advance of 162 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the enemy upon the town. Through the nights they watched the stretcher-bearers trailing over the bridge and up the streets with their maimed fellow country- men. Grewsome pictures, indeed, Villiers made of those scenes. Badly wounded men waited hours for their turns from the surgeons, and then crawled out of the stretchers and wriggled along towards the school- house, many dying on the way. The artist helped the doctors when he could, passing instruments from room to room, holding candles, sometimes squeezing the hands of a man under an operation, standing the horror of it all as long as was possible for him, and then seeking the open air for rest and a sight of the stars. The dawn following the worst of these awful nights brought a force of Russian volunteers and with the sun-rising came Servian reenforcements. Says the artist: "To blare of bugles, with swinging gait, they tramped down the street. Some of the few remaining wounded of the previous night, still lying in the roadway, aroused them- selves for the moment and tried to turn their groans to cheers. Regiment after regiment passed on. Far into the morn the points of the bayonets glistened above the dust as the troops marched through the town, out into the open, into the valley — the valley of the shadow of death, for the smell of powder and blood was everywhere. The desultory shots which had been exchanged in the early morning had gradually ceased, and for a time a universal quietude reigned. " At noon, however, the battle began. Forbes restrained the impatience of his inexperienced comrade, who was eager to be off with the first sound of the can- non, and they had a good meal together before they went forward. They watched the action, falling flat on their faces as shells whistled over their heads. On FREDERIC VILLIERS 163 a house in a little near-by village they saw a Red Cross flag, and within, to their astonishment, they found three Russian women, their uniforms bedabbled with blood, standing by their wounded, while shells loosened tiles upon the roof of their quarters. The Servians were retreating. But the nurses scorned the advice of Villiers that they go. One, "with top-boots of Hessian cut, short skirt and Cossack jacket, with pistol slung across her shoulders," touched her "little black silk Montenegrin cap" and advised him as a non-combatant to seek a place of safety. The nurses stayed, and Forbes and Villiers felt obliged also to stay. The Turkish sharpshooters were close in. When finally with their contingent of wounded they left one end of the bridge the Turks entered the other. For about an hour the Servians made a stand. Forbes, Villiers, a surgeon and a wounded soldier got away in an ambulance wagon. As they looked back they saw the Red Cross flag still fly- ing, but over the heads of the Turks. The jaded column of beaten Servians passed over the bridge into Alexinatz, where the horrors of the preceding night were repeated. The news men found a Russian corre- spondent dead in the town. Two other correspondents were killed in that short campaign and one was wounded, out of twenty who followed the war. Villiers records that "one met death heroically, fighting the enemy, defending the redoubt of which he had been made commandant for his personal bravery." The Servians were badly whipped in that brief struggle. The decisive victory was won by the Turks at Djunis. Villiers missed the battle, for his paper had wired him to proceed to Bombay for the proclamation of the English Queen as Empress of India. 164 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS But after all he did not go to India. He hurried back to Belgrade and Vienna for further orders. When they came they directed him to omit India and instead to try to join the Turkish army. Down the Danube therefore he sailed again, this time for Rustchuk. Here he was given every opportunity to examine the famous fortress. Surprising things happened to him; he inspected the troops, walking down the lines, looking at their appearance and commenting upon the physique of the men. He was received in state by the commandant and his staff and smoked their cigarettes and drank their coffee with great ceremony. This was excellent but puzzling. On the way back Villiers learned that his interpreter had told his hosts that he was an English colonel traveling incognito, a member of Parliament, who "wanted see great Turkish army." Villiers thought it expedient to get out of Rustchuk early next morning. He went directly to Constanti- nople. He was aware that his position was one of consider- able danger. Having shared the vicissitudes of the Servian army for months, suddenly to go over to the Turks was a change fraught with peril. He was to forget the Servians and start as a gentleman just out from England who was anxious to see something of the Turkish military man. Luckily in those days sketches were seldom published with the names of their artists and he was little known even to the English in Constantinople. Luck befriended him. He met a jolly sea-captain who had commanded a vessel in the Black Sea in the Crimean war. The Turks remembered him grate- fully. He had conceived the notion of writing a book about Turkey. To write it he must travel. To travel FREDERIC VILLIERS 165 he must have a passport or finnan. The authorities provided him with one a foot and a half long. That was a very precious scroll, for the Turks would measure the importance of a visitor by the length of the firman he might bear. Villiers, sure he could not get a permit on his own account, induced the captain to include him in his firman as secretary, without mentioning his name. They went hither and thither about Turkey to- gether. Such attentions as were bestowed upon them! "At Adrianople," says Villiers, **an aide-de-camp of the government met us; we were billetted on the first merchant of the town, who, with usual Oriental politeness, would come in after the evening meal and inquire after our healths, and with a salaam assure us that his house and his servants and his animals were no longer his but ours." Much of the miseries of Roumelia they saw. Vil- lages were gone. Houses were in ruins, only chimneys standing. Bodies, thinly interred, lay in the streets. Carrion birds hovered over the country. From time to time they met Bashi-Bazouks and Circassians. They were not molested, for the fiat had gone out from Constantinople that the English were to be respected. At the frontier town of Nisch, Villiers received a serious warning from an English friend that the governor of Alexinatz had threatened to hang the correspondent of the Graphic on sight should he fall into Turkish hands. To Alexinatz the artist went nevertheless and right into the presence of the governor of the sacked and ruined town, finding him seated on a packing case warming his hands over a charcoal brazier. The firman was as potent as ever. He dined in state with his would-be executioner and 166 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS received many good wishes from him as he departed with the sea-captain back to Nisch. Returning to Constantinople the artist fell in with "Val" Baker, the famous British cavalry officer, who was awaiting the outcome of his proposal to reorganize the Turkish gendarmerie. Colonel Valentine Baker, to use the full name and title, assured Villiers, as the artist was leaving to watch the mobilization of the Russian army, that he expected soon to follow, for "nothing was to be done with the Turks." But when Villiers again met him it was in the same Constantinople club house, and Baker was the hero of the hour, for he had just made for himself a great name by covering the retreat of the remnant of the Turkish army in the spring of 1878. Villiers went from the capital to Jassy in Roumania, where he planned to cross the Pruth into Russia. It was impossible as an English news artist to advance in that direction, so he annexed himself to a Swedish grocer who was leaving for Odessa on a business trip. Now for once he lost his luck. By taking an unlighted cigarette into the police bureau of a frontier town he betrayed the fact that he was not accustomed to travel in Russia. On the wall hung a crude picture of the Czar. He was reproved for smoking in the august presence, in spite of the absence of smoke, and until he was in the train for Odessa he could feel suspicious eyes always upon him. At Kishinef he left the train and the grocer and began making sketches. Troops were massing outside the town. The artist wished to be inconspicuous and therefore used no notebook of any kind, actually making minute "notes" on his finger nails, and transferring his drawings to paper under the shelter of his hotel. The cold was FREDERIC VILLIERS 167 severe, and once he nearly lost thumb and "notes" by frost-bite. A Scotchman, serving as a Russian postmaster, detected his nationality and Villiers confided to him his secret. Suspicion allayed by the kind oflSces of this new friend, the adventurous artist got across the frontier with his pocket full of sketches. For rest, and to get a kit for the coming campaign, Villiers now returned to England. Within a month came Russia's declaration of war upon Turkey, on April 24, 1877. It was his birthday and he put in the day traveling to the front. He reached Bucharest barely in time to catch the train for Ibrila, and next morning he saw the first shot fired across the Danube into the town from a Turkish monitor in the river. Villiers, moreover, was one of four correspondents who were in that terrific struggle from beginning to end; he heard the last shots of the war and witnessed the proclamation of peace by the Russians on the plains of San Stefano within sight of the minarets of Constantinople. Those were the golden days of the war reporters. They were free lances, coming and going almost at will, several scores in number, very keen in com- petition, clever in strategy for access to the wires over which their news sped to London and the other news centres of the world. So many references are made to this war in this volume and to the adventures of the correspondents who followed it, that but two or three episodes in the experiences of Villiers in the campaign shall be related. The first fighting he saw was at the crossing of the Danube, and he there did one of his quickest sketches. Forbes told him he would be his postman if he could have a picture ready in twenty minutes. 168 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS It was a rough sketch necessarily but it was ready on the minute, and the Graphic had a quadruple page of the crossing as a result. When Forbes returned from Bucharest the two went with Arnoldi's cavalry brigade on the invasion of Turkey. Now came one of the most adventurous nights of Villiers's career. The troop was near Bjela in camp in a gorge which cleft its way through a belt of hills. In the evening Circassian cavalry were seen in numbers along the crests. Next day the enemy were found to be in such force that Arnoldi became very anxious about his position. The troopers stood by their horses all day long, firing from time to time at the enemy, wait- ing for the relief that ought soon to arrive, and then when the sun was sinking "through the dust, specks of fire sparkled as the red glow glinted on the tips of bayonets. " Far below the watching artist the tramp- ing infantry marched into the town and the enemy disappeared. That night Villiers, after dining with Arnoldi, had to make his way back to his quarters at some distance. A score of soldiers, who had broken open several casks of liquor and in consequence were much intoxicated, arrested him, declaring, because of the imperfections of his Russian, that he must be a Turk. They pushed him into a cellar an inch deep in liquor and searched him, taking his sketches and purse and then hustling him out into the road. Two of them would have bayonetted him, but Villiers caught the cold steel with his hands and forced it aside, when the others protested that he should be kept in safety. Ultimately they took him to a bivouac of infantry where an oflBcer recognized him and caused his belongings to be restored. FREDERIC VILLIERS 169 He got back to his house fagged out and at once fell asleep. But the night was not yet over. "Presently," he says, "I was disturbed by a soft vel- vety touch on my face, then came a gentle pressure of my hands. Thinking I was in the throes of a nightmare I sighed, and still slept. Now came a pinch and then a tweak of my nose. I sat up rubbing my eyes, and there in a ray of soft moonhght were two lovely damsels in pictur- esque robes-de-nuit, wringing their hands and sadly moaning. On seeing me awake they rushed at me and shook me until I was fully aroused, then they pointed to the window, and, in language utterly unintelligible to me, rapidly began talking. Their faces were full of fear and they seemed in great distress, so I arose, shook myself, and stood by their side." He looked out upon a large number of drunken troopers engaged in the delectable occupation of looting the stores of Bjela. They staggered about, carrying torches made of fragments of doors and windows steeped in pitch. A number of them halted in front of Villiers's house. Forbes was away with despatches, but his servant, Andreas, was in the next room. Villiers found the husband of one of the women crouching in terror in a corner. Now the looters were hammering at the door. Villiers tried strategy. He caused Andreas to throw open a window and tell the soldiers gruiOfly that this was the house of a Russian oflScer. But in an hour the depredators were back. Villiers then directed the cringing hus- band to blockade the door of the room with furniture, gave the women his revolver, and with Andreas went to the yard. They flung open the door and allowed themselves to be dragged into the roadway, their clothing almost totn from their bodies. A sentry saved them. He saw upon the artist's 170 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS arm the insignia of his profession bearing the imperial arms of Russia, and he understood the shouts of Andreas*. The ruffians stole hurriedly away. As day broke, Villiers went with the story to the colonel in command of the camp above the town, and a rescue party arrived just in time to prevent the smashing of the barricaded door. Two dead bodies were found, both with blackened lips and blistered hands. Villiers looked at his boots; there were dark spots on them; his fingers went through them as if they were paper. They demanded of the landlord what was the wine he kept in his cellars. He replied: "Honored stranger, I am a leather dresser, and in one of my cellars I keep vitriol in bottles, for use in my trade; in another the wine of my country." The rioters had not been fortunate in their choice of cellars. Villiers became good friends with General Arnoldi, for the soldier liked to sketch and they did many water colors together. One night the news man got a valu- able tip. "If I were a war correspondent," he was told, "I should not remain here, for you know, Mr. Villiers, there are other means besides fighting for taking a fortress." This was a puzzle to the artist, but Forbes understood and so they left next day for the Emperor's headquarters. Count Ignatieff there befriended them and suggested they should go and see the Russians take a place called 'Plevna! The general in charge of the left wing of the Russian army they found seated in the verandah of a small Bulgarian hut. On presenting their letter of intro- duction from the Count the general smiled grimly, and said, "Gentlemen, it is well you brought this note; I feel compelled to allow you to remain; personally FREDERIC VILLIERS 171 I should have requested you to leave the camp," and, while they looked wistfully at the servant's preparations for dinner upon a plank placed across two barrels, he added, "Gentlemen, I am about to take my dinner; good evening." They could not miss his meaning and bowed themselves away. No food was to be had; in an empty shack they smoked themselves to sleep. It was a Russian count who had been a military attache at the Court of St. James who had compassion on them, for late next day he approached and said in English: "I know you must be without food. If this poor fare will be of service to you take it with pleasure." He produced a lump of dried meat and an onion from his pockets, and promised them later some bouillon at his tent. Many adventures did Villiers experience while waiting for the Russians to take that "place called Plevna." They took the place after one hundred and forty-two days of tremendous fighting. Odd little incidents stuck in Villiers's memory. Years after he recalled the castaway kettle-drum stuck in the mud, rim uppermost. A Russian-Parisian friend, eyeglass in eye, used to begin, "Mon cher Villiers," and go on with his stories about Paris Grand Opera and pretty dancers, while shells showered him with mud. After some time Villiers fell ill and became very weak. There was nothing he could better do than join the ambulance corps and off he went to aid the wounded. That led to an incident which has been told at length by both Forbes and himself. All one night he labored, requisitioning straw from bams and thatch from village houses for the wounded to lie upon. Many men were placed on litters and the 172 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ambulance corps stood on guard round them until sunrise showed them safe for the time. When morn- ing was well advanced Villiers turned his horse's head toward the Danube, for he had a valuable packet of sketches to mail. About midday he came up with the head of the retreating army. The remnant of a force of 30,000 men was crowding over a little bridge, crowding into a little valley beyond, and crowding through the passes still farther on. That was Osman Digna's opportunity to drive the demoralized Russians into the Danube, but for some reason he stayed at Plevna. Late at night Villiers arrived at Sistova. He could get no shelter and fell asleep on the flags of the court- yard of the inn, his horse crunching corn and tethered to his wrist. At dawn he crossed the bridge to Simnitza and hurried on to Giurgevo to catch the evening train for Bucharest. Within a mile of the station he found himself in danger. He was riding between the river and a deep trench in which there lurked shadows that frightened his horse. The Turks in Rustchuk used to fire every afternoon at the train as it departed for Bucharest, and today they amused themselves by bringing a gun to bear upon the lone rider struggling with a refractory horse to catch the cars. But while Villiers was in considerable peril of being hit, the shots helped him make the train, for the horse bolted and brought him to the station just in time to leave the animal in charge of a Cossack and leap aboard the last coach. Bucharest was reached about nine that evening. Unwashed for three days, Villiers was covered with dust. The uppers of his long boots had almost worn through his riding breeches; he was stiff, weary and FREDERIC VILLIERS 173 hungry. He staggered into the pretty little garden of an hotel, where two gentlemen sitting under the trees stared at him long and fixedly. Now for Forbes's account of the same episode. The battle over, the correspondent had not been able to find the artist anywhere. No surgeon had seen him; no soldier recalled him. Forbes had a bad night, dodging the marauding bands of the enemy, and with the dawn came the awful tidings that in the darkness the Bashi-Bazouks had worked around the flank of the Russian picket line, had crept into the village, and had butchered the wounded and the surgeons there. Forbes was in an agony of apprehension. Where was Villiers? He searched until Turkish sharpshooters stopped him. Every one said: "If he was in the village last night he is there now, but not alive." At last he had to ride for the wire with his message for the Daily News. That was the ride in which he killed his horse, as is told elsewhere. His news despatched, the reporter got himself trimmed and cleansed into some semblance of fitness for the little Paris of the East. Friends of Villiers came seeking tidings of the artist. They held a consultation and agreed to wait a day before putting on the wires the story of his death. Most of the day the fagged-out correspondent slept. In the evening with W. Beatty Kingston of the Daily Telegraph and others he went to the hotel garden for dinner. A bedraggled figure came in and a familiar voice called for food in a hurry. It was Villiers! That was a glad meeting. Says Villiers: "Forbes turned around and uttered a short exclamation of surprise, and then, with the others, stared at me with a peculiar look that I shall never forget. I was suddenly 174 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS arrested by this curious expression on their faces, and stood transfixed. Forbes rose from the table and walked with an incredulous gait toward me. When he came within a yard he suddenly gave a shout of satisfaction and grasped me by the shoulder, shaking me all the while. " The Bashi-Bazouks that night had reached the village just after Villiers had left. At one other time he was supposed to have been slain. That was when Hicks Pasha was annihilated at El Obeid in November, 1883. The London evening papers announced the death of Villiers. And the artist "read the announcement in Fleet Street, while an acquaintance at the Savage Club was standing with his back to the fire holding forth upon the cam- paigns they had been through together." Of MacGahan also Villiers saw much and he talks of hhn to this day. Typhus was raging in Constantinople; throughout the city the funeral dirge was heard from sunrise to sunset, and in the evening the death boats with their cargoes collected from the mosques, would sail silently across the Hellespont to the old burial ground of Scutari, where in huge trenches, "unwashed and unshriven, the innocent victims of the cruel war were placed to rest." It was Villiers who notified Skobeleff of MacGahan's death. The next station in the itinerary of the " vagrant artist" was Malta, where he sketched the reviews of the troops from India. As the Indian troops came to the Mediterranean Russia sent what was ostensibly a pacific mission to Cabul. The Ameer refused to allow a British mission to visit him just at the time and England proceeded to force the mountain passes. In that Afghan War, Villiers shared the vicissitudes of the campaign with a native regiment. At Peshawr FREDERIC VILLIERS 175 he again met Forbes, who was on his way to Burmah. ViUiers found the fighting desultory and unsatisfactory, but he became fast friends with Sir Louis Cavagnari, whom he regarded as the most distinguished officer of the campaign, and after the peace was signed the officer gave him the pens with which the signatures were written. Australia was next; dinner with the Viceroy at Simla, P. and O. steamer from Bombay, then the exhibition at Sydney and then Tasmania and New Zealand, San Francisco and New York, and across the Atlantic to London — his first girdling of the globe. He settled down to paint and had a picture on the walls of the Royal Academy. Returning from Scotland, where he had been to visit Forbes, he found that Arabi Pasha was stirring up a revolt in the land of the Nile, and when the massacre in Alexandria took place on June 11, 1882, he started once more on his wander- ing life. Thus began his long series of campaigns in Egypt and the Soudan, a series which ended only with the victory at Omdurman in 1898. The exigences of the situation at Alexandria caused ViUiers to accept the invitation of Lord Charles Beresford to take quarters aboard the gunboat Condor, In virtue of her short draught the boat was moored in the inner harbor under the shadow of the summer palace of the Khedive. There were all sorts of stories afloat as to the proximity of the ship to the palace; one was that if hostilities began she was to aid in the escape of the ladies of the harem. The only dangerous piece of ordnance possessed by Arabi was two hundred yards away. Beresford had hung every piece of spare iron and chain he had on board over the bulwarks, making a sort of chain armor for the vessel and giving 176 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS her a rakish list to starboard. Day and night a glass was leveled upon the cover of Arabi's cannon. Villiers has said that he always has felt indirectly responsible for the events that followed. Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour had sent Arabi an ultimatum that if more guns were mounted in the forts the act would be regarded as a cause for war. It was Villiers who brought the news that Arabi was mounting guns, and thus was precipitated the bombardment of the city. Says the artist: "One morning on landing on the Marina, I met a con- tractor for the navy who told me that some mysterious work was going on by Arabi in the direction of the old harbor. He thought that Arabi was mounting guns, and his brother, *who lived in a house overlooking the Pharos, had heard strange noises during the night, and in the morn- ing had seen soldiers making gun platforms and mounting cannon.' I hurried off to my friend's brother's house and saw from the balcony that the fort near the lighthouse was being quickly armed, though with the daylight the guns had disappeared. I took a sketch of what I saw, returned to the Condor, informed the commander, gave him my sketches, which he immediately took to the Admiral. Now simply being a correspondent my information could not be recog- nized officially, so a British officer dressed as an Arab was sent to the fort to confirm my story. He rowed ashore, landed, examined the fort and found my story true." The artist was aboard the Condor during the bom- bardment. There was a dinner on deck the night before that momentous event took place, attended by the captains of French, German and American ships, and many pretty things were said. To be ready for action there remained nothing to be done but to oil the racers of the guns and to sand the decks that the men might have a firmer grip for their feet as they manned the muzzle-loaders. FREDERIC VILLIERS 177 During the bombardment the Condor's opportunity came and was seized promptly by her commander, for Beresford resolved to divert the fire 'Of Fort Marabout then annoying the Admiral's ships. The Condor steamed in and the men eagerly stripped off their jackets. The pen of the artist told what the ship did almost as vividly as did his pencil picture her service. In his long description of the action there are many graphic passages: "As we neared the fort, and its terraces and embrasures, bristling with Armstrong guns, loomed out of the morning haze, not a man aboard but knew the peril of our audacity — for a little gunboat, one of the smallest in Her Majesty's service, to dare to attack the second most powerful fortress in Alexandria — but the shout of enthusiasm from the crew when the order was given to *Open fire!' readily showed their confidence in their beloved leader. "The guns blazed away. The smoke hung heavily about the decks. The flash of the cannonade lit up for a moment the faces of the men, already begrimed with powder, and steaming with exertion, for the morning was hot and sultry. The captain from the bridge with glass in hand watched anxiously the aim of the gunners. . . . Then a shout from the men in the main-mast told us on deck that the shot had made its mark. The little ship quaked again with the blast of her guns. The men were now almost black with powder, and continually dipped their heads in the sponge buckets to keep the grit from their eyes. "One of our shots had fallen within the enemy's works, another had taken a yard of a scarp off — for a slight breeze had lifted the cloud of smoke, and all on board could plainly see the enemy working in their embrasures. The Arab gunners now trained one of their Armstrongs in our direction. Oiu engine bell sounded and the Condor steamed ahead. A puff of smoke from the fort, a dull boom, a rush of shell through the air, and a jet of water shot up astern, followed by a shout from our men. The enemy had missed us. . . . "The fire on the ships attacking Fort Mex slackened and 178 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS soon ceased altogether. Irritated by the constant fire of the little Condor, the Egyptian gunners now devoted their entire attention to us. They set about slewing their other Armstrongs in our direction. Their long black muzzles slowly turned toward us. We looked at each other, and then some of us looked at the captain, for the situation was becoming critical. ... In an instant he decided and gave the order to run in closer; and we came within 1200 yards. We all saw in a moment the wisdom of the seeming audacity. We were well within their guard; though the Gippies blazed at us, they could only practice at our masts, they could not depress their guns sufficiently to hull us. "We cheered again and again at their abortive attempts to get us; for a shot below water-mark, with the lurch the Condor was already making with all her guns abroadside, would have sent her down into Davy Jones's locker in less than ten minutes. "The Egyptians in their rage opened fire with their smooth bores from the lower parapet. The round shot would whistle through our rigging, making us lie low awhile, but we would scramble to our feet again, dropping another nine-inch shell well within their works. Only once did the enemy touch us. . . . "All the time the navigating lieutenant, with eyes fixed on the chart, was calmly moving the vessel up and down a narrow torturous passage which we could distinctly see by peering over the side of the vessel, for the reefs on either flank of the narrow channel glistened from out the blue black of the waters. "After we had silenced two of the enemy's guns, and were then obliged to retire for want of ammunition, how the Admiral in return signalled *Well done. Condor V is now a matter of history." At sundown, with John Alexander Cameron of the Standard, Villiers undertook to penetrate the city. They passed the British sentries and found at once how perilous was their enterprise; they stumbled about over debris and dead bodies. The night was lighted by the glare of burning houses; incendiaries and FREDERIC VILLIERS 179 looters were at work. Afraid of attack, the two press men threaded their way cautiously through a labyrinth of narrow passages and at last reached the Place of the Consuls. "It was one vast fiery furnace, a quadrangle of flame," declares the artist. One amusing experi- ence befell them: as they looked upon the tokens of massacre which would appal the British news readers the following morning, they discovered, to their relief, that the headless bodies were merely dressmakers' dummies which had been denuded of their finery and left in the square. At one period in that night of adventures they really got ready for a fight for life; at any time a body of Arabi's stragglers might attack them. When they heard the steady tramp of a score of men down a side street, Cameron knelt in the shadow of a shop and held his rifle poised for use and Villiers stood by him with cocked revolver, but the challenge, when it came out of the darkness, was in good round English, and the correspondents found themselves in the presence of the American company of Bluejackets whom the Admiral of the United States Navy had landed to assist in the patrolling of the streets and the suppression of the looters and the incendiaries. There followed a trying time for the war correspond- ents. The news from Alexandria had worked the British public up to a high pitch of excitement, but after the bombardment things were dull for a while. Rumors were afloat in plenty; canards and "fakes" were printed, and editors were sending out anxious messages asking why other papers had had what pur- ported to be news and insisting upon knowing whether their own men had been beaten or not. While trans- ports were bringing British troops every day the 180 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS correspondents spent their evenings together at the hotel, in the sort of vigilant intimacy which keeps a very keen eye upon the men for all papers except one's own, every man almost sick with fear lest some paper should get a scrap of real news that he himself might miss. In the middle of one night a London news writer routed Villiers out of bed and told him the men were on the march. He had a horse ready and engaged that himself and the artist alone should get off with the column and they rode quietly out of the city between the rails of the railway and into the desert. They did not witness much of an action as it turned out but at any rate there were but two London papers that had any account at all of the first skirmish of the campaign. Early in 1883 Villiers marched with General Sir Gerald Graham from the Red Sea coast for the relief of Tokar. Wading through liquid mud and sand over ankles and sometimes up to their knees, the men splashed on until they were in touch with the enemy. In the desert they found the rotting remnant of the army of Baker Pasha, the "Val" Baker whom Villiers had seen last in Constantinople. Indeed, in one of the heaps of bodies he found the corpse of a friend with whom he seven years before in Bulgaria had nearly met death from the fumes of a charcoal brazier. As the square moved on toward El Teb to the weird screech of the bagpipe. Baker, wounded, stood by Villiers and watched, with tears in his eyes, the charge of his old regiment. It was a desperate fight; black, fuzzy heads would pop up from pits in the sand, there would be the gleam of a rifle and the puff and the whiz as the gun was fired, and the head would disappear, having been in sight barely for a second or two. The FREDERIC VILLIERS 181 artist that day had another of his "close shaves." He was sketching a lad who was supposed to be beyond fighting, when suddenly the Arab sprang into the air and attacked him. Villiers ran for it, trying to draw his revolver as he raced over the sand, with the boy so close at his heels that he felt his hot breath and heard the swish of the descending knife as his pursuer struck and missed. Still clenching the knife, the boy fell from the shot of one of the soldiers. Villiers was in the broken square at Tamai. The night before that battle he slept with his revolver under his head, sprawled out on the sand and looking at the stars, noting how they grew fainter and fainter, how Venus and the Great Bear and Orion and finally the Southern Cross waned, until in the dawn a Scottish corporal came to him with a "wee drap" to drive the chill from his veins. When "Fuzzy Wuzzy" actually came bounding into the square, he says: " How I got out of that fight I hardly know to this day. A great source of anxiety to me was my horse — an animal which was the only one I could procure at Suakin, and which had been condemned by the military authorities as unsound. He could stand on his four legs and move, it was true, so to me he was better than nothing; but in an unlooked-for emergency such as this, he gave me grave anxiety, for, not knowing his points, I was always speculating as to what the brute would do next as I struggled through the human debris of the broken square. Once or twice as I lay flat on his back urging the animal forward with my spurs, Arabs would leap out at me ready to strike with spears poised, but apparently refraining from risking a thrust at one who was moving so swiftly. I fired my revolver at any dusky form I saw emerging from the smoke, but still the figures flittered. Regulation revolvers are not much use against the Fuzzy Wuzzy. He seems to swallow the bullets and come up smiling, like the proverbial conjuror. ... If my horse 182 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS had gone lame or played any circus tricks at that moment, a blanket and a narrow trench would have been my shroud and resting place that night. " The British and Kliedival governments now decided to send a mission to King Johannes of Abyssinia, to solicit his assistance in the evacuation of the Egyptian towns on the Abyssinian frontier by the English garrisons and Christian inhabitants, then threatened by the fanatical followers of the Mahdi. There was a rush of correspondents for the chance to penetrate an almost unknown region where there ought to be found an abundance of good copy and the material for many interesting pictures. Their numbers proved their un- doing, for when the British admiral was forced to fix limits he solved the perplexities of a choice by refusing to allow any to accompany the expedition. Villiers diplomatically refrained from making a formal applica- tion and argued that he, therefore, had not been denied permission. Hu rry ing by the first steamer from Suakin to Massowah, he called upon the governor, who hap- pened to be an American who for years had been on good terms with the Khedive, and now was deputed as the Egyptian envoy for Abyssinia. Mason Bey listened to the story of the artist and at once attached Villiers to his staff. As a result of this bit of enterprise the correspondent was made **a sort of under-secretary, " and when on the afternoon of April 7, 1884, the flag- ships and forts of Massowah thundered their salute as the British admiral landed and was received on the palace stairs by Mason Bey, here was Villiers ready to start as the solitary representative of the press upon the long climb to the capital of King Johannes. The expedition up the Nile for the relief of Khar- toum quickly followed, and the march across the FREDERIC VILLIERS 183 desert with Stewart and the battles of Abu Klea and Gubat. When General Sir Herbert Stewart was organizing the flying column of two thousand to make a dash across the desert at the news of the sore straits of Gordon at Khartoum, Villiers was in his tent. For that whole column the fight at Abu Klea was what the artist called "a narrow shave." It was there that "Fred" Burnaby, the soldier and correspondent, was killed. That night the force pushed on for the Nile. Villiers tells how Stewart next day received his fatal wound, while "he was standing on a commissariat box, looking through his glasses at the encircling swarm of Dervishes stealing up through the bush from Metem- mah." The artist saw the general fall and was by his side at once, although Frank Rhodes, the brother of Cecil Rhodes, was the first to minister to him before the surgeons came. Some weeks later when the army commenced to retire under the orders of the Gladstone government, Villiers took steamer from Wady Haifa but was wrecked on his way down the Nile. He was obliged to make his way to Dongola "with nothing but a shirt, a blanket, and a pair of lawn-tennis shoes." Wandering about the streets in this sorry plight, he was found at length by a Greek who had formerly been his servant. The Greek took the artist to some of his compatriots who were baking bread for the troops, and in their camp Villiers was clothed and fed for many days, and finally the "merry, careless rogues" got him a camel and escorted him on a journey of twelve days to Haifa. In 1886 Villiers was back in the Balkans witnessing the Servian-Bulgarian fiasco which culminated at Pirot. King Milan crossed the frontier only to be out- 184 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS flanked by the Bulgars and compelled to retire. When the final stand was made ait Pirot the Servians were driven back at the point of the bayonet and "Prince Alexander of Battenberg would have carried out his threat of eating King Milan's breakfast in Nisch the following morning but for Austrian intervention." And now came one of the most thrilling dashes half round the world ever undertaken by a corre- spondent. A despatch from his paper ordered Villiers to Burmah. He left the capital of Servia one morning for Vienna and there caught the express for Venice, where he boarded the P. and O. liner for Alexandria, which in those days took on the mails at Brindisi. In the Egyptian city he had time to drive about the forts which he had seen bombarded a few years before, and then he took the train for Suez, where he found the Bombay mail steamship ready to start on her voyage. Villiers was determined to catch the party of Lord Dufferin, "who had been deputed by the British government to take over oflScially the Burmese territory recently annexed. " But at Suez the hurrying reporter was told that the Viceroy would have a four days' start and could not be overtaken. He determined to chance it, trusting to the luck which many times before had come to his aid. At Aden, sure enough, he learned that Lord Dufferin had been delayed by a slight illness in his journey down country to Calcutta and would not start for Burmah at the time first appointed. Reaching Bombay he found that by hurrying straight on he would be able to reach the capital on the very morning of the departure of the Viceroy for Rangoon. He must save every minute, however, so he did not wait for the passenger boat, but made such FREDERIC VILLIERS 185 representations to the accommodating captain of his steamship that he was allowed to go ashore on the mail tender. That is, Villiers was shot down the mail chute with the letters, and it is on record that he hit hard when he landed! At the railway station he sent a telegram notifying the Viceroy's secretary of his wish to go on with the vice-regal party, and caught the mail express for Calcutta by less than a minute. It was hot traveling, indeed, on that special; he had left the Balkans with the thermometer below zero, and now the mercury was registering 106 in the shade. A gigantic Sikh in the gorgeous livery of the Viceroy's establishment met him at the terminal and handed him a big, sealed letter. It conveyed the information that "His Excel- lency was unable to take on Mr. Villiers with his party, " that "numerous applications had been refused," but that "if Mr. Villiers traveled to Rangoon by mail steamer, on arrival at that port His Excellency would do all he could to assist him. " And on the back of the note the perplexed artist found this scrawl in pencil: "There's a British India leaving an hour before the Viceroy — don't miss her. " Villiers made the train and the boat. Within the hour with his kit he was aboard the train for Diamond Harbor, where would be met the little mail steamer for Rangoon. Getting aboard the mail meant that pas- sengers with their baggage were carried out to row boats by stalwart sailors, to catch ropes thrown from a steamer which slowed down but never stopped. Bag- gage and passengers safely hauled up, the boats were ungrappled and the steamer made full speed ahead again. Like a lightning flash, there descended upon the 186 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ship as she crossed the Bay of Bengal a tremendous hurricane. Said Villiers: "For a day and night it was touch-and-go whether we were going under, so terrible was the sea and so heavily laden was the ship. From brilliant sunshine a darkness fell upon us like the blackest of nights; tempestuous seas broke over us from all quarters, and for hours we expected funnel, masts, spars, and all deck gear to be swept into the boiling ocean." But the same storm delayed also the ship aboard which was the representative of the Queen, and Villiers was landed shortly after Lord Dufferin's arrival in Rangoon. Now the artist had a half-hour with the Viceroy, who kept his word to do what he could for the news man, giving him permission to take a berth in the advance guard-ship of the vice-regal flotilla of three vessels. On the night of his arrival Villiers took a train for Prome, where the railway ended on the banks of the Irrawady. Thence he went on by steamer up the shallow and uncertain stream, through vast forests of teak and masses of impenetrable jungle. From time to time glimpses were caught of the gold-tipped spires of pagodas and often the tinkle of temple bells was heard out of the dense thicket. All was well, when on the afternoon of the second day the steamship suddenly stuck midstream. The engines were reversed, but the paddles merely churned the waters to no purpose. The boat was firmly imbedded in a sandbank. The steamer of the Viceroy passed and the rear guard-ship was signalled to take the place ahead which had belonged to the vessel aboard which Villiers was standing half-dazed, watching the more fortunate boats disappear round a FREDERIC VILLIERS 187 bend in the river. The goal was almost in sight, and he was to lose after all! But the captain came to the rescue. Villiers was told that it was the custom on that river for all ships to anchor at sundown. A small boat was offered him with a crew who would row all night if the rupees were numerous enough and the correspondent was firm enough. The river was a "sullen, inky black" when the boat was pushed off. Villiers was making himself as comfortable as possible when a new calamity overtook him. Water was coming rapidly through the bottom of the boat; bailing was of no avail. It was a case of foundering or getting back to the steamer, which they reached when water was actually oozing over the gunwale. They were saved from being swamped only by three of the crew leaping clear and clinging to the rigging of the ship. The boat had been hanging at the davits for months and had so warped that she was "simply a sieve." And then the captain declared that Villiers should have his gig. Rupees spelled readiness on the part of the oarsmen, and in a few minutes the artist was pushed off once more. He reached the ship of the Viceroy just at dawn, with the muzzle of his revolver nestling against the neck of the Burman who acted as pilot. The native had manifested a tendency to doze, and for the boat to run ashore meant exposure to pirates and looters. When the pilot got sulky over Villiers's remonstrances he kept him awake only by threats. Lord Dufferin now received Villiers as a guest until the landing at Mandalay. The correspondent had been successful after all, having journeyed twelve thousand miles, and he reached the capital of King 188 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Theebaw a good twenty-four hours in advance of the Queen's mails. Next morning came the great cere- mony at the palace. Now this world-wanderer spent some years in lecturing and he "covered" the Chicago Exposition of 1893, going on the war path once more when China and Japan were at odds in 1894. Having again toured the globe as a lecturer and sketched the coronation of the Czar in 1896, he joined the Greek army in the little war with Turkey in 1897, using the bicycle and experimenting with the cinematograph camera. Then having visited Crete, he joined the expeditionary force for the Soudan and found himself in familiar territory on the Nile. Through all those campaigns Villiers made his way, but there was not so much of color or incident in these later expeditions for the reconquest of the Soudan. The host of war specials who went out to see the last of Mahdism found little comparatively to maKe their narratives picturesque in the machine-like precision with which war was organized and conducted by the Sir- dar, nor were the reporters helped any at headquarters in getting the news. Occasionally in very desperation they would concoct an outrageous tale, and go with it to the censor, gravely simulating faith in it and the intention of wiring it to London. Then sometimes the authorities would deny so vehemently that they would get on the track of some real item of importance of which they had had no inkling whatever. "But gratuitously," says Villiers," not a single piece of news of any importance was ever afforded to the press." The achievement in that campaign in which he had most satisfaction was the taking of a bicycle to Omdur- man. The natives used to think the machine was alive. FREDERIC VILLIERS 189 and when he blew a loud blast with the trumpet attached to the handle bars they would flee in terror. Late in 1895 Villiers was in South Africa, where he found his friend, Frank Rhodes, formerly of the staff of General Sir Herbert Stewart, from whom he received a letter to Cecil Rhodes. Thus it came about that Christmas Eve was passed by the artist as a guest of Cecil Rhodes at the old Dutch residence at Groote Schuur. He dined sitting between Rhodes and Alfred Beit, and they amazed him by breaking open ordinary envelopes and spilling from them scores of diamonds which "capered about among the plates of the guests." The stones had just arrived from Amsterdam, where they had been sent to be cut. Rhodes took a liking to the artist and, through his secretary, almost insisted that he forego his intention to sail from Cape Town the next day. The times were too stirring, he was assured, for him to leave South Africa just at that time. Villiers waited until the last moment, but no special message came, and, marvelling a little, the artist went aboard the steamer. Then at Madeira, when the telegrams with the news of the world were brought aboard, there was one which Villiers says "sent a thrill through every soul on the ship." This was the despatch which curtly described Jameson's raid into the Transvaal. And Villiers often declared afterwards: "Then I knew that I had made one of the mistakes of my life; I ought to have remained. " When the Boer War was in progress the correspond- ent with Mrs. Villiers visited Lady Randolph Churchill, who then was in charge of the American hospital ship Maine, The vessel was tied up at the quay in Durban. Lady Churchill's face wore a puzzled look as she read 190 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the names upon the cards. "Why," she said, "the Mr. Villiers I once knew is dead. He was decapitated in a recent campaign.** Whereupon the artist was able to assure her that this story was "one of the Httle mistakes that get into the papers, " and but the latest of the series of erroneous obituary reports to which he had been subjected since the days when Forbes had mourned him in the Balkans. Once on shipboard Villiers had made a picture of Lady Randolph, who was a good shot, practicing, with some passengers and Japanese officers, firing at empty bottles slung over the stern of the vessel. Some years later when lecturing in the University Club in New York City he threw that portrait on his screen, when instantly the whole room stood up and cheered, to the surprise of the lecturer, who learned later that he had been speaking in the very room in which Lady Randolph had appeared in private theatricals, for the club house had formerly belonged to her father. The Japanese-Chinese War was the most unsatis- factory of all the campaigns of this veteran special; there was scarcely any action and what fighting there was was one-sided. He was back at Port Arthur in the great war between the Mikado and the Czar. "We were ten together,'" he states, "when we were set down on the quay at Dalny in August, 1904. " Among the ten were the specials for the Daily Mail, the Illus- trated London News, the Daily Telegraph, the San Fran- cisco Chronicle and the Associated Press. With James Ricalton and the Chronicle's correspondent, Richard Barry, Villiers spent some time before the fortress with the army of investiture. He says that Barry left his office in such a hurry that he brought away nothing save what he stood in, together with a note-book and FREDERIC VILLIERS 191 some pencils. Day after day Villiers made his observa- tions from the top of an almost perpendicular ridge, which he managed somehow to climb; often he slept there. When at length the time came for him to leave he went with regret, declaring that he had never been treated with greater consideration and kindness by all ranks of an army in the field than by the Third Imperial Army of Japan. Today Villiers belongs both to the old school and the new school of specials. He sees clearly that the days of merely reckless valor in the gathering of war news have gone by, and that the correspondent of the future will have greater difiiculty in getting his facts, and per- haps less opportunity for stirring and brilliant narrative and striking sketches. But Villiers is fond of his exhilarating profession, and delights in the perils and even in the hardships that must be endured on the war- path. The little war between the Spanish and the Riff tribesmen called him in 1910, and in the last great struggle in the Balkans he did his stint of press work. Everywhere he goes he makes friends, whether he goes to sketch, to lecture, or merely for social purposes. He seems to have the secret of youth. And not only is he liked; he also is respected, for, believing absolutely in the moral value of publicity, he has stood imiformly in his work for the highest standards of humanity and truth-telling. Some day there will be a war without him, and very strange it will seem and very greatly will he be missed. CHAPTER VI BENNET BURLEIGH " I first met him on the top of a kopje, when he handed me his card in the middle of a battle. He impressed me much. He suggests his name— a big, strong, keen feUow, with a powerful voice, a man who looks in perfect health. He seemed to have great habits and to know everybody. He never hesitated to look through Lord Roberts's telescope, or to share a camp-stool with General Pole-Carew." — Mortimer Menpes. " Bennet Burleigh, who had fought for the independence of the South during the Civil War in America, bluff and kindly, with a heart too big for his body, bursting with kindness and good nature, endowed with remarkable energy and pluck, and with as much knowledge of soldiering as most generals, was a striking figure." — Melton Prim. In the early part of the war between the States, there appeared one day at Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, a young Scotchman in whose pockets were the plans for a submarine battery and the sketches for a torpedo boat. The brown-haired, blue-eyed, fair-faced adventurer was regarded with suspicion by the authorities, and had to spend several weeks in the city's Bastile, Castle Thunder. After a time, however, this soldier of fortune helped to fasten one of his tor- pedoes to the side of a Union vessel, but the fuse failed to ignite, and later the captured device was exhibited in New York. He then put on the butternut uniform and fought in several of the important actions of the war, engaging with John Yates Beall, a graduate of the University of Virginia, in privateering enterprises, and twice having the sentence of death pronounced upon him. In Chesapeake Bay he planned and exe- BENNET BURLEIGH 193 cuted the capture of a Federal steamer, whose flag is now in the public library of Richmond. For some time he was ill with malarial fever in the Virginia city, and there he undertook his first literary work by writing for The Southern Illustrated News, and made an appearance upon the stage in D'Orsay Ogden's play called "The Guerilla." Having undertaken a raid within the Union lines, he was surprised while tearing down telegraph wires to prevent the trans- mission of Northern messages. The attacking force was the Thirty-sixth United States Colored Infantry, and when but three of the raiders were left standing their leader was forced to surrender. He was wounded, and the papers upon his person exposed him to the charge of being a spy. With the penalty of the spy overhanging him he was imprisoned in a dreary locality at Fort Delaware, forty miles below Philadelphia. To this day there are Confederate soldiers who remember "Captain Bennet G. Burley." The famous correspondent of the Daily Telegraph got his first experience of war in the conflict fifty years ago in America. He is known everywhere now as the special who would have been awarded the Victoria Cross for his exploits in the Soudan, had it been possible for a "camp follower" to win that coveted distinction; as the reporter who scored the great " scoop " after Tel el Kebir; as the "civilian" to whom the Black Watch gave much of the credit for the saving of the broken square at Tamai; as the audacious correspondent who flagged a South African train to get an interview, and the clever strategist who "put over a beat" by the use of the Prayer Book; and no one really knows how many other feats are to be placed to his account, nor, to vary the inventory of his exploits a little, just 194 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS how many times he delighted himself and his comrades by his ability to cook a good meat pie in a tin wash basin when on the firing line. He had some difficulty inducing his family to permit him to leave the home in Glasgow for the States. His father was a master mechanic, and the devices which the adventurous youth carried across the ocean were his father's inventions. At Fort Delaware the prisoner found there was a sewer under his cell, and that the water came up to the sleepers on which the floor rested. He managed to pry up several planks and with five others to wriggle through the opening. For a hundred and twenty-five yards they crawled in the sewer, diving under the sleepers as they came to them, their situation made almost desperate by the river's tide. At the mouth of the sewer two of his companions were captured; two others were drowned in the river; Burleigh himself swam five hours in the darkness and finally was picked up by a vessel whose commander professed to believe his tale of an upset while fishing. Making his way to Canada he again fell in with Beall and they plotted one of the most audacious enterprises of the war. In the midst of the Russo-Japanese war Justice Brown of the United States Supreme Court declared himself to be watching the news from Manchuria for some "wild adventure" of Bennet Burleigh, in whom he was interested because forty years before he had secured his extradition from Canada. This was after the failure of the attempt of Beall and Burleigh to liberate the Southern soldiers held at Johnson's Island, near Sandusky, in Lake Erie, as prisoners of war. The 2000 Confederates were quartered in a stock- ade of fifteen acres, guarded by block houses. The Copyriyhl by Maclure, Macdouald & Co., Glasgow BENNET BURLEIGH BENNET BURLEIGH 195 plotters intended to enter Sandusky Bay and attack there the only Union war vessel in the neighborhood which they knew to be well provisioned. They took passage in a small steamer out of Detroit, bringing with them an old trunk bound with ropes which contained their armament of hatchets and revolvers. Burleigh on the bridge chatted affably with the captain until the right moment came for him to hold a revolver to the oflScer's head and demand the surrender of the ship. At Middle Bass Island a larger steamer came alongside them with twenty-five unarmed Union soldiers on her decks. A dozen shots and they were masters of that vessel also. Passengers and crews were put ashore, the two boats were lashed abreast, and five miles out the larger was scuttled and cast adrift. But now, just at the crisis of their venture, a messenger from Canada failed them, and all in the party weakened but Beall, Burleigh and two others. Even before they started on their dangerous enterprise their plans had been betrayed by a professed Confederate refugee in Canada. It was necessary to abandon their boat on the Canadian shore and discreetly disappear. Rewards were placed upon their heads; their crime was held to be piracy. Beall was apprehended and hanged on Governor's Island in New York Bay. The reward for Burleigh's capture was large and eventually he was taken in Canada. On a technical charge of robbery his extradition was ordered, but the United States did not then venture on the more serious charge because it was a question if piracy could be committed on Lake Erie. In the standard works upon the legal issues of extradition there is much space given to the case of young Burleigh. He was taken to Detroit, where he 196 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS was imprisoned for six months, and then to Port ^ CHnton, Ohio, where he was held for three months. During this period a question of international law was under discussion. The father in Glasgow had sought British intervention. Several times the young man's life was in jeopardy. Finally there was a trial and the jury disagreed. At last Burleigh settled matters in his own way — he became friends with the sheriff ; his company was agreeable to the people of the town; his mail was handed to him through a jail window, saving the sheriff the possible embarrassment of examin- ing the letters of his rather compromising friend. One day a file came through the window in a pie. Helped from the outside, this British subject escaped to Detroit and across the river to Canada. Everybody was glad he got off, and when before long the war ended, no one pushed to a conclusion the adjudication of the legal points in his case, which, as a result, is still open. Justice Brown related the story in detail a few years ago, and said that Burleigh remembered the sheriff and sent him money after a time, and that other residents of the neighborhood were recipients of tokens of the appreciation of the bold young Scotchman. The war was over, and Burleigh made his way to Texas, where he is supposed to have done his first real journalistic work as one of the editors of the Houston Telegraph, Then for some years he did newspaper work in Brooklyn, and at least one celebrated trial was assigned to him. But his love of war was ingrained. His massive figure, remarkable powers of endurance, and zest for dangerous adventure, all indicated the kind of life which would make the strongest appeal to him. He also had remarkable facility for picking up dialects and languages. About 1878, he returned BENNET BURLEIGH 197 to England, and in 1881, he found his real vocation in Egypt, beginning his work as a war correspondent when he must have been nearly forty years old, although he was never willing to make very definite statements as to his age. At the bombardment of Alexandria he was the correspondent of the Central News. The managing editor of the Daily Telegraph, Mr. John M. Le Sage, was sent to Egypt to arrange for the strengthen- ing of the paper's staff there, and upon his representa- tions of the character and work of Burleigh the paper acquired the famous correspondent. Burleigh was con- nected continuously with the paper from early in 1882 until his retirement from active duty at the end of 1913. In 1898, Bennet Burleigh was able to say: " I have been an eye-witness during the course of all the cam- paigns in the Soudan in which British troops have been employed. . . . From the beginning to the death of Mahdism I have followed British and Egyptian troops into action against the dervishes. I knew General Hicks, but had the good-fortune to miss accompanying his ill-fated expedition." In the memorable night march and the surprise which terminated the power of Arabi Pasha, Burleigh had a share and the despatches which he sent to his paper gave London the first news of those events. That night of September 12 was moonless and the desert was wrapped in a grey gloom which the eye could not pierce. Due west from the camp of Sir Garnet Wolseley a line of engineer telegraph posts had been erected for a half-mile or more. As the advance, or guiding column, moved away from the camp, these posts would start them in the right direc- tion. At the end they would swing clear and march by the stars. The total distance to Arabi's entrench- 198 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ments was six miles. At one-thirty in the morning the column started and moved forward for less than an hour, as a sort of experimental march. The plan worked marvellously well. The stars were brilliant. A naval officer steered the army in close formation with accuracy; there was no confusion. After a brief rest the march was resumed. The night now was very dark and the stars which had been used for guidance a few hours before were below the horizon. But the pole star was always visible and furnished a fixed point upon the celestial chart. For an hour absolute silence reigned. During that final hour the tension became very severe; guiding stars dropped below the horizon one by one and others higher in the heavens had to be selected. These at times were covered by clouds, but the pole star over the right shoulder and the star in front for which the column was aimed, were never blotted from sight at the same time. What might easily have been an awful catastrophe was averted by the good discipline of the force. An order for a few minutes halt was issued. At once the centre companies stopped, but the order required a little time to reach the outermost companies on the flanks, and they continued to advance, always keeping in touch with the men next in toward the centre. When all were halted, therefore, the force lay on the desert almost in a half-circle, and as the word to start was given again the companies on the flanks moved forward and found themselves face to face. In the dim fight a single false move might have pre- precipitated terrible consequences. At precisely the instant desired the camp of the unsuspecting Egyptians was reached. A single shot broke the dead silence. BENNET BURLEIGH 199 Five minutes after the firing of that shot, the dawn had begun and after five more minutes the entire landscape was revealed, for the desert dawn is very short. The instant the battle was over Burleigh began a rapid survey of the trenches, and in a short time acquired a comprehensive notion of the disposition of the troops and the nature of the ground over which they had fought. Without losing a minute he began a hard ride to Kassassin across the desert, where he knew he could command a telegraph wire. Over this he sent the first intimation of the battle which London received, following it up with a long account of the action. The message off, he remounted and made all speed back to the battleground, where he learned that the cavalry brigade had been ordered to Cairo. He rode on alone with such speed that he reached the city even before the advanced guard, finding Arabi a prisoner and the war at an end. He hurried to the wire, but it was impossible to send a despatch by the native operators. He therefore borrowed a horse and started again for Kassassin. Through the night he rode, Egyptian soldiers occasion- ally firing upon him, and Arabian robbers once or twice attempting his capture, and when at length with ten miles of desert between him and the end of the wire his horse broke down, he tramped the balance of the distance on foot, and wrote and sent away another important despatch. Thus in the course of two days he had ridden one hundred and forty miles, most of the time through hostile and desert country, and during this period he had gone entirely without sleep. It was an exploit entirely worthy of Archibald Forbes and it scored the 200 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS greatest beat of the time. Bennet Burleigh had " broken into the game " with a vengeance. Within a few years Burleigh revisited the land of the Nile several times. He was with the small army commanded by General Sir Gerald Graham intended to relieve the Egyptian garrison beleaguered by Osman Digna at Tokar. The enemy had gained three successive victories and Graham had to face bold and confident men. On February 15, 1883, the special left London with a party of British officers and hurried at desperate speed to overtake Sir Redvers BuUer, who had started three days before to aid Graham. The train from Calais brought Burleigh to Brindisi on the night of the second day from London. He wired Port Said for a steam launch to meet him on the arrival of his steamer and take him through the Suez Canal. In the early evening of the fourth day the little launch came alongside the ship before she lost way entirely, and with four officers, who were equally anxious, Burleigh hurried aboard, bag and baggage. At midnight on Lake Timsah they were struck by a terrific squall and the Maltese crew fastened their launch to one of the beacon boats. After a time they were forced to start ahead in the thick darkness, and, although they went aground twice, they finally found the entrance to the canal on the opposite side of the lake. They dreaded lest the Egyp- tian mail steamer for Suakin should leave Suez before their arrival in the morning. From each of two way- stations they wired for the boat to be held, but they arrived in time and found that a large number of refu- gees from the army of Baker Pasha had been brought by the vessel from Suakin and that the departure had been delayed for a couple of days. Luckily^ however^ BENNET BURLEIGH 201 Buller had also been retarded and his boat had only left the previous evening. They waited not upon ceremony but without any invitation piled aboard a hired transport which was to sail that night. The skipper looked unutterable things until he learned that his unexpected passengers were up to anything, even to sleeping on deck, when he smiled once more. The decks were loaded with stores and the hold was packed with mules. As they made their way inside the reef at Suakin a steam launch came out and a naval lieutenant told them that BuUer's vessel was not in yet and that no battle had been fought. With the lieutenant for a pilot they headed full steam inside the reefs for Trinikat, where they arrived in five hours at two on the afternoon of February 26, eleven days from London, and in good time for "the fun." Burleigh procured the first requisite of the corre- spondent, a pass properly signed and authenticated. Next he investigated the telegraphic facilities and found that they were very unsatisfactory; all despatches had to go to Suakin, the nearest station, and there was but one steamer a day to that port, leaving always on or before two in the afternoon. Then he was off with the troops for Fort Baker. That was a march in the mud, and Burleigh describes the droll spectacle of the men wading through water and slush with not only their shoes and stockings dangling about their necks but their kilts or trousers as well. At eleven that night Burleigh stretched out booted and spurred and covered with a blanket, ready for the bugle call for the battle of El Teb. In the square were the Gordon Highlanders and the Black Watch, with two other regiments, and a naval brigade with cannon at the corners, making more than 3000 men in all. Thus 202 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS formed they began their march at five in the morning. The fighting was severe, at times "almost a melee of bayonets against spears." A few of the Arabs got within five yards of the square, but they were forced back toward the ten mud-holes known as the wells of Teb, where they made their last stand that day. Again Burleigh was first with the news. He was driven almost to distraction by the slowness of a censor who was cutting down his estimates of the wounded and slain, which the special had already understated. At last he got his vise and was off on the gallop for Trinikat, eight miles away, coming in with the first news of the action. But the man on whom he depended for the forwarding of despatches failed him and there were anxious hours of waiting. At length he devised a new scheme, scribbled his despatch once more in long hand, intending by duplication to lessen the chances of miscarriage, and hired a hardy and trusty Arab runner to make the trip to Suakin. No steamer would sail from Trinikat for Suakin until the official despatches were ready, which would be early the follow- ing morning. At eight in the evening the runner was off, with plenty of hard money and a supply of pass- ports, and the promise of additional rewards if he was in Suakin by the following dawn. Burleigh rode some distance with him, and he was chased by Egyp- tians during the night, but before seven he was at the telegraph offices at Suakin. There the senior naval officer read the message and forwarded to London a brief abstract of its contents, beginning with the statement that a "native messenger had arrived with news of the army from the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph" and ending with the explanation that "official confirmation is expected by steamer." Thus BENNET BURLEIGH 203 Burleigh's paper was able to give the news to the world in advance of all others. Two natives hired as runners, and a servant em- ployed as a special express, went with Burleigh when the advance against the enemy was resumed. From time to time the press man rode away by himself in the desert, and he has described his outfit for such ventures. He wore a dark blue suit, crammed his pockets with biscuits, took care to be provided with the inevitable tooth-brush and carbolic soap, jammed a towel into his holster, and carried as a matter of course a water bottle, a pair of field glasses and an army revolver. When servants were with him he would scoop a hole in the loose earth, lay his waterproof sheet therein, and get his regular bath in the water poured into the sheet from the skins carried by his men. Now came the battle of Tamai, in which this special rendered a real service to the arms of England. The troops slept on a waterless plain, within an en- closure made of mimosa bushes. These were cut before all the four faces of the square, leaving an open space of almost a hundred yards across which the enemy would be in full view if they undertook to rush the camp. Within the square of thickly-piled bushes the men lay down two deep with the officers in the rear, and sentinels patrolling between the hedge and the sleepers. It was a bright moonlighted night and Burleigh was able to write descriptive passages without recourse to artificial light. This was the battle of the broken square of Kipling's stirring stanzas. In moving terms the correspondent, who also was one of the historians of that campaign, told how the enemy crept up under the cover of 204 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the smoke and the sloping ground, how hundreds of Arabs came bounding over the rocks spear and sword in hand, how half their number were shot down but forty or more were able to throw themselves on the British bayonets, when quick as lightning the rush increased and in an instant as it seemed the Sixty- fifth gave way and began to fall back. He related how the marines were thrown into disorder and back everybody was borne in a confused mass, how the general and his staff tried to rally the troops, how "even the Forty-second" was thrown into confusion by the general disarrangement of formations, and how the machine guns had to be abandoned, although the Bluejackets managed to remove the sights and tem- porarily disable the pieces. The forces were borne back about eight hundred yards. I have talked at length about this battle with one of the men of the Black Watch, the Forty-second Royal Highlanders, and he, expressing, he declares, the sentiments of the entire regiment, says that Bur- leigh was one of the real heroes of the day. The correspondent was with the commander of the Black Watch when the Arabs were charging to within five yards of their line. He glanced to the right and "ejaculated in language more forcible than choice" that the Sixty-fifth were giving way. At once he galloped to their side of the square. The Arabs were bounding like deer through the thick smoke, "with hair on end, eyes gleaming, white teeth shining," looking like "infuriated demons bounding upon the soldiers like figures in a shadow pantomime." They were all over that side and corner of the square, and in an instant were "at the guns and among the men, thrusting, cutting, stabbing, with desperate energy." BENNET BURLEIGH 205 They had found a small opening where the square was not perfectly joined, and the men "recoiled before that avalanche of fierce savages." Let the story be told in Burleigh's own language and at length. He said: "It was a time when one's country was of far greater importance than his professional calling, so I did what I could for the former during the surging five minutes that ensued. I rode about in the broken line of the Sixty-fifth, where General Graham and other officers were, striving to get the soldiers to close up and fire steadily. "At the moment we were hardest pushed, I saw an old acquaintance, Captain Rutherford of the Sixty-fifth, left almost without his company, erect, bare-headed, sword in hand, facing the shouting, jubilant Arabs, and hoarsely calling, *Men of the Sixty-fifth, close up.' I shouted to him, and even in that roar and rush found time to exchange a word or two with him as to what was best to be done, ere turning again to invite the soldiers, who were showing a bold front to the foe, to aim and fire carefully. . . . "Still, on the enemy came, yelHng and screaming with diabolic ferocity. The gaping wounds made by our almost explosive Martini-Henry bullets scarcely checked the savages in their wild career. It was only when the lead shattered the bone of a leg, or pierced heart or brain, that their mad onrush was stopped. I saw Arab after Arab, through whose bodies our bullets had ploughed their way, charging down on the square, with the blood spouting in pulsating streams from them at every heart throb. . . . "Others there were whose life-blood ebbed ere they reached our men, who fell within a pace or two of the soldiers. The last act of these warriors was invariably a despairing effort to hurl the weapon they carried at the moment in their hand — stick, spear or sword — at their English foe- men. A savage gleam shown in their faces, defiant, unre- lenting, hating, as they gathered all strength to thus make their last blow at us. Who could but admire and applaud such dauntless bravery? Those of us privileged to witness it, and the awful spectacle of those five minutes, can never 206 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS forget it, or cease to remember the grand, self-sacrificing d6urage of the brave Hadendowas. "As backward the right face and corner of the Sixty- fifth were borne from the nullah's edge, and the indent or little gully, the right wing of the Forty-second was left exposed, and the savages were among the Highlanders on their fiank and rear in a twinkling, cutting and spearing in every direction. Still falling back, in a line to the east of that taken on our advance from the zareba, the Marines who were in the rear of the square were wheeled up to the support of the Sixty-fifth and to close the gaps in our for- mation. It was too late for the movement to be executed successfully, and they too were thrown into disorder, and were borne away from the nullah on the line of retreat. "As that fine body of men were being swept away. Major Colwell roared in stentorian tones: "*Men of the Portsmouth division, rally!' Rally they did, about one hundred and fifty of them closing together in a compact body, forming a little square. These were the last to retire and take their positions in the reformed line. "In the right comer of the square, or what once was a square, were now inextricably mixed men of the Sixty-fifth, Blue-jackets, Marines and a few Highlanders. It was not a rout, but a retreat; for our soldiers kept loading and firing, although there was no semblance at the time of an orderly military line; but in place thereof, facing and fighting the enemy, were an irregular body of men in rather open order on what was the west face of the square. Numerous melees occurred, where with fist and foot the soldiers mauled the savages. The Arabs threw themselves on our men, grasping their rifles, and in one instance actually tearing off a Highlander's kilt in the tussle. . . . "For a brief interval it was the innings of Osman Digna's followers, and they rioted in cutting and slashing. Every soldier who stumbled or fell was done for, the enemy darting in squads for these unlucky ones, thrusting their spears into them. As they followed us closely up, they never missed an opportunity to drive their weapons into the body of any soldier lying on the ground who exhibited the slightest signs of life. . . ." BENNET BURLEIGH 207 Through all that struggle the voice of Burleigh was heard when other voices could not be distinguished. He did some fighting, but his chief concern was to assist in the preventing of a panic and to hold the men and aid in getting them reformed. "I was an eye- witness to scores of instances of heroism," he says. When the advance was begun again he attached him- self to the right of the line and he rode with the colonel in command of the Marines, who had but one mounted oflficer left. Thereupon the special felt warranted in offering his own services. A few minutes before noon the battle was over. The foe had run amuck, but they had been beaten; the camp of Osman was in the hands of General Graham and there he prepared to rest and bivouac. The instant the operations were over for the day the corre- spondent was again the newspaper man. He dis- mounted and picked his way about among the dead, roughly estimating numbers, and making notes of the names of oflScers. This done, and a rapid survey of the field having been taken, he was for the wire. General Graham did him the honor of asking that he carry his own messages. From the khor to the sea Burleigh galloped at top speed, and by two that afternoon his Arab horse had brought him to the telegraph station. But alas! there was no help for it, he had to yield the right of priority; the official despatches went off first. Before his arrival there were all sorts of rumors floating about Suakin. Fragments of news had been heliographed from the zarebas, and, founding their judgments as well as the mirage would permit upon the retreat of the troops, it had been supposed that the British were routed. Admiral Hewett had foimd it necessary to 208 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS stop messages for England based on these rumors. Not until the arrival of the correspondent with the despatch of General Graham did the truth become known. Burleigh got off his first message at one-forty-five on March 13; the second went at two-thirty; the third at five-thirty; the fourth at dawn the following morning; the fifth at eight-ten that morning; and at six-fifty in the evening he began a final despatch with the words: "I have just returned the second time from Tamai." For his services upon the Gordon Relief Expedition, Burleigh won the honor coveted of all soldiers, a mention in the oflScial despatches, and it is said that if the conditions under which it is granted would have per- mitted he would have been awarded the Victoria Cross. Through all the night hours before the Battle of Abu Klea the droning of the tomtoms and the wild cadences of the Moslem chant, with the intermittent firing of their Remington rifles, came from the low hills in front of the camp of General Stewart, where 1400 men, wearing their overcoats and wrapped in blankets, were sleeping with guns under their hands and bayonets fixed. Before dawn there were four separate alarms which brought the whole force to their feet. In the battle of the following day the correspondent was very near Colonel Bumaby when that officer fell, fighting valiantly, and Burleigh's despatch contains the most complete account of his death. In the next battle Burleigh was twice hit. The troops had marched all night and built their zareba right in the lair of the enemy, about four miles from the Nile. Shortly after the fighting began, as the British were replying with machine guns to the fire of the BENNET BURLEIGH 209 foe, Melton Prior heard a loud thud, and Immediately Burleigh was yelling to the artist: "Pick it out. Prior, pick it out!" and at the same time clawing at his neck. He had been struck by a ricochetted ball just under the ear and soon there appeared a big black lump half the size of a chicken's egg. The pain and shock were so great that Burleigh could hardly be- lieve there was nothing in his head to "pick out." A wound in the foot proved to be rather more serious. In the square at Abu Kru there are said to have been less than a thousand men against ten times that number. But the square held, the foe were thrown back three times and finally stampeded. In one episode of that bitter struggle forty oflBcers and men took their orders from "Mr. Burleigh" by direction of their superior. This was when upon the advice of the correspondent, the little detachment sallied forth under a galling fire with bores and spades to construct some detached fortifications. A soldier who fought there has told me that when volunteers were asked for a task which seemingly meant certain death, the first to offer, with possibly an exception or two, was Burleigh. As a part of their fortification they con- structed a breastwork of biscuit boxes. The loss was very heavy in that battle. John Cameron of The Standard was shot while sitting between two camels at his lunch; St. Leger Herbert of the Morning Post was killed also, and the correspondents were among those who wept silently over the wounded General Sir Herbert Stewart. The foe once routed, Prior and Burleigh went to work to help carry the woimded to the new camp on the Nile. The desperate advance was all in vain. Those were the days when, to quote the Daily Telegraph, 210 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS "all Christendom turned its eyes to that lonely English- man, Gordon, at Khartoum." The telegraph wires north of Khartoum were cut, of course, and communi- cation between the sentinel of the Soudan and the force fighting its way to his rescue was precarious. Through the entire period the despatches sent by Burleigh were read with intense interest. When Gor- don managed to get a steamer through to Metemmah the special succeeded in communicating with her before all others. Alas! just a week after the battle of Gubat the news came that the gates of Khartoum had been opened to the Mahdi and that Gordon had been slain. Now the anxiety of the British public was f ocussed upon the little Desert Column and the chances of their making a safe retreat from a position made trebly perilous by the fall of Khartoum. The Mahdi's men were planning to cut off their retreat, and Sir Redvers BuUer, who had succeeded to the command, was putting forth strenuous exertions to extricate them. On Saturday, February 21, 1885, there appeared in the Daily Telegraph a statement of the dire straits of the force away up the Nile. That day the British people were almost in a state of panic. After midnight on Sunday, February 22, a message reached the newspaper oflSce stating that the column had reached a place of safety. Thereupon it was determined to do an un- heard of thing, — issue a Sunday edition. On their way to worship that morning congregations learned the good news from the Daily Telegraph's extra, and their report anticipated the official despatches by thirty-six hours. This announcement was made possible by the enter- prise of Bennet Burleigh. He had noted the success- BENNET BURLEIGH 211 ful consummation of the early arrangements for the withdrawal of the column, and then had galloped with a small party across the desert, reaching the quarters of Lord Wolseley at Korti on February 20. But he had taken the precaution to send a telegram from Gakdul in the late afternoon of the preceding day, while the Commander-in-Chief did not wire from Korti until mid-afternoon of Friday, the twentieth. Thus Burleigh was able to place to his credit another of the exploits which earned for him his fame. He was back in Egypt in 1897, having meantime reported several campaigns for his paper, in order to be on hand if a sudden dash should be made for Khar- toum by the army of the Sirdar because of some un- expected lapse in the power of the Mahdi's successor, the Khalifa. The best chance for good news stories just at the time seemed to be indicated by the known intention of the Khedival troops to occupy Kassala, about three hundred miles to the east of Khartoum. Burleigh set out for that place, intending to make a trip which no European had adventured for fourteen years. But the Sirdar refused the requisite permission and donkeys and camels were not to be had of the natives, who were unwilling to displease the Com- mander-in-Chief. He must, therefore, go by sea to Massowah and pass through the Italian colony of Eritrea. There would be no steamboat leaving for that port for months, so he hired a sambuk, a large open native boat, to make the voyage of three hundred miles, and "a raggedy-higgledy-piggledy craft" it was, ''fitted up with what might have been the sweepings of a junk shop," with an aged sheikh as a pilot and a crew of seven Arabs and negroes. It was blowing great guns 212 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS when they started and the skipper was undergoing "as many changes of colour as a chameleon." But they landed on the third day and set out the same evening through dense darkness and rain, upon the first stage of the overland journey. Through the night they clambered among the rocks, the mules scrambling along like cats, the correspondent on foot and falling three times in as many minutes, finally entering Gindah, twenty-five miles inland, at five in the morning, entirely exhausted. They scaled the great mountain plateau of Abyssinia, and after a week of adventurous journeyings settled down in tented comfort upon the plain of Kassala. Burleigh enjoyed a deal of sport through his stay and slept with lions and leopards sniffing about his campfires. But the Egyptian troops were sent to Wady Haifa for the Dongola campaign, and Burleigh returned to Suakin and thence to Cairo and London, expecting to spend several months at home. It turned out that he was to spend but a few days in England, for important events were impending. The Daily Telegraph's special hastened back to the Nile and went forward with all possible speed a thou- sand miles up the river to rail head. The train service was overtaxed by the demands of the army, and the correspondents had to march and ride the last two hundred and thirty miles. The troops were on open trucks on the railway, "grilled by the sun by day and pinched by the cold at night." Burleigh was forbidden to hire camels from the natives, and had a hard time finding a donkey that was up to his weight. Several small adventures befell him in the desert and he had his turn with the sand devils, which he thus describes: BENNET BURLEIGH 213 "The devils are indigenous to the Soudan. The devil, small or large, is a whirlwind, that spins and skips across the desert, marking his course with a column of sand, dust and pebbles. He is a brother to the ocean waterspKJut and often as mischievous and dangerous. Three of them waltzed in close connection through the British and Egyptian lines. They came to us across the desert, in appearance mighty, inverted, black cones, their points from forty to eighty feet in diameter. When they struck the camp it was with a roar as of many rushing trains in a tunnel. As they fiu-iously spun, coats, blankets, helmets, papers, bully-beef tins, in sooth, all the flotsam and jetsam of the camp within reach, were caught up in the ascending vortex and borne as bubbles to the clouds. Tents and tukels went as they sidled by, and the brave Camerons and Seaforths had great work with their kilts. When the devils were gone, we all were as black as sweeps, and almost blinded and choked with grit and sand." On April 8 was fought the battle of the Atbara. It was "after the fatigues of the march and the excite- ment of the action," and when Burleigh **had finished his long but hastily written telegrams, which were scrawled out while sitting upon the pebbles under a blazing desert sun, half blinded and wholly wearied, and terribly thirsty and hungry," that he managed to get some refreshment and then wrote his long description of the action. The attacking force had taken the usual square formation, and a little after six the preceding evening had silently quit their camp and marched into the desert. "The glint of pipe or cigarette could be seen here and there in the squares, but beyond that and the heavy trampling of the troops upon sand and gravel, there was nothing to give warning that an army was engaged in that most difficult and risky enterprise, a night march." Prowl- ing dervish scouts were to be deceived by the still 214 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS burning campfires which friendly natives kept alive through the night. "When darkness had quite fallen all that could be seen was the dim outline of the square one was with or the cold shimmer of the bayonets of the next," and "even when the moon rose her light disclosed little more of the movement of the brigades, for there was a fresh breeze stirring and the sand and dust drove by as thick as a Newfoundland fog." A halt was made at nine and the bivouac continued for four hours. Burleigh spent the time visiting the various troops and observing the Sirdar and his staff in Maxwell's square. And of his observations he made this amusing record, among others of a different sort: "It was whilst walking softly, so as not to disturb light sleepers, that I overheard a sentimental Seaforth Highlander say to his comrade, "'Ah, Tam, how many thousands there are at hame across the sea thinking o' us the nicht!* "* Right, Sandy,* replied the chum, 'And how many millions there are that don't care a damn. Go to sleep, you fool!' "And silence again fell upon that corner of the square." Shortly after one in the morning — it was the morn- ing of Good Friday — the men silently fell into line again. Now there was no smoking and no talking, but the sheen of arms could not be hidden and the rumble of the gun carriages could not be stilled. Com- mands were given by the use of signs, as the moon now flooded the desert with light. The watchword of the marchers was "Remember Gordon and Klar- toum." Just as the sun was rising they were seen by the dervishes. For some time a cannonade followed; then came the bugled call for a general advance. The BENNET BURLEIGH 215 Khedival bands began playing and the pipers skirled. There was wild work with rifles, pistols and bayonets. The Camerons, their hands gloved, pulled apart the thorny bushes of which the zareba was made. The work, said Burleigh, "was furious and ticklish, as of clearing out by hand a hive of hornets." The corre- spondent himself entered the zareba and palisade a little to the left of the centre of the Camerons, and as the ground was rough and he needed a wide view, he at once mounted his horse. "I know the sound of bullets hitting in close proximity all around," he wrote, "and I several times caught myself wondering when I was going to get the first one. But not even my cloth- ing was cut, although it had more than once been formerly." Soon the final series of events in the long struggle for the possession of the Soudan was at hand. Bur- leigh spent a short time in England, and was back in Cairo in July for the march to Kliartoum. Reaching the neighborhood of the Khalifa's strong- hold, Burleigh traveled with the cavalry on the left front and from the tip of a granite hill he had his first glimpse of Omdurman. "As in a daisy-pied field there were dervish battleflags everywhere among the thick, swart lines that in rows barred the way. The banners were in all colors, shapes and sizes, but only the Khalifa's was black." The correspondent made careful computation and reckoned the number of the enemy at 35,000. He had his full share in the battle of Omdurman, one of the most picturesque conflicts of the century. Before four in the morning of September 2, 1898, the bugles called the army from slumber; at five the Lancers rode out on their daily task of scouting and covering 216 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the advance. Burleigh joined them on the signal hill and as he led his horse up its rugged slopes he "heard a mighty rumbling as of tempestuous rollers and surf bearing down upon a rock-bound shore." And his description continues thus : "When I had gone but a few strides farther there burst upon my sight a moving, undulating plain of men, flecked with banners and glistening steel. Who should count them? They were compact, not to be numbered. Their front from east to west extended over three miles, a dense mass flowing towards us. It was a great deep-bodied flood rather than an avalanche, advancing without flurry, solidly, with presage of power. The sound of their coming grew each instant louder, and became articulate. It was not alone the rever- beration of the tread of horses and men I heard and seemed to feel as well as hear, but a voiced continuous shouting and chanting — the dervish invocation and battle challenge, * Allah el Allah! Rasool Allah el Mahdi!' they reiterated in vociferous rhymed, rising measure, as they swept over the intervening ground. Their ranks were well kept, the serried lines marching with military regularity, with swaying of flags and brandishing of big-bladed, cruel spears and two-edged swords. Emirs and chiefs on horseback rode in front and along the lines, gesticulating and marshalling their columns." At five-thirty the fighting began. The fierce body of savage warriors faced a fire that smashed big gaps in their ranks, but came on clearly expecting to close with the British and Egyptian forces. The range of cannon fire shifted rapidly from 1700 yards down to less than a thousand. Rifles were fired so fast that they became too hot to hold and front-rank men in some cases changed weapons with rear-rankers. The first phase of the action closed when the dervish columns faced to the left and moved behind the western hills. Soon they spouted from shallow ravines and dashed forward at breakneck speed. The black flag reached BENNET BURLEIGH 217 a point within nine hundred yards of Maxwell's men and there it was stuck in a pile of stones and around it were piled the dead. Dervish after dervish sprang to uphold the banner, which was riddled with bullets. "Then the dense columns shrunk to companies, the companies to driblets, which finally fled westward to the hills, leaving the field white with jibbeh-clad corpses, like a landscape dotted with snowdrifts." Now the troops of the Sirdar swung clear of their zareba while thousands of the enemy watched from the hills. The nature of the ground forced some of the troops out of their true positions. The dervishes were quick to see and swift to seize their opportunity. They "sprang from unsuspected lairs," and dashed for the exposed brigade of Colonel MacDonald. Nearly every person in the army saw the peril of the Kttle force with 12,000 dervishes coming at them pell mell. Burleigh rode at a gallop, disregarding the venomous dervishes hanging about, up the slopes of the signal hill, where, spread like a picture, the scene lay below him. Aid was sent MacDonald instantly, but no aid could reach him in time. His troops were in part Sou- danese and Egyptians. Indecision on his part would have surely lost all. No movement to the rear could be attempted in the face of so fleet and daring a foe; there were columns converging upon him on three sides. It was "a magnificent struggle." One of the important services rendered by Burleigh was his telling the story of the courage of MacDonald and bringing home to the public the facts of his tough and protracted fight. Of the entire battle the special wrote: "Neither in my experience nor in my reading can I recall so strange and picturesque a series of in- cidents happening within the period of twelve hours." 218 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS That night he helped to knock from the hmbs of Charles Neufeld the chains he had carried for eleven years. Then he lay down and fell asleep on the bare desert, "hoping to wake and find that servants and baggage had turned up." Two days later he attended the Gordon memorial service *' and wept with the attaches of European countries and the English officers and men." Incidentally it may be recorded that in the battle one British officer is said to have earned the medal with clasp "for saving the life of a camp fol- lower," to use the terms employed by the Sirdar in making the recommendation. The ** camp follower " was Burleigh. Immediately after the occupation of Khartoum it was ordered by the Sirdar that all newspaper men should leave the Soudan. The Press was angry and the Press made exceeding haste to get away from Omdurman. Yet there were tokens of great impending events. From the French Congo, Captain Marchand had been sent to the Upper Nile, and there were rumors that he was at Fashoda. Not a syllable about Mar- chand was permitted by the censor to go over the wires to the London papers, however, and the correspondents had to wait until they reached Lower Egypt before they could send on the meagre facts in their possession. Burleigh also was very anxious to get his long account of the battle and the occupation to Fleet Street in advance of his competitors. He plotted a scheme, in which but a single confidante was required, and carried it through right cleverly. The group of specials had reached Brindisi on their homeward journey, and just as the train across Europe was moving out of the station there, Burleigh, ap- parently yielding to a freakish impulse, leaped to the BENNET BURLEIGH 219 ground, saying: **Good-bye, fellows; I'm going to stay behind." The rest of the story is told in these terms in the columns of the Daily Telegraph: "His colleagues had no time to inquire the meaning of this manoeuvre. They consoled themselves with the thought that, at all events, their own despatches would reach London first. They did not know that Burleigh immediately returned to Cairo, in order to deal with the Fashoda affair, in such a way that, although everybody engaged in the expedition was repeatedly warned not to disclose anything about it, he was enabled very shortly after the event to tell the whole story day by day. And he did so with the more satisfaction because he knew that when he stepped out of the train at Brindisi a trusted messenger proceeding post haste to Downing Street was also bearing in three large red envelopes addressed to the Daily Telegraph his own MSS., together with a map of the battle. At Calais the bearer of the despatches was met; on board the boat a member of the staff of the Daily Telegraph prepared the *copy* for the printers; the map was corrected by an officer who had been on the spot, and immediately the Continental train arrived in London the MSS. was rushed into the hands of the compositors, the map into those of the engravers, and the result was that the whole story of Omdurman was in type before the official despatches of Lieut.-General Sir Francis Grenfell, who commanded the British troops in Egypt, and of the Sirdar, General Sir H. Kitchener, were in the hands of the Queen's printers." In addition to this feat, Bennet Burleigh's account of the battle appeared in the columns of The Times, and his abihty as a forecaster of events enabled his own paper to publish the fact of the ** smashing of Mahdism," as he called it, on the very day the battle was fought. He telegraphed the forecast in advance of the event, which was a genuine coup in the realm of calculation, but of course was laden also with grave risks of disaster. The Times lost both its corre- \ 220 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS spondents at Omdurman: Colonel Frank Rhodes, the brother of Cecil Rhodes, was seriously wounded in the zareba early in the battle, and the Hon. Hubert Howard, who represented also the New York Herald, was killed near the tomb of the Mahdi by a stray shot after the fighting was over. By an arrangement with the Daily Telegraph, Burleigh's long account of the battle was printed simultaneously in The Times, with an explanatory note stating that as it could not get its own despatches it used by courtesy the report of the correspondent of the rival newspaper. Almost at the end of the year 1894, Burleigh sailed by way of the Cape of Good Hope for Madagascar. The French had practically declared war against the Malagasy, and for some unknown reason, had decided that no press men should be permitted to march with their troops. Therefore the special was commissioned "to write about the natives, their country, and the impending conflict." As in the case of the other correspondent of that campaign, E. F. Kiiight, Burleigh shipped upon a vessel whose captain proposed to land his passenger in spite of the prohibitions of the French. But this correspondent made a port but one hundred and fifty miles from the capital rather than the eight hundred miles which Knight had to cover. There was no French gunboat in sight, and Burleigh went ashore from the ship, swaying easily with the waves a mile and a half out, in a craft manned by natives with roughly hewn paddles. At the best possible moment the dash over the reef was made, and, although a ducking was inevitable, the thews and muscles of the paddlers held the boat bow on and saved the special from capsizing. BENNET BURLEIGH 221 For some cause there existed a deadly prejudice against Bennet Burleigh in the French War Office and the hostile spirit was shown upon every occasion by the officers of the expedition of conquest. They searched steamships without full warrant of authority upon the chance of apprehending him. When the capital of the Hovas fell they drew a cordon around the city and inquired at once where Burleigh could be found. It was stated formally to him that the French meant not to shoot but to hang him, that they meant to make an example of him. Nevertheless he started for the capital, with an American as a traveling comrade, immediately after his landing through the surf, and he regarded the whole of his stay in the island as merely a pleasant jaunt, affording no perils and no pictures of real war. Over astonishing distances his carriers, "muscled as models for sculptors," bore him in the hand palan- quin, which is "the stage coach of Madagascar," trudging through swamps and marshes, rice j&elds and forests, with black parrots screaming overhead, and splendid scenery on every hand. He found the capital an irregular jumble of houses of brick, mortar, wood and leaf fibre. The Prime Minister assured him in a formal interview that no French protectorate would ever be accepted by the Hovas, and the spirits of the special rose at the prospect after all of some genuine fighting, especially when the red flag of war was hoisted upon the twelve sacred hills of the great continental island. Burleigh witnessed the swaying and heard the shouting of 50,000 Hovas who answered the summons for a monster mass meeting which was hoisted upon the Royal Palace crowning the hill of Antananarivo. 222 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS The blaring of trumpets, the blowing of horns and the firing of artillery announced the coming of the Queen, who was borne in a velvet and gold palanquin, with a gold sceptre in her right hand and the crown resting upon a cushion near to be placed upon her head when she made her speech. It was a brave address, and the people cheered her wildly, yet "there was not a single efficiently trained soldier in the country." The experienced war special witnessed also, and with real chagrin and disappointment, how bungled and destitute of energy and skill was the defence. No advice was regarded by the government and there- fore the foreign military advisers felt constrained to hand in their resignations. The Hovas talked large; they would burn their capital and make it another Moscow; every man would go out and face death with sword and spear when the invaders drew near the city; yet positions almost impregnable for defence were surrendered without a blow. Burleigh made some quiet explorations on his own account and once was in some danger from robbers, but the Hovas would not allow him to see their men in action. Finally the French were in sight, and the tens of thousands of Hova "warriors" stared in astonishment at the search-light which was flashed upon them at night, and when a melinite shell burst in the royal courtyard the Queen ordered a flag of truce hoisted, and it was all over. Next came another campaign which "yielded not even a whiff of gunpowder smoke," but it was one in which the soldiers endured hardships far beyond those of ordinary warfare. This was the Ashanti campaign, in which the real enemy was the insidious BENNET BURLEIGH 223 malarial climate. Burleigh declares that he broke all the hygienic rules by undertaking long and tiring marches, sleeping out-of-doors and taking no quinine, but his Madagascar seasoning helped him and he escaped all unfortunate consequences. The steamship left an English winter in November, 1895, and reached June weather in a week. In three days after sailing overcoats became a burden, and then lawn tennis clothes were warm enough for comfort. On board were some Royal Artillerymen, medical officers and doctors, engineers. Sierra Leone and Gold Coast officials and traders, a missionary or two, the governor of Sierra Leone and the private secretary of the commander-in-chief. Most of them had plenty of leisure for pleasure during the voyage, and every night there was a "sing-song." On December 19, scores of surf-boats, manned by semi-nude stalwart Fantees, who dipped their trifur- cated paddles with lightning speed and machine-like regularity and marked the rhythm with a weird chant, were swarming about the just-arrived ship. And on Christmas they managed to have a jolly celebration in spite of all the drawbacks of the situation. All joined in, "Fantee, Ashanti, Kroo-boy, Sierra Leone boy, Mohammedan Houssa, West African negro and fetish workers." On this campaign Burleigh rode a bicycle, a pneu- matic, which he found scarcely up to his weight, and of his wheel he has written a page which must be cited: "The Headquarters had left and I was in duty bound to catch up with them. Riding slowly through the rough streets of the town, I took the military road — the only one — for the Prah. My fighting weight, with repeating carbine, pistols and accessories — nice vague term — was 224 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS eighteen stone. Enough on a macadam, rather too much on an eight to fifteen feet wide, roughly graded, earth and natural rock highway. Pedalling was necessary to move at quite a moderate speed, ' scorching' was out of the question — the sun had the monopoly of that, whilst as for * coasting' down hill, an idling tree-trunk lying across the road, a terraced ledge of rocks or other obstacle, played havoc with any race against time. I trundled on at eight to ten miles an hour, contented with that speed and enveloped with a cloud of hot steam and dust. The swart natives who turned at the screech of my * siren,' and saw me on my *bike,' went white with fear, dropped their loads, and leaping the road scampered like deer into the bush. I saw them peering after me as if I were a ghost or stalking fetish. There was a long downhill on a fairly good bit of road, where, the path being tortuous, my *bike' took charge before I was well aware of the fact. I had no brake, so * coasting' fu- riously, shouting and pumping the siren till it roared, with my legs afloat in the air, I let *her' go. Those unhappy carriers, with whom the road was thronged, when they heard the uproar and saw me sailing down the wind on a cloud upon them, tossed their loads instantly aside, and they dived, scrambled and disappeared from sight in a twinkling. And down that half-mile odd of hill their calls to their countrymen ran, as if I had bestrode a fire-engine careering madly through the streets of a city." Thus Burleigh outpaced his carriers by hours and miles. The last march was made on January 17. Burleigh beheld the king seated upon a chair, placed upon the topmost bank of a circular series of clay platforms; over his head were held huge plush umbrellas. Swarming below and around the court were per- haps five thousand retainers, jabbering, shrieking and gesticulating, while an army of drummers and horn- blowers kept up a terrific din. Three days later the great fetish village was burned and razed to the ground and the place of human sacrifices and barbarous rites BENNET BURLEIGH ^25 was destroyed. When the return march to the coast began, Burleigh turned back to Coomassie to see what might happen when the troops retired, and he then saw the Union Jack at half-mast on the governor's staff and learned that the news had been withheld of the death on the way home to England of the Queen's son-in-law. Prince Henry of Battenburg. One other incident in the expedition deserves men- tion. The correspondent had before this time slept stretched out on a box of gun-cotton, but in one little village of a dozen houses he found four hundred pounds of the explosive piled in the central roadway with the cases connected up with detonators, so that it could be instantly used. Over this pile was placed "a wretched, tobacco-smoking, drum-whacking native guard, whilst we laid our heads down and slept a dozen yards or so from the spot." The story of Burleigh's experiences in the South African War has been told in detail in one of his books, yet several of his exploits are not of formal record. He was in the field again for the Daily Telegraph; he spent a month before Ladysmith with General Buller, and was perhaps the only correspondent who left the place while the army was streaming in hour after hour, the men dropping on the sidewalks with fatigue as they entered. Burleigh rushed to the tele- graph office and wired: "We are beaten and it means investment. We shall all be locked up in Ladysmith." He made up his mind to leave, and he tried to induce Melton Prior to go with him. A score of specials decided to stay in the town, and Prior chose to remain with them. Burleigh got his cart and horses ready and left. And in three days Ladysmith was out of 226 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS all communication with the outside world. He made desperate efforts to learn what was going on in the town while it was beleaguered, trying Kaffir runners and sending fire balloons aloft with messages. But he had httle success and every day the difficulties of penetrating the Boer lines increased. Again by "the intelligent anticipation of events" he forecast the rehef of the town, and, by arrangement with the pro- prietors of his paper, he packed his cart with good things and had it sent into the place, where it was welcomed with an outburst of joy. And no wonder, for it contained tobaccos, champagne and tinned delicacies. But Burleigh meantime was on his way to join Lord Roberts, and he later heard with glee how the men who had been penned up in Ladysmith for one hundred and nineteen days appreciated his thought- fulness. With Lord Roberts he made the western campaign, remaining with his army until the surrender of Pretoria. His two big exploits in this war were the interview with General Joubert and his eluding the censor with the news of peace. Almost at the beginning of the war he had under- taken a venturesome journey through the Boer army. When it became apparent that he must manage to get away from Pretoria he somehow got a pass and a place in the commando train, in which were three hundred men, with horses and fodder, stores and re- serve ammunition, but with only one engine to pull the thirty-five coaches. After sixty hours, in which a comparatively short distance was covered, the train was stopped. The lines were blocked and news came that the English were planting dynamite to blow up the bridges on the road. When Joubert arrived Burleigh BENNET BURLEIGH 227 went to him and begged to be taken on with him next day, but the Boer leader refused to promise. There was nothing to be done that night, but bright and early next morning the special was at the station. He saw the train steaming out to Sands-spruit, and, feehng sure that Joubert was aboard, he actually flagged the train, which stopped forthwith. Burleigh climbed aboard and made his way to the coach in which was the general. The Boer was amazed and delighted with the audacity of the correspondent, and gave him an interview, which made one of the important des- patches of the campaign for his paper. While the negotiations were proceeding for peace the most emphatic orders were issued by Lord Kitchener that the news should not be hinted in any despatches. The censorship was very strict, and extreme precau- tions were taken to insure that the official despatches should carry the first intelligence to London of the termination of hostilities, tidings for which the English people were eagerly waiting. Burleigh made sure that the Pretoria negotiations were succeeding, and then hit upon the device of wiring two messages so very innocent and so far removed from the peace conference that no official would dream of stopping them unless he were gifted with astuteness in most uncanny degree. The account of the Daily Telegraph was printed subsequently thus; "On Whit Monday, Mr. Burleigh telegraphed us from Pretoria the following message: 'Whitsuntide greetings!* When his despatch reached us without any official delay our first idea was that its transmission at full rate from the seat of war was a somewhat superfluous demonstration of politeness. A little reflection, however, served to indicate the significance of the particular season at which the sociable 228 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS sentiment was expressed; and we fortunately remembered that in the Eastern Churches the symbol of Whitsuntide was the dove of Peace. But on this surmise we did not feel justified in making any comment. We turned, however, to > the Prayer Book — knowing Mr. Burleigh to be well acquainted with Holy Writ — and, reading over the Gospel for Whit Sunday, we came upon the following sentence: "'Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.* "Even then we did not feel justified in coming to a fixed conclusion. But when we received Mr. Burleigh's message to his brother in Glasgow — * Returning. Tell Lawson' — we felt that the moment had arrived when we might fairly take the public into our confidence." Thus the oflicial statement. But as a matter of fact the paper very nearly missed the significance of the rather cryptic messages. The peace negotiations had been in progress but a few days when he wired, and it was on Whit Sunday itself that the Boer leaders met Lord Kitchener and Lord Milner. The telegrams were sent on May 18; the terms of peace were finally signed on May 31. It was really another case of the prescience of the shrewd special. The great conflict in the Far East was very unsatis- factory from the point of view of this veteran. He went into the field on a Korean pony, "somewhat larger than a St. Bernard dog and somewhat smaller than an Egyptian donkey," and before very long found "the leashed life of a war correspondent with the Japanese" insupportable. There was small comfort in looking at puffs of smoke and listening to the reports of cannon from a hill four miles from the firing line. Finally, in desperation, like many another special, Burleigh surrendered to the inevitable and left Man- churia. He was in the Balkan Peninsula through BENNET BURLEIGH 229 the crisis which followed the overthrow of Sultan Abdul Hamid by the Young Turks, and his sympathy with Servian aspirations gained for him the endurmg affection of that people. In 1911, he went to TripoH, and in 1912 in the Balkans, at the age, perhaps, of seventy-three, he saw his last shot fired in war. Less than seven months after his retirement from active connection with his paper, on June 17, 1914, he died in London. It must be noted that Bennet Burleigh was a most ingenious and strenuous reporter in the intervals between the wars that he covered. As an illustrative example, there is the story of the time when public excitement was running very high over the efforts of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh to enter the House of Commons. It was known that he would make an attempt to force his way into the chamber, and that there was bound to be a scene in the lobby of the House. No reporters could hope to gain access to the lobby. Burleigh, at that time in the employ of an agency, procured the clothing, the ladders and the tools of a gas fitter, and went to work upon the lamps in the lobby. Brad- laugh came on schedule time, there was a struggle at the door of the chamber, and the reporter, from an excellent position at the top of his ladder, watched the whole scene, and filed mental notes for future use. As soon as seemed discreet, the "gas fitter" disap- peared, and, to the perplexity of the members, the papers had some very interesting articles the following day. Not until 1909 did disease discover the age of Bennet Burleigh. He had an abnormally robust constitution, and his first serious illness came in that year. Moreover his was the rather unusual habit 230 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS among men of the cosmopolitan and newspaper type of letting tobacco alone altogether and of drinking nothing more exhilarating than soda water. He had "great habits," indeed, as Mortimer Menpes said, and he was rather prone to assertiveness upon military matters, as if his judgment was authoritative. How- ever, he was seldom wrong, and his cheery optimism, his ready smile, his big voice and his deeply tender nature endeared him to very many men. His favorite quotation from Milton suggests much, "What though the field be lost. All is not lost." His supreme aim was never to be beaten with the news, always to keep his paper in the lead, and his power of organization, mated with the qualities which have been noted, enabled him to achieve remarkable things. He was a Socialist, and a lover of argument, so that his friends used to say laughingly that he "never was at peace except when he was at war." It must have been a rare type of man who received this tribute from Field- Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood: "I much regret to learn of the death of Mr. Bennet Burleigh, of whose accuracy, ability, courage, endurance, discretion, integrity, military judgment, and knowledge, patriotism, and tact, I have, from much personal observation extending over a quarter of a century, a very high opinion." CHAPTER Vn EDMOND O'DONOVAN ** I am writing this under circumstances which bring me ahnost as near to death as is possible to be without being under absolute sentence of execution or in the throes of some deadly malady. However, to die out here, with a lancehead as big as a shovel through me, will meet my views better than the gradual sinking into the grave which is the lot of so miany. You must know that here we are fifteen hundred miles away south of Cairo, in the midst of a wild, unexplored country. The Egyptian army, with which I am here camped on the banks of the Nile, will 'have but one chance given them — one tremendous pitched battle. The enemy we have to meet are as courageous and fierce as the Zulus, and much better armed, and our army is that which ran away before a handful of British troops at Tel-el-Kebir." — 0' Donovan in a letter to Sir John Robinson six weeks before his death. Restless as a nomad and incurably Bohemian in his tastes, Edmond O' Donovan once described his life in the conventional civilization of London as that of "a Red Indian in patent leather boots." He knew surveying, medicine and botany, combining some degree of scientific attainment with his love of adven- ture. His rooms in London partook of the appearance of both the arsenal and the laboratory; upon the walls were daggers, revolvers and carbines, and scattered about the floors were retorts, galvanic batteries and Leyden jars. He rejoiced in Oriental carpets and curiously woven rugs, and smoked a water pipe with all the placid satisfaction of a native of the East. He had the Irishman's love for Thomas Moore, and there was a goodly amount of sentiment in his makeup, so that in Asia Minor he would lie on his back and recite to Edward Vizetelly two hundred lines at a time from "Lalla Rookh." On several occasions he rather amazed London by his practical jokes, as when 232 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS he dressed his secretary in a most extraordinary blending of costumes from all quarters of the globe and promenaded the Strand "conversing" with him in an outlandish gibberish invented for the purpose. All inquirers were told his companion was " a chieftain from Karakali and a very clever chap." Edmond O'Donovan was the son of a Celtic scholar of Trinity College, Dublin, and himself took prizes there in chemistry. He became assistant librarian for the institution, but the cloisters of learning did not suit his temperament, and he began journalism when about twenty years of age. There were trips to France and America, and for some time he studied medicine in New York City. After Sedan he joined th<* Foreign Legion and fought at Orleans. Having been wounded and captured, he was interned in a Bavarian fortress and narrated in the columns of papers in Dublin and London his experiences as a prisoner. During the Carlist struggle he was in the Basque Provinces for a Dublin paper and The Times. In 1876 he journeyed to Herzegovina for the Daily News, and then went on to Asia Minor for the Russo-Turkish War. The campaign over, this tall, slender, lithe man, with dark beard and very soft eyes, gifted with a genial nature and a marvellous memory, started upon his journey into the remote interior of Asia* It is the story of this ride to Merv which I have to relate in outline, with the recommendation that his own picturesque narrative be read by those who have not had the pleasure of making its acquaintance. " I left Trebizond at sunset on Wednesday, February 5, 1879, en route for Central Asia," he says. The first stages of the journey were accomplished by steamer and train. The distance from Tiflis to the Caspian ED.MOND O'DONOVAN After the portrait by J. C. Armytage, by permission of Smith, Elder & Co. EDMOND O'DONOVAN 233 Sea at Baku was traversed in the primitive cart known as the troika. Thence he went over the sea to Tchikis- lar with General Lazareff, and there for three weary months he waited in the rains which fell almost daily, in the vain hope that some forward movement would be made. Both the general and the Irish adventurer fell dangerously ill. There were many in the camp who said it was a race which would die first, and there was a little gambling on the issue. Those who bet on the commander-in-chief won, for on August %% O'Donovan staggered from his bed, insisted upon being helped to the pier, and took ship back to Baku, where two days later the body of General Lazareff was brought. General Tergukasoff, the new commander of the Russian forces, arrived about a month later and carried O'Donovan to Tchikislar once more. It was made clear to the visitor that the Russians had no special interest in his society; there were hints and finally direct intimations that he must quit the place. One morning he was ordered to leave in the evening for Baku. O'Donovan suavely said that the right to direct him to leave he did not contravene, but that he disputed the right to dictate the route he should take. He was quite willing to go to the frontier and on to Asterabad, the nearest point where he would find a British Consul. The ride to that city was studded with difficulties, and for many miles he trav- ersed a mud flat following the telegraph poles. As he glimpsed Asterabad at last, "with its picturesque towers and ramparts gleaming yellowly in the noonday sun" he wrote that he "might almost fancy himself enacting the part of Kalendar in the Arabian Nights, 234 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and, after a weary wandering amid trackless deserts, coming suddenly upon the enchanted city." His intention was to keep within reach of the Russian columns and to secure information from time to time of the happenings in the camp at Tchikislar from which he had been banished, but rumors reached him of some unusual activities among the Tekke Turcomans and he decided to venture out into the plain to some point where he might learn with accuracy precisely what was going on in the Russian lines. For three months he made his home with the Yamud Turcomans. The world, and especially the English world, wanted to know what the mysterious Russians were doing in the interior of Asia, and just how the movements of their columns related to the military policies and the political purposes of the two nations. These things O'Donovan was determined to know as much about as it was possible to learn, and he had a well-grounded conviction that Merv was one of the ultimate points of the Russian movement, so Merv became forthwith an objective of his own. On April 26, 1880, he sailed from the port of Aster- abad for Enzeli, intending to cross the mountains to the capital of Persia; with him went the son of the Consul and a courier. The riding was hard, and only after much scrambling up steep ascents and a deal of floundering and slipping did they finally arrive at Teheran. The first call was upon the Russian minister, who informed the Irish rover that all was in the hands of the commander-in-chief. The new commander was the friend of MacGahan, General Skobeleff. O'Donovan wired him. Back came a prompt and polite reply in which regrets were expressed, but orders were orders and there positively could be no EDMOND O'DONOVAN 235 change made in his favor. O'Donovan telegraphed his thanks in return, and added, "au revoir a Merv." "I was resolved to be there before the Russian troops could reach it," he wrote. Permission to visit the extreme northern limits of Persia was not hard to secure and there he would be upon the borders of the Tekke country. The first point in the itinerary was two hundred and eighty- four miles away, but he adventured beyond it, making circuits when necessary to avoid danger. Of dangers there were many; in one riot he was the target of more than a hundred stone throwers. Foes lurked in the mountain ravines and to evade enemies he traveled much at night, and once in the darkness he found himself on top of a mud wall four feet high and mounting higher at every stride. In a few minutes he would have been twelve feet from the ground on a wall two feet wide. For a time he traveled with a train of pilgrims, and so much in awe were the Persians of their marauding neighbors that these pilgrims thought their guest insane to undertake a ride to any place near the Turcoman frontier. Sickness assailed him again. For a time he was unconscious, and when the fever left him enfeebled, it became advisable to modify his plans once more. He departed for Meshed, the sacred city of Persia, but so weak was he and so slow was his progress, that the distance usually walked in less than three days required seven days for him to ride. Here he rented a house where he intended to recuperate, but the action of the Persian government detained him beyond the contemplated stay. After three months, his health sufficiently restored for the venture, he started for the Tekke country. 236 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS In the van rode a Turcoman guide, then came the guard of honor designated for him, three soldiers and three servants, and in the rear were his own people and his horses. He found that the Turcomans were raiding almost up to the gates of the capital of the province. Every effort he made to cross the frontier was blocked. The agents of the Russians were watch- ing him and in some of the obstacles about him he traced their influence. Twice he undertook to make his way through the Tejend swamp, a treacherous expanse, full of leopards and wild boars and where an occasional tiger was shot, a passage so perilous that often horses and their riders were swallowed up in the depths they tried to traverse. Merv he was bound to reach, however, whatever the cost, and with an escort of ten horsemen he finally managed to make a promising sally. Even then the Russian agent at Kaka frightened his Persian guard from going on, but this O'Donovan found a positive advantage, for now he had only his two servants to think of, and was really free. At last he was actually off for the collection of settlements known to the world as Merv. Said O'Donovan: " Both the Russian agent and the Persian escort thought I would never dare venture alone across the desert. . . . There was no road or beaten track of any kind. Sometimes I plunged into deep ravines, densely grown with giant weeds and cane brakes. Pheasants rose by dozens at every twenty yards. Wild boars continually plunged with a crashing noise through the reeds, and now and again I caught sight of a leopard or lynx stealing away deeper into the jungle. The entire scene was one of primitive nature. Very probably I was the first European who had ever trodden that way." EDMOND O'DONOVAN 237 There were marauders waiting to spy and waylay travelers in the day time so that he had to proceed at night; he picked his way along by the light of a slender moon. At dawn he crossed a stream fifty yards wide, going cautiously and in a zigzag course, his servants kneeling on their saddles with the provision bags on their shoulders. For several hours they fared forward over the hot desert until an obelisk was reached, marking the spot where there ought to be a rain-water cistern. The cistern was dry but there was water enough in the narrow track to assuage the violent thirst of the horses. Entirely spent and utterly unable to go on, O'Donovan camped among some tamarisk bushes and slept through a storm of lightning and soaking rain. Wet, worn and hungry, he rode in the morning straight for Merv. As the first huts were reached a crowd of wild-looking persons stared at him. This is what they saw : " I might have passed for anything. I wore an enormous tiara of grayish-black sheepskin, eighteen inches in height. Over my shoulders was a drenched leopard skin, beneath which could be seen my travel-stained, much worn over- coat. My legs were caparisoned in long black boots, armed with great steel spurs, appendages utterly unknown in Turkestan. A sabre and revolving carbine completed my outfit. Some people may wonder why I did not assume a style of dress more in keeping with the custom of the country. I had considered this matter carefully before deciding upon the irrevocable step toward Merv. I could speak Jagatai Tartar fairly well, and my sun-tanned countenance and passably lengthy beard offered no extraordinary contrast to that of an inhabitant, but my accent, and a thousand other little circumstances, not to speak of the indiscretion of my servants, would have been enough infallibly to betray me. To appear in Turcoman costume, or in any other which tended to conceal my real nationality and character. 238 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS would, under the circumstances, have been to court almost certain destruction." Almost at once he began to realize that he had faced captivity for an indefinite period. He was in the heart of the Turcoman country at last; his goal had been reached, but what a reception he had. Thus he described it: "The circular beehive house into which I was shown was instantaneously crowded almost to suffocation. Some one pulled off my wet riding boots, after a prolonged struggle; another substituted a lambskin mantle for my drenched leopardskin and overcoat. A bowl of scalding hot green tea, without sugar, and tasting like a dose of Epsom salts, completed my material comforts. " I sat close to the fire and warmed my shivering members. All the time the assembled people were gazing at me with an eagerness of expression that no words could convey. They apparently thought that after all I might be somebody mysteriously connected with the events transpiring so near to them, and who had come among them on a friendly mission. This idea was still further propagated by the volubility of my Kurd, who, in the last agony of apprehension about his own personal well-being, was pouring torrents of lies into the ears of his auditory. " Some of my late escort even went so far as to say that they believed me to be a Russian, and that I came to Merv as a spy. Their expression of opinion seemed to take effect, and I could see, by the thinning of the audience, that I was losing ground. "Then a great fat man, with a mingled expression of ruffianism and humor, came in and asked me plainly who and what I was. This was Beg Murad Khan, a gentleman whose more intimate acquaintance I subsequently made in more than one disagreeable instance. I told him as well as I could, considering that the language was Jagatai Tartar, and that the Turcomans have not a clearly defined notion of the functions of a peripatetic literary man. I said that I could set myseK right in a few days by despatching a EDMOND O'DONOVAN 239 letter to the British native agent at Meshed by the caravan which was about to start. This proposition was met by a general shout of warning not to attempt to write a single word or my throat would be immediately cut. . . . "Struck by the peculiarity of my surroundings, and wishing to chronicle them while they still were vividly impressed upon me, I once ventured to produce my note- book and jot down a few hurried lines. At once an excited Turcoman darted from the hut with the news that the Ferenghi was writing, and I could hear the recommendation to finish me off at once repeated by many a lip. In came the humorous-looking ruffian again to assure me in a ve- hement manner that if paper and pencil were again seen in my hand I could only blame myself for the result." The next morning they were off for Merv itself, the seat of the Tekke government, and the " mysterious goal toward which he had been so long looking forward." Across a great plain, past villages of beehive shaped huts, amid corn fields and melon beds, they made their way. In the midst of a cluster of two hundred such huts was a small red banner waving from a lance shaft lashed to the top of a pole. Thus was marked the residence of the executive chief elected by the leading persons of the whole Merv district. Beyond this a few yards was a fairly large pavilion tent of a pale blue color which 0*Donovan learned was intended for himself. It was a piece of the spoil taken from the Persians. Within was a thick felt mat, covered with a Turcoman carpet, and near one end in a shallow pit was a charcoal fire. For a month now the inquiring Irishman "lived inside a much-patronized peep-show." If he slept he would wake to find people staring at him from inside the tent and from every nook without. At times the crowds were so great that the tent reeled 240 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and swayed and threatened to collapse and once it actually did come down. Seven days after his arrival there was a general council of Merv chiefs for the consideration of his case. About two hundred were seated in a circle of twenty yards diameter, while within the circle on a large mat sat the man from Dublin. He told his story, and how he had fled before Skobeleff's horse to their protection; he showed his English and Persian documents and he referred them to the British agent at Meshed and the minister at Teheran. At length they seemed to take his word and he was conducted back to his tent whence he could hear their loud and eager debate. Those were anxious moments; they might sentence him to immediate execution. After a half -hour they told him that he was not to be slain, but that he would be a prisoner until they could get a reply from Meshed. They built a comparatively cool hut for him. Seeing that his dress stirred curiosity he bought in a bazaar an ordinary Turcoman costume. The courier brought a letter from Meshed which certified that he was English and without any connec- tion with the Russian expedition. Thus assured, they placed their captive at comparative liberty, although it was evident that he was in the hands of hosts who also were jailers. 0*Donovan's object now was to make as complete a survey as possible of the entire Merv district, and to learn the manners, customs, government and general tone of mind of the people. He saw seven thousand of their young men constructing fortifications of the sort that from remote antiquity had been built in those regions, huge continuous embankments, forty feet in height, made of tenacious yellow clay. As a EDMOND O'DONOVAN 241 sort of artillerist-in-chief he superintended the re- mounting of the guns captured from the Persians, on carriages sawed out of the trunks of trees. He noted that the key to the entire territory was the water system and studied their irrigation canals. Ere long the adventurer became a great man in Merv. Letters had come to him from Teheran, on the strength of which he was able to tell them that the Russians had agreed not to advance further east than Askabad and that they were not coming to Merv. This was the sequel: " They conducted me to an open space lying between the northern and southern lines of evs which had hitherto been entirely unoccupied. To my great surprise I found that in its midst was being constructed a kind of redoubt, seventy or eighty yards square, on which nearly a hundred men were busily engaged. In the centre of this space was an ev in course of erection. The wooden, cage-like framework was already reared, and half a dozen women were occupied in adjusting the felt walls and roof. To this I was led by my escort. My saddles, arms, bedding and other effects were piled within it, and the two Turcoman servants whom I had hired were busily engaged in adjusting the carpet. . . . *This,' they told me, *is your residence as a Khan; for the medjlis has decided that you are to be accepted here as the representative of the English Padishah.' This was almost too much for my gravity, but, retaining my self-possession, I simply bowed, as if all this were only a matter of course, and, sitting upon the carpet prepared for me, made note of the circumstances." Over and over again O'Donovan had protested that he had no pretensions to represent the British government, and that his mission to Merv had been undertaken solely with the view of ascertaining the true state of affairs among the Turcomans and of informing the English public as to the positions rel- 242 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS atively of the Tekkes and the Russians. All his endeavors were of no avail; politics was a very lively occupation in Merv, and for the time it had been arranged that the eastern and western divisions of the Turcomans should conduct their concerns of state under the guidance of their own immediate chiefs. With these two Khans, as a representative of the English nation and an intermediary between the Mervli and the English Padisha, the Irishman was to be associated. The Turcomans held him in a kind of honorable captivity, for they were convinced that in some fashion he had rendered them a great service and had saved them from the Russian invaders. His installation, although he was not quite sure that installation was the correct term to employ, was a ceremonious occasion. He made this record of the event: " It was a curious sight that I gazed upon from my door. The Murghab flowed sluggishly by; the huge mass of nearly completed ramparts rose against the morning sky, covered with thousands of spectators, who availed themselves of every coign of vantage to catch a sight of the doings within my redoubt. From moment to moment the guns thundered out, their echoes rolling away across these historic plains. The crimson flag flapped and fluttered above our head; and the warriors and chiefs of Merv in their best and brightest apparel, grouped around, some sitting, some standing, pre- sented a spectacle the theatrical effect of which was only surpassed by its poHtical interest." Thus Edmond O'Donovan was duly constituted a member of the Triumvirate which ruled Merv. What were the duties of his exalted position he knew not at all, and, indeed, it was some time before he discovered that he was not only a Triumvir but the Chief Triumvir, the President of the Council. A EDMOND O'DONOVAN 243 few emoluments came with the oflSce, and there were gifts of silken mantles, ornamented skull caps, and a gold ring with a cabalistic inscription. A great crimson banner was flung to the breeze before his door. He had to learn the courtesies of his station. There were visits of ceremony to pay and receive and the door of the Khan was supposed always to be open and his hospitality always ready. Above all, the Irish Triumvir tried to evade all complications of a political or an international nature. Gradually he acquired a large fund of information about the surrounding region and the events which were transpir- ing therein. The Turcomans began to regard him as a sort of naturalized citizen; they turned the talk at times to the Koranic doctrines and he made so much progress in their favor that they intimated that there remained no obstacles to his open acceptance of the true faith with its responsibilities and its im- plications. At length, and somewhat to the relief of the foreign Triumvir, for matters were becoming a trifle em- barrassing, there came a letter, covered over with imposing seals, from the British Minister at the capital of Persia. The writer declared that O'Donovan's presence was required at once in England, for the British government desired that the traveler should come in person to render an account of his observations in Merv. The visitor seized the opportunity to urge his release, but there were vexing delays and many an anxious experience to endure ere he was permitted to set his face homewards. There was first a weary wait for the general medjlis which his fellow Triumvirs assured him must be held before it would be proper for him to go. Excuses 244 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS multiplied, until at last O'Donovan ventured to present his ultimatum; he declared that he would leave within three days at the most. Circumstances befriended him quite opportunely. Scouts brought tidings of Cossack horsemen with whom were persons with "divers wonderful and dreadful engines'* march- ing about the frontier. What they had seen were the engineers with their theodolites who were surveying the region. The ingenious Irishman seized this report "as a drowning man grasps at a straw;" he affirmed that the fate of Merv depended upon a meeting of the ambassadors of Europe at Meshed. But the Turcomans blandly told the Triumvir that the ladies of Merv were greatly opposed to his leaving them. Perhaps the wily and dilatory Tur- comans were arguing better than they knew, for what Irishman is there who will not go out of his way to oblige a lady? However, O'Donovan, almost at his wit's end, sent to Meshed and obtained four bags of silver as an appeal to the cupidity of his amiable captors, distributing the coins judiciously among the influential men of the settlements. The delays came to an end at last and the general conference was held. "It was an imposing spectacle," said O'Donovan. "Close by rose the frowning front of the newly- completed fortress. About me in their picturesque garbs were the redoubtable robber chiefs of Central Asia. Some thousands of people, grouped in knots, surrounded us at a short distance, and more than a hundred horse- men were close upon the edge of the circle listening eagerly to every word that passed." In turn O'Donovan rose to speak and the entire assemblage listened in a stillness so profound that it was painful. He kept his self-possession and made EDMOND O'DONOVAN 245 his points without undue emphasis upon the personal issues which were distressing himself. The roll was called by the "Old Man of the Sword," the vote was in his favor and formal assent was given to his departure. After six months in Merv, he started upon his homeward journey. He had quite lost count of the days of the month and week, and recovered the calendar at the sacred city. He was again a very sick man at Meshed and was carried in a sort of hammock swung between two horses to Teheran, arriving at the capi- tal more dead than alive. By way of Odessa he reached Constantinople on November 26, 1881, having spent four months on the way from Merv. He had set out from Trebizond almost three years before; a romantic and unique experience had come to an end. Upon his return to England he learned that his release was due partly to his own boldness and tact and in part to the adroit diplomacy of Lord Granville. From Teheran the situation had been communicated to Sir John Robin- son of the Daily News and he had set in operation the machinery of the Foreign Office. In London the Triumvir of Merv was given an enthusiastic reception and he delivered a lecture before the Royal Geograph- ical Society. The following year, Major Hicks, an English Indian officer, made his disastrous march in the Soudan, some particulars of which are narrated in the chapter devoted to the five Vizetellys. His Egyptian troops were unmitigated cowards, who had made the first stage of their journey as impressed men with iron collars riveted to their necks and chains attached to the collars lest they should run away. On November 23, 1883, the news reached England U6 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS that Hicks Pasha's force had been completely de- stroyed. With the troops was Edmond O'Donovan for the Daily News, but the particulars of his death are not known. In the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral one of the memorials to war correspondents bears the names of six men who died in the Soudan between 1883 and 1885. The first to fall were Vizetelly and O'Donovan, at Cashgill, probably on November 4. The first name of the six upon the tablet is that of the some-time Triumvir of Merv. CHAPTER VIII THE FIVE VIZETELLYS *' The old spirit of my Italian sires, the spirit of love and battle and adventure, still displayed itself in one or another of each generation of my race. It had carried one of my grandfather's brothers to India, to fight, love, and be murdered there in old Company days; it had made one of my father's brothers a nineteenth-century condottiere, battling in either hemis- phere, an example largely followed by one of my own brothers. And for years my life had been romance — real romance in the midst of the workaday nineteenth century. '* — Ernest Alfred Vizetelly. Of the five members of the Vizetelly family who must be enrolled in the honorable fraternity of war correspondents only one survives, Ernest Alfred Vizet- elly, who at seventeen went to the Franco-Prussian war as the youngest special of whom there is record, and who now is well-known as journalist, author and translator. The father, Henry Richard Vizetelly, was one of the founders of the Illustrated London News, and for years was a special for that journal, witnessing all the scenes of the siege of Paris by the Germans and of the Commune. Another son, Edward Henry Vizetelly, was with Garibaldi in 1870 in the Vosges, and, after having served in campaigns in various parts of Europe, Asia and Africa, he ended the spectacular part of his career by carrying the American flag, as the special representative of James Gordon Bennett, to meet Stanley when he emerged from the interior of "darkest Africa" with Emin Pasha in 1889. There was also a nephew, Montague Vizetelly, who did time with the Italian army in Abyssinia. In some ways the most remarkable of this group of newspaper men was Frank Vizetelly, who, after having reported Sol- 248 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ferino, Garibaldi's campaign of 1860, the Civil War in America, Sadowa, and the Carlist rising of 1873, lost his life in the massacre to which Hicks Pasha carelessly marched in the Soudan in 1883. Henry Vizetelly was descended from an Italian family which came from Venice to England in the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth, and was born in London in 1820. As a "sort of revelation" there came to him the suggestion of a newspaper with every number more or less filled with engravings. Herbert Ingram had conceived the idea of an illustrated criminal record, and out of the association of these two men appeared in 1842 the first number of The Illustrated London News, l^he first journal of the kind to be estab- lished in any country. A suggestion of the change which has been wrought in the course of time is found in the statement of Vizetelly that "any kind of views of such localities as were then the seat of war in China and Afghanistan were only to be procured with the greatest difficulty." The following year Ingram and Vizetelly parted company and the latter established The Pictorial Times » Among his contributors were Douglas Jerrold, Thackeray and Mark Lemon, and before he sold out to give his attention to the printing of illustrated books for all the publishers of the city he had had the satisfaction of publishing in his journal Hood's famous "Bridge of Sighs." About 1855 he again ventured into the field of illustrated periodicals with the Times, acquiring a staff which included Edmund Yates and George Augustus Sala, and such artists as Gustave Dore and Hablot Browne. His success was tremen- dous; of the first number there were advance orders for 100,000 copies. In 1859 Vizetelly sold the ^ 2 $1 W § o >* a Oi .2 K "a THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 249 paper to the News and took service with Ingram, going to Paris in 1864 as correspondent and general representative on the Continent for that journal. With the coming of the war of 1870 arrived the heroic period of the life of Henry Vizetelly. Now the special correspondent was merged into the war corre- spondent. When the newspaper specials with the French army were no longer heading their letters, "From Paris to Berlin;" when noisy throngs in the city were no more shouting the Marseillaise; when after having been vain and demonstrative the people had become silent and stern; when the tidings of Sedan came, there followed in quick succession the downfall of the ministry, of the dynasty, and of the Empire. A Government of National Defense was organized. Paris welcomed the revolution with paroxysms of joy. Victor Hugo, the exile of Jersey, returned and received ovations on the boulevards. Crowds of well-dressed people watched the work of demolition for the clearing of a military zone for the defense of the city. Melan- choly processions made their way into the city from the country without, "poor households, with everything they possessed, shabby bedding, rickety chairs and tables, cracked crockery and bundles, stacked haphazard in tottering carts drawn by bony horses, or piled on trucks and pushed by weary men, women and children, dusty and travel-stained.'* On Sunday, September 18, a splendid autumnal day, a gay crowd watched the city preparing for war. Far into the night telegrams kept coming from all points of the environs to the government. That was the last day of liberty. On Monday, September 19, Paris awoke to the booming of cannon. There were no letters, no papers from outside; the telegraph wires 250 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS were severed, the railway lines were cut; Paris was isolated. The multitudes were locked in the city by the German invaders. Couriers were tried; one day of twenty-eight sent out only two got through the lines of investment and all the rest had to return. Occasionally a messenger wriggled in from the outside carrying letters and cipher messages, secreted sometimes beneath the skin, or hidden in coat buttons and in coins specially prepared. But land and water were closed and only the air remained, and to the air the Parisians and the newspaper men in the city turned their attention. On September 23, all Paris watched the sending up of the first balloon, which carried three mail bags with 25,000 letters. The aeronaut watched the Ger- man cannon balls soar and fall, passed the lines of the besieging army with safety, and made a landing. The second balloon left two days later, only to be becalmed, and before the Seine was crossed three bundles of letters, ten bags of ballast and the seats of the car had to be tossed overboard, but carrier pigeons came back with the news of a successful voyage among the clouds. A decree was issued limiting the weight of all letters to an eighth of an ounce and the manufacture of an aerial flotilla for postal purposes was begun. The story of the balloon post and the carrier pigeon service during the siege of Paris is one of the most interesting in the history of journalism. The balloons used were capable of sustaining a weight of something more than half a ton and of floating in the air for a period of ten hours. Such names as Vauban, Gari- baldi, Lafayette, Galileo and Daguerre were bestowed upon them, quite in the French fashion. The balloon THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 251 cannon of the Germans were not able to stop the flight of these aerial voyagers, although occasionally, through the inexperience of some improvised aeronaut or some sudden escape of gas, one would fall into the hands of the enemy. After a time all balloons left the beleaguered city under cover of darkness, but the winds played queer pranks with them, and during one period of ten days none was able to soar out of Paris. The Archimede came down in Holland, the Ville d'Orleans was carried across the North Sea to Norway, a distance of eight hundred and forty miles, which was covered in sixteen hours, and the Jacquard was lost at sea, being sighted last when five miles from the Eddystone light-house. In all sixty-four balloons left the city during the siege, carrying in addition to their pilots nearly a hundred passengers and more than three millions of letters of three grammes each. Vizetelly was using the balloons for news purposes, but of the fate of his letters and sketches he was seldom informed. He was aware that it was necessary to take every precaution to secure the transmission of news to his journal, and he therefore made three photographs of every sketch that he sent out of the city, and placed the original and the photographs in four different balloons. Frequently all of them reached London safely, but sometimes only one arrived. Some came to the hands of the English editors by way of Norway, and one, picked up by a passing steamship, actually returned to England from the Cape of Good Hope. Through the vigilance of the Paris corre- spondent, the News was able to illustrate almost every incident of importance through the four months of the siege. About twice a week Vizetelly would ascer- 252 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS tain when the next balloon was to sail, and "after all the cab-horses had been eaten," wrote he, **I was accustomed an hour before daybreak to trudge to one or another distant railway station where the balloon was to ascend, to find far more often than was agreeable that, from the wind being in the wrong quarter, no ascent could be attempted that day. . . . Walking six or eight miles in the cold and rain would have been easy but for an empty stomach." What tidings came back to Paris were brought by carrier pigeons. The "arrival pigeons" were despatched with information of the place of a balloon's descent and news from the provinces. Many of them were found to be wounded by the rifle bullets of the Germans, but more were lost on the road, for the season was not favorable to them, mists obscuring their sight and cold paralyzing their strength. The "departure pigeons," more than a thousand in number, were the most perfectly trained birds to be had in all France; their speed was estimated at more than a thousand yards a minute. The despatches borne by them were usually placed in a quill fastened to a tail-feather that remained immovable when the birds spread the tail to fly. The messages were always in cipher. An elaborate system of queries and answers was finally developed for the accommodation of the people of the city and their anxious friends without. These, written without cipher, were limited to twenty words, including names and addresses, containing no military information, and for which a charge of half a franc a word was levied. These were then set in type, printed and photographed, and thus they were made legible and their size was reduced to a trifle more than an inch square. The plan was an THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 253 enormous success. The three birds first sent carried a thousand despatches with information for ten thou- sand persons. For paper there were finally substituted thin films of collodion, ten times as thin and light as the lightest and thinnest tissue. Vizetelly had his adventures during this siege; several times he was arrested in various parts of th^ city but his incarcerations did not last long. As the usual passports were not recognized by his captors, he took pains to carry about with him receipts for rent dating back several years or old butchers' bills, as proof that he was an old resident of the city, and these he found more serviceable by far than any documents surmounted by the royal arms or signed by the British Secretary of State. The craze which he dubbed "spyophobia" had seized the Parisians. No one was immune from suspicion. A light in an attic was a "signal," the white hands of a woman were "evidence." G. A. Sala was cast into a filthy cell, Henry Labouchere was in danger, and the Figaro started the notion that the blind beggars of Paris were spies. But hunger was the great enemy. Queue after queue formed before the butchers' shops as the people with pinched faces shivered and waited for their meagre dole of rations. Vizetelly's concierge devoted herself to the breeding of rabbits secretly in the deserted stables of the house in which he lived, but she demanded sixty and seventy francs each for them, and eventually found a buyer only in the chef of Baron Rothschild. When the surrender at last could be delayed no longer, there was not a cat left in the city, mules and horses had been eaten, and even the ele- phants on which the children rode in the parks had 254 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS been slain. Potatoes cost eight pence each and eggs three shillings apiece. On February 29, 1871, the walls were placarded with a document declaring that "heartbroken with grief" the defenders laid aside their arms, "surrendering only to famine." The correspondent of the News was not in the city through the entire siege. He was in bad health, and, having arranged with a draughtsman, photographers and aeronauts for the transmission of messages as long as the siege might still continue, he accepted the last opportunity afforded foreigners to quit the city, and with his son was taken through the lines. Having seen his family, he, with his son, joined the army of General Chanzy, and almost at once both were arrested and threatened with lynching out of hand. A crowd of infuriated National Guards, who saw a spy in every stranger and a signal in the production of an ordinary pocket handkerchief, were for shooting or drowning the father and son summarily, but luckily a half- dozen gendarmes stood firm with fixed bayonets and held ofiP the yelling mob, and General Chanzy was satisfied with their papers. They were liberated, only within an hour to be arrested again, when they saw how hopeless it was to stay with this force and left for other scenes of the war. When the news of the capitulation of Paris reached Henry Vizetelly, he at once secured the necessary passports and, with two of his sons, Ernest and Arthur, returned to the capital. On March 1, he saw the mounted Germans ride beneath the Arc de Triomphe in all the pride of conquest. He witnessed the horrors of the Commune, and during the carnage in the streets was often in peril. THE FIVE VIZETELLYS U5 Emest Alfred Vizetelly was born in 1853, and, therefore, was but seventeen years old when he took service in the war between France and Germany as a correspondent and artist for the Daily News, the Pall Mall Gazette^ and the Illustrated London News, With his father he experienced the hardships and dangers of the siege of Paris. Wedged in a corner beside a statue in the Assembly Hall, with men fighting their way in and out, he witnessed many of the scenes attending the fall of the Empire, and when a "wave of surging men" landed him on the floor of the House near the tribune he heard Gambetta declaring that "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and his Dynasty have forever ceased to reign over France." Through the days of the siege he was out and about the city, and his evenings were given to writing and to copying thumb-nail sketches. His father having gone on to England, the boy became a war correspondent on his own account, with no regular connection, but from Le Mans, where all supplies for both the army of the Loire and for the relief of Paris were collected. He sent news to his brother in London, who placed his copy, all of which was printed. After the battle of Le Mans, fought for three days amidst snow and ice by 130,000 combatants, other correspondents were shut up in the town, but the boy escaped in a train and wrote a long article which was the first account of Chanzy's overthrow to appear in England with the exception of a few curt despatches. The lad's own description of his manner of life at that time, found in one of his novels of an autobio- graphical character, may be quoted: "It was a wonderful and an awful business. A Siberian temperature, incessant snowstorms, whole regiments desert- ^56 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ing, railway lines blocked for miles by trains crammed with supplies for Paris; roads similarly blocked by all the endless impedimenta of Chanzy's forces; horses dying by the way- side; famished soldiers cutting steaks from the flanks of the dead beasts and devouring them raw; others — hundreds, if not thousands — without proper footgear; some in boots of English make, whose composition soles had disappeared, leaving the uppers behind, others in ssbots, others again merely with rags around their feet, and yet others who trudged along absolutely barefooted, their toes frostbitten, until they fell despairing and exhausted on the snow to perish there. . . . "Stoutly shod, wearing a heavy coat of Irish frieze specially sent me, I myself largely walked, only now and then securing a seat in one of the few trains which were run over some short distance for some very special military purpose. There could be no thought of a mount when horses were dying of exhaustion and starvation all around one. And I slept anywhere, even as thousands slept, glad some nights of a corner on the stone flags of a cottage deserted by its owners." It was a "miniature retreat from Moscow." Then Paris fell and in forty-eight hours the lad was on his way thither with his father and one of his brothers. From the time of the armistice to the end of the "Bloody Week," Ernest Vizetelly saw and helped to report almost every incident of importance in and about the city. He saw the fall of the Vendome column, he sketched the attack on the Elysee Palace from a balcony which was carried away by a shell a few minutes after he left it, and he saw the street fighting and the conflagrations. On Thursday of the "Bloody Week" he and two others were fired upon as they stood in the street by secreted Communists. One of the three fell into the arms of the other two, spattering them with blood; one bullet grazed the THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 257 neck of the correspondent, and others lodged in the shutters of a shop in which he found a refuge. For years after the fall of the Commune he continued on the Continent as a journalist, making journeys with his father in Austria, Spain, Italy and Portugal. Going to London in 1886 he embarked in publishing enterprises, preparing also English versions of the Zola novels. Montague Vizetelly, born in 1846, was the son of Henry Richard Vizetelly's older brother, and from 1867 to 1869 was Paris correspondent for an English periodical. When the war which culminated with the capture of the French capital began he was commis- sioned by the Daily News to accompany the army of the Loire, and fell into the hands of the Germans at the battle of Le Mans. After some sixteen years of journalistic work he was sent out by The Times to the Italian campaign in Abyssinia, witnessing all the important engagements until the Italian protector- ate was tacitly acknowledged by King Menelek. For the Financial Times he went with Colonel North, "the nitrate king," to South America, and returned by way of Panama during the French excavation period. The Manchester Courier then sent him to Newfoundland to investigate the fisheries problem. He was later attached to the staffs of the Daily Chronicle and the Morning Advertiser as a specialist on military subjects. Montague Vizetelly was also the **Cap- tious Critic" of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. His death occurred in 1897. The career of Frank Vizetelly was most eventful and his end was tragic. He was the youngest of the four brothers of whom Henry Richard was the second 258 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and the father of Montague was the first. Bom in 1830, Frank was brought up by Henry to newspaper work with the Illustrated Times, and his first exploit was achieved when Henry sent him to Paris after the birth of the Prince Imperial. By some ingenious means he managed to secure admission to the presence of the Emperor. Napoleon III. remained in conver- sation with him for some little time, while the audacious young journalist was rapidly sketching a portrait in the nursery of the child for publication in an English illustrated weekly. When the war between Sardinia and Austria began he was sent to Italy to sketch the campaign for the London paper, and soon was for- warding breezy accounts of his personal adventures and spirited drawings of military events. At Ales- sandria he was arrested as a spy, and prevented from reaching the front in time for the battle of Magenta. He watched the great battle of Solferino from the hill upon which Victor Emmanuel and the oflScers of his staff were grouped. The king was so absorbed with the conflict and the slaking of his thirst with an iron ladle from a rather decrepit bucket full of water that he did not notice the English artist busily sketch- ing several portraits of himself and his chief aides for a London periodical. To Sicily the artist was sent by the Illustrated London News when Garibaldi made his famous expe- dition of The Thousand in 1860. Early in May he arrived at Messina. Garibaldi at the time was half way across the island at Palermo and how to reach him was a problem. The Neapolitan officers would allow no passenger steamers to leave port for Palermo and Neapolitan troops patrolled the roads with orders to stop travelers. Vizetelly secured aid from the THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 259 skipper of a small coasting vessel who, like most Sicilians, was secretly in sympathy with the red- shirted invaders. In the rig of a Sicilian mariner, with the regulation red Phrygian cap, the artist made the trip. He was entered duly as one of the crew under the name "Francesco Vizetelli." When he landed, Garibaldi was fighting his way inch by inch, house by house, and street by street, through the city. In the opinion of George Macaulay Trevelyan, the biographer of the leader of The Thousand, Vizet- elly*s reports of the campaign from this time on, derived largely from the narratives of the Garibaldini with whom he lived on intimate terms, and his pictures of the incidents of that thrilling period, are of great historical value. The street fighting was at its height when Vizetelly arrived. He spent hours sketching unburied corpses, and ultimately came down with a fever, due to the odor, so it is said, of the dead bodies which for some time littered the streets. After some dayp he followed Garibaldi on the march to Messina, and was at his side during the fight at Melazzo when he sabred the Neapolitan commander. Various personal adventures befell the special during the march through the interior. In a lonely spot he was attacked by brigands and the horses of his carriage galloped him to safety. At Villafrati he met Alexandre Dumas pere, who was following the column through Sicily with an escort of young Frenchmen, and "throwing off as many sheets of copy in an hour as a cylinder machine would print in the same time," in the composition of the history of the revolution which "in reality is a Sicilian romance." With Garibaldi the artist went on to Naples. 260 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS One of the most spirited of his drawings is that which shows the NeapoHtans marching jubilantly through their streets to vote for annexation to the new Italy then in process of creation, wearing placards upon their breasts and carrying big flags, both inscribed with the all-sufficient word **Si." The pages of his paper are full of his pictures of camp scenes, skirmishes, charges, incidents of every sort which he witnessed in that most remarkable of campaigns. The fire that burned in the heart of Garibaldi himself seems to have been burning also in the heart of the corre- spondent. He was well acquainted with the gigantic Colonel Peard, "Garibaldi's Englishman." He saw Victor Emmanuel arrive at St. Angelo and contrived to meet him, just as he had managed to get access to Louis Napoleon, and with humorous audacity he reminded the king of the battered bucket and the iron ladle on the hill at Solferino. He saw the fall of Gaeta also, and finally he went with Garibaldi to his little island kingdom of Caprera, where he spent a fortnight making sketches of the house, the garden, and the rocks piled about the door, and going on fishing excursions with the man who had triumphantly completed an enterprise which had electrified England and amazed the world. In 1861, he was off to America for the News. He met "Billy" Russell, a friend of the Vizetelly family, in Washington. On the expedition of General Burn- side to Roanoke Island he was given a berth aboard the commander's ship, but upon his return to the capi- tal he was refused permission to join General McClel- lan, whereupon he hurried to St. Louis to follow the Mississippi flotilla of gunboats. For two months he steamed up and down the river making sketches THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 261 of engagements. Having seen the taking of Memphis by the Federals, he came back again to Washington and there found Secretary Seward obdurate in his refusal to allow him to join McClellan before Rich- mond. Vizetelly was not at all disposed to follow the example of Russell and return home, but set out for the South and reached the Confederate capital by the "underground route." That trip across the lines was extremely perilous. The Englishman shrewdly suspected that one or two of his acquaintances in the capital were in sympathy with the South. To one man he mentioned his desire to join the Confederates, and following the instructions then given him, he furnished a photograph of himself and received in return a minute description of the man he would find on a certain day on a West River steamboat bound for Baltimore. This man he must not particularly notice nor address, but when the man landed the artist must land and without asking any questions whatever he must follow whithersoever the stranger might lead. Thus he was guided to a lonely place where he found a carriage and a fine pair of horses, and was conveyed to a beautiful home twelve miles away, there to be entertained in elaborate fashion. Every member of the household listened with the greatest deference to Vizetelly, a circumstance which he did not fully understand until he learned by accident that he was supposed to be an emissary of the government of England. So day after day he was entertained in the mansions at which his drivers stopped, until the fourth day, when he reached the Patuxent River and was rowed across by negroes in a flat-bottomed boat, the only craft on the stream which had not been destroyed by the Federals. 262 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS One day more brought him to Leonard's Town on the Potomac, where he was welcomed by a secret committee of Southern sympathizers, and entrusted by mothers, sisters, wives and sweethearts with scores of letters for their male friends who had fled from Maryland to join Lee and Jackson. There was not a boat to be found on the river. In a hollowed-out tree-trunk he was paddled out upon the stream by a negro called Job, under cover of darkness. The plashing of the paddle was heard by a watchful patrol aboard a Federal scout steamer and a solid shot was fired in their direction. Job was stiff with fear. Vizetelly held a revolver to his head and compelled him to paddle like mad for the Maryland shore. The dug-out was secreted amid the tall rushes along the bank. For hours the Federal searchlights were flashed up and down the river and the shore and then an anchor was let go, and for two days the negro and the artist were compelled to crouch in their hollow log amid the reeds without food, scorched by the sun by day and tortured by mosquitoes at night. On the second day Vizetelly managed to let the dug-out drift down stream a little, still covered by the reeds, to a spot where he found some fine oysters embedded on the banks. The artist climbed out and obtained a meal, but, he used afterward to declare, "he could not fill up Job, who had a mouth that yawned like a grave- yard full of tombstones, but still with an unhmited capacity to bury." The following night they had the satisfaction of seeing the Federal patrol steam full speed down river and two hours of hard paddling brought them to the Virginia shore. Two young Marylanders guided him to the Rappahannock, eluding the scouting parties THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 263 of the Union armies. Richmond was reached just as the advance of the Federals was repulsed, in the fall of 1862. Now for nearly three years Vizetelly was in the South, and very popular he became with many of the leaders of the "cause." Of him Mrs. Burton Harrison speaks in her "Recollections," recalling how he sang and told stories and danced j>as seuls, "and was as plucky in the saddle as on the battlefield." With General "Jeb" Stuart he went on several daring cavalry raids. He was with Longstreet at Fredericks- burg, and upon one occasion at Chickamauga served as his aide, riding successfully with an important message from the general to the commander of a distant post after two preceding messengers had been picked off by the Federal sharpshooters. For this exploit he was made an honorary captain on the field of battle. In February, 1863, he went to Charleston, and wrote what is said to be the only account of the bombardment which was ever written from the inside. During all this time he was sending sketches and portraits to his journal, but numbers of these drawings and letters failed to reach London. They had to be sent out of the country aboard blockade runners and the Federal scouts captured a good many of these vessels. Thus the Englishman's drawings fell into Northern hands and it became a rather common thing for Vizetelly pictures to appear in Harper's Weekly, much to the disgust of the editors in London. However, the artist's work was regarded as contra- band of war. The account of the bombardment of Charleston is of remarkable interest. The correspondent tells how be looked out upon "the magnificent view of the 264 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS broad bay and islands of the harbor of Charleston" with the general in command of the district; how a good glass revealed the "iron-turreted ships of the enemy swaying lazily to and fro with the ground swell;" and how the people of the city had been anxiously awaiting the Federal assault which they knew to be imminent. Under the windows negroes were loading shot and shell for Fort Sumter. The citizen reserves, made up of gray-haired planters, clergymen, artisans and others, were ready for service. A long line of ambulances were waiting to receive the wounded. In several homes in which he called the artist found all the ladies assembled in their drawing rooms, dressed in deep mourning, and all picking lint. One colored "aunty" addressed Vizetelly thus: "Lor- a-mussy, boss! Is dem cussed bobolitionists gwine to shoot their big guns 'mongst us women folks .'^ They's better go right clean away." The correspondent watched the approach of the Northern ships through his glass while he could "almost hear the thumping of his heart against his ribs." Everybody in the city, ladies not excepted, hurried to the Battery whence there might be had a clear view of the fleet and of the forts. Soon more than a hundred eight-inch and ten-inch guns "were joined in a terrible chorus." With General Ripley, Vizetelly was rowed toward the scene of action. Their way lay right in the path of particles of shell and of solid shot that ricochetted over the waters, but before the fleet blocked the channel they were safe under the parapet of one of the batteries. Vizetelly saw the Ironsides and the Keokuk and other monitors driven back, and passed the night in Fort Sumter. Next morning the attack was not renewed. Five days after the armada THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 265 departed and the first chapter of the siege was over. To Mississippi, where he was with General Johnston, came the news of the renewal of the assault, and five days of incessant travel brought Vizetelly to the city in time to see the attack by land and sea on Fort Wagner. For fifteen hours he watched that formidable bombardment. He rowed down the harbor when the night assault was made. When the flat-bottomed transport reached Morris Island and the men waded ashore they could hear the Southern yell and the Northern hurrah. Reaching the Battery just after the repulse of the assailants, Vizetelly found "the worn-out garrison lying panting under the parapet, while on that parapet lay the dead and dying of the enemy who had reached thus far. From a low bomb- proof chamber, feebly lit by a battle lantern, came the groans of the Confederate wounded, broken here and there by the sharp cry of some poor fellow who was writhing under the surgeon's knife." The bombardment was renewed day after day. At a distance 6f nearly three miles three hundred-pound bolts were sent "crashing through the brickwork of the gray old sentinel that had so long kept watch and ward over Charleston." Day after day the flag would be shot away and always some brave fellow would replace it. Twice the Federals were fought back when they tried to gain an entrance to the harbor. " Now," says Vizetelly, " the Federal General was guilty of the barbarity which disgraced him as a soldier. Unable to capture the forts in his immediate front, he intimated that unless they were surrendered, he would turn the most powerful of his guns upon the city." In the middle of the night of August 21, Vizetelly 266 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS was listening to the cannonade, unable to sleep because of the heat, and reading Hugo's Waterloo chapters in "Les Miserables.'* There came a crash and a deafening explosion in the very street in which he was living and he bounded into the centre of the room in astonishment. The shelling had begun. There were both tragedy and comedy in the city that night. The hotel was full of speculators brought to Charleston by the sale of some blockade negroes, and these men were rushing about the corridors in frenzy. One portly individual was trotting about in a costume which consisted of the boot he wore and the other which he carried in his hand. He had rushed from his room, forgotten the number, and in distress was search- ing every corridor. The streets filled with men and women making their way to the upper parts of the city and safety. The volunteer fire brigades were busy, and the members of a negro company fought a fire with courage and copiously cursed the "boboli- tionists." Vizetelly watched the bombardment for several hours from the Battery promenade. And here his account abruptly breaks off. On several occasions the artist himself ran the blockade. Soon after the bombardment he was in England for a brief season. At the supper given in London for Manager Bateman of the Lyceum and his daughter, Kate, who already had achieved success in her famous character of Leah, Frank Vizetelly, who was an excellent raconteur and a good mimic of both voice and action, almost **made" the evening, with his fund of anecdotes of the American battle- fields and of life in the Southern States. Vizetelly had slipped away to London also when Garibaldi made his famous visit there in 1864, and he was the THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 267 constant companion of the Italian hero while the English populace was going mad over him. Vizetelly would foregather with his friends at the Cheshire Cheese and suddenly be off again without a good-bye for any one. He saw many of the important engage- ments of the closing years of the American Civil War and left the States for good early in 1865. Now there was a period of comparative ease until the outbreak of hostilities between Austria and Prussia in 1866, when the News at once sent the special to Vienna. Another interval of quiet followed the Seven Weeks War. Vizetelly dabbled in dramatic and newspaper ventures and was popular as a cartoonist. When news came that Don Carlos had raised his standard in the Basque Provinces, the artist, surely now to be rated a veteran, was off to Spain for the The Times. It was here that he became a close associate of O'Shea of the Standard^ the writer of the "Round- about Recollections, " in which there are many affection- ate allusions to Vizetelly. O'Shea describes how the artist "ruffled it among the followers of Don Carlos," as El Conde de Vizetelly, serenely wearing his romantic and sonorous title. The bodyguard of his Catholic Majesty was composed of French, Austrians, Italians, Germans, grandees of Spain, soldiers of fortune of every sort, and behind every second man there was a story. Vizetelly was at home among these men; they liked him and he liked the guerilla warfare. The insurrection over, the restless artist crossed the Pyrenees into France and lived for a year or two at Hendaye. With careless audacity, he organized a band of former followers of Don Carlos into a com- pany of smugglers. They were experienced moun- 268 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS taineers, reckless of consequences and very willing to embarrass the customs authorities of one country or both. It was dangerous business, however, for in the dead of night their contraband goods were brought across the frontier on their backs. With minute precautions they tramped the mountain trails; a single stone loosened from the track and dropping into the valley below would disclose their situation to the guards and the carbineros would be shooting at them. Quitting Hendaye, he made drawings of chateaux and vineyards in the wine districts of France. Next he visited Paris. After Paris came Tunis, and after Tunis, Egypt, where his nephew, Edward Henry Vizetelly, was amazed by ' his appearance in Alex- andria just in time for the bombardment. Frank made the twenty-ninth in the little company who endured the perils of the time in the fortified building of the Anglo-Egyptian bank. Says the younger corre- spondent: "Whom should I behold but my old uncle, the veteran of two hemispheres? Although somewhat battered by years of travel and adventure, he still stood erect, but looked stout and rubicund, the florid tone of his countenance standing out in lively contrast to the whiteness of his hair clipped close to his skull, and his thick, snow-like mustache." The night following the shelling of the city, when the fires were roaring all around them and the shouts of the looters and frequent fusillades of the street fighters were borne to their ears, where they kept guard in the bank building, the nephew caught sight of the figure of his uncle from time to time in sudden bursts of glare. He had "discarded his coat and in shirt and trousers with a handkerchief knotted THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 269 about his brow was stalking round with his gun at his hip." The final scene was just at hand. Vizetelly ar- ranged with the Graphic to go to the Soudan with Hicks Pasha. The expedition was badly planned, badly ofl&cered, badly manned and badly guided. Slatin Pacha in his "Fire and Sword in the Soudan," writing from his position with the Mahdi, says: "Ten thousand men in square formation, with six thousand camels in their midst, were to march through districts overgrown with vegetation and grass taller than a man's height. . . . They must be ready at any moment for the attack of an enemy far more numerous and as well armed as themselves, besides being infinitely better fighters. . . . Six thousand camels huddled together in the centre of the square presented a perfect forest of heads and necks; it was impossible for a bullet fired by one of the enemy from behind a tree to miss altogether this gigantic target." On November 3, 1883, they were attacked. The next day they continued the march, leaving a heap of dead behind them, but before they had advanced a mile they were assailed by a round hundred thou- sand wild fanatics concealed among the trees. The square was broken in a twinkling and the massacre began. Under a large tree the European oflScers and a few of the Turkish officers made a stand, but almost to a man they were cut down. Thousands of dead bodies were left piled in heaps upon the field of the slaughter, every body divested of every scrap of clothing. The body of Frank Vizetelly was never found. For a long time there was a persistent rumor that he alone escaped, as news came from Dongola that «70 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS there was an artist in the camp of the Mahdi. When the Gordon Relief Expedition was organized Lord Wolseley promised to try to rescue Vizetelly, but not a shred of authentic information has ever come out of the Soudan about the brave artist. To Slatin Pacha fell the melancholy duty of looking over the documents which came into the hands of the Mahdi. "Poor Vizetelly made his sketches," he writes. "O'Donovan wrote his diary, but who was to send them home to those who were so anxiously awaiting them?" The diary and that of Colonel Farquhar were read by Slatin Pacha, who is still living and is now the resident oflficer at Khartoum, and "terribly sad" they were. Both men had foreseen precisely what occurred, as no doubt had Vizetelly. In one place the officer had recorded: "I spoke to Mr. O'Donovan today, and asked him where we should be eight days hence. 'In Kingdom Come!' was his reply." Upon the memorial tablet in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, the name of O'Donovan comes first, with Frank Vizetelly's next, thus: FRANK VIZETELLY ARTIST, CASHGILL, NOVEMBER, 1883. Edward Henry Vizetelly, born in 1847, and known to numbers of newspaper readers as "Bertie Clere," was educated in France, and, true to the traditions of the family, promptly availed himself of the op- portunity for adventure when the war of 1870 began. As the special for the Daily News and the New York Times, he became the orderly officer on the staff of Garibaldi, who performed excellent service with his irregular forces in the Vosges. Jaunty enough, and THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 271 resolute, too, did the young Englishman in the uni- form of the Garibaldian Brigade appear, as his portrait indicates. Later it fell to him to record some of the events of the Commune in Marseilles. The with- drawal of French troops from Algiers provided the opening for a formidable insurrection and the young special next reported the severe fighting which ensued in northern Africa in 1871. Several years in London were enough to weary him of Fleet Street and the Strand. The war cloud was hovering over the Danubian region in 1876, and Edward Vizetelly journeyed east to enlist in the service of the Sultan. He became a Bashi-Bazouk, saw a good deal of adventure in Asia Minor, and through the campaign sent letters to the Standard, He landed at Constantinople at a critical time. There were Hungarians, Poles, Frenchmen, Swiss, Germans, Italians, Carlists, Communists, and other Revolu- tionists of various denominations, all like himself seeking occupation and excitement at Pera and all trying to enter the Ottoman army, but questions of religion and language seemed to be fatal obstacles. The best chance offered in Asia, where European com- petitors were fewer. A Circassian regiment was forming at Trebizond, and the young ' Englishman shaved his head and arrayed himself in a Circassian costume and joined it. Turk and Circassian alike seemed to regard the infidel highly, and, for that matter, so he bore himself well in arms, no questions were raised as to the race and little attention was given to the religion of a Bashi-Bazouk. These Turkish irregulars were recruited somewhat as the famous Foreign Legion is formed. Doubtless the recollection of General Sir Fenwick Williams's brilliant 272 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS defence of Kars more than twenty years before had something to do with the favor shown the English soldier of fortune. After some time among the mountains of Asia Minor, the whole of the Circassian force, more than eleven hundred men, dissatisfied with the treatment of some of their comrades, deserted. The English- man was a waif in the camp and the Commander-in- Chief intimated that he might stay with his orderly officers. Months of inactivity followed, during which he was intimate with Edmond O'Donovan, who, with several other specials, had joined the force. It became certain that Kars again was to be subjected to a Russian siege, and that those who would not be cooped up in the fortress must leave at once. With O'Donovan and Gaston Lemay, a French correspond- ent, Vizetelly rode for Erzeroum. He had his troubles and faced some dangers on that retreat. Storms so furious that his horse flatly refused to advance stopped him. Rains made the road a morass; the soles dropped off his boots and for miles he struggled forward barefooted. Befriended by Kurds, he at last reached his destination, where he instantly wrote and sent off a long letter to the Standard. After some days a telegram was put into his hand which read: " All your letters published. Draw on me for a hundred pounds. Mudford." The money was of immediate use, and the English Bashi-Bazouk rejoiced exceedingly at the prospect before him. Winter found him still at Erzeroum, with the wire embargoed by the Turks and the Standard telegraphing almost frantically for news. Occasional messengers eluded the vigilance of the Turks and got to the coast bearing letters which once a week might be shipped THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 273 out of Trebizond. On the night preceding the depar- ture of a messenger, Vizetelly and O'Donovan would take their places opposite each other at a large table, with a supply of tobacco, paper and pens, and write steadily through the hours until sunrise. After Christmas it was necessary to be off again to escape being shut up in the town. A few despatches were forwarded, under difficulty, in Turkish, to be sent on in English from Constantinople by the resident representative of the paper. After an absence of about nine months Vizetelly once more landed in the Sultan's capital. O'Donovan was away ere long for Batoum, whence he set out on his famous ride to Merv. Events on the Bosphorus were not now of great interest to the public, and the Standard had little use for the six or seven specials who were lounging at Pera. Opportunely enough, an insurrection broke out in Thessaly and Epirus, and Vizetelly promptly took passage for Athens. With the English occupation of Cyprus, Vizetelly left for that island as correspondent for the Glasgow Herald. Partly as a prank, and in part as a speculation, he founded the Cyprus Times, a weekly paper in English, whose pages were kept sprightly enough by his own facile pen and by a corps of gay contributors. But events in the valley of the Nile, where the Arabist movement was progressing, began to interest him, and in February, 1882, the Cyprus Times ceased to appear, and a steamship bore the editor to Egypt. The Alexandria representative of the Daily News, Mr. J. C. Chapman, saw the advantage of having a reliable man at Cairo and enlisted his services. He was also employed upon the Bombay Gazette and the Egyptian Gazette, 274 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS On June 11, 1882, a boy brought him a telegram from Chapman which read thus: " Crowds of Arabs armed with nabouts are parading the streets, massacring all the Europeans they come across." The next day there was panic all over Egypt. Europeans and other foreigners at once fled from Cairo. On the fifteenth, Vizetelly went to Alexandria, which he found a deserted city, save for the soldiers who had been crammed into it, with business at a standstill and the streets destitute of vehicles except the baggage drays clattering to the Port with their loads of luggage. Steamships and chartered sailing vessels carried thousands of fugitives to Malta, Mar- seilles, Naples, the Piraeus, and Cyprus. Ordered by the Khedive and even by the Sultan to cease all armaments, Arabi continued preparing in every way for hostilities, setting Europe and the Sultan at defiance. He was intoxicated with his own rapid rise to power. But it was evident that England intended to take vengeance for the murder of her six or more British-born subjects and for the brutalities inflicted upon her Consul and Judge. Warnings were sent to the commandant of Arabi's forts that no more guns must be mounted on the sea defences. The Arabists paid no heed. At dawn on July 10, the British Admiral forwarded an ultimatum to the commandant. The instant the word "bombardment" was passed about, the Europeans, who had refused to recognize the danger of their position, stampeded from the city. Of these loiterers the last did not get away until the afternoon before the shelling of the city began. Some had remained out of necessity to care for their duties. THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 275 Chapman departed on the morning of the 10th in a steani launch for one of the EngHsh ships. Vizetelly now put to his credit one of his two unique achievements; he decided to stay in the city through the bombardment. Of the events of those momentous days and nights he kept a half-hourly diary, which appeared in full in the Bombay Gazette of August 3, and, somewhat abridged, in the Daily News of July 18. George Goussio, the manager of the Anglo-Egyptian bank, had enlisted followers and stocked the strong bank building with provisions, intending "to see the thing through on land." With Goussio were eight stalwart men, armed to the teeth and picturesquely clad in their native Montenegrin dress, who had served as messengers for banks and commercial houses; five more of the "garrison" were Greeks of the desperado type. These thirteen men were quartered downstairs with the big safes for battlements. Upstairs were Goussio and his wife, two English business men, a French railway man, two Greek friends of Goussio's, an Italian cook, a Berberin servant, three European handmaidens, and Vizetelly, who was astonished by the arrival of his uncle, Frank, just in time for the excitement of the bombardment. Across the street in the house of an Italian banker four armed Greeks were stationed to defend their door in case of assault. The water supply was stored in several large baths. The upper part of the house could be isolated by the blowing up of the staircase. And upon the desks where the ledgers reposed in times of peace there now were deposited boxes and ordinary soda water bottles charged with dynamite to be flung out of the windows if a mob charged the premises. On July 11, at 7.15 in the morning, Goussio shook 276 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS his friend awake and Vizetelly hurriedly put on his clothes amidst the booming of big guns. Within an hour shells were passing over the bank. In the diary which Vizetelly kept of the bombardment, and which is an historical document of value, one may read: "8.50 A.M., Shells bursting near us; Arabs fleeing in cabs and on foot, the latter howling in terror. 8.55 A.M., Just been up on terrace, i.e., the flat roof of the house. Can see nothing, but can hear large projectiles rushing through the air. 9.50 a.m.. Boys in the street tearing the telephone wires down from the Italian banker's opposite, amidst shouts and yells. 10.7 A.M., Two cabs full of dead artillerymen just gone by, the bodies fastened in by cords. 1 p.m.. Crowd of children with green flag passed down the street towards the Port calling upon Allah and beating empty petro- leum tins. 6.10 P.M., Continued and ever-increasing demonstrations of joy, clapping of hands and so forth. First report: Two English ships sunk. Second report: Turkish troops arrived. 7.30 p.m.. Several of us went out on the balcony. Noticed that most of the people passing scowled very savagely at us. Came in and shut shutters." At nine the city was quiet and all hands turned in to get some rest. The night passed without incident, but the position of the little company was critical; they were in fear of an incursion of Bedouin and the sacking of the town. The next morning the exodus of the natives continued with feverish haste. At 12.40 that day Vizetelly made this entry in his diary: "We are keeping up courage splendidly but the moment is an anxious one and everyone is dreading that ominous knock on the door which is sure to be followed by a demand for admission. We cannot disguise from THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 277 ourselves the fact that a great many, a very great many, soldiers and civilians have met their death in the bombardment, and that the people remaining here are naturally very incensed against Europeans." A little after one there was a knock on the door. A letter had come from the hospital, and amid almost a riot between the soldiers and the populace it was drawn up to the upper windows by a string. The looting of the city had already begun. Among the records of the day are these: "2.45 P.M., Arabs and soldiers going by laden with loot. Can hear the mob breaking into the houses hard by. 3.08 P.M., The soldiers have just smashed in the shutters of a large provision warehouse opposite. 3.30 p.m., Someone has been trying to introduce a crowbar between the two flaps of our door. 5.'25 p.m., Goussio's house, higher up the street, is ablaze. 6.15 p.m.. Our street above the bank is alight on both sides now, and the flames are descending this way. 10 p.m.. We are now in the midst of burning houses." Through the night they continued to open their doors to refugees who sought safety, among them Ranson, correspondent of the Paris Clarion, and Landry, the representative of the Havas Agency. By 10.20, there were sixty-seven persons in the bank. To save themselves it was obviously necessary to keep a large circle round their premises free from the flames. To do this, all through the night they made sallies from the bank to drive off the bands of incendiaries, who were provided with bundles of cotton steeped in petroleum with which they fired the shops they sacked. Once that awful night Vizetelly was in serious peril. He was out with some of the Montenegrins. 278 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS The enemy proved formidable and the Montenegrins ran for the bank, and got wedged in the one flap of the double door which was open, leaving the English- man on the outside with the looters near, expecting any instant that his "loins would be riddled with lead." The Montenegrins did not squeeze through in time, and Vizetelly thus describes his escape: " I remembered there was a blind alley on the right-hand side of our premises. I slipped away into it. It was pitch dark. A mansion on the right next to ours had been broken into and wrecked. The aperture of a ground-floor window stripped of its Venetian shutters and framework was gaping before me. With infinite precaution I slipped over the sill, but was no sooner inside the room than it seemed to me I heard some heavy breathing, as if another human being were there in sound slumber. I could see nothing. Just at that moment there came a vivid flash, promptly followed by a murderous explosion of firearms. Then all was still again, save for the roar of the flames in the distance and the heavy respiration close at hand. Without troubling to penetrate that mystery I cautiously got out of the window again into the blind alley. A double iron gate stood before me, spiked at the top, and some fifteen feet high. It led to a small yard at the back of the bank premises. I had never done much climbing, but the agility with which I scaled that iron gate would have excited the admiration of a steeple- jack. Once in the yard I soon was able to attract the attention of the inmates of the bank, and by the aid of a ladder first placed against an outhouse, then hauled up and extended bridge- way to a window, I reached home again. Inquiry elicited that the volley I had heard had come from the first floor of our premises. The miscreants, debouching from the court whilst the Montenegrins were still blocked in the doorway, had been received by a discharge from the upper windows which had scattered them." A cab crammed with loot was seized and so placed at the edge of the pavement as to make a barricade THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 279 for their door. At midnight the danger of being hemmed in by the conflagration was threatening, and they blew up a neighboring mansion with dynamite to make a gap in the way of the fires. But the Montenegrins, who did not like flames, were becoming unmanageable; also they were infected with the lust for loot. After a long consultation it was decided that they must vacate the city and make for the ships. The Berberin servant sent forth to reconnoitre the water- front brought the news that the city was abandoned by the military and that the port could be reached. At a second council it was voted to march forth at dawn. On a "lovely July morning" the company of refugees marched through pillaged Alexandria. Huge fires raged on each side of them and the heat was furnace-like. The leaves of the trees were singed and the trunks seamed. The only sounds were the roar of flames and the crackling of wood. They kept in a compact body, six deep and rectangular. Two scores of women and children, some of them babies in arms, were placed in the centre with well-armed men about them. A maid servant caused a laugh even in that time of extremity when she appeared with a parrot and a canary in separate cages. Goussio and his wife marched side by side in the van. The Berberin strolled ahead as a scout. They strode as rapidly as possible without out-stepping the women, and reached the sea safely. On the way Vizetelly noted a Maltese lying stripped and quite dead with an Arab brute, armed with a nabout, gloating over him. Twice he brought his bludgeon down upon the skull of the already dead man. Unable to endure the sight, the Englishman slipped from the column and fired two 280 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS bullets into the Arab as he was raising his club for another blow. "I have never experienced any qualms of conscience," wrote the correspondent. They found boats with sails and oars, rowed to the outer harbor, and were taken on board the Helicon, a despatch boat which had been sent to look for refugees and to reconnoitre. Says Vizetelly: "We must have had the cut of a perfect band of des- peradoes, as one by one we ascended the companion ladder: Montenegrins in their strange dress, guns in their fists and a small armoury of big silver-mounted knives and pistols protruding from their belts; Greeks in shabby European attire, clutching the barrels of their fowling-pieces, or dis- playing bulky revolver-cases strapped about their waists. Even the well-to-do amongst us presented a dirty, unkempt appearance, and I noticed the trim oflBcers of the navy scan us askance as we passed before them. No one had washed or been between the sheets for three nights." The refugees were distributed among various vessels. Vizetelly was taken on the P. and O. steamer Tanjore, to which Chapman hurried in a steam launch from the Admiral's ship. To his mute look of anxious inquiry the correspondent said, "It's all right," and handed him his notebook containing the diary. Next morning Chapman brought back the book with orders that Vizetelly should leave that day for Port Said to watch events. He was in a sorry plight, and glad enough to accept the loan of a shirt from the younger Frank Scudamore, although the latter was much the smaller man. The diary was to have been wired to London in the form in which it was printed in the Bombay paper, but the pressure on the cable was enormous and long press messages could not be sent promptly, so that the Daily News published only a portion of the record. THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 281 When the diarist reached Port Said he received a long telegram from Sir John Robinson strenuously urging him to wire the most complete details of his Alexandrian experiences. But it was one of those unique opportunities that force of circumstances compel the most able specials sometimes to miss, for the message reached Vizetelly ten days late, and then by post as the overland wires were in the hands of the Arabists. The full story was not printed until Vizetelly published his most entertaining volume, "From Cyprus to Zanzibar." On July 14, a British Naval Brigade entered Alex- andria, as a police force, to end the incendiarism and pillaging, and that proved to be the commencement of the British occupation of Egypt. Before long Vizetelly was in his old quarters in Cairo. Again he joined the Egyptian Gazette, with which he remained some years, going then to a small sheet called the Times of Egypt. He mixed freely in all the life of Cairo and Alexandria, and one afternoon was com- manded to appear at the palace, where the Khedive decorated him with the Order of the Medjidieh. Meeting James Gordon Bennett, he began another remarkable chapter in his eventful career. Bennett was cruising in his yacht, the Namouna, and wired Vizetelly to meet him at Alexandria, when he pro- ceeded abruptly to business, as thus recounted by the Englishman: "*I want you for Zanzibar. It's an awful place, you know. You get the fever there, and die in a week. So if you don't like taking the job on, I'll pay your expenses back to Paris, and give you something for yourself, and there'll be an end to the matter.' 282 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS "'I'll go/ I anwered; *I'll go to Timbuctoo if you like/ "*0h very well then, that settles the matter. You'd better come and dine on board tonight, at seven/ "And off he went/' Vizetelly was on board for some time. Bennett dubbed him "The Pirate." In the harbor of Beyrout he made the famous swim around the yacht in waters infested with sharks, and, although he saw none that night, the yarn was told in Paris for years after, how both Bennett and he had swam around the Namouna amidst a shoal of man-eaters. While on board Bennett gave him minute instruc- tions. He was to go to Zanzibar and devote his time and ingenuity to finding the whereabouts of Henry M. Stanley, who then had been away from touch with the world for eighteen months on his expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha. The instant he got news of Stanley, Vizetelly was to hurry into the interior to meet the explorer, taking him comforts and a letter of introduction from the man who had sent him to find Livingstone, and securing from him a letter for the New York Herald. And above all else, he was to beat a New York World man named Thomas Stevens, who was looking out for Stanley for a like purpose. For six months Vizetelly was at Zanzibar with time hanging heavily on his hands. There was but one mail a month, and the newspaper man found him- self isolated from the world. There were rumors in plenty about Stanley; of reliable information there was none. It was known that Stanley had met Tippoo- Tib, and the rest was conjecture. A telegram came from Bennett ordering his rep- resentative to procure an American flag for presen- THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 283 tation to Stanley when he should be found. But no such flag was to be had in Zanzibar, and the English special borrowed one from a United States warship which happened to be in port, and had a Genoese outfitter make him a half -size copy of the huge banner. The flag was barely ready when definite news of the explorer arrived at last. Alas! It was necessary to travel through German territory to meet Stanley and permission was refused. If granted to one cor- respondent the privilege must also be given Stevens, and the Commissioner did not want two American caravans traveling through the German possessions, where an insurrection had been put down with difficulty, and displaying a new flag which might disturb the negro mind. Vizetelly cabled the facts to Bennett in Paris. The publisher replied that the German Ambassador in the French capital was his friend, and the result, arranged by mail between Paris and Berlin, was that the secretary to the German Consulate at Zanzibar told Vizetelly privately that a cable had come from Prince Bismarck ordering that the special be allowed to pass through German territory to meet the explorer if his presence would not interfere with military operations. And a few hours later came a cable from Bennett directing him to keep his flag dis- creetly in his pocket until the correct moment came for its unfurling. He organized his caravan and plunged into the interior, and lo! his rival appeared one day in his tent. The World man had been refused permission to traverse German territory, but he watched Vizet- elly's start and pluckily enough followed his rival. He had no trading goods and was lucky to receive the hospitality of Vizetelly, who made the American 284 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS a guest at his mess. Nevertheless Stevens meant to beat the man upon whom he was dependent for the means of access to Stanley. He let Vizetelly feed him and his men, but no acknowledgment of the cour- tesy would he make in his paper. The Englishman felt justified therefore in arranging with the German authorities to have any messages Stevens might send back stopped at the coast. Bennett meantime had telegraphed Vizetelly a promise of £2000 for himself if he succeeded in his enterprise. Stanley was duly met. Vizetelly marched in order into the camp of the explorer. Mounted upon an ass from Muscat and side by side with a German lieutenant riding an African ox, he rode forward with dignity to the meeting, while Stevens left the column of his protector and ran ahead to be "first." The flag was duly presented and soon was flying over the explorer's tent. That evening the correspondent sent to the Herald the first message which reached the out- side world with definite tidings of Emin's rescuer. Next morning the traveler handed the special a long letter for the Herald, which Vizetelly at once sent off by special runner. Thus it reached Bagamoyo, thence it went by German steam launch across to Zanzibar, and from there it was cabled textually to London. A note in the New York paper of Decem- ber 5, 1889, stated that the 1400 words cost $3500 when they finally arrived in New York. Stevens was beaten. On returning to Zanzibar Vizetelly found this telegram awaiting him: "My congratulations. In accordance with my promise, £2000 to your account with Rothschild today. — Bennett." THE FIVE VIZETELLYS 285 With this exploit to his credit Vizetelly returned to Europe and lived several years in Paris and in London. While engaged upon some articles for T. P.'s Weekly, and collecting information for them about London's submerged tenth, he died in 1903. His long life in the tropics had somewhat enfeebled his constitution. One fact may be added to this record of a most remarkable family group. Another son of Henry Richard Vizetelly, Frank Horace Vizetelly, the lexicog- rapher and writer of New York City, not having suc- ceeded in his effort to go to South Africa as a war correspondent, did achieve the distinction of visiting the Boer prisoners of war at the detention camps in Bermuda. He was the only civilian whom the British authorities permitted to inspect the camps and narrated his observations in the Illustrated London News, the New York Independent, and various dailies. CHAPTER IX EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT "... a man Lord Methuen said he was proud to have with his army." — Julian Ralph. " I met him at Key West during the Spanish War, and found him to be a solid, well-ballasted man, who knew what he was about, and not at all one to have gone treasure-seeking without excellent reasons. And it was easy to perceive that he must have been the right kind of a man to lead a treasure-hunting expedition." — Ralph D. Paine. In the midst of the war between Russia and Japan, when the foreign specials were writhing under the restrictions of the censorship and were desperately trying to beg, or buy, or even to fight their way to the front, where real fighting was going on which they were not permitted to see with their own eyes, the authorities from time to time prepared entertainments for their diversion, as a means of conciliating these troublesome visitors. One of these impromptu en- tertainments took the form of a juggling party. As it was about to end, Edward F. Knight, with the quiet and rather quaint manner which often distinguished him, declared that he also could juggle, and pro- ceeded to make his claim good by adding a feature to the original programme. "Here is a despatch as it is sent out by a corres- pondent," he said, and for a moment there was seen a strip of paper about eighteen inches long. "Here again is the same despatch after it has gone through the hands of the censor," and suddenly the paper shrank to a bare half -inch. "But here is the despatch as it appears in print," EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 287 and lo! while the speaker looked about triumphantly, there appeared, as if out of the air, three columns from a newspaper and all filled with special cablegrams from the war. And then the amateur performer added the sly remark: "Of course, it was an American paper!" Yet this man had come to the war in the East with a terrible handicap. He had but one arm, having been wounded so severely at Belmont in the Boer war that the right arm had to be amputated. Few men are more adventurous in an unassuming way than Edward F. Knight has been. His military experiences began in 1870, when he went out with a French force in the war with Prussia. Years later, while as a special he was making the campaign in Madagascar, he referred almost tenderly to his old comrades of the Foreign Legion, and to the "French Tommy Atkins, the same pleasant, cheery, honest fellow I had known of old." In nearly every land over which flies the British flag Ejiight upon one mission or another has traveled. In 1878 he was plodding on foot about Albania and Montenegro with three artist companions, making a summer tour in an almost unknown country. Nearly twenty years later he was back among the Balkans in the war between Turkey and Greece, and in 1908 he spent several months in Salonica and Constantinople studying the revolution of the Young Turks. For the Morning Post he made the Ophir tour of the world wfth th«e Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York. In the spring of 1891, he left for the desolate mountain region of Kashmir, where he took part in the expedition against the Hunza- Nagars, sending to The Times and some London 288 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS weeklies descriptive letters upon the campaign of a handful of men against a foe of far greater numbers in an almost inaccessible position. He has served as a correspondent also in Matabeleland, the Soudan and Cuba. As a small boat sailor he has few superiors, as his delightful yarns upon his cruising experiences in the Falcon and the Alerte indicate. Moreover he has been the leader of a treasure hunting expedition, and few such quests have been better fitted out or captained with more intelligence and skill. On a day in January in 1895 Knight was sojourning in Cornwall when a telegram was delivered to him from the editor of The Times. France was determined upon the conquest of Madagascar, and the special for the great London paper was to proceed withotit delay to Antananarivo, the capital of the island, a thousand miles long, off the eastern coast of South Africa. The uncertainty, the excitement and the romance of the life of the special for a powerful news- paper, who has the whole world as his field of oper- ations, are well illustrated by the experiences of this correspondent during the period .of almost a year which he spent in that comparatively unknown region. First of all he had great difficulty in reaching the scene of the campaign, and, in the sequel, while he faced dangers in plenty, he saw scarcely any of the little fighting that actually took place. It had been intended that he should travel with the French invaders, but even Paris correspondents were made unwel- come, and he was refused the necessary permission. Thereupon it was decided that he should hurry to Antananarivo, the capital city, and join there the English officer, Colonel Shervington, who was acting EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 289 as the military adviser of the Hovas. In England it was thought that the French under General Duchesne would have a hard time reaching the capital through a diflScult country in the face of a brave and patriotic people. The French were making charges that the British steamship traders were not obeying the neu- trality laws, whereupon the steamship companies announced they would book no passengers for the ordi- nary ports of Madagascar. But Knight was aboard a vessel whose captain was an adventurous fellow, and, with the Rev. J. Pearse of the London Missionary Society, who had lived thirty years in the country, he was landed at a little Hova settlement at the southern end of the island. He was hundreds of miles from the capital and to reach it he would have to travel for many days through a wilderness large portions of which were unexplored and which no Europeans had previously penetrated. Carriers were the first requisite. There were few settlements and they were far apart; supplies would be hard to get; quite likely the people would be found ill disposed at times and even hostile; and there were the chances of fever, starvation, even of murder to be faced. The correspondent was burning with impatience to be off lest he miss the opening of the campaign at Majunga, nine hundred miles away, where the French would begin their march. Luck came to his aid, and the special and the English mis- sionary started with twenty-two trained palanquin bearers. "These men have marvellous agility and endurance," wrote Knight. "It is usual to take eight men; while four carry the palanquin the other four trot on in front ready to take their places. They relieve each other at frequent intervals, and there 290 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS is no check in the pace when this is done, the men one by one slipping nimbly aside while their fellows running alongside in their turn place their shoulders under the long poles. In this way they can easily carry a man thirty miles a day and more if conditions are favorable." At times they traveled at the very edge of the breakers on the surf-hardened sand. Often they plunged by narrow foot-paths into the forest where the dense vegetation shut out the breeze and the light. For miles they made their way across malarious swamps. Fifteen deep rivers whose waters were full of crocodiles had to be passed in dug-outs. At one stream no dug- out was to be found and three men braved the croc- odiles, swimming to the opposite bank and returning with a boat. One beautiful lake they stumbled upon, unmarked upon any map, which probably no white man had ever seen before. This part of the journey required eight days. Their way now lay through a perilous district of robber villages and blackmailing kings. The leader of the party was successful in defying the attempts of the natives to levy exorbitant tolls. Halted upon the bank of a deep river a haK-mile wide the travelers were told there would be no ferry unless they paid a heavy sum. If they submitted the tale would go on ahead of them and a score of kings would make like demands. Argument was useless; Knight drew his revolver, and one by one inserted six cartridges while the king looked on and the missionary translated the bearers' exaggerated account of the deadliness of the weapon. When the special ordered his men to seize the canoe and threatened to shoot the king if he interfered, that worthy sulkily yielded. By EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 291 relays the men were ferried across, and the king was made to go on the last trip, as payment was refused until all were safe. At one ford the water was above the shoulders of the men and for some paces above the heads of most of them, but they stretched their arms high and carried baggage and travelers across without wetting them, shouting in chorus, whenever their mouths were above water, to scare away the crocodiles. The bearers came down with fever unfortunately and their places had to be filled with such men as could be hired, an unruly set as they turned out to be, Mr. Pearse declaring that in all his missionary travels he had never had to deal with such a lot of ruflSans. They left the coast and struck across the great forest belt for the central highlands, fighting the indifference of the bearers all the way, and once quelling what might have been a serious mutiny. "Of all the journeys I have ever made," said Knight, "I think this one was the most disagreeable, not on account of its natural diflSculties, but because of the altogether unnecessary delays owing to the bad dis- position of the men." For five days the route lay through an unexplored region which apparently no European had before visited. Here the bearers were at the mercy of their employers and became more amenable, making marches of extraordinary length, with Pearse and Knight tramping it much of the time. On the longest day's march they started at dawn and clambered up and down mountain steeps hour after hour amid splendid scenery and beautiful waterfalls, by dint of hard scrambling reaching the head of the pass at sunset, where they found a highland village. There was no 292 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS welcome for them. They were suspected of being French, and the villagers howled outside their tents for hours. "At any moment I expected to see an assegai come flying through the thin bamboo wall," wrote the correspondent. In the great forest they plodded on for miles without finding any openings, seeing the sun's light only when they went up the avenues formed by the beds of mountain torrents. The missionary was troubled by fever and decided to stop at a friendly village. Knight pushed on for the capital, which was still almost three hundred miles away. He secured a fresh lot of willing and cheerful carriers and got ahead at the rate of thirty-three miles a day, although he was halted for two days by an attack of malarial fever which threatened at one time to become serious. At last, on the thirty-second day from the start, a march which began before daybreak and ended after dark brought the indefatigable special to the rugged ridge on the side and summit of which Antananarivo is built. Knight found it to be a very irregular city of more than a hundred thousand people. A heavy disappointment awaited him; Colonel Shervington had resigned. A persistent story had charged the English oflficer with selling the capital to the French. He had advised the government to fortify certain strong places on the route which the invaders would take; how could he have foretold the plans of the French unless he was in their counsels? Against such reasoning, and with an influential set of the Hovas intriguing against him, Colonel Shervington had no chance. There was little likelihood of getting permission to go out with the Hova forces. Knight was informed EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 293 by the British vice-consul. The feeling in the capital was strong against Europeans of all nationalities. Above all other white men newspaper reporters were under suspicion. No Hova could understand the nature of Knight's business and most of them believed him to be a French spy. Burleigh was also in the city — how he got there has been related elsewhere — and the two were closely watched; their doings and their sayings were reported; if they undertook a stroll into the country spies were at their heels. Access to information was denied by the government. Had Knight tried to reach the front, he would have been seized and imprisoned. The Hovas were well ac- quainted with the art of boycotting. Strenuous efforts were made to suppress all news from the war; a severe censorship was actually instituted and all letters were read with care by the clerks of the Foreign Office. In the letter of a married woman to a sister in England the Hovas fancied they found an important cipher. At the bottom of the sheet there appeared some strange characters and a row of crosses. In due time the Foreign Office learned that these symbols were kisses for a certain British baby. Then, too, the French at the port of Tamatave were stopping most letters and all newspapers from home, so that Knight was pretty completely isolated from the world. Nevertheless he did manage to send news to his paper. He was there as a correspondent in a situation almost unparalleled in the history of war reporting, and he did not propose to be beaten. Here is his own account of the way in which he smuggled tele- grams and letters out of the island: "I found natives willing for a small consideration to risk their lives by carrying letters from me to the nearest 294 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS seaport; there they delivered the letters to my agent, who in turn handed them over to someone on the first Castle steamer that called, to be posted in Natal or Mauritius. I had to use every precaution in despatching my carriers; it would have meant their destruction had the object of their visit to the coast been suspected. I never employed the same man twice; each was paid his wages on delivering my letter to my agent, and not one failed in getting through despite the various dangers they had to encounter; for, in order to leave the city, they had to obtain passports from the government under some pretext or other; all the roads were guarded by soldiers on the lookout for deserters from the army and smugglers of gold-dust or letters; and every traveler was carefully searched at Moramanga, the second stage from the capital — the most formidable peril of all. In order to circumvent these searchers I used, as a rule, to take a copy of my letter in flimsy, roll the copy up into as small a space as possible, and jam it into the bottom of the carrier's snuff-box, a bit of bamboo about six inches long; a false bottom would then be driven into place on top of the letter, and the bamboo, filled with snuff, would then present an innocent appearance that disarmed all suspicion. On one occasion, having no trustworthy messenger, I had to write the words of the highly-compromising telegram in invisible ink on the back of a private letter, to be developed by a friend on the coast." But somehow or other newspaper clippings found their way back to the remote capital of Madagascar and the Hovas learned that the correspondent was eluding their watchers and sending news out of the island. His sources of information and his method of beating their vigilance were a mystery and a wonder to them. For all the six months that he remained in Antananarivo he was hampered, but not defeated, by the cunning ingenuity of the natives, who hated him cordially, but feared openly to molest him. He was relying to a considerable extent upon the native EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 295 awe of the European. But as he continued to send information out of the island about the corruption of the government and the discreditable intrigues of the leaders of the people, and especially when the approach of the column of the invaders had excited a really dangerous feeling against the foreigners in the capital, and when his most compromising letters had returned to the Hova government to accuse him, he found his position becoming very difficult, and he breathed much more freely when the French were in sight from the city. Neither himself nor Burleigh had been entirely without communication with that advancing force of French soldiers, for they had found a courageous native of the carrier class who ventured again and again into the vicinity of the invading column on the scout for news. His ostensible profession was that of a peddler of salt, snuff, soap and sugar in the camps of the Hovas; his stock in trade was supplied by the correspondents. Furnished with a passport in full and proper form he would make his way to the lines of the defense, go about from troop to troop for several days, finally visiting the outposts and getting at least a glimpse of the French. By a similar plan Knight kept himself posted upon the news of the palace and the cabinet meetings. In the city there were about forty British subjects, missionaries, traders, miners, a wanderer or two, and the newspaper men. It became unsafe for an Englishman to visit the markets. A meeting to go over the situation was held in the vice-consulate, when the representative of the British government advised all Europeans to leave for the coast. The missionaries were all for staying in the city and in 296 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the end all did remain. The vice-consulate, a sub- stantial brick house, was chosen for a rallying place in case the Hova mob actually broke loose and attacked the foreigners. So circumspect was it necessary for Knight to be that when a great camp of 10,000 men was established on the plain below the city he barely caught a glimpse of the review from a distance through a telescope. There was now but one thing for him to do. He could not get to the front; he must simply wait for the front to come to him. Excitement mounted high as the French neared the city. He saw hundreds of barrels of powder being carried up to the palace and heard the rumor that the queen intended to blow up the building as the French entered her capital. And then, quite suddenly, he heard the booming of distant cannon, and thus learned that at last the invaders were in touch with the city. "I was exceed- ingly fortunate," he wrote, "to find a man this day willing to travel for me to port. So I entrusted him with a letter and telegram to The Times, I knew that would be my last opportunity before the arrival of the French." At this juncture the Hovas did make something of a stand. For four days there was mild fighting outside the city, but as soon as the natives were exposed to the fire of the French guns they ran away. Through this period the Europeans kept out of the chief streets and stood ready to barricade their houses at a minute's notice. At the end the Hfe of the queen was in danger and Knight had his part in framing a plan to rescue her. He says: "I was myself in the plot to save her from any attempt to kill her — I had arranged to assist her to fly. But the watch was too close, and EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 297 she had to stay in her palace and be bombarded." Every hour the sound of musketry volleys and artillery fire became louder, but in the capital it was impossible to learn what was really taking place — a sore predicament indeed for a war reporter. Then on September 29, 1895, at noon. Knight had his first ghmpse of the invaders, "a long dark line of infantry and baggage mules streaming along a ridge on the skyline three miles away." Never was a town bom- barded after a more humane fashion. After about four hours a Hova on horseback with a few attendants was seen ascending the hill in front of the English watchers, bearing a white flag. The queen had sur- rendered. The next glimpse of The Times special discloses him on camel back in the Nubian desert, "as utterly desolate a place as any region in the world." He had started in the midst of a sandstorm, when objects a hundred yai*ds away could not be seen, and in a stifling atmosphere with the thermometer at one hundred and seventeen degrees in the shade. He had marched all night, halted at dawn for an hour, then fared on again along a road which could not be missed because of the bleached bones of the camels, to the number of many thousands, with which the route was strewn. There was not an insect to be seen, and not a vulture floated overhead. After making one hundred and twenty miles in sixty-five hours there was sighted a sandy basin surrounded by rugged hills of black rock, upon whose tops were perched three forts, with camels, sheep and goats below them. These were the Wells of Murat, the most southerly post held by the Egyptians and the nearest point to Khartoum which had been visited by EngHshmen in many years. 298 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS It was but four months since the correspondent had reached London after his year in Madagascar. He had left on his ten days' journey for Assuan, seven hundred and thirty miles up the Nile, within a few hours of the information reaching the newspaper office that an expedition to Dongola had been deter- mined upon by the government. From Assuan to Korosko the march was made up the river bank with the daily temperature one hundred and twelve degrees in the shade. At Korosko the Sirdar gave permission for Knight to make the camel ride to Murat Wells and thence across the desert to Wady HaKa. The wells were but "brackish little pools," but they were on the frontier, haK-way between the Egyptian and Dervish posts, and therefore of great strategic importance. At the centre also of a great arc made by the Nile, with many tracks radiating from them, these wells were fought over many times. The correspondent carried letters to the sheik in command of the Arab irregulars sta- tioned there. From the wells the start for Wady Haifa was made on the afternoon of the eighth of May, 1896. With Knight was another correspondent and five irregu- lars, " each clad in a picturesque white robe, girt with a cartridge belt, and with a Martini-Henry rifle slung on the saddle of the wiry Httle camel which he rode." From seven to eleven the party halted, then they rode until six in the morning, when they rested again for five hours. Resuming the march they rode all day through an enchanted land, a succession of mirages, "wherein they could not be certain that anything was real save the sand immediately beneath them. On the horizon extended ranges of pleasant hills from which rivers flowed in broad belts of rippling blue. EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 299 They saw lakes of breaking waves, on whose shores were palms and long grasses, and a wild coast with deep rock-enclosed fiords and far-jutting promontories." Moreover they were riding through the desert on the hottest day Knight had ever known. It was one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade, " if there had been any shade," said the special, and even the Bedouin felt the oppression. The sun glared, the sand scorched, and the air was destitute of all movement. They made a long halt at sunset, and then sent ahead the slower baggage camels with three of the guides, while the two cor- respondents and the two remaining guides started at two in the morning to overtake the advance party. But they had made a mistake in separating themselves from their baggage in that desert; they trotted until dawn without overtaking the others. When day came they could find no tracks of the camels of their friends, but they went on, constantly scanning the horizon which already was beginning to quiver with the mirage. With grave anxiety they reasoned over the situ- ation. The others were surely not in front, so they themselves must be behind or lost. An isolated pyramid of rock appeared to the north, about two hundred feet high, with an almost perpendicular cliff to the west which would afford shelter from the sun until midday. They would make this a rendezvous while they looked for their missing companions. When they started for it the rock seemed but a few hundred yards distant. After a ride of a half-hour it seemed to dwindle in size and to recede until it was a good five miles away. For a time again it loomed large and near. "But," says Knight, "we put no faith in its appearance and would not even assume 300 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS that it had any real existence at all — for the desert was now full of ghosts — until we came at last into absolute contact with its black crags, and were resting under its friendly shade." A human skull lay on the sand, and crouching against the rock was the skeleton of a man who clearly had died of the agony of thirst. Long and carefully they searched for their comrades. A keen-sighted guide at last discerned some black objects which "seemed to be tossing on the waves of a distant lake." The guide declared them to be men on camels, and they proved to be the missing half of the party, who had lost their way and were seriously alarmed. And now eleven hours of hard riding brought them to Wady Haifa, making one hundred and twenty-eight miles from Murat Wells in sixty-four hours, and with baggage animals at that. That summer on the Nubian desert was the most trying season that had been endured within the memory of man. The ride to the wells was but one of several adventures which make the outstanding incidents in the story of Knight's life in that campaign. The date and nature of the impending operations were guarded with utmost secrecy. The spies of the Khalifa were known to be in the camp of the Sirdar disguised as camel drivers and servants. The corre- spondents were taken on a crowded train to Akasheh and there advised to be ready to start with the troops at a minute's notice. On June 6, they were told that the field force would march that night for Ferkeh and that the dervish position was to be attacked at dawn. It was the intention of the Sirdar to surprise the enemy, capture the leaders, and cripple the defence of Dongola. The march that night was as remarkable as the EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 301 march in the north years before, when the naval lieutenant had guided the troops by the stars, but this was a very dark night, and the desert column was guided over the trackless sands by a cavalry captain. It was a march of sixteen miles. One column went by the river, but the Sirdar was with the desert force. So silent was the advance that a straggler twenty paces away would surely be lost. There was no moon and only occasionally were there glimpses of the river; no bugles were blown and no smoking was permitted. After marching twelve miles the troops went into bivouac. Knight dismounted about midnight and lay on the sand with his horse standing at his side. After two in the morning the march was resumed; at half past four the first gleam of dawn appeared, and the troops were deployed into fighting formation; and at five the force was seen by a party of camel men and the first shot was fired. At seven the battle was over, a short but terribly sharp action. Knight watched the dervishes "stand undismayed in the open, and fight with dogged deter- mination in the face of the deadly volley fire." Each man wounded was a dangerous and treacherous foe until he breathed his last. The special rode close to one wounded dervish and looked down upon his upturned face, not a muscle of which quivered. He had been badly hit, and the correspondent had no idea there was life in him, but scarcely had he ridden three yards beyond, when there was the report of a rifle just behind him, and a bullet whistled past his head. In the battle the Khalifa lost practically all his commanders on that side of Dongola. To their valor Knight paid this tribute: "I doubt whether any other men in the world would have stood, as 302 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS these men stood, for nearly two hours against such fearful odds." With the advancing forces of the Sirdar had come the telegraph wire. A great part of the way it was simply stretched on the sand without insulation, the sand "in that dry country being an absolute non- conductor of electricity." There had never been an attempt before with a Morse instrument to send a story over such a length of wire laid on the bare ground. As the army had but a single strand of wire, its use was limited to a certain number of words per day. No correspondent was permitted to send more than two hundred words in a single despatch. After his colleagues had sent their respective quotas he might send another two hundred, and so on in alternation. Thus the news of the victory was sent piecemeal to London. In the Spanish- American war Ralph D. Paine watched Knight land on the Cuban coast near Havana for the purpose of interviewing the Captain-General. In his "adventurous but unassuming way," equipped with a note-book, a revolver, a water-bottle and a pack- age of sandwiches, the correspondent, again repre- senting The Times, stepped into a flat-bottomed skiff from a newspaper despatch boat, and placidly said good-bye, ignoring entirely the probability that he would be taken for an Americano by the first Spanish patrol he met and shot without parley. Again in the war between Greece and Turkey, Knight proved his quality. An artillery duel was in progress; the Greek gunners were doing well, but their nervousness was marked; whereupon Knight and another cor- respondent felt themselves not to be justified in taking shelter in the fort, but considered it to be their duty EDWARD FREDERICK KNIGHT 303 to write the long telegrams they were sending while making their observations in the open and under fire. The example was appreciated; the officers warmly thanked the newspaper men, and when there was a lull in the firing a great number of Greeks came together and lustily cheered the reporters. Under circumstances distinctly creditable to his courage, Knight lost his arm. He was with the force of Lord Methuen for the Morning Post. At the first engagement near Belmont the correspondent and two soldiers were deceived by a white handkerchief which a Boer fastened to the end of his rifle. Kjiight sprang to his feet and was instantly hit by a bullet. The wound was so severe that he was taken at once to Cape Towq, but the arm could not be saved. CHAPTER X GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS " He initiated not only a new conception of journalism, but a new style of English writing, never seen either before or since." — Oscar Brovming. " He was a model correspondent, the best I have ever known, and I should like to say how greatly grieved I am at his death." — LordKitchener. "Through war and pestilence, red siege and fire. Silent and self-contained he drew his breath; Brave, not for show of courage — his desire Truth, as he saw it, even to the death." — Rudyard Kipling. The death at Ladysmith on January 15, 1900, of the gifted special of the London Daily Mail was mourned by the entire English-speaking world. He was carried off by enteric fever, which, suggests W. E. Henley, "being translated is filth and low living," and his memorialist adds, quite justly, that in him there was lost "as fine a spirit, as rare and completely trained a brain, and as brave a heart" as the English people had to show. Steevens was an almost unique com- bination of scholar and journalist, competent to review such a work as Balfour's "Foundations of Belief," and in his "Monologues of the Dead" to bring the characters of the ancient world into intimate and living contact with the men of the nineteenth century, and also to present in a series of graphic paragraphs the incidents of a battle and the life of a camp so vividly, that breakfast table readers in distant cities, however slow of wit and dull of imagination, were stirred by his impressionistic sketches. This pictorial quality was the outstanding feature of his work as a special GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS 305 correspondent. All details were quickly sifted through his mind; the right ones were retained and built into paragraphs that clutched and held the reader. The visual effect seemed always to be his aim. Born in a London suburb, Steevens became a prize boy, a prize student, an exhibitioner, the youngest of the dons, and the winner of so many scholarships and medals that he was called "the Balliol prodigy." He might have devoted his life to the minutiae of classical scholarship. Instead he took a place on the staff of the Pall Mall Gazette and came out into the world. William Waldorf Astor had bought the paper and placed it in the hands of an editor who knew nothing of "the street" but who was daring and resourceful in high degree. Brilliant young men flocked to his staff. Steevens, with the applause of his fellows of the schools still ringing in his ears, now had to take both execration and praise, "now writing flippant paragraphs and now handling matters which might embroil two kingdoms." In 1895 the Gazette changed editors and Steevens, upon the invitation of Alfred Harmsworth, went to the Daily Mail. There now remained to him little more than four years of active newspaper life. He was sent to report the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, and with remarkable keenness he investigated the rumor of an Irish famine. The paper then sent him to the war between Turkey and Greece, to the Nile with Kitchener, to India with Lord Curzon, and to South Africa, where he died. When he began his first war trail Steevens says he bound himself with a vow to state nothing on any authority unless he had seen it himself or had heard it from a European who had seen it, and he declares 306 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS that, although the resolution cost him some excellent stories, on the whole he did not regret it. He had come to Salonica as a war correspondent only to find there neither a war nor the possibility of sending out news. He must find a way to get to headquarters at Elassona, and that was the one thing impossible to be done. The Turk had no confidence in the " casual European" and no liking for press men. While he waited for the war, Steevens listed the things he would need at the front. Here is the inventory of the outfit: "One dragoman, one cavass, two saddle-horses, two pack-horses, saddle and bridle English style, saddle and bridle Turkish style, two pack-saddles, brushes and curry- comb, halters, hobbles, nose-bags, rope, two kit-bags, a chair, a table, a fez, a waterproof sheet, towels, knives, forks, spoons, a few yards of waterproof canvas, a bed, a pillow, a quilt, a cartridge-belt, water-bottle, bucket, quinine, hy permanganate of potassium, frying-pan, teapot, japanned dishes, japanned plates, japanned cups and mugs, two lanterns, a cheap watch, a thousand cigarettes, champagne, whiskey, port, sauterne, punsch likor, native hams, native tongues, tea, sugar, cocoa, tinned beef, tinned salmon, tinned herrings, sardines, salt, biscuits, Worcester sauce, cheeses, Eno's fruit salt, corned beef, laundry soap, tinned peas, tinned beans, tinned oysters, tinned jam, tinned sau- sages, tinned egg-powder, tinned ginger-beer powder, tinned butter, and 180 pounds of oats.'* But as he went towards Elassona his baggage grew less every hour. He had acquired the dragoman, "Charley," and had spent three days buying four horses, after the approved fashion of bargaining there in vogue. After an all-night ride he reached Elassona, where he found himself in the midst of 50,000 soldiers. Bugles were ringing from the hills; men were washing ragged linen in the streams. He slept in a bag on the bare floor of a bare little room; on each side of Copyright by p:iliott & Fry, Ltd., London, W GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS 307 him snored a fellow war correspondent. He was under military law; technically, he was a first-class camp follower. Under his hand he kept his saddle- bags packed with provisions for two days, but he was unhappy only because there as yet was no war. He stayed on at Elassona, watching the "patient, weary, steadfast soldiers" standing to their guns in sheets of rain, patrolling the mountain tops in shrieking winds, and humped on their pack-saddles as they brought up cartridge-boxes and ammunition bags. After a week serious news arrived; the Greeks were said to have attacked in force. There had been hard fighting through an entire night. With "Charley," Steevens started for Karya. As they struggled on there came a new experience. "*Pop, pop; pop, pop, pop; pop, pop, pop, pop, pop; pop.'" His "heart began to try to keep time with the pops." He "turned a corner and came on the village — small and ram- shackle and dirty — wedged into a recess under hills like cataracts suddenly turned to stone, and above these the solemn whiteness of Olympus." Olympus was "the background of Karya; its foreground was the fight." He "sees a little shiver of excitement run round a group of aides-de-camp, and hastens to ask about it." It was great news; war was declared. Exultant over the good news which had come at last, Steevens jumped on his pony, turned the tired pack-horse, not yet unladen of his baggage, and started full scramble back to headquarters, leaving the fight to crackle on as it would. The following day was Easter Sunday and he was off to join the Marshal and his staff. He was very happy; he had not come out in vain. He was "going to see the biggest fight 308 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS since Plevna," so he marched on only to draw up below a row of small, steep, barren hills. On the crests the Greeks held the line of block- houses. To attack these the Turkish infantry crawled up the slopes. Until seven in the evening the fighting continued. When he could not see he heard the bugles sounding the advance; the Turks were charging with fixed bayonets. The Greeks stood their ground until the assailants were about thirty yards away, and gave back. In the morning the Turks found the Greeks gone. The battle of Meluna had been won and the Turks had gained the gate of Thessaly.^ Steevens rode over the battle-ground and noted how spread out were the forces, each man building himself a little heap of stones behind which he took shelter and fired when the spirit moved him. It was the tradi- tional hill fighting of the Balkans. After a week the invasion of Thessaly began. "Down, down they wound along the zigzags of Meluna — horse and foot and guns in a stream that looked as if it would last forever and choke up the whole plain." There followed the deciding action of the first stage of the war, the battle of Mati, which won the town of Larissa. Steevens started the instant he heard of the occupation of the place to ride straight across country for it, "intending to swim the rivers, but at all costs to get into Larissa with all speed." There was no water in the first river. In their panic the Greeks had not even broken the bridge over the second. Over a road two inches deep in white dust he made his way into the town, where he set up house- keeping, purposing to make it his base for the balance of the campaign. Of what he saw when he entered Larissa he wrote a vivid account: GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS 309 "Never could there be seen more hopeless, headless, handless confusion. Saddles and harness were strewn in heaps; regimental papers flew before the winds in clouds. There was a knapsack, here a cap, there an artillery am- munition wagon hanging over the ditch, with the wheels broken and the traces cut; there — shame! — a little pile of cartridges. A soldier may throw away much, and there is still hope for him; once he begins to throw away cartridges, there is none. And there by the roadside were a couple of dead Greeks, their swollen faces black with flies; they had been killed by their comrades in the stampede. . . . "As the dominant impression of the town was the sweet smell of laburnums in the public places, of roses and sweet peas in the gardens, so the impression of the occupation of the town was fragrant and kindly. The entry of the Turkish troops into Larissa was the sweetest and most lovable thing I had seen during this week of war. That the Turkish army entering a town taken from the enemy should be a pleasant sight, should be almost a kind of Sun- day-school treat, will be surprising information to many Englishmen. But I have eyes in my head, and I saw it." The next start was for Velestino, and in the first stage of the fighting there the Turks were beaten. One correspondent, with the censorship in his mind, called it a "concentration in rear." While most remember the fight for Mahmud's charge, Steevens declared he would remember it as **the battle of thirst." **Men, horses, asses, the heavens above and the earth beneath, all were parched and caked and burned and split with the raging thirst. Not a breath of air came over the hills where the Greek smoke hung heavily." As the sun climbed up "the hard blue sky" it became at midday more than even the Turks could bear, "the sturdiest bearer of things unbearable in the whole world." The horses seemed dazed and stupid in the pitiless glare, the troopers lay down "each behind his horse in the little patches of shadow 310 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and went to sleep with their mouths open." As he rode along the line the special "met eyes of wild, wondering distress, mixed with the beginnings of despair." At fall of dusk most of the correspondents were off for Larissa with their despatches, a ride of thirty-five miles out and thirty-five back. Even a Salonica pony could hardly do it after such a day. Steevens with his messmates decided to make another night of it on the ground. Their sentinels brought them the news that Mushir Pasha was marching for Pharsala, where they witnessed a battle which 'Vas a race between night and victory, and night won." But it was *'one very fine bit of fighting," and Steevens found it worth coming from England to see. One of the most amusing experiences recorded in all the annals of war correspondence now fell to the lot of Steevens and his companions. On May 7, they rode to Velestino. At four the next morning a blue- jacket waving the British flag opposite the railway station, and in the very middle of the Turkish army, attracted their attention. A deputation of British and French consuls had come to tell them that the town of Volo was evacuated and at their mercy and to beg them not to harm the peaceable inhabitants. Appar- ently some British journalists were to save the Greeks whom the Greek army had left to their fate. The little company galloped for Volo, Steevens, two English and one American special, a Turkish officer, a stray cavalry trooper picked up on the way, and two Al- banian cavasses. The Sultan's young aide-de-camp took no single step without consulting Steevens and his comrades. The people of Volo seemed to the handful of invaders to be greatly frightened, but GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS 311 as they advanced to the centre of the town and mur- dered no one the populace grew more assured and hopeful. To the town hall they clattered and strode to the council chamber. There was a little delay in finding some one wilHng to act for the mayor and sign the surrender of the place. Then a proclamation was read from the balcony to a thousand standing in the street. Their cowed faces brightened; they were to be spared. A Greek in the balcony called for three cheers for the Sultan, and they were given with a will. It was not precisely a capitulation, because the town was not occupied in the military sense, but the aide-de-camp took the advice of the specials very se- riously, and Steevens demurely recorded his opinion that it was **a rather fine thing" for two correspond- ents of the Daily Mail to negotiate the surrender. The most furious fight of the entire war ensued at Domoko. To the right and left of the little hill on which the specials posted themselves were ten batteries hammering away at the Greek guns. Over their hill the Greek shells whizzed and sometimes dropped among the horses on each side. Mainly they fired at the men from Adrianople who were moving for- ward; they were "peppered" but they still went on; they came within a thousand yards of the entrench- ments and there burst "from the Greek lines a hellish storm." There were "savage volleys snarling along the trenches in front and right and left" but they still went on. Their "poor little individual puffs showed pitifully by the side of the smashing, crashing hail of the Greeks." But they went on and on, and at five hundred yards, emerging out of a com field, they halted, but they clung to their position. Night 312 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS fell, and still they clung there. A quarter of their four thousand men were killed and wounded. All night long the wounded came groaning and limping past the specials' campfire on the hill, but during the night the Greeks slipped away over the Furka Pass to Lamia. In the early morning Steevens rode forward and "began to ascend the woodland serpentine of the pass." He was able to watch the fighting, how "the crimson bunting and white fezzes crawled on with caution, yet with swiftness," how there would be "here a swift glide forward and there a shot or two under cover." And then "from somewhere about Lamia" there ap- peared a white flag. They must cease firing and go no further down the pass. The news of the armistice had reached them. "And that was the end of the Turco-Grecian war," says Steevens. In less than a year the Daily MaiVs correspondent was on the Nile. He found Wady Haifa looking "for all the world like Chicago in a turban," and Kitchener making war "not with bayonets, but with rivets and spindle-glands." His reports of the campaigns of Atbara and Omdurman are a series of brilliant impressionisms. For example: "Haifa clangs from morning till night with rails lassoed and drawn up a sloping pair of their fellows by many con- victs onto trucks; it thuds with sleepers and bully-beef dumped on to the shore. As you come home from dinner you stumble over strange rails, and sudden engine-lamps flash in your face, and warning whistles scream in your ears. As you lie at night you hear the plug-plug of the goods engine, nearer and nearer until it sounds as if it must be walking in at your tent door. From the shops at Haifa the untamed Soudan is being tamed at last. It is the new GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS 313 system, the modem system — mind and mechanics beating muscle and shovel-head spear." When the time was ripe the troops marched up the Nile to Fort Atbara and then they began to seek the dervishes. At last came one of the famous night marches which figure so saliently in the story of war- fare in the Soudan, and a battle next morning. "Hard gravel underfoot, full moon overhead, about them the coy horizon that seemed immeasurable yet revealed nothing, the square tramped steadily for an hour." After a rest they marched again from one to four. As the sun rose the word came, and they sprang up, the squares shifted into the fighting formations. "At one impulse, in one superb sweep, near twelve thousand men moved forward" toward the enemy. A nimbus of dust rolled from the zareba of the enemy and a half-dozen flags fluttered before its right centre. Steevens looked at his watch and it marked 6.20. The battle that had now menaced and now evaded them for a month had begun. The bugles sang and the pipes screamed and the line started forward "like a ruler drawn over the tussock-broken sand." As the line crested the ridge the men knelt down and fired. The bugles and the pipes sounded again and the men were up and on. "The line of khaki and purple tartan never bent or swerved." It moved down the gravelly incline always without hurry amid furious gusts of bullets. They stood before the loose low hedge of dry camel thorn and tugged at it until they made a gap, when they found a low stockade and trenches beyond. The inside suddenly sprang to life. "Out of the earth came dusty, black, half naked shapes, running, running, and turning to shoot, but running away." 314 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Inside "was the most astounding labyrinth ever seen out of a nightmare.'* The place was as "full of holes as any honeycomb only far less regular." There was a shelter pit for every animal; donkeys were tethered down in holes, just big enough for themselves and their masters, a trench was full of camels and dead or dying men. There was no plan or system. "From holes below and hillocks above, from invisible trenches to right and left, the bewildered bullets curved and twisted and dodged." On swept "the whirlwind of Highlanders, bullet and bayonet and butt."" They penetrated to the river and "across the trickle of water a quarter mile of dry sand bed was a fly-paper with scrambling spots of black." "Cease firing!" was sounded, and sudden silence came down. The battle had lasted forty minutes. A few months later Steevens was looking at Om- durman. The place was visible at last to an advancing English army; the battle that should avenge Gordon was to be fought and the last and greatest day of Mahdism was at hand. "We saw a broad plain, half sand, half pale grass," says the special. "On the rim by the Nile rose a pale yellow dome, clear above every- thing. That was the Mahdi's tomb. ... It was the centre of a purple stain on the yellow sand, going out for miles and miles on every side — the mud houses of Omdurman." Light stole quietly into the sky on the morning of the battle. Everyone was very silent and very curious. "A trooper rose out of the stillness from behind the shoulder of Gebel Surgham, grew larger and plamer, spurred violently up to the line and inside. A couple more were silhouetted against our front. Then the electric whisper came racing down GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS 315 the line; they were coming. . . . The noise of some- thing began to creep in upon us; it cleared and divided into the tap of drums and the far away surf of raucous war cries." A shiver of expectancy thrilled the army. A sigh of content followed. "They were coming on. Allah help them! They were coming on." The enemy came very fast and straight but presently they were stopped. The British were standing in double ranks behind their zareba. The blacks were lying in their shelter trench, and for a time "both poured out death as fast as they could load and pull trigger." Then section by section the firing was hushed, and for a while there was nothing "but the unbending, grimly expectant line before Agaiga and the still carpet of white in front." After a half-hour the bugles sounded. The one disaster of the battle ensued. The Twenty-first Lancers, eager to be first in Omdurman, swung into their charge. "Knee to knee they swept on till they were but two hundred yards from the enemy. Then suddenly — then in a flash they saw the trap. Between them and the three hundred there yawned suddenly a deep ravine; out of the ravine there sprang instantly a cloud of black heads, and a brandished lightning of swords, and a thunder of savage voices. ... It had succeeded. Three thousand if there was one to four hundred. But it was too late to check now. Must go through with it now! . . . One hundred yards — fifty — knee to knee. . . . Horses plunged, blundered, recovered, fell; dervishes on the ground lay for the hamstring- ing cut; officers pistolled them in passing over as one drops a stone into a bucket; troopers thrust until lances broke, then cut; everybody went on straight through everything. . . . Clean out on the other side they came — those that kept up or got up in time. The others were on the ground — in pieces by now, for the cruel swords shore through shoulder 316 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and thigh, and carved the dead into fillets. Twenty-four of these, and of those that came out, over fifty had felt sword or bullet or spear. Few horses stayed behind among the swords, but nearly one hundred and thirty were wounded." This to Steevens was hearsay. The rest of the battle he witnessed. He saw MacDonald's splendid courage and strategy, commended so by Bennet Burleigh, when he "turned his front through a com- plete half -circle, facing successively south, west and north," his brain "working as if packed in ice," and "every tactician in the army delirious in his praise." Still the honor of the fight was awarded by the corre- spondent to the men who died. He found the dervishes "beyond perfection" while the Sirdar's army was "perfection." The enemy "died worthily of the huge empire that Mahdism won and kept so long." The spearmen charged hopelessly over and over again. "Their riflemen, mangled by every kind of death and torment that men can devise, clung round the black flag and the green, emptying their poor, rotten, home- made cartridges dauntlessly." "Now under the black flag in a ring of bodies stood only three men, facing the three thousand of the Third Brigade. They folded their arms about the staff and gazed steadily forward. Two fell. The last dervish stood up and filled his chest; he shouted the name of his God and hurled his spear. Then he stood quite still, waiting. It took him full; he quivered, gave at the knees, and toppled with his head on his arms and his face towards the legions of his conquerors." That night in Omdurman, Steevens found the Sirdar flat on his back, dictating by the light of a solitary candle his despatch to the chief of the intelligence department. Colonel Wingate, who was stretched flat on his belly. The correspondent himself "scraped GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS 317 a scrawl on a telegraph form, and fell asleep on the gravel with a half -eaten biscuit" in his mouth. On the morning of October 10, the following year, Steevens awoke to find his ship lying beside the wharf at Cape Town. He headed instantly for the north and the war. At Elandslaagte he was seen walking about close to the firing line leading his grey horse, a con- spicuous mark for a sharpshooter. There were as always clever descriptive touches in the letter which he forwarded his paper. "For half an hour the hillside was ... a maze of men wandering they knew not whither, crossing and recrossing, circling, stopping and returning, slipping on smooth rock-faces, breaking shins on rough boulders, treading with hobnailed boots on wounded fingers." Thus, until the word came that the hurt men were to be brought down to the Boer camp between the hills. And thus of the treat- ment of the wounded after they were carried down in the darkness: "In the rain-blurred light of the lantern — could it not cease, that piercing drizzle tonight of all nights at least? — the doctor, the one doctor, toiled buoyantly on. Cutting up their clothes with scissors, feeling with light firm fingers over torn chest or thigh, cunningly slipping round the band- age, tenderly covering up the crimson ruin of strong men — hour by hour, man by man, he toiled on." Soon Steevens was shut up in Lady smith. He endured his full share of the privations and perils of the siege and rendered more than his share of service in keeping up the hearts of his fellows. "Tack-tap, tack-tap, as if the devil was hammering nails into the hills" the bombardment went on. When the firing was strongest he would toil up a ladder of boulders and bend and steal forward to the sky-line to make S18 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS his observations. The rains came in level down- pour and transformed Ladysmith into a lake of mud. They were lying in the bottom of a saucer and staring up at the pitiless ring of hills that barked death. Help would come, that was sure, but would it be in time? And how soon dared they expect it? They could only hazard opinions. By means of native runners the correspondents tried to get messages out of the beleaguered town, but the risks of sending through the lines of the Boers were so desperate that the prices paid were "appalling." For his first runner Steevens paid £70. Through the weary weeks of waiting Steevens smiled and jested. The Ladysmith Lyre was founded for the express purpose of promoting laughter, and for three months its publication was hailed as an event of the first magnitude in that little world which was segregated absolutely from the big world beyond. Nothing could daunt the courage or curb the wit of the Daily Mail special and all within the lines laughed at his sallies and were the better for their laughter. There are other services than those connected most directly with the profession of war correspondence which the specials of the newspapers may render and often have rendered. Meantime the winking heliograph and the flashing searchlight brought mes- sages in cipher to headquarters from the outside. A few days before Christmas the press men were. sum- moned to hear an abridged version of one of these messages. They were to adumbrate the ill tidmgs which somehow had been whispered about the town. Buller had sent word that he must wait for siege guns, which meant another thirty days at least for pent-up Ladysmith. But it was March 1 when the actual GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS 319 entry was made, and the town had been cut off from the outer world, save for the Kaffir runners, for one himdred and nineteen days. Weeks before the relief reached the town Steevens was stricken with the scourge of Ladysmith, enteric fever. He fought for his life and was declared almost convalescent, when suddenly there was a relapse. A fellow correspondent was obliged to tell him the truth, the farewell messages were dictated, and in three hours he was dead. At midnight, "with the Bulwaan searchlight shining on them like a Cyclop's eye," the little company of correspondents carried their comrade to the cemetery outside the town, and at the grave, the searchlight having left them, a depu- tation from headquarters, a group of officers, and the press men stood in darkness and rain for the burial service. Thus passed a war correspondent whose press work was not only history but literature. Shy, quiet, ur- bane, magnanimous, kindly humorous, proud as well as modest, a wit and a cynic at times but not given to censure, without any girding up of his mind pouring out droll ideas, striking similitudes and quaint expres- sions, this man's life was one of the most expensive counts in the computation of the costs of the South African War. \ CHAPTER XI WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL *' His is a picturesque career. Of any man of his few years speaking our language, probably it is today the most picturesque. And that he is half an American gives all of us an excuse to pretend we share in his successes." — Richard Harding Davis (1905). " Englishman, twenty-five years old, about five feet eight inches high, indifferent build, walks a little with a bend forward, pale appearance, red- brownish hair, small moustache hardly perceptible, talks through his nose, cannot pronounce the letter S properly, and does not know any Dutch.'* — From the Transvaal Government Poster after the escape from Pretoria^ "The field-telegraph stopped at the bridge-head and a small tent with a half-dozen military operators marked the breaking of a slender thread that connected us across thousands of miles of sea and land with London. Hence- forward a line of signal stations with their flickering helios would be the only links. We were at the end of the wire. "I have stood at the other end and watched the tape machine click off the news as it arrives; the movements of the troops; the prospects of action; the fighting; the casual- ties. How different are the scenes. The club on an autumn evening — its members grouped anxiously around, dis- cussing, wondering, asserting; the noise of traffic outside; the cigarette smoke and electric lights within. And, only an hour away along the wire, the field with the bright sun- light shining on the swirling muddy waters; the black for- bidding rocks; the white tents of the brigade a mile up the valley; a long streak of vivid green rice crop by the river; and in the foreground the brown-clad armed men. "I can never doubt which is the right end to be at. It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic." Thus years ago the present First Lord of the Ad- miralty recorded his conviction in that model piece of war reporting, "The Story of the Malakand Field WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL 321 Force." He himself had begun to make the news two or three years before, and ever since he has been diligently engaged in the exciting occupations which managing editors cannot afford to neglect. In those early years of storm and stress people said he was a young man in a hurry who would come a cropper right soon; that he was a tornado, an arrogant egoist, an audacious but undeniably brilliant son of a brilliant father. Winston Churchill is indeed the son of Randolph Churchill. He has done a lot of the things his father did and done them in the fashion which his father affected. His mannerisms were most of them strongly reminiscent of his father when he came before the public with the very evident intention of making his way to the front of the stage without serving any pro- longed apprenticeship in the wings or the background. His grandmother used to refer with pride to the fact that his father had been paid £2250 for his articles in the' Daily Graphic on South African affairs. How it would have delighted the lady to know that the son of her favorite son had been sent to t he Boer_ war by Lord Glenesk as the best man available for the service of the Morning Post, and paid what Lord Glenesk considered the best man to be worth. Born in 1874, Winston Churchill is^half American, for his mother was Jennie Jerome of New York City. Educated for the army and seeing little chance of having a hand in a real war for England, he ran away to Cuba when he was barely twenty-one and fought for the Spaniards. Thereupon he became an inter- national question which the House of Commons had to consider, and, his name thus early before the world, the Daily Graphic found it worth while to pay Sn FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS him handsome fees for articles on the Cuban revolution, and when he came home he brought with him the Spanish government's Order of Military Merit. In another year he left for the Indian frontier and while attached to the Malakand Field Force he sent the Daily Telegraph a series of brilliant letters and won another medal and a mention in despatches. Joining the staff of Sir William Lockhart, he went through the Tirah campaign and added a clasp to his decoration. In 1897, a prophet known as the Mad Fakir arose upon the Indian frontier, whose appeals to the fanat- icism of the tribes met with remarkable responses. On July 29, all India rang with the news that the Mala- kand had been attacked, and the tension throughout the land became fever high when it was understood that one or two little garrisons away in the mountains were in danger of annihilation. In his analysis of conditions at the theatre of the war Mr. Churchill relates how in those wild but wealthy valleys "a code of honour not less punctilious than that of Old Spain is supported by vendettas as implac- able as those of Corsica," and how the fighting men "to the ferocity of the Zulu added the craft of the redskin and the marksmanship of the Boer." England held the Malakand Pass to keep open the road to Chit- ral. The younger officers of the Malakand garrison were playing polo at Khar when some neighboring tribesmen brought them warning that a wave of fanaticism was sweeping down the valley and they hurried back to make their position as secure as possible. The commander sent a telegram to Mardan ordering the Guides to reenforce the garrison, the order arriving at 8.30 in the evening, and just five hours later they began their famous march. For six days and nights WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL 323 the garrison was under incessant rifle fire, and each night cost them several lives. Terrible as was the situation, the garrison was assured that relief was on the way. The tremendous exertions of the relieving columns is indicated by the fact that in one company of Sikhs twenty-one men actually died on the road from heat apoplexy. Past midnight on the night of the twenty-ninth the great attack was made and with its repulse passed the chance of capturing the Malakand. The tribesmen there- upon concentrated their assault upon Chakdara, and for days the post was encircled by the smoke of thou- sands of muskets. The Malakand Field Force was sent to hold the Malakand and "to operate against the neighboring tribes as might be required." The com- mand was put into the hands of General Sir Bindon Blood, and with him Winston Churchill "had the honor to serve in the field." The young adventurer says: "Having realized that if a British cavalry officer waits till he is ordered on active service he is likely to wait a considerable time, I obtained six weeks leave of absence from my regiment, and on September 2, arrived at Malakand as press correspondent of the Pioneer and Daily Tele- graphy and in the hope of sooner or later being attached to the force in a military capacity." The march of September 6 began with the stars still shining overhead. They passed a frail bridge hung upon wire ropes and with gates at each end supported by little mud towers. Here the field tele- graph ended and of the contrast between the two ends of the wire the correspondent wrote_t he vig ori paragraphs whick Jiave^ been quoted above. The horses had to be led in single file over this bridge, and 324 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS at that the swinging of the structure made it hard to walk. The passage of the transport under such cir- cumstances consumed an entire day. With Major Deane, Churchill visited the chiefs of a typical Afghan valley, with seven separate castles as strongholds of seven separate khans. He made the hard climb to the top of the pass, and stood far above "a valley upon which perhaps no white man had looked since Alex- ander crossed the mountains on his way to India." Of the camp at midnight he painted an engaging picture: "The fires have sunk to red, glowing specks. The bayonets glisten in a regular line of blue-white points. The silence of weariness is broken by the incessant and uneasy shuffling of the animals and the occasional neighing of the horses. All the valley is plunged in gloom and the moun- tains rise high and black around. Far up their sides, the twinkling watch-fires of the tribesmen can be seen. Over- head is the starry sky, bathed in the pale radiance of the moon. It is a spectacle that may inspire the philosopher not less than the artist. All the camp is full of subdued noises. Here is no place for reflection, for quiet or solemn thought. The day may have been an exciting one. The morrow may bring an action. Some may be killed, but in war time life is only lived in the present. It is sufficient to be tried and to have time to rest, and the camp, if all the various items that compose it can be said to have a personality, shrugs its shoulders and, regarding the past without regret, contemplates the future without alarm." The climax came in the action of September 16. "Sniping" had been going on all the time, especially at night, and occasionally the sharpshooters picked off a man, but the final affair, appealing strongly to the imagination of such a man as Winston Churchill, and especially at his age, would not be called a battle by any who think of great masses of troops and the thunder of batteries. Just a hillside on which a few WINSTON SPENCER CHUIU HILL WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL 325 men in brown might be made out by a careful watcher moving slowly among the rocks, and looking like the tiny figures of a child's play-house in that great sweep of mountain and valley. The columns marched out of camp at dawn, three in all, in order to clear the whole mountain trough at once; Churchill was with the centre column. He watched the little men scurrying about on the heights and the tiny curls of smoke. Darkness came down swiftly and with it a heavy storm, the lightning flashes providing the enemy with countless chances to aim their shots. The troops worked their way back to camp, and, dinnerless and shelterless, lay down in the slush, fagged out but confident of the outcome. There had been barely a thousand men engaged, but the total casualties were one hundred and forty-nine, a greater percentage than in most actions in India. In the following days the force com- pleted the conquest of the valley and the tribesmen were ready to sue for peace. Meantime the correspondent had been sending his messages back by friendly tribesmen to the tele- graph office at Panjkora. The way lay through twenty miles of the enemy's country, but the despatches never miscarried and several times they were on the wire before the official despatches or any heliographed messages had come through. His work done, he made his way back to the comforts of civilization and of peace. At each stage of the return journey some of the "indispensable things" of modern society appeared. At Panjkora he was in touch with the great world again by means of the electric current, at Saria there were fresh potatoes, at Chakdara there was ice, at Malakand he had again a comfortable bed, and at Howshera there was the 326 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS railway. One of the most picturesque of the little wars of the century was finished, and it had brought to the young newspaper man praise from Sir Bindon Blood for his "courage and resolution" in making himself "useful at a critical moment." His book written, and it being clear that Kitchener was about to advance upon Khartoum, Winston Chur- chill hurried to the War Office, as several hundred other officers had done, to ask for employment. Per- severance secured it for him and he was attached for the campaign to the Twenty-first Lancers and ordered without delay to proceed to the Nile. At Cairo he found his squadron leaving the next day. All the way up the river he was doing his stint of work with his troop and sending his letters to his paper, the Morning Post, One adventure in the desert threatened to end seriously. Every correspondent who sees service in Egypt expects to be lost in the desert once at least, and Churchill had to take his turn of wander- ing at night among the sandhills, with scouting parties of the enemy at no great distance. It was no easy matter to save the cavalry horses and keep them in condition for the fighting that was ahead. Extreme precautions were taken to maintain the war order and to make the march easy for the crippled animals. Of one motley troop Churchill was made commander. So he fared on to the great battle of Omdurman. The Lancers that day made their first charge in war, land Churchill, who rode with the rest, has written a khrilling story of that episode of the great struggle Which cleared the Soudan of the rule of fanaticism. How luck followed this young man! He had his share in the charge which, with the exploit of WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL 327 MacDonald, was the event of the battle that ended Mahdism. There were just two minutes of slashing, spear throwing, hamstringing, rifle firing with muzzles against the bodies of the foe, and sabre cutting. And he came through as one of the few oflScers whose saddlery, clothes and horse were quite untouched. He wrote: "The whole scene flickered exactly like a cinematograph picture, and besides I remember no sound. The event seemed to pass in absolute silence. . . . Perhaps it is possible for the whole of a man's faculties to be concentrated in the eye, bridle-hand and trigger-finger, and withdrawn from all other parts of the body." Home again, he wrote "The River War," telling the story of the Nile campaigns from the death of Gordon to the final winning of the Soudan. Again his book made a sensation, for it was the work of a subaltern who had been in the desert but a few months and it read like the work of a veteran of many wars and a student of military history. It is the standard work upon its subject, and it got abundant attention also because of the free and easy way in which its writer criticized all the military gods from Eatchener down. Plunging into politics and failing to gain a seat in the House, he resigned from his regiment, and on October 26, 1899, left for the South African war again as correspondent for the Morning Post. Later he held a commission in the South African Light Horse and served as an aide to two or three generals. The affair of the armored train occurred within a few days of his arrival. The train was composed of three flat cars, two armored cars, and between them the engine; thus there were three cars coupled to the cow-catcher and two to the tender. After the train 328 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS had passed, the Boers rolled a big boulder on the track just where it rounded a curve. On the return trip the engineer took the curve at high speed and hit the rock, with the result that the three forward cars were thrown off the track and one was landed crosswise so that the engine and rear cars could not escape. The Boers were firing upon them from three sides and they had some field guns in action so that any direct shell would pierce the armored cars like paper. Churchill dropped to the ground and ran forward, returning to report his conviction that the track could be cleared. It was agreed that Captain Haldane should keep the enemy engaged while Churchill tried to clear away the wreckage. By hard work and ingenuity he got the cars out of the way. Then it was found that the engine was six inches wider than the tender and that the corner of its foot-plate would not pass the corner of the truck which had just been shoved from the track. Pushing made the jam worse and the men worked at the freight car with their bare hands while the Boer fire was renewed at a distance of thirteen hundred yards. Said the correspondent: "I have had in the last four years many strange and thrilling experiences. But nothing was so thrilling as this: to wait and struggle among these clanging, rending iron boxes, with the repeated explosions of the shells and the artillery, the noise of the projectiles striking the cars, the hiss as they passed in the air, the grunting and puffing of the engine — poor, tortured thing, hammered by at least a dozen shells, any one of which by penetrating the boiler might have made an end of all — the expectation of de- struction as a matter of course, the realization of power- lessness and the alternations of hope and despair — all this for seventy minutes by the clock with only four inches of twisted iron work to make the difference between danger. WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL 329 captivity and shame on the one hand — safety, freedom and triumph on the other.'* At last the engine did break past the obstruction. But the couplings had parted and they dared not risk imprisoning the engine again by backing it to the rear trucks. They could not drag the trucks to the engine, however, and it was decided to try to save the engine alone. The cab, tender and cow-catcher were piled with their wounded. The woodwork of the firebox was in flames and water was spouting from the pierced tanks. As the engine moved away the soldiers strag- gled alongside at the double. But one private, with- out authority, raised his handkerchief, when the Boers ceased firing at once and a dozen horsemen came galloping from the hills. Churchill stayed on the engine in safety for a third of a mile, when he saw an officer trying to hold his stampeding men, and, under the shelter of some houses, he dropped from the engine, and ran back to help. He soon found himself in a narrow cutting and alone, for the soldiers had surrendered. As two men appeared at the end of what was a sort of corridor he began to run. Two bullets passed within a foot of his head; he zigzagged, and two more came as near. He scrambled up the side of the cutting and a bullet hit his hand. Outside he crouched in a little depres- sion, but a horseman was galloping towards him, and he had neither rifle nor pistol. He says: "Death stood before me, grim and sullen. Death without his light-hearted companion, Chance." There was nothing else for it. He surrendered. His certificate as a correspondent bore his name. It was a name not liked in the Transvaal. One Boer asked: ** You are the son of Lord Randolph Churchill?'* 330 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS He did not deny the fact, and immediately he was encircled by a crowd of staring Boers. He was taken to Pretoria and imprisoned in the States Model Schools Building, which was surrounded by iron railings, and there were guards quartered in tents on the playground. There were long, dull days, lightened by the reading of Carlyle and Mill's "Essay on Liberty." Liberty he was bound to have, and he began to make his plans on the day of his arrival. After ten days the American consul came to see him. His friends did not know whether he was alive, wounded or dead. Mr. Bourke Cockran, an old friend of his American mother's, cabled from New York to the consul, and in this roundabout way his situation was disclosed to his relatives and comrades. He found it advisable to lose his campaign hat, which could not be mistaken for the headgear of any but an English officer. The burgher who bought him another very innocently but very fortunately returned with a Boer sombrero. Then he kept watch and devised schemes. The grounds were brilliantly lighted with electric lights, tut there was a little period of a few minutes when the sentries as they paced their beats would have a small section of the wall in darkness, owing to some cross-shadows. Beyond was a private house with its grounds, and farther on the open street. Just how he was to dodge patrols and find his way through three hundred miles of unknown and hostile territory he did not know. But the effort he was bound to make. He says: "Tuesday, December 12! Anything was better than further suspense. Again night came. Again the dinner bell sounded. Choosing my opportunity, I strolled across WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL 331 the quadrangle and secreted myself in one of the offices. Through a chink I watched the sentries. For half an hour they remained stolid and obstructive. Then suddenly one turned and walked up to his comrade and they began to talk. Their backs were turned. I darted out of my hiding place, seized the top with my hands and drew myself up. Twice I let myself down again in sickly hesitation, and then with a third resolve scrambled up. The top was flat. Lying on it, I had one parting glimpse of the sentries, still talking, still with their backs turned, but fifteen yards away. Then I lowered myself silently down into the ad- joining garden and crouched among the shrubs. I was free. The first step had been taken and was irrevocable." He was in the garden of a house in which a party was going on, and while he waited in the shadows guests came out and stood and chatted within a few yards of him. After a time he passed the open windows of the house, walked by within five yards of a sentry, and was at large in Pretoria. In his pocket he had four slabs of chocolate and seventy-five pounds in money. Overhead was Orion, which had guided him a year before on the Nile. He was going to give the Boers a run for their money whatever might happen. The fugitive followed the railway track, making detours to avoid the watches at the bridges, and finally boarded a train in motion. **I hurled myself on the trucks," he says, "clutched at something, missed, clutched again, missed again, grasped some sort of hand-hold, was swung off my feet, my toes bumping on the line, and with a struggle seated myself on the couplings of the fifth truck from the front of the train." He did not know what was the destina- tion of the train, but the great thing was that it wa=i going away from Pretoria. The trucks were full of sacks of goods and he crawled up and burrowed among 332 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS them. Before he left the eai at dawn he saw the line was running straight toward the sunrise where lay the neutral territory of Portugal. That day he ate a slab of chocolate, drank from a pool, and stayed hidden among the hills. The following night he walked, creeping along close to the ground, and wading bogs, drenched to the waist. The fifth day he was beyond Middleburg. From the Kaffirs he managed to beg a bit of food. Meantime the whole world was talking about the audacious escape of the irrepressible young Enghsh- man. The Boers were furious. The one man who should have been held at all odds was the man who got away from them. They telegraphed throughout the region the unflattering description which has been placed at the head of this chapter; they began to search every car of every train; three thousand photographs were distributed; they searched the houses of all supposed British sympathizers. Especially at the frontier of Portuguese territory was vigilant watch kept. Rumors of many sorts were flying about the country. Churchill was disguised as a woman; he was wearing the uniform of a Transvaal policeman; he was in Pretoria disguised as a waiter. The dangers of inflammatory literature were pointed out — had he not been reading "Mill on Liberty" the day before his escape? In England he at once became a popular hero; he had pluck and he had wit and he had con- founded the Boers, and forthwith every Englishman cheered him. Then as day followed day without tidings of him, England became anxious. Was he lost? Had starvation caught him? He was indeed in straits. Entirely spent, the little strength which prison life had left him exhausted, WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL 338 he had to crawl to a shack in a little village and stam- mer out a speech thought out in advance to the first white man he had dared to approach for weeks. The man stared, and then he glared, and finally he grabbed the fugitive, pulled him inside the door, and said: "I am the only Englishman in miles and you are Winston Churchill." How did Churchill know.? He didn't know; luck was with him. He seemed to move under the same star that so many times befriended Forbes, valiant but ever favored by chance. His new friend smuggled him into a freight car, where, buried in sacks of merchandise, he stayed for more than two days. At the border the car was twice searched, but only the upper sacks were lifted, and after many hours of waiting the empty roar of the bridge told the young correspondent that he was entering Portuguese territory at last. He only left the car when he reached Lourenco Marques. Then he hurried to the British consul, and that night, taking no chances, he was escorted to a steamship about to leave by a dozen Englishmen with drawn revolvers. Two days later he was landed at Durban, where a rousing welcome was his. It was the second. day before Christmas, but after only an hour of enthusiasm and turmoil which he says he "enjoyed extremely," he was off for the front, with a months' newspapers at his side to catch up with the news of the world. Back at Frere, he found his tent pitched by the side of the very cutting down which he had fled from the Boer marksmen. For the rest, he stayed with Buller as an oflficer and a correspondent until the relief of Ladysmith, and then he was with one of the columns of Lord Roberts until Pretoria was taken. He watched the search- 334 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS light flashing the Morse code on the clouds, and saw its aerial battle with the Boer searchlight, which crossed its flashes with blinks and flickers and mixed up the dots and dashes. As the Monte Cristo ridge was captured he wired his paper that at last success was within reach. He was one of the first party that galloped into the relieved town, and how the tattered and weary men ran and cheered and cried when they heard his reply to the sentry's challenge — " The Lady smith Relief Column." There was one lull after the relief of Ladysmith when Churchill went back to Capetown, and then an adventure befell him when he was out with a scouting party. That day again he ran for his life from Boer marksmen, and a trooper saved him by mounting him behind himself. Said the adventurer: "I had thrown double sixes again." At a time when near Johannes- burg an important action was fought, which the corre- spondents were not able to wire away because the enemy lay between the force and the telegraph, he conceived the idea of taking the most direct way to headquarters, which was the way through Johannes- burg. He went on a bicycle with a Frenchman as comrade and got safely through. In the darkness they walked and scrambled and cycled, keeping to the side streets in the town which the army had not yet occupied. They overtook the principal special of The Times, Lionel James, who chivalrously refused to hear the tidings Churchill brought; let his rival keep his news and score as he deserved to do. They were carrying also official reports for the Commander- in-Chief, and straight to Lord Roberts they made their way. Churchill put his news on the wire and was provided with his first comfortable bed for a month. WINSTON SPENCER CHURCHILL 335 A few months later he took his seat in the House of Commons, and by a happy coincidence he entered upon his Parliamentary career at the same age as had his father. His first speech was made in May, 1901; after some years he went over to the Liberal Party; soon he was Under-Secretary for the Colonies; and now he is in the Cabinet, sharing the tremendous responsi- bility of the direction of the forces of Great Britain in what seems likely to become the greatest war the world has ever known. But whatever he is and what- ever he may become, it is certain that this man of versatility and industry, with his passion for being in the midst of things, will never enjoy life more than did he when he was winning the attention of the world as a newspaper special and a soldier. CHAPTER XII JAMES CREELMAN " Creelman is made of the clay from which spring crusaders, reformers and martyrs." — Valerian Gribayedqff. James Creelman, whose name is familiar to news- paper readers in most English-speaking countries as a past master in the art of interviewing and an accom- plished all-round journalist, has given a decade of his life to the following of the warpath. The war between China and Japan was the first to which he went as a correspondent, and it abounded in picturesque incidents, to all of which the graphic style of the special did full justice. He witnessed the storming of Ping- Yang by the Japanese troops, and scored again after the battle of the Yalu, the first naval struggle in which modern battleships were tested. The account of the first was written by the light of a cracked lantern which was hung on an arrow fastened in the ground, where, on the outmost ramparts of the city, he had betaken himself to escape the roar and confusion of the tremendous celebration of the victory, which was at its height. The ancient city of Ping- Yang, a thousand years before the strongest on the continent, sprawled down to the edge of the river, "its crooked streets ascending gradually and ending in steep precipices, crested with castellated stone walls, overlooking the valley." Outside these walls the industrious Chinese defenders had constructed in six weeks more than thirty earthworks, with walls fifteen feet high, making miles of new fortifications. JAMES CREELMAN 337 so that it was hard for the observer to understand how troops which had the energy to perform such a marvel of building yet were driven from their stronghold by a force which did not exceed 10,000 men. That was the war of the mediaeval and the modem with all the dramatic contrasts that are dear to the heart of the descriptive reporter. " The Chinese commanders," says Creelman, "with huge spectacles, heroes of many a classical debate, and surrounded by the painted, embroidered, and carved monsters of mythological war, but wholly ignorant of modem mihtary science, awaited the coming of the trim Httle up-to-date soldiers of Japan with all the scorn of learned foolishness." As night descended upon the armies the Chinese advanced, sending on ahead a cow and a band of trum- peters, which was the correct move according to the ancient authorities; but this Mongolian skirmishing scheme did not prove of value. The Japanese waited in silence until the enemy were within three hundred feet, then they fired volley after volley, the skirmish column turned and fled, and Oshima's cavalry thun- dered at their heels. Before the night was over the Japanese forces were so arranged that the city was practically surrounded. Inside the walls the drums were throbbing and the dancing girls were swaying; outside the couriers of the Japanese troops were stealing quietly from camp to camp. In the stillness of the second hour before the dawn, without the beating of any drums or the blaring of any trumpets, the Japanese columns made their dash, but as they came up the steep ascent the Chinese boldly swarmed down to meet them, only to be driven back a foot at a time. At break of day, several companies of Japanese 338 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS infantry made a bayonet charge right lip the hill and in the face of the fire of more than five hundred re- peating rifles. Before the glittering lines of bayonets, nevertheless, the Chinese gave way in disorder, finally fleeing behind the walls of an inner fortification. Early that morning the siege batteries commenced cannonading. Through the smoke which half hid the city gleamed the crimson and yellow banners of the defenders. Rain began to fall heavily, where- upon, to the amazement of the attacking forces, the Chinese planted huge oiled paper umbrellas on the walls of their forts to keep them dry while they fought. " In every direction Chinese umbrellas could be seen, glistening like turtles on the earthworks." At last came the most splendid spectacle of that curious battle, a body of about three hundred Manchurian cavalry, mounted on snow-white horses, moved out, galloped along a road skirting one of the city walls, and then suddenly wheeled and charged down the valley, "where Nozu's troops were stretched across from hill to hill between his batteries." In his stirring de- scription of that scene Creelman tells how the horsemen thundered into the valley " with their long black lances set and pennons dancing from shining spear-points," how "not a man stirred in the Japanese line as the Manchurians swept down on the centre, prepared to cut their way through and escape," and how "within two hundred feet the Japanese infantry and artillery opened and horses and riders went down together and were hurled in bloody heaps." But forty of the riders made their way through the line and these were stopped presently by a reserve company in the rear. The smoke was so dense that another company of three hundred similarly mounted also rode out and JAMES CREELMAN JAMES CREELMAN 339 charged down the valley, not knowing the fate of their fellows. Nor did a man of them escape. And a third company, numbering only one hundred, galloped out to utter annihilation. Through many hours the rain fell while the defend- ers of the walls were huddled under their umbrellas and blazing away at nothing with steady persistency. Storming parties of the Japanese were taking the outer forts one at a time. At four in the afternoon the Chinese hoisted a white flag and protested to a party of Japanese officers who came forward that it was impossible for them to surrender in the rain. For a while there was comparative quiet, then the assailants resumed the fighting as they discovered that Chinese troops were being moved about upon the walls. Far into the night the battle continued; the Chinese forced the Coreans into the fighting by flogging them with whips; flights of Corean arrows winged their course through the darkness. The bulk of the Chinese forces meantime fled before dawn, mak- ing their way out between the troops of General Nozu and Colonel Salo. Finally the walls were scaled and the Japanese were in possession of the city when the sun rose. The battle of Ping- Yang ended the power of China in Corea. It now was the duty of the correspondent to get together the details out of which to frame his account of the battle, and to put the report on the wire. He sailed down the Tai-Tong in a junk and by steamer coasted along the shores of Corea to Chemulpo, whence a messenger took his "copy" across the sea to Japan. It then was cabled to San Francisco and wired to New York, and the World thus secured a story which S40 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS was read in many countries with an interest that amounted to fascination. But at Chemulpo there was a cable for Creelman also. The message had come from Ohio and the thirteen paper tags attached to it, bearing the seals of thirteen headquarters of the Japanese army, showed that the cable had been long on the trail of the special. The despatch contained just two words: "Boy — Well." That was enough; Creelman understood. But the message had a sequel. As he made his way back to Ping- Yang that night he found the main fleet of the Japanese at the mouth of the river. Admiral Ito had fought the battle of the Yalu and now was on the Corean coast for repairs and the replenishment of his supplies of ammunition. Creelman alone was on the spot. "Fortune," he says, "had given me the first story of the most important naval fight of modern times." He boarded the flag- ship Hashidate, and thus recounts what occurred: "Admiral Ito was asleep. But he dressed himself and sent for his fleet captains in order to help me out with the details of the battle. As the Japanese Admiral sat at his table surrounded by his oflBcers, with the rude charts of the battle spread out before him, he looked like a sea- commander — tall, eagle-eyed, square-jawed, with a sabre scar furrowed across his broad forehead; a close-mouthed man whose coat was always buttoned to the chin. "And when the tale of that thrilling struggle on the Yellow Sea was over, the admiral turned to me smilingly. "*It is a big piece of news for you,' he said. "*Yes,' I answered, *But I have received a still greater piece of news.' "Then I drew from my pKJcket the cablegram announcing the birth of my httle boy, and read it. "*Good!' cried the admiral. *We will celebrate the event. Steward, bring champagne!' JAMES CREELMAN 341 "Standing in a circle the admiral and his captains clinked their glasses together and drank the health of my boy." Corea having been cleared of Chinese troops, the Japanese invasion of China began. Creelman crossed to Manchuria with a detachment of the army of con- quest, and hurried on ahead of his baggage and inter- preter, riding desperately day and night lest he be too late for some important action and find himself beaten by rival specials. He reached headquarters the night before the attack on Kinchow. Worn out as he was, dawn found him in the saddle and at noon he had lunch with the field-marshal under a big tree, when the meal consisted of a tin pail of dried peas roasted over a camp fire, and that meal was interrupted by the beginning of the cannonade which reduced the city after an hour's firing. The correspondent's bed was soft enough that night. Exhausted once more, he crept into a Kinchow shop and lay down in the darkness on a yielding mass of merchandise. He awoke in fairyland. He was stretched on a great pile of embroidered silks and a splendid collection of jackets and ornaments, with a painted yellow monster for a pillow. The massive forts six miles away surrounding Talien Bay were easily taken by the Japanese, but Creelman was injured. He was riding with General Yamaji and his staff into an entrenchment, when a Chinese shell struck near, wounded his hoarse, and threw the American to the ground, breaking a rib and hurting his knee. He rode back to Kinchow and was looked after by a Japanese surgeon. The wounds were not serious, but the bandages he declares to have been "fearfully impressive." For some time he made his quarters in the Kinchow shop, and then, again in 342 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS fair condition, he rode with Yamaji, the one-eyed, toward Port Arthur. Many of the most important incidents of that first taking of the great fortress were seen by Creelman. With Yamaji he rode for hours through the night for the turning movement upon which the result of the investment was pivoted. In the dawn a great triple fort was stormed, and once the correspondent was in the redoubt he had the whole battlefield spread out under his eyes. He was on the right of the main valley; on the left were seven strong forts and at the foot of the valley was the town. Beyond on a ridge were six massive modern forts, with Ogunsan standing far above the town; on a little peninsula were three sea forts. The whole made a seemingly impregnable fortress. There were colossal duels of the enginery of war; forts were captured singly and in groups, and at last the conquering Japanese struck some good Chinese fighting men. For a time they were halted, but the skirmish lines gained the flanks of the Chinese forces. A small column dashed over the most exposed space. The town was doomed. Creelman clambered down the face of a bluff and into a valley whence he made his way to the top of a hill on the edge of the town, where he found the American and British military attaches, and watched the advance guard of the Japanese entering Port Arthur. The Japanese fired volleys, but as they marched forward they encountered no shots in reply. What ensued must be told in the correspondent's own language, for his message created a sensation over all the world, and his statements were denounced and challenged vehemently: JAMES CREELMAN 343 "Then began the meaningless and unnecessary massacre which horrified the civilized world and robbed the Japanese victory of its dignity. "As the triumphant troops poured into Port Arthur they saw the heads of their slain comrades hanging by cords with the noses and ears shorn off. There was a rude arch at the entrance of the town decorated with these bloody trophies. It may have been this sight which roused the blood of the conquerors, and banished humanity and mercy from their hearts; or it may have been mere lust of slaughter — the world can judge for itself. But the Japanese killed everything they saw. "Unarmed men, kneeling in the streets and begging for life, were shot, bayoneted, or beheaded. The town was sacked from end to end, and the inhabitants were butchered in their own houses. . . . "In the morning I walked into Port Arthur with the correspondent of the London Times. The scenes in the streets were heartrending. Everywhere we saw bodies torn and mangled, as if by wild beasts. Dogs were whim- pering over the frozen corpses of their masters. The victims were mostly shopkeepers. Nowhere the trace of a weapon, nowhere the sign of resistance. It was a sight that would damn the fairest nation on earth." The pitilessly frank tale which the special gave to the world was so startling in itself, and it charged the Japanese, whom up to that time Creelman had praised lavishly, not only for their courage and ability as soldiers, but for their humanity towards a defeated foe, with a crime against civilization of such frightful dimensions, that the peoples of the world were horrified. There were denials, of course. Men of ability as writers and whose chances for observation ought to have been excellent, declared there were no atrocities. It has been said that the Japanese offered the corre- spondent for the New York World a large sum if he would suppress the story, but Creelman printed what 344 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS he had seen, never retracted a syllable of his statements, and in time brought forward an abundance of corrob- orative evidence, including some photographs taken on the spot by Frederic Villiers. For his fidelity Joseph Pulitzer, the owner of the World, sent a con- gratulatory telegram to the banquet given in his honor upon his return. We next find James Creelman following the war- path in that short campaign in Greece which gave such unhampered opportunities to a host of corre- spondents, many of whom placed to their credit such feats of enterprise as would have been worthy of any one of the great wars of the century. Creelman him- self had a picturesque adventure at the very beginning of these four weeks of fighting. He had been at Athens keeping in touch with the events of the Cretan crisis while the pickets of the hostile armies approached each other in the Meluna Pass until they were divided by but a hundred yards. A troop ship carried him to Volo and a train to Larissa, where he mounted a scrawny pony and, with a photographer, rode into the famous Pass. The instant he crossed the line which bounded the territories of the combatants he was made a prisoner, and his captors took him to Elassona, where was pitched the camp of the Turkish field-marshal. The Turkish correspondent of a Constantinople paper acted as his interpreter, and he succeeded, as was fitting in the case of such a master of the art of the interview, in securing a long conversation with Mem- douh Pasha. Like the other specials who saw the Turkish troops in that brief campaign, Creelman was struck with admiration of their order and their general military excellence, and his talk with the field-marshal JAMES CREELMAN 345 and but a single stroll through the camp convinced him that the Sultan would be an easy victor over the Greeks. His stay in the camp was cut short, however, for to his consternation another newspaper man reached the spot. Let him narrate the adventure which fol- lowed in his own lively fashion: "The arrival of a London correspondent in Elassona sent a chill down my back. I had been the first correspond- ent to cross the frontier and enter the Turkish lines. That fact in itself was an important thing for newspaper head- lines. But now I was face to face with a rival who would undoubtedly claim the credit unless I reached the telegraph station at Larissa before him. Mounting my tired pony I started back to Greece. The Englishman saw the point and also made for the frontier. He was mounted on a good cavalry horse and easily distanced me on the plain, but when we reached the Mylouna Pass he was obliged to dis- mount and lead his horse over the masses of broken rocks, while my pony moved over the debris with the skill of a mountain goat. . . . "The ride down the other side of the Pass at night was a thrilling experience. When the foot of the Pass was reached the pony fell to the ground exhausted. "No other horse was to be had. My rival was moving somewhere behind me. The mud was deep, and twelve miles stretched between me and Larissa. I started to walk across the Thessalian plain alone. For an hour I plodded in the sticky road, listening to the howling of the savage shepherd dogs that roamed the darkness in all directions. Gradually the dogs drew nearer, snapping and snarling as they approached. Presently I found myself .«'urrounded by the hungry brutes, and could see them running on all sides. I tried to set fire to the giass, but it was too wet. The dogs were within twenty feet of me. Then I heard the sound of footsteps and voices. The dogs retreated. My blood ran cold. Was my rival about to find me in this ridiculous position and pass me? I started to run toward Larissa, but before I had gone two hundred feet I was over- 346 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS taken by two Greek soldiers in starched skirts, who had been sent by the officer of the guard in the Pass to protect me on my journey. . . . "At Tyrnavos we got a carriage, and I reached Larissa at 1 o'clock in the morning, splashed with mud from head to foot. My rival had found a telephone at the frontier, and had sent a message to London, but he was not present to plead his cause, and the sight of my travel-stained gar- ments softened the heart of the telegraph superintendent, so that the wire which was conveying messages into King George's sleeping-room was interrupted long enough to send my message to America." The most dramatic incident in the career of James Creelman was, probably, the charge which he led at El Caney in the Spanish-American campaign in Cuba in 1898. The story of that exploit makes one of the really thrilling tales in the history of war correspond- ence, and, fortunately, it has been related by the correspondent himself. It was known that General Lawton would open on El Caney at sunrise, and the newspaper men, having snatched some three hours of sleep, were trudging through the mire long before dawn. Some ten miles behind them were the despatch boats with steam up waiting to speed to the cable station on Jamaica with the reporters' messages. Prudently, Creelman slipped away from his fellow specials. A military friend had given him a whispered "tip" at midnight, and it cost him several hours of strenuous exertion, fighting thorn thickets and wading knee deep in swamps in a temperature that was wither- ing. He made the top of a small hill from which the stone fort on the elevation before El Caney was clearly seen. There, pencil in hand, he watched the small squads of men running across the open spaces below and creeping into the undergrowths from which they JAMES CREELMAN 347 always emerged a little nearer the gray fort. An infantry company stretched out on their faces on the side of the hill on which sat the scribe and volleyed into the Spanish trenches. Their powder was smoke- less and the Spaniards were trying with glasses and telescopes to locate their foes. For hours Creelman remained on this ridge, finally moving forward to the next hill, where he found General Chaffee and a brisk infantry fire. A bullet clipped a button from the general's coat and "he smiled in a half -startled, half- amused way." Rain began to fall, and the corre- spondent put on his rain coat. A bullet cut away the cape, and the general suggested that a capeless coat looked better anyway. Under a tree Creelman sat with General Chaffee and related what he had seen in the hours of his watch from the hill behind them. The charge was the sequel of that conversation. Says the reporter: "Then I suggested a bayonet charge, and offered to lead the way if he would send troops to a wrinkle in the hill which would partly shelter them until they were within close rushing distance. This was hardly the business of a corre- spondent; but whatever of patriotism and excitement was stirring others in that place of carnage had got into my blood also. . . . "We pushed our way through a line of low bushes and started up the hill to the fort. The only weapon I had was a revolver, and the holster was hung around to the back so that I should not be tempted to draw. "When I found myself out on the clear, escarped slope, in front of the fort and its deadly trench, walking at the head of a storming party, I began to realize that I had ceased to be a journalist, and was now — foolishly or wisely, recklessly, meddlesomely, or patriotically — a part of the army, a soldier without warrant to kill. "It is only three hundred feet to the top of the hill, 348 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and yet the slope looked a mile long. . . . There was a barbed wire fence in front of the trench, a barrier to prevent charges. But it had never occurred to the minds of the Spanish engineers that the accursed Yankees — unsoldierly shopkeepers! — would think of carrying wire-nippers in their pockets. "When I reached this fence I was within ten feet of the trench and could see dead hands and faces and the hats of the living soldiers crouching there. A scissors-like motion of the fingers indicated to Captain Haskell that men with wire-nippers were needed. Two soldiers ran up and began to sever the wires. . . . "It took but a few seconds to cut a hole in the fence and reach the edge of the trench. It was crowded with dead and dying men. Those who were unhurt were crouch- ing down waiting for the end. ... A silent signal, and one of the men who had cut the wire fence advanced, and covered the men in the trench with his rifle. A spoken word, and the cowering Spaniards leaped up and raised their hands in token of surrender. ... In less time than it takes to write it, the trench was crossed and the open door at the end of the fort was reached. "The scene inside was too horrible for description. Our fire had killed most of the garrison, and the dead and wounded lay on the floor in every conceivable attitude. . . . Just inside the door stood a young Spanish ofiicer, surrounded by his men. . . . Beside him was a soldier holding a ramrod, to which was fastened a white handkerchief, — a mute appeal for life. ... I looked about the roofless walls for the flag. It was gone. . . , *A shell carried the flag away,' said the Spanish officer. *It is lying outside.' Dashing through the door, and running around to the side facing El Caney I saw the red and yellow flag lying in the dust, a fragment of the staff still attached to it. I picked it up and wagged it at the entrenched village." But the day was not ended for the non-combatant volunteer. Bullets were whistling about the door of the captured fort and one of them smashed Creelman's left arm. In spite of the injury he tried to write JAMES CREELMAN 349 his story, but fever gripped him and his strength began to fail. William Randolph Hearst, the publisher of his paper, the New York Journal, came to the rescue, wrote the despatch from the special's dictation, and rode with it to the coast, whence the newspaper's boat carried it to the end of the cable. After Cuba, the Philippines. Creelman had his share of the life in the trenches before Manila, and the "wooden-headed censorship" he denounced with vigor. He marched with Funston and his Kansas regiment and with General McArthur advanced against Malolos, the insurgent capital. When the place was deserted by the enemy and the flames burst from its burning buildings the Kansans fired a volley and charged. Their commander. Colonel Funston, and the news man engaged in a desperate race to be first within the town. Over the barricade they leaped simultaneously and side by side footed it in what they amicably agreed to consider a tie. But that was far from the most exciting race that came to James Creelman in the Philippines. The struggle to be first at the cable with a woman for a competitor was more desperate, and he won it by barely a minute. There is no more quarter in war correspondence, when it is a matter of being first with the news, than is there in war itself, and this wife of a sick correspondent, trying bravely to do her husband's work, was for the time a rival for whom no considera- tions of gallantry could be entertained. The Com- mission sent by the President to the islands was about to issue a proclamation declaring to the people the purposes of the United States, and the political situ- ation at home made the proclamation a news event of the first importance. Printed proofs were handed 350 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the newspaper men and the newspaper woman. The office of the censor was two miles away. Creelman's driver lashed his horse while the scribe read the proof and tried to cut out the short words, that his skeletonized message might be ready for the cable once he reached it. The driver managed to bungle the passing of a heavy wagon, and the woman dashed by at a furious pace, scourging her foaming horse. While she worked over her proofs in the censor's office, Creelman reached it. He saw her, threw down his bundle, and to the astonishment of the officer, asked that he be authorized to cable it all. The pages were initialed by the censor, and Creelman ran out of the door. His horse was exhausted, but he snatched a carriage standing by, and was off for the main cable office. A branch was nearer, but he thought it too dangerous to allow a woman — and a young woman — to go alone to the main office. The English manager knew what quick action meant. As he burst into the little wooden building he saw at a glance that every instrument was silent. Just as he filed his long message, the key over which his woman rival's claim would be filed from the branch office began to click. Creelman had got the cable at the main office a short minute before she had entered her claim at the branch, but in order to win that race he had been obliged to forego the skeleton- izing of his long despatch, and he was forced also to pay tolls at the urgent rate, which was nine times the regular press rate! The news was worth it, and the exigency required it, but the cable charges on that "scoop" were precisely $7,602.42. CHAPTER XIII GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL "Kendall's letters, with their * plunging fire ' were copied everywhere, and made the reputation of many a gallant officer and soldier." — Frederick Hudson. ** We remarked at the commencement of the war that all its incidents and the transactions of those who were embarked in it would be more thor- oughly known to mankind than those of any war that has ever taken place." — Nile's Register, September 25^ 181^7. The first war to be adequately and comprehensively reported in the daily press was the conflict of 1846 and 1847 between the United States and Mexico, which was fought in the valley of the Rio Grande and among the mountains of the central part of the Mexican Republic. This fact has never been recognized by the investigators of the history of journalism. The few writers who have had occasion to refer cursorily to the development of the art of war correspondence have mentioned the work done by Crabbe Robinson in 1807 and 1808, and the mission of Charles Lewis Gruneisen to Spain in 1837, and then they have leaped to William Howard Russell and the Crimean letters of 1854 and the following years. Crabbe Robinson made it no part of his business to see a battle. Nine years before the war between the United States and Mexico began, the Morning Post sent Gruneisen to watch the Carlist campaign; he was attached to the headquarters of Don Carlos and he saw fighting, but the days of strenuous exertion to get the news home had not yet arrived, and there was no competitive struggle in London to be first with despatches from 352 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the field. Gruneisen was the first definitely commis- sioned war reporter, and Russell was the first profes- sional war correspondent, but it was eight years after the end of the Mexican war that Russell astounded Sir George Brown at Malta by the announcement that he was going to the Crimea for The Times, The American newspaper men who rode with Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott were war corre- spondents of the modern type. In a land destitute of the railway and the telegraph they showed the same qualities of resourcefulness and enterprise in obtaining the news and getting it over land and sea to their respective papers that Archibald Forbes displayed in France in 1870. They organized a courier service, and by the occasional employment of special steamships fitted up as composing rooms with type cases and com- positors, these reporters of seventy years ago scored their "scoops" and outsped the government despatch bearers. Dependent upon the slow means of commu- nication of that primitive era, yet George Wilkins Kendall and some of his confreres were as alert ^eSH daring as any correspondents of later years, and they deserve to be rated as pioneers in the profession, although, as the reporters of a single war, they must be regarded as regular newspaper men to whom a war was an exciting episode, rather than as professional war reporters who in intervals of peace engaged in- cidentally in other departments of newspaper work. It is not strange that the work done by these men in remote and little-known Mexico in that far-off time has been overlooked. London is not likely to have been influenced by what American newspapers were doing in that day, and probably the sending of Gruneisen to Spain for the Morning Post had little GEORGK WILKINS KENDALL From a daguerreotype loaned by the daughter of Mr. Kendall GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL 353 to do with the poHcy adopted by the New Orleans Picayune and the Delta for the reporting of the expedi- tion to the "Halls of the Montezumas." No one can say if The Times^ when Russell was sent to the Crimea, obtained any suggestion from the work which had been done by "G. W. K.," "Mustang," and " Chaparral," and other Mexican specials. The Crimean commanders thought it an appalling thing that a newspaper man was to make the campaign with them, but there were a score of newspaper men present at every important event in the two campaigns of the war in Mexico, and it is a simple chronological fact that [the first war reporters to display the qualities now universally associated with the title were those men of 1846 and 1847.) The style of some of the despatches sent out from the camps of Scott and Taylor glitters with gewgaws and in some there is palpable intention to flatter certain commanders. Few of these correspondents were competent military critics; their letters are in the main a chronicle of "thrilling achievements" by "our gallant troops." But — the scream of the American eagle was heard from every stump in every political campaign in those days, and these despatches, hurried with unexampled speed across two thousand miles of sea and land, partake of the characteristics of the time. However, the writers had no defeats to de- scribe but a succession of victories and marches, some of which were very remarkable. Many of their mes- sages, especially those of Kendall, are excellent examples of reporting, and a good many military reputations were made by these correspondents. The reporter who told how Jefferson Davis suddenly placed his regiment in the form of a V at Buena Vista to repulse 354 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS a Mexican charge helped that soldier to become the President of the Confederacy. For years the saying "A little more grape. Captain Bragg," was as famous among Americans as is "You may fire when ready, Gridley," today, or as ever "Up! guards and at them," was in England, but Taylor's saying to Braxton Bragg was, of course, in the despatch of a correspondent, never in the official reports of an officer. When that new enterprise challenged American journalism, a new implement for the collection and the distribution of news was just coming into use. Over a wire forty miles long, a year and a half before the first shots were fired, the telegraph had demonstrated its utility as a bearer of news. When the fighting began on the Rio Grande only about 1200 miles of telegraph were in operation, and the wires stretched almost entirely north from the city of Washington into the populous Middle and Eastern States. The city of New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi, a thousand miles from Washington, was the centre for news of the war. To the Southern metropolis the tidings were brought by steamboat and sailing vessel from Point Isabel, from Tampico and from Vera Cruz, and to the ships the news was brought by the daring couriers, the express riders who had to run the gauntlet of the guerillas who infested the dry plains of northern Mexico and the difficult mountain region between the capital and the city of Vera Cruz, whence Scott started on his march inland. There was great rivalry among the New Orleans papers to be first on the street with the news which the couriers and the ships brought to the city. From New Orleans the news was sent up the Mississippi River by steamboat to St. Louis, Cincinnati and GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL 355 Chicago, but the most strenuous exertions were made to send it on to Washington in the shortest possible time. By steamboat and pony express the copies of the New Orleans papers and the packets of letters were hurried across the Southern States. Once in Washington the new Morse system was at the service of the government and the press, and there were also between two and three thousand miles of railroad in operation, but over vast areas of the North neither the wire nor the railway was available for the trans- mission of news. In New York City the competition to get the tidings first from New Orleans was as keen as was the rivalry in the Southern city to be first with despatches from Mexico. The most energetic papers of the day were the Picayune and the Delta in the metropolis of the South and the Herald in New York City; to these journals the country was indebted chiefly for its intel- ligence of the war. The telegraphic era of the press may be said to have begun with the reports wired from Washington of the opening battles on the Rio Grande. News from the "Independent Republic of Texas" began to be of enormous interest to the country about the year 1844, and James Gordon Bennett of the Herald at once planned to supply the demand by extensive additions to the overland express service. The election of James K. Polk to the Presidency indicated a majority approval for the annexation of Texas, and annexation meant trouble with Mexico. The election occurred in the November of 1844, and, without waiting for the war which seemed inevitable to many, Bennett, on the day after the following Christmas, announced an overland express from New Orleans. When the war began in 1846, the service became a national 356 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS necessity, and Bennett made arrangments with the Sun of Baltimore and the Public Ledger of Philadelphia to run an express every week, and on extra days when- ever the news reaching New Orleans from Mexico might justify the expense. The correspondents who went to the war in Mexico took their hints for speedy delivery of news from the pony express systems with which they had been ac- .quainted in the States. The application of the relay system to the expediting of press reports from the battle-field was a new thing in the world. These pioneer war reporters also used the methods employed by the papers of the North to get their news across the Gulf of Mexico. The founders of the New Orleans Picayune were Northern men and they knew how cleverly sailing ships and steamboats had been brought into the service of the press. New Orleans was the focal point to which all the lines converged in the Mexican War time and from which they diverged again to all parts of the United States. Conditions in the city were such as to produce an intense rivalry in the collection and dissemination of news. Among all classes there was a lively interest in the affairs of the sturdy Texans. Moreover, there were as many daily papers in the city as in London, eight in all, and a few years later there were more. Five of these were printed wholly in English in the American quarter, and three of them, the Picayune, the Times and the Sun, were sold for a penny, so-called, for in the absence of copper coins in the city these "penny papers" were bought with a coin of the lowest denomination there in use, the picayune, whose value was about six and a quarter cents. \ In that historic and picturesque city, George GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL 357 Wilkins Kendall, a New Hampshire Yankee, and Francis Lumsden established the Picayune, the first cheap paper which the city possessed, the inaugural number of which was issued on January 25, 1837. Bom in 1809 in what is now Mount Vernon, N. H., Kendall learned the printer's trade in Burlington, Vermont, and worked as a printer in Washington on the National Intelligencer, with **Duff" Green on the National Telegraph, and with Horace Greeley on the New York Tribune, He developed a fondness for jocosities, and accumulated in his memory a large store' of anecdotes, scraps of humor, epigrams and witty sayings. In the midst of the cholera year of 1832 in New York, he left for New Orleans, and after a year with the Alabama Register at Mobile, he reached that city at the age of twenty-five. Here after a couple of years he joined forces with Lumsden and established a cheap daily. At the beginning only a four-page folio about ten inches by fifteen in size, but characterized by its bright and witty quality, it is described in its infancy "as an audacious little sheet, scarcely large enough to wrap around a loaf of bread, and as full of witticisms as one of Thackerary's dreams after a light supper." It made a stir in a city whose oflScials were accustomed to deferential homage by printing lively sonnets about them. It dared to make jokes about sugar and cotton and it " sneezed at tobacco." The innovation was startling and it caught the fancy of the people. The paper became a kaleidoscope in which all the hues of the many- colored life of the city were reflected. A contemporary writer says the paper could no more avoid success, than a clever girl can avoid a husband. After a few S58 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS years Kendall embarked upon the adventure which took him to Mexico for the first time. Says the social historian of old New Orleans: ** George Wilkins Kendall went off one fine day to what he proposed would be a kind of picnic in the wilds of western Texas. His Santa Fe expedition spun out a larger and more varied experience than he contem- plated." True, indeed, for towards the end of the year rumors of the fate of the expedition began to filter back to the United States, and the Legislatures of Louisiana, Kentucky and Maryland called upon the President to secure the liberation of the American citizens said to be immured in the dungeons of the city of Mexico. Kendall's own graphic narrative supplies a complete record of the adventure, and a few incidents which were told in the Picayune in 1842 supplied Captain Maryatt with material which he incorporated in his "Monsieur Violet," published in London in 1843. In April, 1841, Kendall, now well established as an editor and wit in New Orleans, met an agent who was purchasing equipment for the expedition. Its purpose was declared to be commercial, and Kendall is said to have been in ignorance of its real character as a filibustering enterprise. An extensive trade had been carried on between Santa Fe and the United States through St. Louis, and it was proposed that much of this business should be diverted by the opening of a military road from Santa Fe to Austin, Texas. The Congress of the United States rejected a bill authorizing and financing the expedition, and it was then supported officially by General Lamar, the gover- nor of the Independent State of Texas. Lamar issued a proclamation offering to take the people of Santa GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL 359 Fe under the protection of Texas if they desired, and if they were averse he affirmed his wish to establish friendly commercial relations with them. The expe- dition was organized in military fashion as a protective measure, for between the settled districts of Texas and New Mexico there stretched a region six hundred miles wide, through which roamed hordes of savages. Santa Fe was entirely Mexican and under Mexican rule, and historians are of the opinion that Governor Armijo of New Mexico was justified in seizing the "invaders" and sending them as prisoners of war to Mexico, but that the surrender was induced by false promises and that the captives were dealt with brutally and treacherously. The force with which Kendall had associated him- self, probably out of love of adventure, started from near Austin in June, 1841. There were two hundred and seventy soldiers and fifty other persons in the party, but the wagons were overloaded, the guides were not reliable and the distance had been under- estimated. Grass and water were scarce owing to the lateness of the start and men and animals were soon gaunt and feeble from hunger; stragglers were killed by Indians; traitors were found in the expedition's membership. Obliged to separate into detachments, all were taken finally by General Armijo. Lamar's proclamations were burned as a bonfire in the plaza of Sante Fe. The prisoners were tied together with lariats and started on a long journey to the city of Mexico. Kendall produced his passport signed by the Mexican consul at New Orleans; it was pronounced genuine, but as he was "with the enemies of Mexico" he was detained with the rest. Several prisoners were shot in the back and some were mutilated. 360 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS The prisoners trudged along on the march to Mexico, guarded by two hundred mounted men. The swollen ankles of a Texan made it impossible for him to march further and he was shot without ceremony. One night, to the number of two hundred, the captives were piled in a room barely big enough for twenty, what Kendall called "another Black Hole of Calcutta." The miseries of the tramp became almost insupportable. Arrived at the capital, the worn-out Texans were thrown into dungeons in Mexico, Puebla and Perote. Those who were able to prove themselves citizens of the United States or of European countries sought the aid of the representatives of their respective nations, and in the end were released. In June, 1842, more than one hundred were liberated as an act of clemency on the birthday of Santa Anna, who was again at the head of the government. Kendall was at first confined in the old palace of San Cristobal, and there he was visited by the members of the United States legation, and by Lumsden, his partner in the Picayune, who soon returned to New Orleans to plead his cause. After an attack of small- pox Kendall was removed to the gloomy San Lazaro, where he was confined among the lepers. Removed at length from the leper prison, the editor was put in chains with other captives and immured at Santiago. They were taken to the cathedral services from time to time, and Kendall was planning an attempt to escape upon one of these walks to mass, when the order came for his release. A blacksmith knocked off his irons and he made his way home through Jalapa and Vera Cruz. He arrived in New Orleans to find himself famous and wrote a fascinating account of his ex- periences. There followed three years of journalism. GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL 361 with the Picayune waxing more influential from year to year, and then the war summoned his energies. The New Orleans newspapers sent nearly a score of correspondents to the war, a few of whom were with the armies of Taylor and Scott throughout their campaigns. Often they printed daily news sheets at the places occupied by the army; at Tampico, Lumsden himself issued the Tampico Sentinel. When Robert Anderson, then an artillery officer with Scott and later to be the hero of Fort Sumter, wrote home from Vera Cruz he referred to the American Eagle^ which he was sending home to supplement the news his letters contained. The Eagle was published by three news- paper adventurers, who followed the army on to Jalapa and there issued the American Star, continuing the series also in Puebla and in the city of Mexico. Aside from Kendall, the most enterprising corre- spondent with the troops was James L. Freaner of the Delta, who used the signature " Mustang." At the battle of Monterey he killed an officer of Lancers in single combat and seized his charger, whence the name which he adopted for newspaper purposes, according to the fashion of the times. After some early adven- tures in Texas and Louisiana he had gone to the Rio Grande with the New Orleans regiments, later enter- ing a famous company of rangers led by Captain Jack Hays. He was involved in the controversy which grew out of the publication in the Delta of what was called the " Leonidas letter," in which the praises of General Pillow were trumpeted with more noise than wisdom. Upon two occasions Freaner was the bearer of important official despatches, carrying messages to Washington for General Scott in November, 1847, 362 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and taking the Treaty of Peace from Nicholas Trist to the President in February, 1848. The necessity of the war with Mexico was steadily maintained in the columns of the Picayune, and no sooner did the conflict actually begin than Kendall was away for the Rio Grande. Point Isabel was selected as the base for the army of General Taylor, and there vessels were constantly arriving and departing and troops from every State in the Union were landed. Soon the army went into camp on the Rio Grande opposite Matamoras, and between the camp and the base mail riders traveled every day. Frequently these riders lost their mail bags and occasionally they were captured by the prowling bands of guerillas which early in 1846 infested that portion of the lines of communication. Through the summer of 1846, Kendall was much of the time with the Rangers of Captain Benjamin McCulloch, a commander whose men called him " Ben,'* who " could ride anything that went on four legs," who fought, camped, and drank at his own discretion, and who had not the slightest notion of discipline or drill, but nevertheless was invaluable to the main body of the army because of his abilities as a scout. With the Mexican mounted bodies known as the Lancers he had innumerable brushes and in many of these Kendall had a share. The Rangers were the Rough Riders of their day, with bandanna handkerchiefs knotted round their throats, in the Havelock fashion of the Roosevelt men of 1898, and cartridge belts tied about their waists, very quick on the trigger and very cunning in their cross country rides. With these daring men the New Orleans editor waded and floundered through water, mire and mud GEORGE WILEJNS KENDALL 363 when the Rio Grande was over its banks, and crept through the thick and matted chaparral under a scorch- ing sun. *' Not a sign of a tent do we take along," he said, '*and shade and shelter are unknown here." Taylor did not favor a march against the city of Mexico with the Rio Grande as a base because of the diflficulty of obtaining supplies and decided upon an attack upon the northern provinces. Going up the river, he established Camargo as a base of supplies and early in August began to move against the important city of Monterey, which was completely encircled by strong forts, with barricaded streets and loop-holed houses. By the end of September the fortress had been stormed and the city was surrendered. All these operations were observed by Kendall and he sent back couriers with reports for the Picayune as often as was possible. Almost as a free lance he rode with the Rangers. In the storming of the second height at Monterey a member of his mess was shot. One morning just at dawn, after a night under the Spanish bayonet trees, ten miles from Monterey, with a little party of twenty-five horsemen, Kendall set forth upon a reconnoitering expedition. During the morning they fell in with a large body of Mexican cavalry, whom they rushed in approved prairie fashion and drove back. Some weeks later, when Saltillo was entered by the troops of Taylor, there were other skirmishes between McCuUoch's men and the Mexican, mounted troops. In one of these small fights, Kendall, \ who much of the time was doing the work of a soldier ' and could hardly claim the immunity of a non- 1 combatant usually granted a war correspondent, plunged into the melee and came out with a cavalry flag as a trophy, a flag which has upon occasion been 364 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS exhibited in New Orleans by the Picayune in the booth maintained for carnival and exposition purposes. Before the battle of Buena Vista was fought Taylor's veterans were ordered to Tampico to become a j)art of the army to be mobilized for service under General Scott, leaving the northern commander with a com- paratively small force. As the central part of Mexico now was to become the scene of the most important operations, Kendall made his way to Tampico and Lumsden also established himself there. For weeks after Taylor had won the battle which made him a national hero and secured for him the Presidency of the United States, the whole country was filled with rumors of the most disheartening sort. Taylor had been '* badly whipped" by Santa Anna and "driven through the streets of Saltillo." The battle occurred on February 23, 1847, but the result was not known for a month. President Polk's diary indicates how deep was the anxiety in Washington. He expressed the opinion that among the advisers who *' controlled" the move- ments of the general was " Mr. Kendall, editor of the Picayune at New Orleans." On March £0, 1847, the President found the mails bringing many vague rumors from New Orleans; the next day's mails brought details of Taylor's critical position; on the evening of the twenty-second the messages had "Taylor completely cut ofif by an overwhelming force of the enemy," and Polk recorded his grave fears for the safety of the army of Northern Mexico. The rumors continued to reach the capital and Polk continued to record his criticisms of Taylor, until the last days of March brought newspaper reports of the fighting, and the first evening of April brought the official reports. GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL 365 Santa Anna had acted with boldness and skill in attacking Taylor at Buena Vista. A guerilla band had intercepted a despatch rider and given Santa Anna possession of the plans for the coming campaign. With this information at his service he marched north at once to assail Taylor, whose veterans had been stripped from him. The fighting was desperate and a less resolute commander than Taylor would have been defeated. The tidings were delayed in reaching the States by the interruption of communication between Monterey and Point Isabel. The New Orleans papers were filled with the stories that filtered through Tampico and Vera Cruz. Messengers from the camp of the army could reach Monterey, but to get through to Camargo they were obhged to make a detour of hundreds of miles to evade the Mexican marauders. The Picayune finally received the news from a messenger who left Monterey on March 9, sailed from the Brazos aboard a schooner on March 14, and fifty miles below the city took passage in a towboat which landed him in New Orleans at three on the morning of March 24. The copies of the Pica- yune containing the joyful tidings reached Baltimore and Washington when a fierce political debate was going on as to the responsibility for the weakening of the army of Taylor to such an extent that Santa Anna had been able to wreck it. The official despatches arrived a day later. Meantime Scott had been organizing the army with which he was to march to the capital of Mexico. By the end of January, 1847, he had gathered his men at Brazos, San Jago and Tampico, whence during February they were carried in transports to the Island of Lobos, sixty miles south of Tampico, and from there 366 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS they set sail for Vera Cruz. The investment was begun by General Worth, with whom throughout the campaign Kendall was closely associated, and in fourteen days the Americans were in the city. Ken- dall's pen was very busy. Thirteen -inch shells from the castle of San Juan de Ulloa were bursting near him as he wrote his letters from Vera Cruz. With his messages he sent topographical sketches of the defences and the lines of investment. On April 18, the army swept up through the pass of Cerro Gordo and stormed the heights. Lumsden also had been at Vera Cruz, but a week before Cerro Gordo he was hurt in an accident, and he sent a letter to his paper saying that he was writing " splintered up, tucked up and tied up, after having been carried back into the city of Vera Cruz on the shoulders of a lot of soldiers." But Kendall was upon the scene throughout the fighting at Cerro Gordo, and kept almost an hour-to- hour record of the conflict. He wrote on the evening of April 15, on the morning of the following day at eight and at eleven, twice in the afternoon, and several times on the next day. His letters were sent back to Vera Cruz consigned to his partner, and the " splintered up" Lumsden did what he could to expedite their passage to New Orleans. The mountains became higher, wilder and more diflBcult of ascent and the Mexican guns were firing down upon the advancing invaders. Scott's troops swept on and up, but their lines were thinned day by day by incurable fever and the steadily downpouring cannonade and musketry of the ambushed Mexicans. Every day there was a skirmish and frequently there was a battle; on April 22, Worth took possession of Perote, a strong fortress which should have been defended. On May 1, Kendall GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL 367 was writing from Jalapa. A little later he entered Puebla with Scott, and stretched out to sleep with the rank and file of the troops in the public square. Early in June, Kendall had to take his turn of incapaci- tation. He was sick, and "the Man in the White Hat" — curious sobriquet for a substitute corre- spondent — was writing his letters for him. Until early August the army remained quiet; the men drilled; they climbed to the church at Cholula which had replaced the sacrificial temple of the Aztecs; and they looked at the snow summits beyond which lay the ** Halls of the Montezumas" of which so much had been said in the States when the war began. The army reached the crest of these mountains on August 10, and the troops sighted for the first time the "Venice of the Aztecs," the city which Cortez had conquered three hundred years before. Never was a capital surrounded with such a maze of defences, fortresses, causeways, canals and swamps; but one after another the forts were stormed, and on December 13, Chapultepec, which the Mexicans believed to be impregnable, was taken. Through these actions Ken- dall was with General Worth, serving much of the time as a volunteer aide on his staff. Hurried letters, written a few hours apart, were sent off with synopses of the battles which crowded one upon another. Five successive engagements, entirely distinct from each other, were fought in one day, and each was an attack on entrenchments against an enemy of greatly superior numbers. Of "the glorious events of the twentieth" Kendall wrote with enthusiasm. He had climbed church towers to have views of the fields, he had gone over the ground after the fighting, he had carried des- patches for Worth. His letters are full of familiar 368 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS names, Franklin Pierce, Phil Kearney and his great charge, Anderson, Hitchcock, and Robert E. Lee. Churubusco, Contreras, and the other actions thus lost, determined Santa Anna to seek an armistice, and during the cessation of hostilities which ensued the Mexican commander sought to strengthen his defences. The sham was penetrated by Kendall, whose ex- perience while a prisoner in the city of Mexico a few years before enabled him to detect the design. It was on the evening after Churubusco that he was sitting in the tent of Rafael Semmes, later to be famous as the commander of the Alabama, when the emissaries of Santa Anna arrived to propose a truce to General Scott. They were entertained for a few minutes by General Worth and then sent with an escort to General Scott's headquarters. The instant they were gone, Kendall, says Semmes, "with the bluntness and frankness which characterize him, exclaimed: *It's no use; we're humbugged — Mcintosh is among them!'" While a captive, Kendall had come to know Mcintosh, a British subject, acting as consul for the English government, and described as a "creature of Santa Anna." As a neutral he aided in arranging the terms of the armistice, but Kendall declared through the whole interval that the only object was to gain time, and the sequel proved him to be correct. The fighting resumed, Scott was able after two severe actions to enter the city. At the cluster of stone buildings once used as a foundry. Worth fought the battle of Molino del Rey, and in his despatches under date of September 10, he mentions Kendall: "I have to acknowledge my obligations to the gentle- men of the staif , who performed their duties with accustomed GEORGE WILKINS KENDALL 369 intelligence and bravery — G. W. Kendall, Esq., of Louisiana, Captain Wyse and Mr. Hargous, army agent; who came upon the field, volunteered their acceptable services, and conducted themselves, in the transmission of orders, with conspicuous gallantry." Five days later the steep and rocky hill with the heavy stone walled fortress of Chapultepee was stormed, an action in which Worth had a part with Kendall again on his staff. The following day, September 14, Scott made his formal entry into the capital of Mexico, and the army at last actually occupied the "Halls of the Montezumas." Just before the fighting ceased, in almost the final episode, Kendall for the first time was wounded. He was struck in the knee by a bullet, and again Worth mentioned him in his formal report, saying under date of September 26 : "... Major Borland and G. W. Kendall, volunteer aides-de-camp, the latter wounded, each exhibited habitual gallantry, intelligence and devotion." The negotiation of the Treaty of Peace required much time and long before it was concluded Kendall was back in New Orleans. With a train of six hundred dragoons he left the city of Mexico on November 1, and reached his home on November 24, aboard a steamer loaded with sick and wounded soldiers. In what has been said there are many intimations of the difficulties which newspaper men had to over- come to reach their journals with their packets of news. General Taylor several months after he took the field had reason to refer to the "wholly inadequate" means of communication between the Army of Occupation and the city of New Orleans. At the beginning of the war he had asked for a despatch vessel, and a "dull and slow sailer" was the only ship placed entirely under 370 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS the control of the quartermaster's department. From three to five days was the ordinary time between Point Isabel and Brazos, Santiago, and New Orleans with the news from the army of General Taylor; from five to seven days was the time of the passage between Vera Cruz and New Orleans with the news from Scott's army, the shorter time being that of the steam- ships and the slower that of the sailing vessels. In order to gain a few hours on their competitors, Lumsden and Kendall made plans for the meeting of vessels some hours out from New Orleans with a small and fast steamer. This vessel they equipped as a press boat, putting typesetters aboard her and all the apparatus for setting despatches. The boat met the incoming ships sometimes at the mouth of the Missis- sippi and at other times at points off the Gulf coast in the track of approaching vessels from Mexico. The despatches once in the hands of the compositors, they were set up and made ready for printing on the way up the river to the city, and upon arrival there they were hurried to the press and extras run off; thus several hours were often gained. It is said that upon one occasion a steamer was chartered for the voyage across the Gulf from Vera Cruz at a cost of $5000, an enormous sum for those days, and important despatches were put into type during the passage to New Orleans; but the details of this exploit I have been unable to obtain. Fully as enterprising were the partners in their organization of a means of getting their news across the land. In a country infested by irregular troops the only means of communication were the heavily armed company of dragoons able to stand off an enemy in a fight and the speedy and cunning express rider GEORGE WELKINS KENDALL 371 who relied upon his wit and his good horse to elude and distance pursuers. The former might be at the service of the army; the latter must necessarily be the reliance of the newspapers. These express riders were employed by Kendall and Lumsden, but to secure their services they had to spend large sums. They provided them with the best mounts obtainable. As Taylor advanced into the interior of northern Mexico and distances became longer extra horses were stationed at convenient points on the relay system. Point Isabel was the objective and as close connection as was possible was made with the ships for New Orleans. Between Vera Cruz and the capital the difficulties of the express service were still greater. The country was infested with bandits who robbed and murdered even wounded Mexicans, for the nature of the country favored the guerilla system. The road for miles from the coast was through sand hills and chaparral, through which progress in the intense heat was slow; thence the way led through a tropical jungle where marauders might pounce upon stragglers with ease. At two points in the mountains the bandits gathered in numbers under several notorious leaders. Mail bags were occasionally recovered where they had been left after the robbers had examined their contents and taken whatever of value they were able to find. The despatch riders of General Scott were cut off again and again, and more than once there was deep anxiety in Washington owing to the absence of official news of the army swallowed up in the moun- tains of Mexico. Quick and sure communication with Verz Cruz was what Kendall sought to secure for the transmis- sion of his news despatches. Very probably the system 872 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS which he arranged was the most regular and certain of any that was estabhshed during the American campaign, for Anderson several times entrusted his own letters to what he calls "Mr. Kendall's express." The riders started usually at midnight, and, chosen for their familiarity with the country and for their courage, they proceeded cautiously and rapidly night and day until the end of their ride, picking up fresh horses at intervals where the correspondent had been able to arrange for their care. Some of the men em- ployed upon this perilous service must have been daring fellows, for several lost their lives while trying to get through the ambushes of the guerillas. Three in succession were captured in August, 1847, and one of these was killed fighting desperately. At least one of the couriers sent to the coast with a small escort by General Scott was killed and his body mutilated. Thus the odds were decidedly against the expresses of the Picayune, yet until the very end of the campaign these couriers continued to run the gauntlet with a surprising degree of success. To the riders for the British Legation and the British mercantile houses established in the city of Mexico the army and the newspapers were also indebted in some degree. The legation courier was an old cavalry oflficer who rode post between Mexico City and Vera Cruz. While Kendall was at Jalapa he referred to Rafael, the celebrated courier of the British merchants, and de- clared that a whole legion of robbers had received license to plunder on the roads. By means of his combination of courier and steam- ! boat service the Yankee journalist was able to record i a large number of exclusive despatches for the Pica- \ yune during the two years of the Mexican War. The GEORGE WTLKINS KENDALL 373 files of the paper show how complete was the corre- spondence from the field, and comparisons prove that no other paper covered the war so comprehensively. The press of the entire country teemed with citations from the Picayune during 1846 and 1847. After the army of General Scott had occupied the city of Mexico and the fighting of the war was over, and after the editor-correspondent, with "Major" prefixed to his name, had returned to New Orleans, the Picayune still had opportunity to score a great "beat" in connection with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February, 1848, and this time again the War Department itself was outpaced. A chartered steamer brought a copy of the Treaty of Peace from Vera Cruz. Chosen for speed and prepared carefully in advance for a fast trip, she left the govern- ment's messenger ship far astern. The paper's extras gave the news to the readers of New Orleans, and then the pony express carried copies north and east to Balti- more, so that the Baltimore Sun printed the treaty, sent copies to the capital, and circulated them on the streets of Washington before the oflScials of the govern- ment had received the intelligence. Mr. Kendall left for Europe soon after the close of the war, remaining several years and spending much of his time in Paris making arrangements for the illustration of his work upon the battles which he had witnessed. The volume appeared in quarto form and was a sumptuous production for those days. A few of the colored lithographs have been many times repro- duced, especially that of the formal entry into the captured capital of Mexico. In Paris, Kendall met and married Mademoiselle Adeline de Valcourt, whose father was with Napoleon on the retreat from Moscow, 374 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS whose oldest brother was in the Crimea, and whose youngest brother served in the war of 1870. Returning to the United States the joumaUst removed to Texas and estabhshed himseK upon a large ranch in the county which now bears his name, retaining, however, his interest in the Picayune, and doing much writing for it. His death occurred in 1876, CHAPTER XIV "COVERING" THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR ^ " But let me say if those who envy the war correspondent were once brought into close contact with all the realities of war — if they were obliged to stand the chances of getting their heads knocked off by an unexpected shell, or bored through with a minie ball, — to stand their chances of being captured by the enemy, — to live on bread and water and little of it — to sleep on the ground, or on a sack of corn, or in a bam with the wind blowing a gale and the snow whirling in drifts, and the thermometer shrunk to zero, — and then after the battle is over and the field won, to walk among the dying and the dead and behold all the ghastly sights ... to hear all around sighs, groans, imprecations and prayers — they would be content to let others become the historians of war." — Charles Carleton Coffin. "'American methods.' Thus certain English papers explained the Tribune in 1870. We had four years Civil War experience, while the English, unless we reckon the Indian Mutiny, had to go back to the Crimean War in 1854 for precedents in war correspondence." — George Washburn Smalley. The most curious and beautiful memorial in the world to war correspondents is the combination of arch and tower built of the stones of the mountain side upon the summit of the historic South Mountain in Maryland, near the scene of the exploits of John Brown and the battlefield of Antietam, by George Alfred Townsend, himself a noted war correspondent in the struggle for the Union. Above a Moorish arch he superimposed three Roman arches, and these he flanked with a square crenellated tower, producing a bizarre and picturesque effect. Niches shelter a carving of a horse's head and symbolic statuettes of Mercury, Electricity and Poetry. Tablets bear the suggestive words, "Speed" and "Heed," and quotations appro- priate to the art of war correspondence from a great variety of sources beginning with the Old Testament, 376 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and, what is the most striking feature of this unique monument, there are tablets inscribed with the names of one hundred and fifty-seven correspondents and war artists who saw and described in picture and narrative almost all the events of the four years of the war which Mommsen pronounced the mightiest recorded in history. A That was the heroic age of American newspaper y I enterprise; no war before or since has made such de- ! mands upon the press. The campaign in the Crimea, the war between France and Germany and the Russo- Turkish conflict, such expeditions as those for the recovery of the Soudan, were short in comparison with the succession of sieges, bombardments, raids, marches, charges, stormings, blockades, battles on sea and land which began with Fort Sumter and ended with Appomattox. At intervals of years European journals : have been called upon to report sieges — Sebastopol, Paris, Plevna, Ladysmith, Port Arthur — and to describe great battles — Solferino, Sadowa, Sedan, I Omdurman — but Vicksburg, Atlanta, Charleston, I and Petersburg, and Shiloh, Malvern Hill, Fredericks- burg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and the Wilderness, 1 were but a few of the events of the first magnitude \ which followed hard upon one another in the long 'and desperate conflict for the preservation of the RepubHc. The War of Secession was of the first importance in the development of the art of war correspondence. When Sumter was fired upon, April 12, 1861, there were no f ^cilities ^f or the gathering of news at the front and its transmission to the cities in which the great journals were published. American newspapers were enterprising, but for fifteen years they had not THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 377 been called upon to "cover" a war. The idea of sys- tematically reporting a struggle almost of continental proportions by plans devised and elaborated in the home oflfice was not then thought of. The instant the conflict began the papers organized upon the most extensive scale for the collection of war news. The New York dailie s, allotted large sums of money for the equipment and the maintenance of corps of corre- spondents and led the country in the collection and distribution of war news, although from time to time journals published in smaller places made handsome scores. In the East, Washington was the centre about which the correspondents revolved, and the competition was keen and sometimes bitter. Rivalry was not so sharp in the West, where at the beginning of hostiHties the chief news-gathering stations were St. Louis, Cairo and Louisville. No city of importance was without at least one newspaper which maintained a correspondent in the field, and various journals in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati and St. Louis supported several. The New York Herald built up, as the war progressed, the most complete organization in the land, although the Tribune and the Times also conducted extensive and expensive war establishments. All three at the outset were making it a point to anticipate the news. For weeks before the first shot was fired the Herald had men distributed at strategic places through the South, each taking the temperature of his own region. In several instances it was by narrow margins that they escaped the clutches of the Confederates when the bombardment of Sumter began. The Richmond special barely eluded the mob which meant to hang him. At a cost of half a miUion of dollars — a pro- 378 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS digious sum for those days — the Herald developed and supported its war department. Before many months had passed there were Herald wagons and Herald tents with every army corps, and at every battle of consequence throughout the four years there was a Herald man taking notes. Of the legion of Herald correspondents five were at one time prisoners in various parts of the South. Toward the end of 1860 the Tribune began to keep a half-dozen men, usually two at a time, in and about Charleston. In 1862 that paper had always from five to eight specials with the Army of the Potomac and no fewer than a dozen west of the Alleghanies. The Times also established a corre- spondent in the South CaroHna city in anticipation of hostilities, insisting, however, that elaborate precau- tions were unnecessary, and that an honest and candid reporter would be safe anywhere beyond Mason and Dixon's line, but when the fort in the harbor was as- sailed the Times representative was suddenly arrested and put in jail, and upon his release he had great difficulty in making his way to Washington. Scarcely a half-score, perhaps only one, of the war reporters of the Sixties remained in the field through- out the period of conflict. They were hardy men, but their constitutions broke down under the strain they were called upon to endure. A service of a single year, however, would exceed in length the term of Forbes in the war of 1870, and Russell's time in the Crimea, would only have carried him from Bull Run to Gettysburg in the war between the States. Few of the American correspondents thought of war reporting as a life occupation; they took the field for a campaign, not for a career. They could find careers as war specials only by crossing the ocean, George W ^^fill'^yT THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 379 who scored heavily at Antietam, did go abroad and became the instructor of Europe in the modem art of war reporting. Many correspondents became famous in other pursuits after the war was over, as Whitelaw Reid, who wrote celebrated descriptions of Shiloh and Gettysburg, Edmund Clarence Stedman, who once scribbled his messages by the light of a candle stuck in a powder bottle, and Henry Villard, who made a desperate ride from Fredericksburg. A few of the specials were irresponsible youngsters in quest of adventure, and in this war, as in almost every other, there were some accredited correspondents and others without authority who traded upon the information they were able to secure and the fabri- cations to which they managed to give some semblance of truth. But far the greater number were as loyal and serious in their work as were the soldiers who fought the battles the reporters described. The censorship at times was unreasonably severe, yet, when Secre- tary of the Navy Welles was complaining that there ** seems to be no system, no arrangement, for prompt, constant and speedy intelligence," the correspondents were outstripping the couriers of the army and giving first news of great victories and great defeats to the government itself, as did Byington at Gettysburg, and Wing, the man Lincoln kissed, at the battle of the Wilderness. Samuel Wilkeson of the Times wrote his story of Gettysburg beside the body of his son of nine- teen, who was slain in the battle; Richardson and Browne of the Tribune and Colburn of the World were captured running the blockade at Vicksburg, and their escape from the Sahsbury prison and perilous journey north became one of the thrilling tales of the war; Osbon, as the signal officer of Farragut, ran the gaunt- 380 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS let at New Orleans; Cook, notebook in hand, sat aloft on Porter's flagship at the bombardment of Fort Fisher; Conyngham and Doyle marched with Sherman to the sea; Anderson was kept in an iron dungeon in Texas, and, when released, with a bullet hole in his arm, watched and reported the battle of Spottsylvania; Knox was "out mit Sigel;" Charles Carleton Coffin — the "Carleton" of the Boston Journal — had the dis- tinction of serving from the beginning to the very end of the struggle, and this he could not have done save for his long visits home; Carson, while riding with Grant at Shiloh, was killed by a cannon-ball; " Joe" McCuUagh used to print a daily paper along the line of march, and royally the soldiers welcomed the little sheet published from the correspondent's wagon; George Forrester Williams was first a soldier and then a correspondent; and ** Gath," the George Alfred Townsend who built the arch on South Mouritain, was one of the pursuers of the assassin of Lincoln. In this chapter it is possible only to narrate in brief outline the careers of a few of the most able of the war correspondents whose names appear upon the South Mountain arch, and to describe several typical exploits which are comparable in daring and resource- fulness with the performances of the best of the Euro- pean specials who have made war correspondence their life work. As a representative of the war reporter at his best, the story of Charles Carelton Coffin has been selected as the first to be told, because he achieved a succession of "scoops," and, as has been stated above, was probably the only one who began at the beg:inning and continued until the end of the conflict. I "Carleton" wrote precisely as the soldier fought, out of a sense of duty to his country. The recruiting THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 381 officers refused to enlist him on account of a lame heel, so he went to Washington and sent letters at his own risk to the Boston Journal, His account of the rout of Bull Run was so graphic and clear that he was engaged by that paper as a regular correspondent. Refusing assistants and messengers, he became the JournaVs bureau and staff in the field and he did the work of a corps of specials through the four years. His powers of toil were prodigious. Several times he was on the verge of starvation. Never reckless, he freely exposed himself when necessary in order to see the fighting; placing no trust in mere rumors, he once rode forty miles to probe a report which was important if true. His social qualities made him welcome everywhere and his simple honesty won him the confidence of most of the commanding generals. He knew engineering and surveying and to his topo- graphical skill was due some of the clearness of his descriptions. His tall figure and his equipment — cape overcoat, binoculars, watch, pocket compass and note books — were soon familiar to the men both of the West and the East. He scored first when Grant captured Forts Henry and Donelson. The New York specials had been laughing a little at the "man from Boston." "Carle- ton" took the first boat to Cairo, expecting to write his despatch on board, but there were two hundred maimed men on the boat, and during the one hundred and eighty miles of the journey he carried water for them and held lanterns for the nurses and surgeons. Thence he proceeded by train all the way to Chicago, writing in the cars, and from that city he sent a long account of what was the first great event of the war in the West, and his story was read by all New England 382 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS before the New York papers received their "copy" from their specials. From the deck of a gunboat, "Carleton" witnessed the naval battle in front of Island No. 10. Coming East he watched the battle of Antietam and sent off five Columns to his paper. After another trip West, he saw the fighting at Fredericksburg. In April, 1863, he went South and from the steamer Nantasket he looked on while Forts Sumter and Moultrie "got such a hammering as the world never knew before." Returning North, he found the Confederates had crossed the Potomac and that the whole nation was asking one question, Where is Lee.? The reporter went on the trail, visiting Harrisburg, Washington and Baltimore, then Washington and Baltimore again, and then Frederick and Westminster, coming on the field of ^Gettysburg in time to see the most terrible struggle of the war. Nearly every episode of that historic conflict was observed by this now veteran correspondent. Several times he was under fire. On the third day of the battle he watched Pickett's famous charge, and as the southern commander retired he rode into the wheat field and made notes of the carnage whose tokens he found there. The battle over, it was his duty to get the news to Boston with the utmost speed. The army telegraph could not be used, and the nearest railway point was Westminster, twenty-eight miles away, whence a freight train was due to leave in the early evening. Rain was falling heavily as he started from the field. Whitelaw Reid was his companion. Covered with mud and drenched to the skin, they rode into Westminister five minutes before train time, having made the distance under difficult conditions in two THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 383 and a half hours. "Carleton" managed to have his horse cared for, spread his blanket over the boiler of the locomotive to dry, and stretched out on the floor of a bumping car. From Baltimore next morning he could get barely a half-column through to the Journal, but he sent a despatch to Washington which proved to be one of the first authentic messages re- ceived by the President and the Cabinet The special took the first train for New York and thence hurried on to Boston, wiring ahead that the biggest story of the war thus far was on the way to the office. As he reached the Journal building he found Newspaper Row packed with people clamoring for news. He was smuggled into the building and locked into a room, where he saw no one but the men handling his "copy" and wrote steadily until the paper went to press. As the last sheet was delivered he threw him- self upon a pile of newspapers in a corner and instantly fell into the sleep of utter exhaustion. At his home in the suburbs of Boston during the one day which he allowed himself for rest the popular correspondent was cheered and serenaded by thousands, and he had to repeat his story of Gettysburg until he started back to Maryland and the trail of the army of Lee. In all, he traveled to make this score for his paper nearly a thousand miles, about one-sixth of which was done on horseback. Going West, he met General Grant again and was presented with a pass signed "U. S. G.," which was good in all military departments with transportation on all military trains and steamers. As the Wilder- ness campaign came on Coffin realized that he would be cut off from the railway, the telegraph, and even from communication by horse and boat. He sum- 384 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS moned his liephew, therefore, to act as assistant and messenger. The first to get out of that densely wooded part of Virginia with news was Wing, as will presently be related, but the second was Edmund Carleton. The youngster left for Fredericksburg, more than forty miles away, with orders to place the alleviation of the anxiety of the people of the North before the life of his horse, but to make sure that his horse en- dured until he reached that point. He overtook the cavalrymen beariiig messages froHt Grant to Washing- ton but their horses were well fed and fat and he spurred away from them. Through the hottest day of the year he rode and reached the railway just as a train loaded with wounded men was getting under way. He volunteered as a nurse and managed to get aboard. The officers of the Sanitary Commission gave him his first real meal for many days. At Acquia Creek he took a small steamboat and the next morning was in the capital before the news bureaus were open. The operator took his telegram with reluctance, fearing that news not yet in the possession of the government must be false. The first mail out carried a great wad of manuscript for the Journal, which was scoring once more through the enterprise of its correspondent. )The tidings the young assistant brought were the first the President and Secretary Stanton had of the later movements of the Union commander. Getting back to the army was no easy matter; Stanton had ordered that no one should leave for the front and refused to make an exception in this case, but young Carleton got a commission as a nurse from the Surgeon-General, secreted himself on a steamer, marched three days with the Veteran Invalid Corps, and rejoined the troops as the movement toward Petersburg began. THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 385 The people of Boston chose "Carleton" to accom- pany their gift of food for the needy of Savannah. Thus taken south he was in time for the flag raising over the re-captured Fort Sumter. Instantly he wrote his paper: "The old flag waves over Sumter, Moultrie, and the city of Charleston. I can see its crimson stripes and fadeless stars waving in the warm sunlight of this glorious day."* How to get the message through was the puzzle. In a few minutes the vessels were to leave and other specials confided their despatches to the purser of the despatch boat. "Carleton" scouted about for the little time available, selected a stranger as his despatch bearer, explained the importance of the mission, and instructed him thus: "When the vessel comes close to the New York wharf it probably will touch and then rebound before being made fast. Do you stand ready on the gunwale and when she touches first, without waiting for the rebound, do you leap and run for your life to the telegraph oflfice. Send this telegram, and then drop this letter in the post.'* The scheme worked. The purser kept his messages in his pocket until his own duties were done. At first the telegraphers refused the Boston despatch, declaring it to be a plot to affect the price of gold. It created a sensation in Boston when bulletined by the Journal, Wired back to New York it was pro- nounced a canard, for was not the boat in from Charles- ton, and where were the other news messages if there was news? Presently the news arrived. By way of Boston the President and the Cabinet learned of the happy issue of the southern voyage. Meantime in Charleston the correspondent was walking the deserted streets and collecting the materials for one of his best descriptive letters. 386 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS He was in Virginia again in time for the final events of the war. He reported the battle of Five Forks. On April 3, he was in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, and registered at the principal hotel as "the first guest from a foreign country, the United States." When President Lincoln arrived "Carleton" was at the landing to meet him, and he helped to escort the Emancipator through the streets while the negroes came running to kiss his hand. Thomas Nast painted his picture of Lincoln in Richmond from the descrip- tions furnished by the Boston special. "Carleton's" last letter was dated April 12, 1865. The next year he went to Europe expecting again to act as a war correspondent, but when he reached Liverpool Sadowa had been fought, and the short war between Austria and Prussia was over. "Carleton," who was born in 1823, died thirteen days after the celebration of his golden wedding in 1898. Mention has been made of Whitelaw Reid as the fellow rider of Charles Carleton Coffin froirTGettys- / burg. The late ambassador to the Court of St. James / had a career as a working journalist which was of the / first importance in the development of the American newspaper, coming to the control of the New York Tribune after an apprenticeship as a country editor, a war special, a Washington correspondent and an editorial writer. Franc B. Wilkie, representing a Chicago paper and the Times of New York, reached Cairo in April, 1862, just in time to meet the only correspondent who saw the battle of Shiloh; he had arrived within the hour with the story of that two days' conflict. The Whitelaw Reid whom he met was "a tall, slender young man, with dark blue eyes and intelligent. 9 a H o THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 387 handsome face." And he added: "His expression suggested an escape from some imminent and frightful danger. He was no coward, but there was a good deal of apparent awe on that face." The young news writer had struggled out of a sick bed to see the battle. His description filled ten columns of the Cincinnati Gazette and established his fame as a war correspondent of the first class. He had left his place as the Gazette's city editor to go into West Virginia at the outset of the w^r, and his first letters over the signature "Agate" were de scriptive of that campaign. With intervals of leader writing at the home office, he was in the field with Rosecrans, and recorded the Tennessee campaign of which Shiloh was the culmination. For a time he was in Washington, where he gained the confidence of many eminent men, among them Horace Greeley, who was impressed by his literary and executive abilities. At that period his connection with the Tribune began. His greatest achievement soon fol-f lowed, the covering of the battle of Gettysburg for/ the Ohio paper and the New York daily, and his de-j scription of the three days' fighting is generally regardeJ as one of the most graphic pieces of war reporting! jWritten largely upon the field of conflict, the emotion tof the writer was given expression in the passages of fervor and pathos which the reader of the columns of narrative will feel even today. The Richardson alluded to above was 4ibert_D. Richardson, who called upon the managing editor of " the New York Tribune several months before Sumter was fired upon and asked to be sent South. He was told that two correspondents had come home within two weeks after "close shaves," that the paper had 388 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS six men in the South and the editor would not be sur- prised at any hour to receive a wire with information of the imprisonment or death of any one of them. But Richardson was made of stern stuff; he visited Memphis, Jackson and New Orleans, sending his letters alternately to various bankers of New York to be forwarded to his paper. The letters were cast in ordinary business forms, but they conformed to a cipher system previously adopted. In Mobile the correspondent found his situation precarious and got out of the city by steamboat at once. A negro told him Fort Sumter had "gone up" and he steamed toward Montgomery with the calliope playing a very jubilant "Dixie." By way of Atlanta and Augusta he actually went on to Charleston, and looked at Fort Sumter with the South Carolina and Confederate flags flying over it, but it was dangerous to stay long, and by a midnight train he proceeded to Wilmington, where he heard that Virginia had passed the ordinance of secession. He dared not stop at Richmond, and hurried away on the last train that was permitted to go through without interruption, reaching Washington from Acquia Creek on the last steamboat that made a regular trip. At once he was sent by his paper to the seat of the war in the West. From the top of a high tree on the bank of the river between the gunboats and the forti- fications he saw the bombardment of Fort Henry; at Island No. 10, he took his stand on the^ufricane^ deck of the flag-ship of Commodore Foote. The course of one eight-inch solid shot was so erratic that he described it in detail. The ball penetrated a half- inch of iron plating and a five-inch timber "as if they were paper," hit the deck and rebounded, striking the THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 389 roof of the turtle-like iron-clad, then "danced along the entire length of the boat, through the cabin, the wardroom, the machinery pantry, and at the very end fell and remained upon the commodore's writing desk." Splinters were blown into the beards and hair of several men but no one was hurt. Life upon the vessel was full of novel interest to the newspaper man. He occupied a little room within six feet of a thirty- two-pounder which was fired every fifteen minutes. Yet so monotonous did the concussions become that his afternoon naps were not disturbed by them. He read, played chess, and made notes of the cannonading day after day and night after night. Richardson was at Cairo in May when the corps of correspondents were expelled from the army by General Halleck. The general was something of a martinet and was displeased by certain reports which someone had forwarded. He declared that as a pro- tective measure against possible spies he must expel all unauthorized hangers-on, and refused to accept any guarantees of prudence and loyalty. Whitelaw Reid, as chairman of the correspondents' committee, interviewed the general. The press men were invited to remain by others who held commissions and who had the power to protect them, but they believed them- selves to be right and made a dignified departure from the military lines. Among the men who thus departed were some of the ablest and most scrupulous specials of the whole war. Again on the Mississippi in May of 1863, Richard- son, with Junius T. Browne, also of the Tribune, and Richard T. Colbum of the New York World, decided to try to run the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg, by far the speediest way of reaching the headquarters 390 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS of General Grant, fifty-five miles below the beleaguered city. Three of every four of the boats that tried running the gauntlet had been safely accomplishing the perilous passage. At ten one night two great barges of forage and provisions started down the Mississippi with a small tug boat between them; thus Grant for some time had been getting supplies. For three hours they glided silently down stream, then a rocket shot upwards in the blackness of a very dark night, and in a few minutes, in a stretch where the river was shaped like a gigantic letter S, the barges were under a terrific shell fire. The thirty-five men on board lay quietly under cover of their hay bales; they passed safely below the town, and had run almost the last of the five miles of batteries, when their captain was killed at the wheel and they were disabled. That unlucky shot had exploded the boiler of the tug, ripped open the furnace and scattered glowing coals over both barges, and the bales of dry hay burned like tinder. The tug dropped to the bottom of the river. Browne stood upon the very highest bale of one of the barges and stared ashore, with the fiames outlining his face in sharp relief. Seeing the hopelessness of the situation, Richardson leaped into the river and a hay-bale was rolled off to him. The Confederate pickets on both sides of the river were alert and several small boats put out to pick up the swimmers, who were trying vainly to hide under the shadow of their bales of hay. When a yawl was within twenty feet of him, Richardson tore into small bits several compromising letters from the Tribune, the paper hated most bitterly by every friend of secession. Only sixteen of the thirty-five who started escaped unharmed. The three newspaper men were among the number. THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 391 Colbum was soon exchanged and returned to Vicks- burg in time to see the fall of the city, but the Tribune men, who made no effort to conceal their identity, were sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, when after four months they were transferred to Castle Thunder, and finally in February, 1864, they were sent by the Southern Secretary of War to the Condederate Pen- itentiary at Salisbury, North Carolina, there to be held until the end of the war as hostages for the Southern citizens confined in the North. For eight months they fared comparatively well, but in October ten thousand prisoners of war were crowded into Salisbury. The prison yard comprised four acres, and here, coatless, shoeless and shivering men burrowed in the earth, crept under buildings or suffered without shelter of any kind. By appointment, William E. Davis, Browne and Richardson were placed in charge of the nine hospitals inside the garrison. At the end of November there was an insurrection, checked in three minutes with grape and canister. The prisoners became ex- pert in the "occult science of tunneling;" they| would sink holes six or eight feet and strike off horizontally, lying on their faces and digging with case knives. So many were living in burrows in the yard that the whole four acres was covered with hillocks of excavated earth and the tunnel dirt could therefore easily be concealed, but they could not tunnel to Hberty, for guards were stationed far outside the prison fence. Nevertheless, Richardson, Browne and Davis man- aged to escape. Richardson went out as if on a hospital errand, a friend concealed him in a hay-mow for a day, his fellow correspondents joined him, and they were directed to a Union settlement fifty miles away. Negroes aided them; the first dwelling entered by 392 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Richardson in twenty months was a slave cabin. On the second night's tramp he was so exhausted that he lay unconscious on the ground for an hour. Five days and nights they stayed in the friendly settlement in the spurs of the Alleghenies. Slowly they made their way to the north, wading streams waist deep amid fragments of floating ice, passing within two hundred yards of a Confederate camp, and guided at times by ** bushwhackers." The famous "Dan" Ellis, a Union guide, who had done nothing through the whole war but conduct loyal men to the Union lines, aided them in the dangerous passage of the Blue Ridge. His life was that of a hero of romance, and of the four thousand men whom he piloted across the mountains he lost but one. He had a little body of seventy men ; single file they climbed the hills at night. WTien less than eighty miles from the Northern lines their guide found that a large party of Confederates was scouting in the vicinity. The fugitives were divided into two companies; the footmen turned back; the horsemen went forward in an attempt to ride through the very centre of the danger zone. "The Nameless Heroine" now became the guide. A young girl of less than twenty years, who had been bom and bred just there and knew every foot of the trails, came to the camp at midnight and took command. Quietly and carefully she rode ahead of her httle column, evading the Southern pickets and the Confederate farm houses, and circled the camp of the enemy. After seven miles, during which they had caught but glimpses of her and her horse on ahead, she left her convoy in a wood and rode across a long bridge to make inquiries, returning to report the coast clear. In the gray dawn she left them; every man uncovered as she passed THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 393 down the line and every man longed to give the cheers which were known to be unsafe. After the war Rich- ardson made her name known — Miss Melvina Stevens. On the twenty-seventh day his horse was dying. Fifteen miles from Knoxville he sighted the flag of the Union and stood silent with tears in his eyes, reverently to salute it. On January 13, 1865, from Knoxville he sent his telegram to the Tribune, **Out of the jaws of death; out of the mouth of hell." On a day in 1898, just before the outbreak of the war between the United States and Spain, Edmund Clarence Stedman and Henry Villard_ met in a New York City street. The financier limped forward and said to the poet: *' Look here, E. C, you and I must get into shape and put on the harness as war correspond- ents." Thirty-seven years before at Bull Run, Villard, who had climbed a tree to make observations of the progress of the fighting, dropped out of the branches at the feet of Stedman in a group in which were also a Harper^s Weekly artist and a Tribune correspondent. At the beginning of the war Villard was with the New York Herald and Stedman with the World. Henry Villard, who was born in Bavaria, had reported the debates between Lincoln and Douglas and served as a reporter at Springfield, Illinois, the home city of the future President, for the Associated Press. The day after Lincoln issued his call for 75,000 men, James Gordon Bennett commissioned Villard to carry a message to the White House assuring the President that the paper would in the future support every war measure, but to reach Washington required all the pluck and ingenuity of a very able correspondent. Usually the journey in those days 394 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS could be accomplished in ten or twelve hours. There were five changes of cars, — the Hudson, the Susque- hanna and the Delaware had to be crossed by ferry- boats, the street car ride through Philadelphia consumed an hour, and the slow passage through Baltimore was made in railway cars drawn by horses. Villard waited on the bank of the Susquehanna from three in the morning until seven and then learned that during the night bridges and trestles between Havre de Grace and Baltimore had been burned. Trains thus were stopped by Southern sympathizers to prevent troops from the North reaching the national capital. In a small boat the special was rowed to Havre de Grace, where he waited several hours and then started to walk to Baltimore. After six miles he managed to hire a buggy for twenty -five dollars and thus to reach the city, when he learned how the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment had fought its way through the streets on April 19. That night he was obliged to spend in Baltimore, but the next morning, having deposited one hundred dollars as security for the return of a horse and arranged to pay five dollars a day and all expenses until the animal was again in his owner's hands, he started to ride the thirty miles to Washing- ton, where he arrived in the evening, and found the city without telegraph wires and mail service, isolated from the rest of the country. The young adventurer decided to become a war correspondent and began to study books on tactics and strategy. .He witnessed the battle of Bull Run and in connection with that first battle he began his record of ** beats." At five in the morning he rode into the deserted streets of Washington, having thought out the outline of his story during his ride. In six hxmdred THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 395 words he stated clearly and succinctly the facts, and then, after a few hours of sleep, he sent away a longer account. The earlier telegram furnished New York with its first tidings of the disaster and created a sensation; multitudes of readers discredited the story of the rout of the Northern troops. As the corre- spondent wrote the longer article, relays of messenger boys ran with the sheets one at a time to place them on the wires. To the disgust of the writer, large excis- ions were made in the New York oflSces of the criticism which he had expressed of certain New York regiments. Going West, Villard cultivated an agreeable ac- quaintance with Sherman, which was in itself an exploit, for that commander regarded correspondents as a nuisance, and by paying liberally for them he managed to secure copies of Southern papers, from which, with his own comments, he made budgets of news that became a feature of the Herald. When Nashville was occupied Villard hurried to the office of the leading daily and secured three weeks of back numbers and they proved to be a mine of good '' copy". The battle of Shiloh over, he went from commander to commander gathering details and then took a steamer for Cairo, writing his despatch on the way. After the battle of Perry ville he went over the field and counted more than five hundred Confederate dead, sending his account to Louisville with a surgeon on an ambulance train. Villard now came East to take the place which Smalley had left as chief correspondent of the Tribuney with Washington as the centre for the transmission of the war news, and with assistants, horses and cam- paign equipments at his command. The battle of Fredericksburg afforded him an opportunity which he promptly seized, leaving at three in the morning 396 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS for Acquia Creek upon a ride which he pronounced in his ** Memoirs" the most terrible of his Hfe. The night was so dark that he could not see beyond his horse's head; nearly all the way he had to flounder through a ** sea of mire " one and two feet deep. In places the logs of the corduroy road were loose, which made the ride doubly perilous. Four times he fell and once he was thrown into the morass; the instinct of the horse guided him most of the way. Reaching Acquia Creek at nine he learned that General Burnside had managed to get orders through that no oflScer or soldier, no civilian, and especially no press correspond- ent, should be permitted to go North without a special permit from headquarters ! Also to his disgust, Charles Carleton Coffin soon turned up, and he had counted upon going through alone. In the end he defied the general and circumvented his rival. He induced two negroes to row him to a steam freight-propeller and after a parley with the captain he managed to cHmb to the deck, when the oarsmen, according to previous orders, instantly pushed off, leaving their passenger on board. He made shift to show his regular army pass and the captain did not know of the special orders of the morning. The boat was vexingly slow, but he wrote his story on the river, only to find when he arrived in Washington at eight in the evening that Secretary Stanton had ordered the censor to permit no news from Fredericksburg to go. Villard sent his article by special messenger on the night train. Even at that, the paper feared to take the responsibility of announcing a great defeat and suppressed many details. In the attack on Charleston the Tribune special was the only correspondent on board the flag ship of Admiral Dupont, and while the fighting above the THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 397 clouds was going on at Chattanooga, Villard was with the little group of watchers, including the command- ing general and his staff, who Hstened, racked with anxiety, to the musketry volleys which told of the battle, the view of ^which was shut from them by the intervening mists. V.Invahded for a time, Villard was in the field again with Grant in the Wilderness, and certainly was one of the first to reach the capital with authentic news of the fighting/) He then followed the siege of Petersburg until the end of June, 1864. After a visit to Germany he landed in Boston and heard all at once of the fall of Richmond, the surrender of Lee and the assassination of Lincoln. Like Smalley and Coflfin, he started for Europe to cover the War of 1866, and found it all over when he reached Liverpool. Of the work done by this correspondent Admiral Rodgers said: " His personal gallantry and unhesitating devotion in the exercise of his professional duty won for him the respect and confidence of all." He had started life in the United States as a poor boy, ignorant of English, and after the war he began a career which is yet almost unparalleled in the history of railroad finance. Edmund Clarence Stedman, known now to the world as ajpoet, years afteFtEe end of the war recalled in these terms the early days of his work for the press: "Recollections of my service with the army of the Potomac as a reporter often seem like those of a play, a stirring romance, or a memorable dream. . . . But at times I am again a young and hght-hearted news- paper man, doubtless sufficiently hght of head withal; a war correspondent in the Virginia campaign, longing "to^chronicle victories, too often forced to make the best of needless defeats; always eager to beat my able and friendly rivals of the newspaper corps." 398 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Charles A. Dana, then of the Tribune, had given him his first assignment, to cover the death and funeral of Washington Irving. On the evening of April 13, 1861, the World had printed the poem " Sumter " which he had written that morning. He was among the first to reach Washington and was there through the dark days following the Baltimore riot, but he secured his standing as a reporter by his account of Bull Run. He rode into Washington at two o'clock on the morning after the battle, with Uriah Painter of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the following day the latter's report appeared in his paper. A day later there was printed in the World "a logical, comprehensive and definitive story" upon which Stedman had worked all night on his way to New York and all day in the offices of the paper. During the battle itself Painter had seen the young poet and correspondent " waving the stand- ard of the Massachusetts Fifth and pleading with the men to rally about him." Richard Grant White afterward congratulated Stedman as "the man who restored a regiment their colors." For months Stedman was in the saddle day after day scouting for news. On October 25, he rode forty miles investigating the Ball's Bluff disaster, the next day he covered the forty-six miles to the capital, and on the third day, with his head burning with fever and tied in towels, he wrote the six columns which are the only accurate and complete account of the event. Although his regular connection with the World ended with the year, he later spent some time with McClellan, and had one adventure which well illustrates his " light-heartedness." Edwin H. House, who after the war became an authority on Japan, years later referred to the incident in a gossippy letter to Stedman THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 399 in which he asked: "Do you remember when we sat writing by the hght of a candle stuck in a broken bottle which was more than half full of powder?" In the opinion of Henry Villard the best piece of work produced by a war correspondent in the Civil War was the remarkable description of Antietam by QeorgeW. Smalley. A letter from Wendell Phillips to Sydney Howard Gay, Dana's assistant upon the Tribune, procured for Smalley his first commission for that paper. ^ He saw the capture of Fort Pulaski and spent some time with Fremont in the Shenadoah Valley. JThen on a "tip" from a friendly oflScer he rode out of Washington one afternoon, equipped with a mackintosh and a tooth-brush, expecting to be gone two days at the longest. He was out for six weeks and in that time witnessed the battles of South Moun- tain and Antietam. For most of two days Smalley watched the pictur- esque performance at South Mountain by the side of General McClellan. The afternoon before Antietam he joined "Fighting Joe" Hooker and rode with that general upon a reconnoitering expedition. That night he slept on the ground with his horse's bridle wound about his arm. In the morning as soon as the soldiers could see the sights of their rifles the battle began. Riding with Hooker on the firing fine, Smalley bore several messages for him during the hardest of the fighting. To the colonel of a wavering regiment he carried an order to move his men to the front and keep them there. "Who are you?" asked the colonel. "The order is General Hooker's," was the reply. " It must come to me from a staff oflScer or a brigade commander." "Very good," said Smalley. "I will report to General Hooker that you decline to obey." 400 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS And the colonel exclaimed: "Oh, for God's sake, don't do that. I had rather face the Rebels than Hooker," and the regiment was moved forward. Just after the correspondent had called Hooker's attention to the fact that he was allowing himself to be a most conspicuous mark for the enemy and that their bullets were following him wherever he rode, the general was hit. Through the whole battle Smalley was under fire; twice his horse was hit, and twice his clothing was cut by bullets. Exhausted as he was, the duty of getting the news to his paper now confronted him. For several hours he visited camp after camp and listened to the execra- tions of the soldiers and conferred with his Tribune confreres. At nine he started for Frederick, thirty miles distant, commandeering the horse of a colleague. For six hours he was in the saddle and most of the time he slept, so utterly wearied was he. Not until seven in the morning was he able to find the telegraph operator in charge of this, the only available office. Argument was required to induce the telegrapher to try to get a short message through. Seated upon a log beside the door of the little building, Smalley wrote his despatch, handing sheet after sheet to the operator, until a column, as he supposed, had been sent to New York; but that message was sent instead, upon the initiative of the telegrapher, to Washington, and, says Smalley, "such was the disorder then prevaihng that it was the first news, or perhaps only the first coherent account of the battle, which reached there and the President." All that dc, ^ the news was kept under cover at the capital, but that night it was released and wired on to New York in time for the Tribune of the next morning. Photo, by W. & D. Downey, London GEORGE WASHBURN SMALLEY THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 401 Smalley had depended upon getting a train from Frederick to Baltimore, but there was none, and, as he saw oflficial after official, he could get no definite replies to his questions and pleas. A train might go at any instant and there might be no train at all. No special could go out without a military warrant. The War Department was wired to for a warrant, but no answer was received. At last the almost desperate correspondent got away on a mixed train which brought him to Baltimore just ten minutes before the express from Washington for New York came into the station. In those few minutes he had to decide whether to risk his story upon the wires or to go on himself to make i sure that the paper got the complete narrative for which he supposed his short despatch from Frederick had prepared the editors. Just one curt question at the telegraph office settled the matter. Not a promise of any kind could he secure; all messages were accepted at the sender's risk and the chances of their getting through with any degree of celerity were scant. \ The indomitable reporter took the train. The cars were lighted by oil lamps, hung near the ceiling and dimly burning, one at each end of the coaches, but at nine that evening, by the ffickering light of a single lamp, Smalley began to write with pencil " the remark- able description" which Henry Villard praised. The message was finished by the cold Hght of the new day j as the train rolled into Jersey City, and, writes Smalley, " The office knew the despatch was coming, compositors were waiting, and at six the worst piece of manuscript the oldest of them had ever seen was put into their hands. And somewhere near the breakfast hour the Tribune issued an extra with six columns about Antie- tam." By the night train he started back to Washing- 402 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS ton, but he had " been sleeping on Virginia soil, think- ing himself lucky if he could borrow two rails from a fence to sleep between," and he was soon invalided home with camp fever. After some months of editorial writing and while the whole country was plunged in gloom because of Chancellorsville, Smalley was sent to the Army of the Potomac on a mission of inquiry for the Tribune, Lincoln and all the North were looking for a command- ing oflficer and public opinion was divided greatly. The special went from general to general and from corps to corps, and talked with men of all ranks and of no rank, telling them all that the results of his inquiry would appear in his paper, but the story was never published. The army, rightly or wrongly, had lost faith in Hooker. The man most often named was Meade, and when he interviewed that general, Smalley found him "a model of military discretion." It was decided that the truth would harm the cause and therefore the article was suppressed, but Smalley regarded Gettysburg as the vindication of his judgment and the sagacity of his friends. ( One of the greatest news achievements of the war was that of B. S. Osbon wh ose story of the operations of Farragut at New Orleans filled three solid pages of the Herald and whose sketches of the running of the batteries covered three pages of Harper^s Weekly, Osbon, whose name often was misspelled as Osboni, had had a life at sea as full of adventures as a novel. At the founding of the World he was the first reporter engaged; Frederick Hudson, the managing editor, employed him to cover marine news. On the second attempt to relieve Fort Sumter, Osbon went on the little revenue cutter Harriet Lane as clerk and signal THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 403 officer, the only newspaper man in the fleet. He heard the first shot of the great war and witnessed the bombardment and capitulation of the fort. From the lips of Major Anderson himself he wrote the account of that historic event, and came North with a " beat " for his paper, to find the city and the nation ablaze with excitement. A crowd forced its way into the World office and compelled Osbon to mount a counter and relate the story of Suniter. He was a hero if for no other reason than that he had seen the bombard- mentj) Frederick Hudson became managing editor of the Herald and Osbon joined his staff. The Secre- tary of the Navy gave him a kind of roving commis- sion to "accompany naval expeditions in any staff capacity to which the commanders might appoint him provided they did not interfere with the regulations of the Navy." On the expedition to Port Royal a shell ruined his luxuriant whiskers. Again he brought the Herald a " scoop " and supplied Harper's with sketches. Admiral Farragut appointed Osbon signal officer, and in that position he made every signal that con- trolled the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron. This was a great advantage to the correspondent, for it brought him into close touch with the flag officer and gave him complete information of every movement of the vessels. Running the gauntlet to New Orleans meant the passing of two strong forts mounting two hundred guns, a chain barrier in which a narrow opening had been cleared, a dozen Confederate gunboats, a ram or two, some old hulks and countless fire rafts; and the very swift opposing current had also to be considered. On the night selected the ships took their designated anchorages without noise or display. Pre- cisely at one in the morning all hands were called. 404 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Says Osbon: "It was a solemn time. On the stroke of two with my own hands I hoisted to the mizzen peak a pair of red lanterns, which was the signal to get under way. The first ship was just at the chain when a blaze of Kght and a roar from the fort told we had been discovered." Amid the screaming of shot and shell the vessels forced their way through the opening, and Osbon hoisted "the largest Star Spangled Banner at the peak and decked the fore and main masts in the same way." In a few minutes, with "death and destruction everywhere," the men's faces covered with powder-black and daubed with blood, oflficers and all "looked like a lot of demons in a wild inferno." The night was black and the smoke blinding. Cut ropes were swinging and splinters flying. " The only thing we saw clearly," says Osbon, " was the flash of guns in our faces and the havoc on our own ship." Farragut had climbed to a point high in the mizzen rigging where he could watch above the smoke. " With his feet on the ratlines and his back against the shrouds, he stood there as cool and undisturbed as if leaning against a mantel in his own home." Several times Osbon carried orders for him. As the signal officer saw shot nearing the commander, he begged him to come down, and presently he did descend. Barely had he left the place when a shell exploded in the rigging and cut away the ratlines on which he had been standing. Years after in Paris Mrs. Farragut showed Osbon much attention and declared he had saved the life of her husband. Osbon had a watch lashed to his sleeve and the notebook in which he kept his records as clerk for the flag officer and as correspondent for the Herald. At THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 405 exactly 4.15, with Fort St. Philip on one hand and a big fire raft on the other, while her batteries were pounding away at the fortifications, the ship went aground. In that instant of crisis a ram shoved a raft under the port quarter and the vessel took fire. The next moment a shell exploded on the berth deck and another fire started. Only desperate measures could save the ship. And Osbon was the man for the emergency, as witness the story told by M. F. Tobin in his book on Admiral Dewey, and re-told by Osbon himself, the story of "Osbon's prayer." Says Tobin: "The late Admiral Boggs used to delight in relating a story told him by Farragut, called *Osbon's prayer.* Far- ragut, seeing an oflScer kneeling by the poop-deck shear called out: *Come, sir, this is no time for prayer.* The oflScer addressed was B. S. Osbon, Farragut*s signal clerk, who, seeing the great peril the ship was in, put an overcoat that lay in the signal locker over his head to prevent the flames from burning him, and rolled three twenty-pound rifle shells up under the curling flames, deftly uncapped them, and just as Farragut chided him, threw them over the side into the fire-raft, and in five seconds they had exploded, tearing out the sides of the raft. After the explosion of the shells water rushed into the raft and she sank.** The kneeling Osbon thus destroyed the scow and scared away a small ironclad creeping toward them. The hose was got out and the flames were extinguished and then the engineers got the ship off the bottom. It had been a "close call." All the ships but three passed the forts. At five they anchored. Osbon made the signal to report casualties and Farragut stood by and watched the figures as he noted them. As they went on to the city they met steamers laden with blazing cotton drifting down the river. Despatches for Washington were sent by Farragut 406 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS on the small Cayuga and Osbon was permitted to sail aboard her. As the despatch boat left the flagship, the sailors manned the rigging of the Hartford and gave the newspaper man and signal officer three resounding cheers, and as she went down stream every ship was thus manned and again and again this compliment was paid the correspondent. The Cayuga found Lincoln and Secretary Stanton off Fortress Monroe and the President listened to the details of the capture of the Southern metropolis. He sent them on to Baltimore on the mail boat, and the day after his arrival there Osbon was in New York. Short des- patches had contained all the facts the North knew about the exploit of Farragut. The long account written by Osbon was the only story written by a man who had actually made the passage up the Mississippi. The correspondent who was kissed by President Lincoln was Henry E. Wing, for many years a Metho- dist clergyman and now living in South Norwalk, Connecticut, who has told the story in a booklet recently published. Such manifestations of emotion are recorded so infrequently of the war President that this was almost a unique incident. Confirmatory evidence is suppHed in the "Diary of Gideon Welles," the Secretary of the Navy. For almost a week the country had been without news from Grant, who had begun his Wilderness campaign with the dehberate intention that for a few days his communications with Washington should be severed. The country was on tiptoe with excitement; what had become of the 100,000 men who had disappeared so dramatically? After the first day's fighting the Tribune correspondents met in conference, and young Wing was chosen for THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 407 the difficult venture of taking out the news. Grant himself entrusted the reporter with a message for the President, — " Tell him from me that, whatever happens, there will be no turning back." At dawn Wing started. His correspondent's outfit was exchanged for a " Butternut " suit and " brogans;" every scrap of memoranda was left behind. Mosby's men got from him "the good news of a victory for the South." Two of Mosby's guerillas escorted the disguised correspondent through the woods. His gallant horse carried him across a river amid a volley of shots; the horse was left in a covert in the woods with an abundance of oats and a promise to return — a promise which was faithfully kept. Pursuers passed him, — but they were looking for a mounted man, not a pedestrian. For miles he tramped the railroad ties. At Manassas Junction he was detained several hours in a Confederate cavalry camp, sneaking away at dusk and hustling down the track six miles to Bull Run, where he entered the Union lines. No other reporter had come through, but the nearest public telegraph station was twenty miles away, and that distance had to be covered in three hours if the " scoop " was to reach New York, for the office closed at midnight. For a horse and guide one thousand dollars was offered, and for a hand car and a man to help run it five hun- dred dollars. The hand cars belonged to the govern- ment, as did the military telegraph, and as a final resort Wing sent a " feeler " over that official wire, to his friend Charles A. Dana, then Assistant Secretary of War. Back came the curt query, "Where is Grant?" Then Wing knew that not even Washington had tidings from the army. He undertook negotiations. Let him send one hundred words to the Tribune and he would tell the 408 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Department all he knew. Threats of arrest sizzled over the wire from Secretary Stanton, but the President came in and at once accepted the terms, and " standing by the operator at Union Mills " Wing " dictated the half- column despatch which appeared in the Tribune on the morning of Saturday, May 7, 1864." A locomotive was sent out from Washington, and at two in the morning Wing reached the White House. His appear- ance was very disreputable, but his voice identified him to Secretary Welles. For a half-hour with a map before them he described the movements of the troops. At length alone with Lincoln, he repeated the personal message from Grant. There had been so many turnings back, but Grant assured his chief that this was indeed to be a final movement on Richmond. Lincoln was carried away with joy for that message, and he kissed the young correspondent on the forehead, CHAPTER XV REPORTING THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR " As our country, unlike England, is not constantly engaged in military operations, only a few of the men who acted as correspondents during the war with Spain went to the front with any previous experience of the kind of work before them. But they had been trained in a school of journalism which teaches self-reliance and, above all other things, readi- ness of resource. In consequence they met the new conditions without anxiety, and by using the same methods they had formerly employed in reporting a horse show or a fire, they succeeded in satisfactorily describing the operations of our army." — Richard Harding Davis. The United States battleship Maine was blown up in the harbor of Havana on February 15, 1898, at forty minutes after nine in the evening. Captain Charles Dwight Sigsbee wrote and re-wrote his report of the disaster with the groans of hurt men in his ears, and delivered the message to George Bronson Rae, war correspondent, who carried the despatch ashore and put it on the cable. Before three in the morning the reports of the various Havana correspondents had reached the offices of the New York dailies, and at daylight on February 16, in every city of the United States shrill-voiced newsboys were crying the tidings in the streets. The whole country knew that war was probably inevitable, but for the newspapers the war began when the managing editors and publishers learned of the explosion that destroyed the Maine, The New York World began operations within an hour of the coming of the news. The wires to Key West were kept warm, the paper's representatives dragged divers out of their beds and chartered a tug, and before noon the boat steamed out of the harbor 410 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS with three divers and their paraphernaHa on board. At the same hour the Havana correspondent received cabled instructions to use the divers to "get the actual truth, whether favorable or unfavorable," as to the destruction of the battleship, but the investigation was not permitted and the paper had to pay extra bills to the amount of one thousand dollars for that effort to get the news. While for many scores of newspapers the duty of covering operations in Cuba began with the Havana explosion, there were several ©f the most enterprising dailies which for months before had been employing men to communicate, at the risk of their lives, with the insurgents in the interior of the island. George Bronson Rae of the New York Herald spent three-quar- ters of a year with Maceo and Gomez and witnessed eighty fights, in two of which he was wounded. He made it his duty not only to learn the facts as to the tales of famine, atrocities and battles which were appearing in print, but to expose the "factories for the faking of war news" which were supported in Florida and "presided over by Cuban Munchausens." Major Grover Flint took like risks for the New York JournaL Sylvester Scovel, the representative of the World, was the best known and most bitterly hated American in Cuba; for a time a reward of ten thousand dollars was on his head, and after having eluded the Spaniards frequently he at last was taken. The United States Senate demanded his release and he was set at liberty after an imprisonment of a few weeks. Had he been captured during the war he probably would have been executed. For weeks and months also the city of Havana swarmed with American news gatherers; they strolled about and loitered in the cafes. THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 411 apparently with little to do, but their ears were alert all the while. Occasionally one would drop out of sight for a night and a day, which would mean that some insurgent agent had reached town with news from the camps beyond the city. Of the work done by these three, Scovel, Rae and Flint, Richard Harding Davis has written in terms of enthusiastic admiration : "They are taking chances that no war correspondent ever took in any war in any part of the world. For this is not a war — it is a state of lawless butchery, and the rights of correspondents, of soldiers and of non-combatants are not recognized. Archibald Forbes and *Bull Run' Russell and Frederic Villiers had great continental armies to protect them; these men work alone with a continental army against them. They risk capture at sea and death by the guns of a Spanish cruiser, and, escaping that, they face when they reach the island the greater danger of capture there and of being cut down by a guerilla force and left to die in a road, or of being put in a prison and left to die of fever. . . . "The reckless bravery and the unselfishness of the correspondents in the field in Cuba today are beyond parallel. It is as dangerous to seek for Gomez as Stanley found it to seek for Livingstone, and as few men return from the in- surgent camps as from the Arctic regions. In case you do not read a New York paper, it is well that you should know that the names of these correspondents are Grover Flint, Sylvester Scovel and George Bronson Rae. I repeat that, as I could not reach the field, I can write thus freely of those who have been more successful." From the time of the Maine* s destruction through the period of the American and the Spanish investiga- tions of the wreck and until war was actually declared, every reporter and every photographer and every artist in every newspaper office in every city and in every town in the United States began to plot and 412 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS plan and plead to be sent to the front. Every man discovered in himself some special qualifications for the work of a war correspondent. Several thousands of persons who expected to go to Cuba in some civilian capacity and other thousands of men who expected to be called out as soldiers dropped in to tell the manag- ing editors that they could be induced to aid also in reporting the war. The copy boys, the messenger boys and the printer's devils *'up-stairs" all announced that they could squirm through picket lines and fetch messages in from that alluring and mysterious place called "the front" and that no scouts could catch them. Newspaper work became decidedly popular. And, in very truth, some of these tyros went to the front and made good» Past experience counted for very little once the paper's men were at the seat of actual war. Success seemed to be a question of intelligence and of character. Men were rushed out of city rooms because they were believed to have gumption, they were set down in Cuba in blissful ignorance of the difference between a cartridge and a caramel, and they kept pace with the firing line cheerfully and tramped through the jungle with news for the despatch boats quite as if they were on ordinary city assignments. Many a newspaper woman shed bitter tears because she was not chosen for duty in Cuba, and one or two women did manage to go to the war. The papers entered upon a scramble for the capture of the writers of reputation whose names might count for much as special correspondents with the armies, and whose descriptions of battles and charges might be expected to read with the fas- cination which had made their stories best sellers. Rudyard Kipling was bombarded with cablegrams. THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 413 Four scores of editors wired for his services; a few with unUmited resources asked him to name his own price. Expenses mounted skyward. The papers planned to cover the whole field of action from the Philippines to Porto Rico, to put the right men at the right strategic places, to secure in advance cable facilities and despatch boats, to deal intelligently with the mass of news that would come into the home offices, and to provide for the enormous increase of press run and of circulation which they felt their enterprise ought to bring them. A special desk of copy readers of war news was organized by many papers, and they handled all the war messages, sorting, comparing, editing and allotting their space to all the despatches which came over the wires. Special trains were chartered to carry extras to distant cities, and in Buffalo, New York evening papers were sold by thousands from the time the theatres closed until the restaurants emptied after midnight, while every remote hamlet consumed a few of the dailies from the half-dozen great cities. The men who whipped copy into shape and made headlines rejoiced over one thing that brought them to the point of imprecation many times when handling news of Pres- ident Roosevelt and other public men with long names — the word most often used, "War," had but three letters and could be fitted into any headline. Immediately after that fateful February day in Havana the censorship became severe. With the censorship came the despatch boats, and these fast little vessels rapidly increased the cost of covering the war that was not far ahead. Before the actual dec- laration these vessels made merely a trip a day across the Florida Straits and their cargo was only a little packet of manuscript. As war came near and the 414 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS blockade extended its lines several papers secured two, three, five, a fleet of swift despatch boats. After the press men were ordered away from Havana and the blockade was begun the work of the news boats became most exacting. The line of blockade stretched one himdred and twenty miles. The boats had to speak every ship in the line once each day. Patrols would start at each end of the blockading fleet and meet at the middle, when one would take the news and sketches both had secured and start for Key West. The corre- spondents would work as hard at their long table in the cabin as ever they would have done at a copy desk in the home office. On dark nights they often were challenged by ships of the blockading fleet. In the main the relations between the warships and the press boats were amiable, and news was megaphoned in exchange for the gossip the reporters might have collected down the line. Ray Stannard Baker, writing at the time of hostili- ties, says: "Owing to the threatened hazards of war, ship owners exacted from five thousand dollars to nine thousand dollars a month for the use of each of these boats, and the newspapers were required to bear the additional expense of fire, marine, accident and war insurance, which the alarmed underwriters of New York had fixed at the enormous rate of eight per cent a month — equal in a year to nearly the total value of the boat. One New York paper pays twenty- two hundred dollars a month insurance on a single tug — and it has five boats in service in different parts of the world." In addition, of course, the publishers had to pay the cost of coaling the ships and the salaries of their correspondents, besides ordinary supplies. One managing editor showed a friend his salary list THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 415 for war reporters and it amounted to more than four- teen hundred dollars a week. To the cost of despatch boats and the salaries of men there must be added the cable tolls, and these often were enormous. The cable rate from Key West to New York was five cents a word for press despatches, but the necessity of protecting all points where news might be had or to which news might be carried for transmission vastly increased these costs. It was necessary to garrison the non-Spanish ports whence cablegrams might be sent. Thus St. Thomas, nearest to Porto Rico, and the Haytian ports came to be occu- pied by press men. The cable rates from these points were from fifty cents a word upward, and when a paper found it necessary to cable information to its correspondents at West Indian ports, the rate on these messages, which were not entitled to news rates for publication, was between two and three dollars a word. Places more distant far, however, also came into the reckoning. Madrid had to be considered. The censorship hindered the sending of really important news even to London and Paris papers. A courier system was devised, by which special runners took messages over the six hours of railway from Madrid across the French boundary at Biarritz or Bayonne, whence the use of the cable might be had without the censor's excisions emasculating the despatches. These couriers did their work at considerable personal risk, and the total cost to some American dailies, cable tolls included, was two thousand dollars a week. At some cross roads stations of the seas the papers had no special reporters, as the Canary Islands and Martinique, but at all such places there is always some authorized person representing if not a paper a news bureau, 416 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS and to whatever city he may report, his news will find its way across oceans and continents to New York in a short time. So it was that the New York papers learned that the Spanish fleet was at the Cape Verde Islands. The message cost eighty-six cents a word. Farther still was Manila, so far that not even the most aggressive American paper could get a special to Hong Kong or the Philippines directly from home in time for the battle. For days, when it was seen that a naval action at Manila was imminent, the cable was heavy with American newspaper messages on which the toll was one dollar and sixty cents a word. The first great event of the campaign was the victory of Admiral Dewey in Manila Bay. In his official report the commander of the American fleet says: **Mr. J. L. Stickney, formerly an officer in the United States Navy, and now correspondent for the New York Herald, volunteered for duty as my aide and rendered valuable services." This correspondent, who had been graduated from the Naval Academy in 1868, and in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877 had represented the Chicago Tribune, was in Japan following the move- ments of the British, Russian and Japanese fleets. On April 9, 1898, he cabled from Tokio to Dewey for permission to go with the squadron to the Philippines, agreeing so long as he might be on board to send out no news without Dewey's approval, and citing the already-secured permission of the Secretary of the Navy. The reply was favorable; Stickney hastened to Hong Kong. When he had last seen the ships at Yokohama they had been white and brilliant; now they were grim and gray, the war color. On the forward bridge of the flagship Olympia a few minutes before six on thfe morning of May Day, THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 417 Stickney heard Dewey speak the words which opened the battle, the well remembered **You may fire when ready, Gridley." To his petition for a place on the bridge the commander had made no definite reply imtil the day before the action, when he named him as aide and asked him quizzically, "Are you satisfied?" Thus the reporter had as good a view of the victory as the admiral himself. On May 5, a despatch boat was sent to Hong Kong, aboard which was Stickney with long cablegrams for his paper. The exact number of American newspaper men who saw service at the front in this short war cannot be stated. One authority puts the number at one hundred and thirty; another at one hundred and sixty- five, and a third sets the mark at two less than two hundred. Their numbers exceeded certainly the wild- est dreams of the War Department. At Tampa during the "rocking chair period" writers and artists of every description loitered about the verandahs of the hotel. Dailies, weeklies and monthlies had their representa- tives, and some rather absurd claims were pressed, as when a correspondent undertook to go with the expedition as the special for an agricultural paper. General Shafter had first and last to deal with nearly a hundred writers and picture makers. But there were many men of the first class nevertheless in the newspaper corps. When the war was nearly over a company of press men in Porto Rico listed the events which they judged to have the geratest news value for the whole campaign and credited the correspondents with the events which they respectively had witnessed. Stephen Crane led them all. He lived in the war a real "Red Badge of Courage." Richard Harding Davis pronounces 418 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS him **the coolest man, whether army officer or civilian," whom he "saw under fire at any time during the war." Leonard Wood, who then was colonel of the Rough Riders, twice ordered Crane to drop on his face when bullets were thickly flying about, and the novelist pretended not to hear, but a bit of sarcasm from Davis had the desired effect. Stephen Crane first went out on a despatch boat from Key West with three other press men, when, he wrote, *'the war was not a gory giant, but a bunch of bananas swung in the middle of the cabin." On a pitch black night they were almost rammed by the Machicis, The Three Friends landed them near Guan- tanamo Bay, where various curious experiences befell the writer, some of them diverting, as when one after- noon a lot of men were bathing and in the midst of their water frolic firing was resumed. They scampered out of the water, grabbed their guns and went into action dressed in their cartridge belts and nothing more. Crane carried despatches like any other reporter to the cable station at Fort Antonio, Jamaica. With a colleague he planned to make a landing somewhere west of Santiago, creep through the Spanish lines, and obtain a view of the Spanish fleet lying in the harbor. Rumor said the Viscaya had escaped and it would be a neat thing to make sure. They steamed to a point opposite a little Cuban camp, threw two little Jamaican polo ponies into the water, climbed into a little row boat and made for the shore. Some insurgents met them, caught their ponies, and gave them an escort of six men into the hills. The camp was a thing of saplings and palm bark tied with creepers. To get up the "trails" the Americans had to lie flat on their diminutive ponies, while their escort scampered THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 419 in and out "like rats." At dawn they left their mounts with their Cuban friends and sneaked through the Spanish lines and up a great hill which commanded a view of the harbor of Santiago. There tranquilly at anchor lay the fleet. "The bay was white in the sun, and the great black-hulled armored cruisers were impressive in a dignity massive yet graceful." Crane looked at them and his comrade made sketches and maps; they two were "the last Americans to view the ships alive and unhurt and at peace." Once back on their boat they steamed to the flagship, where they had an interview with Admiral Sampson and related what they had seen. Crane had a place on San Juan Hill when Richmond Pearson Hobson and his men were exchanged and brought within the American lines. He saw something "solemn, funereal, in the splendid silent welcome of a brave man by men who stood on a hill which they had earned out of blood and death." That was the real welcome rather than the applause which later was vented. The novelist caught a fever at length, and, in spite of what Scovel and Rae tried to do for him, he was obliged to return home. No one wrote of the war quite as did Stephen Crane. His story of the regular bleeding to death in the Cuban hills, and his tale of the marine at Guan- tanamo, with bullets splashing the sand about him, counting the flag signals, are pieces of literature. As one reads them he should recall that what they dared Crane also faced. He sat at the feet of the signal man and watched his lips move as he counted, but with the writer that was not courage; it was just a part of the day's work of a special correspondent in war time. John Fox was another novelist who proved himself 420 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS as a war reporter in Cuba. Frank Norris, whose "The Pit" and "The Octopus" gave him a hearing and fame throughout the world, was one of two corre- spondents who actually witnessed the surrender of Santiago to General Shafter by General Toral. Stephen Bonsai was another whose chief interest was not in accurate descriptions of military strategies, but in the picturesque and dramatic incidents of the cam- paign. He saw the soldiers scrambling about Hobson as he came back to his own camp after his capture and imprisonment, and records that "suddenly he turned very white, he was deeply affected. It was apparent that he had not the faintest conception of the idolatry with which his exploit is regarded." He tells of the "tall, slightly built woman standing before a great black pot suspended on a crane, seemingly quite inured to or oblivious of the thick smoke" — Clara Barton of the Red Cross. That the Rough Riders sang "Fair Harvard" in the rifle pits with the enemy within easy ear-shot was of as much importance to him as the evolutions of the ships commanded by Admiral Samp- son. For the purposes of such a writer there is news interest in the fact that he did his own washing, spread his three handkerchiefs and his single pair of socks on a rock to dry, stretched out on the moss to sleep, and awoke to find his washing gone! Surely both the military and naval historian and the writer of "human interest stuff" are necessary if a war is ever to be described in all its phases and if its entire signifi- cance is to be understood. By no means all the men who were in the ranks in this war can be mentioned here. Many were not able to write a thrilling paragraph, but they were trained reporters who understood the value of absolute THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 421 accuracy. It was theirs to race to the wu-es with exact accounts of skirmishes and battles in which every regiment and company should be correctly designated and the name of every man killed or wounded spelled without error. But of the outstanding personalities there must be mentioned Frank Millet, — the lamented artist who was lost with the Titanic, and who had been with MacGahan in the Balkans twenty years before, who saw the fighting in the Philippines, — and the men whom England sent to Cuba. Russell's biographer, John B. Atkins, came out for The Times, Phil Robinson, E. F. Knight and H. C. Seppings Wright were in the field through a portion of the war, and George Lynch, who has seen service in several campaigns, represented the Daily Chronicle. The men sent out by the Associated Press had to endure the cruel fate of anonymity. They were parts of the great news gathering machine to which men must sacrifice personal brilliancy and originality. Melville E. Stone, its general manager, declares that the Associated Press scored its first notable war success during the war with Spain. The "A. P.'* of course had its fleet of despatch boats plying to Haitien and Jamaican cable stations and the bureau placed scores of men at strategic points. Four men wrote a com- posite story of the sinking of the Merrimac and the interweaving was so cleverly done that the separate parts elude the reader today. Howard Thompson was one of the men who rose above the anonymity of his service. It was his story of the surrender of self-government to Cuba that was made a part of the Congressional Record by a unanimous and voluntary Act of Congress. Then the "A. P." had Edward Graham on the bridge of the Brooklyn with Commodore 422 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS Schley when Cervera's fleet was destroyed, and at the same action W. A. M. Goode stood under the for- ward bridge of Admiral Sampson's flagship, the New York, and these were the only non-combatant eye- witnesses of the battle of Santiago aboard the battle- ships themselves. No Spanish war correspondent was better known than Richard Harding Davis. His had been a world experience as a reporter. In the war between Greece and Turkey he was out for the London Times, Frederic Vilhers, who saw one coronation in Moscow, was turned away from the next, and of the eight Americans in the cathedral Davis was one, counting also as one of the five newspaper men who were spectators of the ceremony. Since the war in Cuba he has widened his experience as a war correspondent by his service in South Africa and in the Port Arthur campaign, and today he is just back from Mexico. Nearly all that was most important in the Cuban fighting came under his obser- vation. Before the blowing up of the Maine he made a trip through four of the six provinces of the island. One afternoon more than two months after the fateful event in the harbor of Havana he was seated on a hotel porch at Key West, where for many weeks he had spent most of his time, when a boy rode up on a bicycle with a telegram for the Herald reporter. The Journal correspondent read it over the shoulder of his confrere and watched him consult his code book. The message read, "Rain and Hail." The code gave the meaning, " War is declared. Fleet is ordered to sea." In a few minutes the wildest excitement was reigning in that hotel; luggage was dumped in heaps into the halls; hackmen were lashing their horses through the streets towards the wharf. War was THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 423 begun and the reporters meant to catch the fleet which was to sail at four in the morning. For ten days Davis was on board the New York, He saw the bombardment of Matanzas; then ensued the " rocking chair period " at Tampa while the troops waited until it was certain that Cervera would not be able to interfere with the transportation of the army to Cuba. He saw the famous charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan, when "General Hawkins with hair white as snow, and Roosevelt, with the blue polka- dot handkerchief a la Havelock floating out straight behind his head like a guidon, were the two most con- spicuous figures," and in the Porto Rico campaign it happened to fall to Davis to receive the surrender of a town. He "keeps the key of the cartel as a sou- venir of the fact that once for twenty minutes he was mayor and miHtary governor and chief of police of Coamo." Stephen Crane was present at that event also, which has a pleasing resemblance to that of Stee- vens and his comrades of the craft in the war in Greece in 1897. The reporters had their list of casualties as well as the men who fought the battles. Four correspondents were wounded. Edward Marshall, in the ambuscade in which Hamilton Fish and others lost their lives, emptied his revolver at his foes and was hit near the spine by a Mauser bullet. Unable to make any bodily movement, he, with several others wounded, undertook to sing the " Star Spangled Banner " to let his comrades know he was not dead. Told that he could not live, he wrote his despatch to his paper while bleeding on a blanket. James Whigham and James F. J. Archibald also were wounded and James Creelman was hit in the charge which he led. Archibald was in command 424 FAMOUS WAR CORRESPONDENTS of some men at the time a squad was landed from the Gussie and was the only man hurt in that affair. Mr. Lyman of the Associated Press contracted a fever at Siboney from which he died a month after the war. Of Frank Collins of the Boston Journal, Richard Hard- ing Davis writes in terms of deserved eulogy, saying that "racked with fever and worn out with lack of food, he died, as much a martyr to the war as the men in uniform who were killed by Mauser bullets." INDEX Abdul Kerim Pasha, 94. Alexander II, Czar of Russia, 102, 105. Anderson, Findley, correspond- ent in American Civil War, 380. Anderson, Robert, 361, 368, 372, 403. Arabi Ahmed (Arabi Pasha), 175-179, 197. Archibald, James F. J., cor- respondent in Cuba, 423. Arnold, Matthew, 63. Arnoldi, General, 168. 170. Ashmead-Bartlett, Ellis ; quoted, 1. Associated Press, the, 190, 421, 424. Astor, William Waldorf, 305. Atkins, John B., 6, 421. Baker, Ray Stannard; quoted, 414. Baker, Col., Valentine, 166, 180, 200. Barry, Richard, correspondent in Russo-Japanese war, 190. Barton, Miss Clara, 420. Bashi-Bazouks, 101, 116, 141, 163, 173, 174, Edward H. Vizetelly as a Bashi- Bazouk, 271Jf. Balloons, as despatch bearers, 250/. Battles: Abarzuza-Estella, 137; Abu Klea, 183, 208; Abu Kru, cf. Gubat; Alexandria, bombardment of , 10, 176/., 268/., 274/.; Alma, the, 11, 43; Antietam, 399; Atbara, the, 213,313; Balaclava, 44 ; Ball's Bluff, 397; Belmont, 303; Buena Vista, 353, 364 ; Bull Run, 56/., 381, 393, 394, 397" Cashgill,c/.E10beid; Cerro Gordo, 366; Chapultepec, 367; Chattanooga, 397; Chickamauga, 263; Churubusco, 368; Contreras, 368; Corunna, 7: Courcelles, 76; Djunis, 163; Domoko, 311; Elandslaagte, 317; ElCaney,346; El Obeid (CashgiU), 174, 245, 269; ElTeb, 180/., 201; Ferkeh, 301 ; Five Forks, 386; Fort Sumter, bombardment of, 388, 398,403; Fredericksburg, 263,382,395; Friedland, 7; Gettysburg, 379, 382, 387; Gravelotte, 10, 14, 15, 29, 76; Guantanamo, 419; Gubat (Abu Kru), 183, 208; Idstedt,33; Inkermann, 47; Island No. 10, 382, 388; LeMans, 255, 257; Liao Yang, 27; Malakand, the, 324 ; Manila Bay, 416; 425 '^" 426 INDEX Battles, continued: Mars-la-Tour, 14 ; Mati, 308; Meluna,308; Metz, «1 ; Molinodel Rey, 368; Monterey, 361, 363; Omdurman, 215, 314, 326; Ping-Yang, 336; Pirot, 183f.; Plevna, 29, 101, 106, 147, 171; Quebec, capture of, 11; Retuerta, 8; Saarbruck, 15, 75, 108; Sadowa, 10,59,386; Saltillo, 363; San Juan, 423; Santiago, 422; Sedan, 17, 60, 76, 232; Shiloh, 380, 386; ShipkaPass, 102; Solferino, 258; South Mountain, 399; Spottsylvania, 380; Tamai, 156, 181, 203; Tel-el-Kebir, 197/.; Ulundi, 109; Velestino, 309; Vera Cruz, 366; Villar de los Navarros, 8; Vionville,76; Wilderness, the, 379, 384, 397, 406; Yalu, the, 340. Bazaine, Marshal, 21. Beall, John Yates, 192f/. Beit, Alfred, 189. Bell, C. F. Moberly, 10. Benedek, Gen. Ludwig Von, 59. Bennett, James Gordon, 138, 140, 281//., 355, 393. Beresford, Lord Charles, 175. Bicycle, used by correspondents, 156,188,223,334. Bismarck, Prince Von, 10, 15, 60, 63, 65, 78, 84. Blood, Sir Bindon, 323, 326. Bonsai, Stephen, correspondent in Cuba, 420. Boyle, Frederick, correspondent in Russo-Turkish war, 147. Bourbaki, Gen. C. D. S., 118. Brackenbury, Capt. Harry, cor- respondent in Austro-Prus- sian war, 59. Bradlaugh, Charles, 229. Bragg, Captain Braxton, 354. Brooks, Shirley; quoted, 10. Brown, Sir George, 352. Browne, Hablot, 248. Browne, Junius T., correspond- ent in American Civil War, 379, 389, 390. Browning, Oscar, quoted, 304. Bulgarian Massacres of 1876, 140//. Buller, Gen. Sir Redvers, 110, 200, 210, 318, 333. Burleigh, Bennet, 192-23; char- acterized, 192, 196, 230; Southern soldier in Ameri- can Civil War, 192; first lijterary work, 193; escape from Fort Delaware, 194; attempt to liberate Lake Erie prisoners, 194; his case an international problem, 196; newspaper work in America, 196; joins the Daily Telegraph, 197; at battle of Tel-el-Kebir, 197; his battle "scoop," 199; hurries from London to Trinikat,200;atElTeb,201; scores with the news, 202; helps save broken square at Tamai, 203; sending the news, 207 ; at Abu Klea, 208 ; exploit at Abu Kru, 208; sends news of safety of Desert Column, 210; journey to Kassala, 211; at the Atbara, 213; at Omdurman, 125; scores with INDEX 427 Burleigh, Bennet, continued : news of Marchand and Fashoda, 218; The Times uses his story of Omdurman, 219; campaign in Mada- gascar, 220; in the Ashanti campaign, 223; uses bicycle in Ashanti, 224; escapes from Ladj'smith, 225; flags train to interview Joubert^ 226; uses Prayer Book to score a "scoop," 227; later campaigns, 228; as a gen- eral reporter, 229; death, 229; tribute of Field-Mar- shal Wood, 230; mentioned, 155, 293; quoted, 25, 27, 205/., 213, 214, 216, 219, 223/. Burnaby, Col. Frederick, 117, 183, 208. Byington, E. H., correspondent in American Civil War, 379. Cable Tolls, cost of War Des- patches, 350, 415. Cameron, John Alexander, cor- respondent of the Standard, 178, 209. Campbell, Sir Colin, 49, 53. Caprera, Garibaldi's Island, 260. ** Captious Critic, " the, cf. Vizet- elly, Montague. Cardigan, Lord, 44. Carleton, Edmund, 384. Carson, , correspondent in American Civil War, 380. Cashgill, Massacre of, cf. El Obeid, under Battles. Cavagnari, Sir Louis, 175. Censorship of War Correspond- ence, 22, 96, 188, 288, 350, 379, 389, 413. Cetewayo, Zulu King, 110. ChaflFee, Gen. Adna R., 347. Chanzy, Gen. Antome E. A., 254/. "Chaparral," correspondent in Mexican war of 1846, 7, 353. Chapman, J. C, correspondent in Egypt, 273, 280. Charge of the Light Brigade, 44//. Charge of Mahmud, 309. Charge of Gen. Pickett at Gettysburg, 382. Charge of 21st Lancers at Omdurman, 315/., 327. Chelmsford, Lord, 110. Churchill, Lady Randolph, 189. Churchill, Lord Randolph, 321, 329. Churchill, Winston Spencer; per- sonal appearance, 320; early life, 321; in Cuba, 321; with the Malakand Field Force, 322; fighting in the Him- alayas, 324; in the Soudan, 326; at battle of Omdur- man, 326; his books, 320, 326; in South Africa, 327; captured by Boers in affair of armored train, 327; escape from Pretoria, 330; with Gen. Buller and Lord Roberts, 333; narrow escape with life, 334; uses bicycle to score, 334; in the Com- mons and the Cabinet, 335 ; quoted, 3, 320, 324, 328/., 330/. Cinematograph, use of by cor- respondents, 156, 188. "Clere, Bertie," cf. Vizetelly, Edward H. Coffin, Charles Carleton: cor- respondent in American Civil War, 380/., char- acter and equipment, 381; scores at Forts Donelson and Henry, 381, and at Gettysburg, 382; in Wilder- ness campaign, 383; on raising flag over Fort Sum- ter, 385; in Richmond with 428 INDEX Coffin, Charles C, continued: Pres. Lincoln, 386; later years, 386; mentioned, 396; quoted, 375. Colburn, Richard T., corre- spondent in American Civil War 379, 389. Collins, Frank, in Cuba, 424. Commune, the Paris, 89, 118, 254. Condor, H. M. S., at Alexandria, 175. Conway, Moncure D., his ex- ploit at Gravelotte, 15^. Conyngham, , American Civil War correspondent, 380. Cook, Joel, American Civil War correspondent, 380. Crane, Stephen, in Spanish- American war, 417^., 423. Crealock, Gen., 111. Creelman, James: in Chino- Japanese war, 336; at storming of Ping-Yang, 336; has story of battle of the Yalu from Admiral Ito, 340 ; wounded, 341; at siege of Port Arthur, 341; reports massacre by Japanese, 343 ; in Greco-Turkish war, 344; race for the wire, 345; in Spanish -American war, 346 ; leads charge at El Caney, 346; wounded, 349, 423; in the Philippines, 349; race with a woman for the cable, 350; mentioned, 27; quoted, 155, 337, 340, 343, 345/., 347/. Cyprus, English occupation of, 273. Dana Charles A., 398/., 407. Davis, Jefferson, 353. Davis, Richard Harding, work as a war correspondent. 422/f.; receives surrender of a town, 423; mentioned, 29, 320; quoted, 409, 411, 418, 423/. Davis William E., correspondent in American Civil War, 391. Delane, John Thaddeus, editor of The Times, 31, 35, 39, 40, 48, 58. Desert Columnin Soudan, 210. Despatch Boats, 413, 421. Dewey, Admiral George, 416. Dobson, H., correspondent in Russo-Turkish war, 153. Dombrowski, Jaroslaw, 89, 119. Dore, Gustave, 248. Douay, Gen. Felix C, 119. Doyle, T., correspondent in American Civil War, 380. Dufferin, Lord, 184-186. Dumas, Alexandre, pSre, 259. Egypt, English occupation of, 281. Ellis, *' Dan, "Union guide, 392. Emin Pasha, 282. Evans, Sir De Lacy, 37. Farragut, Admiral David Glasgow, 379, 403//. Favre, Jules, 65, 83. Flint, Major Grover, corre- spondent in Cuba, 410. Forbes, Arch *bald: tossing coins in London street, 69; taken on by Daily News, 72; early life, 74; sent to war of 1870 by Morning Advertiser, 75; at Saarbriick, 75; at Gravelotte, 76; at Sedan, 77; sees surrender of Napo- leon m, 78; at Metz, 80; amazement at his speedy reports, 81; his explana- tion of his methods, 82; at siege of Paris, 83; first to enter Paris, 84; famous score on news from Paris, INDEX 429 Forbes, Archibald, cordinued: 86; sees the German entry, 87; beaten few hours by Russell {q.v.)y 88; in Paris last days of Commune, 89; ordered shot twice in five minutes, 91; carries Com- mune tidings to London, 93; in India and Spain, 94; in Servia, 94; in Russo- Turkish war, 96; methods used, 98; long rides, 100; before Plevna, 101; deco- rated by the Czar, 102; in the Shipka Pass, 102; brings tidings to the Czar, 105; Plevna battles, 106; in Afghan war and Burmah, 107; in Zululand, 107; on Isandula field of massacre, 108; death of Prince Im- perial, 108; battle of Ulundi, 109; the ride from TJlundi, 111; last years, 114; char- acterized, 69, 114; mentioned, 2, 4, 21, 22, 29, 146, 151, 152, 155, 158. 161//., 167, 168, 170, 173, 175, 190, 199, 333, 352, 378; quoted, 14, 18, 73, 75, 76, 78, 82,85,91,95,100,103. Fox, John, in Spanish-American war, 419. Franklin, Lady John, 138. Freaner, James L., "Mustang," correspondent in Mexican war of 1846,7,361. Frere, Sir Bartle, 113. Funston, Gen. Frederick, 849. Furley, Sir John, quoted, 137. Gambetta, Leon, 118, 255. Garibaldi, Gen. Giuseppe, 258, 266, 270. Gay, Sydney Howard, 399. Gibbs, Philip, 23. Gladstone, William Ewart, 58, 140. Glenesk, Lord, 9, S21. Godkin, Edwin Lawrence, 28, 67. Goode, W. A. M., correspondent in Spanish-American war, 422. Gordon, Charles George, 208, 210, 214, 218. Gourko, Gen., 99, 117, 143. Goussio, George, 275. Graham, Edward, correspond- ent in Spanish-American war, 421. Graham, Gen. Sir Gerald, 180, 200, 205, 207. Grant, James, 70, 75. Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 380, 381, 383, 390, 397,406,407. Granville, Lord, 245; quoted, 1. Greelev, Horace, 357, 387. Green, "DuflF," 357. Greene, Gen. Frances Vinton, 147; quoted, 2, 28, 117, 136, 144, 148, 153, 154. Gribayedoff, Valerian; quoted, 336. Gruneisen, Charles Lewis, pioneer correspondent, 5, 8//., 351, 352. Hales, A. G., 4. Halleck, Gen. Henry W., 389. Halstead, Murat, correspondent in Franco-Prussian war, 15. Hands, , exploit at Grave- lotte, 14, 15. Harmsworth, Alfred, 305. Harrison, Mrs. Burton, 263. HaHfard, U. S. N., 403/. Havelock, Gen. Sir Henry, 49, 75. Hearst, William Randolph, 349. Helicon, H. M. S., 280. Henley, W. E.; quoted, 304. Henningsen, C. F., 9. Herbert, St. Leger, martyred correspondent, 209. Hicks Pasha, 197. 245, 269. 430 INDEX Hobson, Richmond P., 419. Hood, Thomas, 248. Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 399, 402. House, Edwin H., correspondent in American Civil War, 398. Howard, the Hon. Hubert, martyred correspondent,220. Hozier, Capt. Henry, corre- spondent in the Austro- Prussian war, 59. Hudson, Frederick, quoted, 351, 402/. Hugo, Victor, 249, 266. Ignatieff, Gen. Count Nikolai P., 100, 105, 170. Indian Mutiny, the, 48/f. Ingram, Herbert, 248. Isandula, massacre of, 107/. Ito, Admiral Count, 340. Jackson, John P., correspond- ent in Russo-Turkish war 98. James, Lionel, correspondent in Manchuria and South Africa, 27, 334. Jameson Raid, 189. Jerrold, Douglas, 33, 48, 248. Johnson's Island, attempt to liberate Confederate prison- ers there, 194. Joubert, Gen. Petrus J., 226. ICars, fortress of, 271. Kassala, expedition to, 211. Kauffman, Gen. Konstantin P., 121, 123, 126, 130, 136. Kendall, George Wilkins: pio- neer correspondent, 352jf., 356; style, 353; as a wit, 357; founds New Orleans Picayune, 357; early life, 357; with the Santa Fe expedition, 358; prisoner in City of Mexico, 360; in Mexican war, 362^.; captures a cavalry flag, 363; use of pony express, 363, 370; dangers of riders. 372; use of despatch ships, 370; influence with Gen. Taylor, 364; with Gen. Scott's army, 366; under fire at Vera Cruz, 366; reports Cerro Gordo hour by hour, 366; before City of Mexico, 367; detects Santa Anna's artifice, 368; commended in despatches, 368; wounded, 369; scores on the Treaty of Peace, 373; in Paris, and marriage, 373; death, 374. Khiva, 116, 122/. Khyber Pass, the, 107. Kingston, William Beatty, cor- respondent in Russo-Turk- ish war, 173. Kipling, Rudyard, 46, 114, 155, 203, 412; quoted, 304. Kitchener, Gen. Sir Herbert, 188, 211, 312, 316; quoted, 304. Knight, Edward Frederick: as an amateur juggler, 286; in the Foreign Legion, 287; travels, 287; campaigns, 287; as a small boat sailor, 288; as a treasure-hunter, 288; in Madagascar, 288/.; reaches Antananarivo, 292; methods of eluding boycott on news, 293; unique posi- tion as a correspondent, 293; in plot to save the Queen, 296; sees surrender of the capital, 297; in Nu- bian desert, 297^.; dangers of the mirage, 299; night march and battle of Ferkeh, 301; in Cuba, 302; under fire in Greece, 302; loses right arm in South African war, 303; mentioned, 220, 421; quoted, 289, 291, 293, 299. INDEX 431 Knox, Thomas W., correspond- ent in American Civil War, 380. Kravencho, Russian correspond- ent, 29. KriloflF, Gen. 148. Labouchere, Henry, corre- spondent in siege of Paris, 84 253. Lee, Gen. Robert E., 368, 382, 397. Leech, John, 33. Lemay, Gaston, 272. Lemon, Mark, 248. LeSage, John M., 197. Liefde, Jacob de, correspondent in 1870, 76. "Light that Failed," Kipling's, 114, 156. Lincoln, Pres. Abraham, 54, 58, 379, 384#., 393, 397, 400, 402, 406, 408. Lockhart, Gen. Sir William, 322. Longstreet, Gen. James, 263. Lowe, Col. Drury, 110. Lumsden, Francis, correspond- ent in Mexican war of 1846, 357, 360, 364, 366, 370f. Lyman, , correspondent in Spanish-American war, 424. MacDonald, 217, 316, 327. MacGahan, Januarius Aloysius: casket brought to the United States, 115; Libera- tor of Bulgaria, 116; char- acterized, 117, 142, 144, 147, 154; birth and boy- hood, 117; in war of 1870, 118; wanders about Europe, 119; in the Crimea, 120; ride to Khiva, 121Jf.; thirst and sufferings, 125; deep in desert sands, 129; joins the Russian column, 131; fall of Khiva, 132; in the harem, 133; campaign against the Turcomans, 134; "covers" the Virginius affair, 136; in Carlist cam- paign, 136/.; narrow escape from death, 137; in the Arctic regions, 138jf.; in- vestigates Bulgarian mas- sacres, 140jf.; in Russo- Turkish war, 143^.; ankle broken, 143; chums with Gen. Skobeleff, 146; before Plevna, 147; scores with news from Plevna, 151; death and funeral, 153; his son, 154; monument in Ohio, 154; mentioned, 2, 27, 29, 98, 99, 106, 107, 174, 234, 421; quoted, 122, 124f., 126, 133, 135/., 139. 148/. MacMahon, Marshal, 26,89,93. Madagascar, French conquest of, 220/. Maine, U. S. N., blown up, 409, 411, 422. Maine, U. S. Hospital Ship, 189. Malakand Field Force, the, 322/. Marchand, Capt., and the Fashoda incident, 218. Marryatt, Capt. Frederick, 358. Marshall, Edward, correspond- ent in Cuba, 423. McArthur, Gen. 349. McClellan, Gen. George B., 57, 399. McCullagh, Joseph B., corre- spondent in American Civil War, 380. Mejanel, M., exploit at Sedan, 20. Menpes, Mortimer, quoted, 192. Merrimacy U. S., collier, sinking of, 421. Merv, cf. O'Donovan, Edmond. Millet, Francis D., correspond- ent in Russo-Turkish war and in the Philippines, 98/. ; 433 INDEX Millet» Francis D., continiied: 107, 117, 151, 421; quoted, 144. Moltke, Marshal Von, 15, 26, 29. Moore, Sir John, 7. MuUer, F. Max; quoted, 31. MuUer, Gustav, exploit at Metz, 21, 81. "Mustang," cf. Freaner, J. L. "Nameless Heroine," the, cf. Stevens, Malvina. Napoleon HI, 26, 61, 78, 108, 118, 225, 258. Nasmyth, Charles, pioneer cor- respondent, 27. Neufeldt, Charles, 218. Newspapers: Alabama Register, 357; American Eagle, 361 ; American Star, 361; Baltimx)re Sun, 356, 363; Bombay Gazette, 273, 275; Boston Journal, 380/., 383, 424; Chicago Tribune, 416; Cincinnati Gazette, 387; Cyprus Times, 273; Daily Chronicle, TAe, 257, 421 ; Daily Graphic, The, 321; Daily Mail, The, 190, 304, 305,311,318; Daily News, The, 10, 12, 17, 20,61,63,70,73,80,83,87, 97, 107, 109, 135, 140, 145, 148, 153, 158, 173, 232, 245f., 255, 257, 270, 275, 280; Daily Telegraph, The, 66, 70, 134, 173, 190, 193, 197, 202, 209/., 212, 219/., 225, 227, 323; Egyptian Gazette, 273, 281 ; Figaro, The, 253; Glasg(m Herald, 76, 273; Graphic, The Weekly, 157, 165, 168, 190, 269; Harper's Weekly, 263, 393, 402 ; Houston Telegraph, 196; Illustrated London News, 111, 113,247,255,258,267,285; Ulustrated Sporting News 257; Lady smith Lyre, 318; London Gazette, 11; London Scotsman, 70, 75 ; Manchester Courier, 257; Morning Advertiser, 10, 75, 257; Morning Chronicle, 6; Morning Post, 9, 287, 303, 321, 326, 351; National Intelligencer, 357; National Telegraph, 357; New Orleans Delta, 353, 355, 361; New Orleans Picayune, 353, 355, 360, 372; New Orleans Sun, 356; New Orleans Times, 356; New Y&rh Herald, 10, 98, 118, 123, 140, 144, 220, 282, 284, 355, 377, 393, 395, 402, 410, 416, -,22; New York Independent, 285; New York Journal, 349, 410, 422' New York Tiines, 270, 377/., 386; New York Tribune, 10, 12, 17, 19, 21, 357, 377, 386, 389, 390, 393, 395, 398, 400,402,406; New York World, 15, 17. 282, 339, 343, 379, 389, 393, 398, 402, 409; Nile's Register, 351, 354; Pall Mall Gazette, 13, 20, 255, 305; Paris Clarion, 277; Philadelphia Inquirer, 398; Philadelphia Public Ledger, 356; Pictorial Tirrves, 248, 258; San Francisco Chronicle, 190; Southern Illustrated News, 193; INDEX 433 Newspapers, continued: Standards The, 70, 178, 267, 271; Tampico Sentinel, 361 ; Times of Egypt, 281 ; Timesy The (London), 5, 7, 9, 21, 25, 31, 38, 40, 42, 47, 54, 57, 60, 67, 70, 87, 153, 219, 232, 257, 267, 287, 296, 302,334,343,352,421; T. P:s Weekly, 285. Newspapers: Cable Tolls, 10, 13, 350; Circulations, 10; War Extras, 10, 210. New Orleans, conditions in time of Mexican war, 354. Nightingale, Florence, 39, 42. Norris, Frank, in Cuba, 420. North, Col., the **Nitrate King," 67, 257. O'DoNOVAN, Edmond : char- acterized, 231; early years, 232; in Franco-Prussian, Carlist and Russo-Turkish wars, 232; personal appear- ance, 232, 237; journey to Merv, 232^.; among the Tekke Turcomans, 234 ; final sally for Merv, 236; life there, 238; becomes chief Triumvir of Merv, 242; difficulties in leaving, 244; returns to England, 245; death at Cashgill, 246; mentioned, 270, 272; quoted, 231, 236/., 241/., 244. Osbon, B. S., correspondent in American Civil War, 379, 402jf. Ogden, D'Orsay, 193. O'Shea, John Augustus, 267. Osman Digna, 172, 200, 206. Osman Pasha, 106, 147, 152. Paine, Ralph D., 302; quoted 286. Painter, Uriah, correspondent in American Civil War, 398. Pandora, the, 138/. Peard, Col., "Garibaldi's Eng- lishman," 260. Pearse, H. H. S. correspondent in the Soudan, 153. Phillips, Wendell, 399. Pigeons, Carrier, as news bearers, 9, 84, 252. Polk, Pres. James K., 355, 364. Pony Express, for news pur- poses, 98, 102, 354, 370. Prayer Book, the, as an im- plement for a "scoop," 193, 227. Prince Imperial, death of the, 108. Prior, Melton, war artist, 109/., 113, 209, 225; quoted, 192. Pulitzer, Joseph, 344. Radetzky, Gen. Count Joseph W., 103. Rae, George Bronson, in Cuba, 409/., 419. Raglan, Lord, 11, 35, 43. Ralph, Julian, 24; quoted, 286. Reade, Charles, 33. Reid, Whitelaw, correspondent in American Civil War, 379, 382, 386/. Renter's Agency, 12. Rhodes, Cecil, 183, 189, 220. Rhodes, Frank, correspondent in the Soudan, 183, 189, 220. Ricalton, James, 190. Richardson, Albert Deane, cor- respondent in American Civil War, 379, 387-393. Roberts, Lord, 23, 26, 226, 333. Robertson, Sir Forbes, 156. Robinson, Henry Crabbe, pioneer correspondent, 5-8, 351. Robinson, Sir John, 10, 12, 17, 22,71,75.81.245,281. Robinson, "Phil, " in Cuba, 4H. 434 INDEX Roosevelt, Theodore, 362. Russell, Sir William Howard sent to the Crimea, 31 early work in Ireland, 32 birth, 33; early work in London, 33; journey to the Crimea, 34; hardships, 35; exposes soldiers' sufferings, 39; appeals for nurses, 42; his letters overthrow the Aberdeen ministry, 42; accused of persecuting Lord Raglan, 43; the Crimean letters, 43/.; charge of the Light Brigade, 44^.; origin of the "thin, red line," 46; capture of the Malakoff, 47; return to England, 47; at the Czar's coronation, 48; given degree of LI. D., 48; ordered to India, 48; favored by Sir Colin Camp- bell, 49; march toLucknow, 50; pillage of the city, 51; illness, 58; Sepoy enormities investigated, 53; in the United States, 54/.; battle of Bull Run, 56; return to England, 58; pensioned by The Times, 58; at battle of Sadowa, 59; advocates "fixed ammunition," 59; in Franco-Prussian war, 60jf. ; at Sedan, 60; amusing episode with Hilary Skin- ner, 60; changing methods, 62; siege of Paris, 63; rivalry with Forbes, 63; sees WUhelm proclaimed German Emperor, 64; scores on news of peace negotiations, Q5\ German entry into Paris, Q5) tour with Prince of Wales, 66; in South Africa, 66; in Egypt, 67; in Chile, 67; death, 67; character, 32, 67; mentioned, 9, 26, 74, 83, 87, 260, 378; quoted, 29, 41, 44/., 47, 50, 51, 5Q, 61, 64, 69. Saia, George Augustus, 117, 248, 253. Sampson, Admiral W. T., 420, 422. Santa Anna, Gen. A. L., 360, 365, 368. Santa Fe Expedition, the, of 1841, 358/. San Stefano, Treaty of Peace, 167 Schley, Commodore, W. S., 420, 422. Schuyler, Eugene, 117, 121, 124, 142. Scott, Gen. Winfield, 6, 9, 352, 361, 365. Scovel, Sylvester, correspondent in Cuba, 410/., 419. Semmes, Rafael, 369. Seward, W. H., Secretary of State, 54. Sejonour, Sir Beauchamp, 176. Shand, Alexander Innis, quoted, 3. Sheridan, Gen. Philip, 15, 18, 60, 77. Sherman, Gen. W. T., 380, 395. Sieges: Charleston, 263; Lucknow, 50; Ladysmith, 317, 334; Metz, 80; Paris, by the Germans, 63, 83, 250, 255; Paris, the Commune, 89, 118; 254; Petersburg, 397; Plevna, cf. Russo-Turkish war ; Port Arthur, first siege, 342; Sebastopol, cf. Crimean war; Vicksburg, 389. Skinner, Hilary, correspondent in Franco-Prussian war, 61/. Skobeleff, Gen. Mikhail Dimitri- vitch, 29, 99, 115, 122, 134, 143, 153, 174, 234, 240. Slatin Pacha. 269. INDEX 435 Smalley, George Washburn, 12, 378, 397; his work in transition period of war correspondence, 13jf . ; his work in American Civil War,S99f/.; quoted,19,22, 48, 106,375,401. Stanley, Henry M., 282f. Stanton, E. M. S., Secretary of War, 384, 406, 408. Steamships, to expedite news, 370, 372 ; cf. Despatch Boats. Stedman, Edmund Clarence, correspondent in American Civil War, 379, 393, 397/. Steevens, George Warrington : death at Ladysmith, 304, 319; combination of scholar and journalist, 304; liter- ary style, 304, 319; career at school, 305; in Greco- Turkish war, 306/.; his outfit, 306; at Elassona, 307; at Meluna, 308; at Larissa, 308; at Velestino, 309; receives surrender of Volo, 310; at Domoko, 311 ; in the Soudan, 312/.; at the Atbara, 313; at Om- durman, 314; in South Africa, 317^. ; siege of Lady- smith, 317; keeps garrison in good cheer, 318; funeral, 319; characterized, 319; quoted, 306, 309, 312, 314. Stevens, Miss Malvina, the "Nameless Heroine," 392. Stevens, Thomas, correspond- ent in East Africa, 282. Stewart, Gen. Sir Herbert, 183, 189,208. Stickney, J. L., correspondent at Manila, 416. StoletofiF, Gen. lOS. Stuart, Gen. J. E. B., 2(53. Suleiman Pacha, 102. Swedish Intelligence, early ex- ample of war correspond- ence, 5. Taylor, Gen. Zachaby, 6, 352, 361. Tchernaieff, Gen. Mikhail J., 94. Telegraph, in war correspond- ence, 9, 12/., 302, 320, 323, 345/.; cf. Cable Tolls. Thackeray, William Makepeace, 32, 248, 357. Thompson, Howard, in Cuba, 421. Thousand, the, cf. Garibaldi. Tobin, M. F.; quoted, 405. Todleben, Gen. Count Franz E. I., 107. Tokar, relief of, 180, 200/ Townsend, George Alfred, cor- respondent in American Civil War, 375, 380. Trevelyan, George Macauley, 259. Victor, Emmanuel, 258, 260. Victoria Cross, the, 4, 208. Villard, Henry, correspondent in American Civil War, 379, . .397/. Villiers, Frederic : Character- ized, 155, 191; methods of work, 155; distances trav- eled, 156; youth, 156; taken on the Graphic, 157; in Servian war, 158/.; ^st under fire, 160; joins the Turks, 164; makes thumb- nail sketches, 166; in Russo- Turkish war, 167/.; adven- ture in a wine-cellar, 169; before Plevna, 171 ; thought by Forbes to be killed, 172; in Malta, 174 ; in the Afghan war, 174; aroimd the world, 175; in Egypt, 175; bom- bardment of Alexandria, 175; looting of the city, 178; relief of Tokar, 180; at El Teb, 180; in the broken square at Tamai, 436 INDEX Villiers, Frederic, continued: 181; to Abyssinia, 182; with the Gordon relief expedi- tion, 182; in the Servo- Bulgarian war, 183; rac- ing half round the world, 184; at Chicago, 188; Chino-Japanese war, 188, 190; Greco-Turkish war, 188; in the Soudan with again, 188; guest of Cecil Rhodes, 189; misses the Jameson raid, 189; the Boer war, 189^.; again reported dead, 190; lectur- ing, 188, 190; the Russo- Japanese war, 190; later campaigns, 191; mentioned, 91, 94, 99, 101, 122, 344, 422; quoted, 30, 69, 153, 157f, 161, 169, 176, 177, 181, 186. VirginiuSy the affair of the, 136. Vizetelly, Edward Henry: with Garibaldi in 1870, 271; in Asia Minor, 271jf.; becomes a Bashi-Bazouk, 271; in Cyprus, 273; in Egypt, 273 ff. ; keeps a half -hourly diary of the bombardment of Alexandria, 276; the march out of the city, 279; goes to Zanzibar for James Gordon Bennett, 281jf.; carries American flag to meet H. M. Stanley, 283; death, 285; "Bertie Clere," 270; mentioned, 231, 247; quoted, 276/., 280. Vizetelly, Ernest Alfred: youngest war correspond- ent, 247; in Paris during siege by Germans, 255; story of defeat of Gen. Chanzy, 255; in Paris through the Commune, 256; translator of Zola, 257; quoted, 247, 255/. Vizetelly, Frank Horace, visits Boer war prisoners' camps at Bermuda, 285. Vizetelly, Frank: sketches the child of Napoleon HI, 258; at Solferino, 258; with Gar- ibaldi and the Thousand, 258/.; with Garibaldi on Caprera, 260; in the Ameri- can Civil War, 260/.; joins the South by the "under- ground route, '* 261 ; honored for courage, 263; drawings treated as contraband of war, 263; his account of the bombardment of Charles- ton, 264; runs the blockade, 266; in the CarHst war 267; at the bombardment of Alexandria, 268; death at El Obeid, 269; memorial, 270; mentioned, 246, 247. Vizetelly, Henry Richard : associate founder Illus- trated London NewSy 248; founder of Pictorial Times, 248; Paris correspondent of the News, 249; in Paris in siege times, 250; sends despatches by balloon, 251 ; with General Chanzy, 254; in Paris in the Commune, 254. Vizetelly, Montague: in Abys- sinia, 257; the "Captious Critic, " 257; his career, 257. Vizetelly, the family, 248. War Correspondent, the: changing conditions of the profession, 1/ ; why needed, 3; his work, 3; qualifica- tions, 4; early correspond- ents, 5/., 351/.; expense of his news, 10, 350, 413; early "extras," 10; transi- tion period in 1870, 12/., 63, 79; the censorship, 22; occasional excesses of cor- INDEX 437 War Correspondent, continued: respondents, 26; services rendered by them, 27; not obsolete, 28; power of pub- licity, 30, 191; memorials of, 68, 114, 154, 246, 270, 375; methods in 1877, 96/., 167; in 1861-5, 376/.; in 1898, 409/.; outfit, 306; deaths in the service, 163, 183, 209, 220, 270, 319, 380, 424. Wars and Campaigns: Afghan (1878), 107, 174; Algerian, (1871), 271; American (1861-5), 192, 260, 375; Ashanti, 222; Austro-Prussian, (1866), 59, 267, 386, 397; Austro-Sardinian, 258 ; Carlist, 8/., 94, 136/., 232, 267; Crimean, 28, 31, 34; Cuban, 321, 409/.; Chino-Japanese, 188, 336; Danish (1850), 33; Dongola expedition, 298; Egyptian, 175, 197; Franco-Prussian, 12, 60, 232, 249,255,257; Garibaldi's Sicilian Expedi- tion, 258; Gordon Relief Expedition, 208 ; Greco-Turkish (1897), 188, 287, 302,305,344; Hicks Pasha's expedition, 245,269; Hunza-Nagar expedition 1891, 287; Italian Campaign in Abyssinia 257; Madagascar, French Con- quest, 220, 288; MaJakand Field Force, 322; Mexico and United States (1846). 6, 9,351; Nile Campaign, 183; Peninsular (1808-9), 7; Philippines, 349/., 416, 421; Russo-Japanese, 25, 228, 422; Russo-Turkish, 96, 117, 143, 232,416; Servian (1876), 94, 158; Servo-Bulgarian, 183; Soudan (1898), 188, 312; South African, 24, 225, 303, 317,327,422; Spanish-American, 302, 346, 409; Tirah Campaign, 322; Zulu (1879), 68, 107. Washburne, Elihu, 119, 137. Welles, Gideon, Secretary of Navy, 379, 403, 406, 408. Wellington, Duke of, 33; quoted, 6. Whigham, James, in Cuba, 423. White, Holt, exploit at Sedan, 17/. White, Richard Grant, 398. Wilhelm I. of Germany, 15, 18, 60, 63/., 77, 83. Wilkeson, Samuel, correspondent in American Civil War, 379. Wilkie, Franc B., in American Civil War, 386. Williams, Gen. Sir Frederick 271. Williams, George Forrester, cor- respondent in Civil War, 380. Wing, Henry E., in Civil War, 379, 406^. Wolseley, Sir Garnet, 66, 107, 113,197,211; quoted, 1. Wood, Sir Evelyn, 43, 67; quoted, 230. Worth, Gen, W. J., 366, 368. Wright, H. C. Seppinjs, 421. Yamagi, Gen., (Marquis Yam- agata),341. Yates, Edmund, 248. ZiMMERMANN, GeN., 100. 14 DAY USE RETUIUSf TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. 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