George Alfred Townsend

Campaigns of a Non-Combatant

and His Romaunt Abroad during the War

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

"I have endeavored to reproduce not only the adventures, but the impressions of a novitiate, and I have described not merely the army and its operations, but the country invaded, and the people who inhabit it." -George Alfred Townsend, Preface, 1866 Although George Alfred Townsend is no longer a well-known name today, by the end of the Civil War he had become a popular war correspondent covering the Civil War for the New York Herald and the New York World. In 1866 his book Campaigns of a Non-Combatant and his Romaunt Abroad during the War was published. This book represented his reflections on the Civil War and on his two-year journey in Europe during the war. Campaigns of a Non-Combatant and his Romaunt Abroad during the War is a must read for historians, fellow journalists, and all who are interested in personal stories about the Civil War.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cosimo Classics
• Seitenzahl: 372
• Erscheinungstermin: 30. April 2020
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 216mm x 140mm x 22mm
• Gewicht: 524g
• ISBN-13: 9781646791439
• ISBN-10: 1646791436
• Artikelnr.: 59804050

Autorenporträt

George Alfred Townsend (1841 - 1914), was a noted war correspondent during the American Civil War and a later novelist. Townsend wrote under the pen name "Gath", which was derived by adding an "H" to his initials and inspired by the biblical passage II Samuel 1:20, "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askalon." He originally wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer and in 1861 he moved to the New York Herald. He is considered to have been the youngest correspondent of the war. In 1865, Townsend was Washington correspondent for the New York World, covering the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and its aftermath. His daily reports filed between April 17 - May 17 were published later in 1865 as a book, The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth. Immediately following the war, he married Elizabeth Evans Rhodes of Philadelphia. By 1868, he had become one of the most quotable Washington correspondents, working for the "Chicago Tribune" and, after 1874, for the "New York Graphic." His letters, published several times a week, were several columns long and included lively word-portraits of politicians and opinion. He established and edited, with an Ohio journalist and politician, Donn Piatt, the Capital at Washington, D.C., in 1871, but parted company with Piatt soon after. In 1884 Townsend began building a baronial estate in the Catoctin Mountains called "Gapland," near Burkittsville, Maryland. Gapland was built on the site of the Battle of Crampton's Gap and is in close proximity to the battlefields of South Mountain and Antietam. The estate was composed of several buildings, including Gapland Hall, Gapland Lodge, the Den and Library Building and a mausoleum (notable for its inscription of "Good Night Gath"). In 1896, Townsend built the War Correspondents' Memorial Arch, the first such monument tribute to war journalists. His novels included The Entailed Hat (1884), which fictionalized a true story of a woman named Patty Cannon who kidnapped free blacks and sold them into slavery. Townsend's other works include the short story collection Tales of the Chesapeake (1880) and the novel Katy of Catoctin (1887). The Gapland estate is now Gathland State Park. Several buildings still stand, including Gapland Hall (which is the park headquarters) and the mausoleum. Townsend left Gapland in 1911 and died three years later in New York City. He was buried in Philadelphia. The site was given to the State of Maryland and in 1949 became Gathland State Park.