In order to properly acknowledge all those who contributed to this book, it is necessary to reach back fifteen decades to those in American journalism whose work is contained on these pages. There are men whose contributions, unfortunately, are anonymous at this point: the newspaper compositors and the telegraph operators and all the others on the technical end who made the Charleston Mercury and The New York Times possible. Then there are the names we remember: Henry J. Raymond and Robert Barnwell Rhett, whose identities with The New York Times and the Charleston Mercury will forever be linked. So, too, the gentlemen whose writings made newspaper history: Franc Wilkie, L.L. Crounse, Sam Wilkeson, and William Swinton, all of the Times, and George William Bagby who wrote under the pen name, Hermes, for the Mercury, and Robert Barnwell Rhett, Jr., the actual editor of the Mercury, who toiled in relative obscurity in his father’s shadow.
To those with us today who put the battles contained herein into historical perspective, much is owed. In 1993, the Civil War Sites Advisory Commission brought together prominent civil war historians for their knowledge, input, and analysis of civil war battles. The resulting summaries provided a more clear understanding of each battle, qualities that might not have been so evident to the early war correspondents.
Many thanks are due to Beatrice Agnew, Marie Firestone, and the staff of the Palisades Free Library, in Palisades, New York. For their reach into the inter-library loan system on my behalf, a special acknowledgment goes to Joanna Lo and Mary Beth Darnobid of the reference desk. My appreciation goes also to Dr. Libby Chenault and Gary Patillo of the University of North Carolina’s Wilson Library and Davis Library, respectively, and Tom Nix of the reference staff of that great university. Thanks, too, to Katie Gray of the Charleston County Public Library in Charleston, South Carolina, and Susanne Christof and Elaine McConnell of the Special Collections Section, and Nick Battipaglia of the Reference Section of the United States Military Academy at West Point.
And to those who took my compilation of information and turned it into the attractive book it is, I am very much indebted: Tom Cameron, Senior Editor of History Publishing Company, whose artistic typographical touch and editorial skills are superbly demonstrated, and whose insightful suggestions brought a bright polish to areas in need of a glow; Ann Walter for her tireless eye and interesting thoughts on the English language of the Civil War era; and Blair Sutphen who designed the eye-catching cover graphic that captured everything in the book. A note of thanks, as well, to Marcia Carlson, who compiled a thorough index of a rather complicated subject.
And, of course, to my sons Chuck and Don and daughter-in-law Elizabeth, whose interest in my progress never wavered, goes my deep appreciation. To my special friend, June Starke, whose carefully phrased questions relating to the progress of the book were really more prod than query, I owe a heartfelt sense of gratitude.