ePub Founding Fictions (Albma Rhetoric Cult Soc Crit) by Dr. Jennifer R. Mercieca in History

Description

Having won renown in the 1850s for his vivid warfront dispatches from the Crimea; William Russell was the most celebrated foreign journalist in America during the first year of the Civil War. As a special correspondent for the "Times" of London; Russell was charged with explaining the American crisis to a British audience; but his reports also had a great impact in the United States. They so alienated both sides; North and South; that Russell was forced to return to England pematurely in April 1862. "My Diary North and South" (1863); Russell's published account of his visit; remains a classic of Civil War literature. It was not in fact a diary but a narrative reconstruction of the author's journeys and observations based on his private notebooks and published dispatches. Despite his severe criticisms of American society and conduct; Russell offered in that work generally sympathetic characterizations of the Northern and Southern leadership during the war. In this new volume; Martin Crawford brings together the correspondent's original diary and a selection of his private correspondence to resurrect the fully uninhibited Russell and to provide; accordingly; a documentary record of this important visitor's first impressions of the United States during the early months of its greatest crisis. Over the course of his American visit; Russell travelled widely throughout the Union and the new Confederacy; meeting political and social leaders on both sides. Included here are spontaneous - and often unflattering - comments on such prominent figures as William H. Seward; Jefferson Davis; Mary Todd Lincoln; and George B. McClellan; as well as quick sketches of New York; Washington; New Orleans; and other cities. Also revealed are the anxiety and despair that Russell experienced during his American visit - a state induced by his own self-doubt; by concern over the health and situation of his wife in England; and; finally; by the bitter criticism he received in the United States over his reports.