ALL OUT OF HEART©

A Journalist's Memoir of the Civil War

By Nicholas J. Canfield

 

wpe21.jpg (1078 bytes) wpe22.jpg (1183 bytes) wpe23.jpg (1234 bytes) wpe4.jpg (1411 bytes)

 

newsvendorcw1b.jpg (44330 bytes)

They lived on coffee and "segars," whiskey when they could get it, shouldered their way to the front armed with pencils instead of rifles. Hard-bitten generals hated them, branding them spies and parasites. Glory-seeking underlings pandered to them, promoting their own advancement. The anxious folks back home devoured their every word and clamored for more.
Civil War journalists were a breed of their own. Freewheeling opportunists and adventurers, they carved their reputations from the terror and devastation of a nation bent on self-destruction. With determination and grit, they bullied their way into places decent folks had gladly fled, hardening their hearts against the carnage and bloodshed to get the story and to get it first.

Correspondent Nick Canfield waded into the turmoil as a refugee moving against the tide. He took cold comfort from the chaos of war, the battlefield's smoke and confusion obscuring his personal struggle, a conscience at odds with itself. Like the nation, he too was torn apart by an unresolved past and now faced an uncertain future. And as the conflict played out, he must make a final reckoning -- in a world changed forever.

 

Credits:

The MIDI file of Stephen Foster's version of "We Are Coming Father Abraham, 300,000 Strong" is used by permission of Benjamin Robert Tubb, from his website, Public Domain Music,  at: http://www.pdmusic.org

Photo by Alexander Gardner, Courtesy U.S. Library of Congress, Photos & Prints Division

©Copyright 2003 by Jeanette Clinkunbroomer. Except where stated, no part of this website may be copied or downloaded without written permision of the author. For more information contact: ncanfield@alloutofheart.com