Dead on June 25th

NEWSPAPERS RACE TO REPORT THE SHOCKING STORY

Before Wolf Blitzer was interviewing holograms, before news apps for the iPhone, before Twitter, there were just newspapers.

George Custer, "the boy general" of the Civil War, was 36-years-old when he overreached on June 25, 1876, on the eve of the nation's centennial celebrations. Two newspapers broke the story, the Bismark (Dakota Territory) Tribune, and the Helena (Montana Territory) Herald.

Marcus Kellogg, a correspondent with the Tribune, was "embedded" with the Seventh Cavalry, and killed along with Custer's men. The last dispatch he sent, dated June 21, included this update, "We leave the Rosebud tomorrow. . .and by the time this reaches you we will have met and fought the red devils, with what result remains to be seen."

The famous headline in the special edition of the Tribune on July 6 reported: "Massacred: Gen. Custer and 261 Men the Victims." According to the paper, "The body of Kellogg alone remained unstripped of its clothing, and was not mutilated" (other sources describe his corpse as scalped, and missing an ear). This 2,500-word account, incorporating Kellogg's notes, was the first fully-detailed reportage.

Consider that. Ten days passed before the premier newspapers in the East were reporting the story. By contrast, events during the Civil War, from far-flung battlefields, could be telegraphed nearly instantly. The first trans-continental telegram was sent from Sacramento to Washington in 1861, 15 years before Custer's last stand. But reporting from Montana was another "story" altogether. It was a journalistic black hole.

[at left: intrepid reporter and casualty of war, Marcus Kellogg]

Five days after the battle, the steamboat Far West, loaded up with wounded, Kellogg's notes, and Myles Keogh's horse "Commanche" -- sole survivor from Custer's contingent -- began the 700-mile river journey to Fort Lincoln at Bismark, North Dakota. The Far West arrived with news of the battle on July 5th, and Tribune editor Clement Lounsberry went to work on the story. According to the State Historical Society of North Dakota, "there was only a single telegraph line between Bismark and St. Paul at that time, and the only way to keep the line open was to keep transmitting. So, whenever Lounsberry fell behind, he had the telegraph operator transmit lines of scripture from his pocket Bible. It reportedly took Lounsberry and the operators 24 hours to finish, and the total bill for the transmission came to more than $3,000. The following day, the New York Herald ran a 14-column story about Custer's demise."

Putting one's money where one's mouth is. . .

Ed Bearss, left, and Brian Pohanka (photo by Rudy Perini)

On this day, four years ago, we lost one of the best and most devoted historians of the American Civil War, Brian Pohanka (seen at right, above, with legendary Civil War historian and guide, Edwin C. Bearss). Brian was merely 50-years-old, and at the height of his powers, with myriad projects in the works and untold numbers of them yet to begin. His storied career is recounted in this Washington Post obituary. For all of Brian's work on Civil War subjects, I was most fascinated and excited by his research, and his comprehensive grasp of events along the Greasy Grass in 1876. I love the book, Where Custer Fell, and selfishly regret that I never got to visit the Little Bighorn in company with Brian. Several people and I—good friends of Brian's like Paula Gidjunis and Keith Young—had spoken of hiring Brian for a private trip to Montana.

I was fortunate to get to know Brian first through his writing for Civil War Regiments quarterly, when we published one of his pieces on the 5th New York, and later through his participation in the Civil War Forum, when he attended some of our annual get-togethers. The photo at top was the 4th CWF gathering, 2000, with Ed and Brian on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg (photo by Rudy Perini). Brian was also a mover and a shaker in the area of battlefield preservation. A 2006 press release from the Civil War Preservation Trust—the preeminent preservation organization for Civil War sites (see the previous blog entry discussing CWPT's new website)—details Pohanka's all-but-anonymous, and stunning generosity:

From the very beginnings of the Civil War battlefield preservation movement, Brian Pohanka led the charge. He not only gave of his time and talents, but frequently and generously reached into his wallet as well. We at Civil War Preservation Trust are proud to carry on the work he began nearly two decades ago.’
Pohanka’s generosity to battlefield preservation was unequalled. In addition to the $1 million bequest, he and his wife Cricket quietly donated an equal amount to CWPT in 2004. Over the years, Pohanka gave generously to both CWPT and countless other local battlefield preservation groups—in his will, he also set aside money for the Central Virginia Battlegrounds Trust ($500,000), the Richmond Battlefields Association ($500,000), and the Save Historic Antietam Foundation ($200,000).