Page:History of American Journalism.djvu/339

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

on both



went to Atlanta where they became associated with The Con- stitution of that city. The Rebel was permitted to appear once again and did excellent service, always keeping just a little in advance of the Federals, until it was finally forced to surrender at Selma in April, 1865.

ARMY ORGANS

During the War of the States the Federal troops frequently found newspapers in towns taken by Union arms. Often they used the printing-press of such a paper to issue an army organ. When the Third Iowa Regiment, for example, passed through Macon, Missouri, some of the members of the regiment who were printers seized a press and some type belonging to The Register of that place and published an army paper called The Union. When General Banks received the surrender of Port Hudson, Louisiana, on January 8, 1863, some of the printers in the army seized a local newspaper and got out one issue of The Port Hudson Freeman on July 15, 1863, to tell the other soldiers, with large display heads, about the Union victories. The editor of The Port Hudson Freeman was Charles A. Ackert. One of the best of these army organs was The Weekly Junior Register, is- sued after the capture of Franklin, Louisiana, by General Banks: its issue for April 25, 1863, was printed on the blank side of wall- paper. Especially interesting was The Kettle-Drum, the small official organ of a Pennsylvania regiment.

Confederate forces were not without their own newspapers. The Missouri Army Organ was a four-page sheet published in the interest of the Confederate army of that State. It was edited by Joseph W. Tucker, a Methodist preacher, who had been editor of The Missouri State Journal at St. Louis. It was first published on October 28, 1861, when the army was in camp at Neosh. An editorial note asserted that "this little newspaper is paid for by the State, expressly for the use of the army." The last number was issued at Camp Churchill Clark, near Corinth, Arkansas. The Rebel and Copperhead Ventilator at Edina, Missouri, was also in a certain sense an army sheet.