Mapping the Press

To look for a pattern of reactions to the Fort Sumter battle from both North and South, and to analyze their various focuses and rationale behind, I researched on major newspapers released specifically on April 13, 1861 – the day after the Fort Sumter – to reach the goal. Then I reorganized them by locations, as the blue dots on the map, to interrogate and find the interrelations in between them.

Note* I highlighted the texts related to the Civil War and the Newspaper's reaction towards it. The quotes next to the newspapers are for easier look, and the bullet points are the main summaries of the focus of the newspapers.

Map the press

The Daily Exchange, Baltimore, Maryland

"WAR DECLARED"

"Our authorities yesterday even received notice from Lincoln’s government, through a special messenger from Washington, that an effort would be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions, and that if this were permitted no attempt would be made to reinforce it with men. This message comes simultaneously with a fleet, which we understand is now off our bar waiting for daylight and tide to make the effort threatened."

"MONETARY AND COMMERCIAL NEWS"

"The apprehensions entertained in all quarters, that our political difficulties would speedily culminate in civil war, and which the news received this evening proves to have been but too well founded, have had a very depressing effect upon business, and in all branches of trade operations this week have been quite limited. The Stock market, both here and elsewhere, has been especially dull and depressed. In New York all the stocks on the list have fallen off materially."

 

  • Financial Sector - falling of the financial markets

  • Re-illustration of what happened

  • Government responses

 

Map the press

The Anti-Slavery Bugle, Salem, Ohio

"BROWNSON ON SLAVERY AND THE CRISIS"

“The design of Brownson’s book is to prove that negroes are a distinct and inferior race, and a race designed by the Creator to be slaves of the white race. The ancients defined man to be a rational animal, and reason taken in the sense of intellect and will, or the faculty of apprehending and noting in reference to moral truth or moral obligation, is, to speak scholastically, the differentia or characteristic of man. This capacity the negroes have, and therefore they are men, with human reason and human affections.”

 

"If the civil war is the consequence, let the civil war come, for civil war cannot be worse than no government. Let it be just, let it be forbearing, but let it perform its constitutional duty and its whole constitutional duty. It must not be frightened by the words “coercion” and “invasion”, neither of which probably will be necessary if the government shows firmness and resolution, and a determination to abide by the Constitution. In this way, it is perhaps possible to arrest the evil; but no measures looking to the protection or abolition of slavery, and no policy that turns on the slave question will save us from utter ruin."

  • Brownson's book critique

  • "If the civil war is the consequence, let the civil war come, for civil war cannot be worse than no government."

  • Nothing about what happened on April. 12, 1861 

 

Map the press

Keowee Courier, Pickens, South Carolina

"Five states - Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana - have already ratified the Constitution. It is now binding on them. Elsewhere here is nothing that can interact with your readers."   

"From what we saw and learned, we regard it next to impossible for Fort Sumter to be relieved by our enemies. The men are anxious, however, for the ball to open. however much we should like to gratify them, we trust they must be disappointed in this. Peace is preferable to war."

  • Five states have already ratified the Constitution

 

Map the press

Daily Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia

 

"Correspondence of the Richmond Dispatch"

"...Great excitement prevailed here yesterday..."

"The Policy of the Administration is War - Convention of Southern Rights Men at Williamsburg - Secession Meeting..."

"THE WAR!"

"Ten or twelve of the men having refused to take the oath, because they were unwilling to be ordered out of the District..."

"Some of the Georgetown men complained that they know nothing of having to take an oath or the form of oath, until their arrival at the War Department. Considerable excitement prevailed in Georgetown all day yesterday and last night, and is unabated this morning."

  • Virginia State Convention of 1861 - Fiftieth Day (Committee of the Whole/Evening Session/In Convention)

  • Vote and Secession

  • "The War!" Oath in D.C.

Map the press

Cleveland Morning Leader, Cleveland, Ohio

"LATEST NEWS"

"THE WAR HAS BEGUN!!!"

“The news by telegraph from now seat of war caused great excitement throughout the city.”

“The God of Battles is with us, and will bring confusion upon our enemies. We trust that our next issue may contain the news of a glorious victory under the Stars and Stripes. The war is upon us. Let us not shrink from looking it full. The war should be brought to a close in a single campaign, and for this purpose every Union loving State should take steps to put its militia on a war footing. We trust that our Legislature will follow the example of Pennsylvania and immediately organize our militia, and we doubt not this.”

  • Excitement and confidence 

 

 

All images are cited from http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

Mapping the Press