Hell Before Breakfast: America's First War Correspondents Making History and Headlines from the Battlefields of the Civil War to the Outer Reaches of the Ottoman Empire

Acclaimed historian Patton (The Pattons) focuses on the war correspondent persona and the band of bold adventurers who earned their keep on the frontlines in this detailed salute. A first correspondent whose actions provided the template for all who followed, The Times of London's William H. Russell, respected battle, an appreciation that found him in the thick of the bloodiest clashes including the Battle of Bull Run, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian war, and the Russo-Turkish war. In a no-frills, straightforward narrative, Patton describes the backgrounds of the early pioneers, John Russell Young, George Smalley, Holt White, and Henry Villard, who embraced armed conflict and its horrors, while feeding their dramatic observations to The New York Herald and The New York Tribune. The American publications dueled with each other, such as when Smalley opposed sending untried reporters into the battlefield, instead preferring two experienced correspondents dispatched to each army's headquarters. Some excitement is generated with the sections of the wild and brilliant career of American painter-war correspondent Frank Millet, who bravely covered the 1877 war in the Ottoman Empire. Patton's tribute to these battlefield scribes revives an understanding of why these men mattered. (Apr.)