Irish war correspondent, William Howard Russell, and the American Civil War

This is the first in what I intend will be a series of blogs on aspects of Irish-American history. 

I recently paid a visit to the site some 25 miles from Washington of the Battle of Bull Run/Manassas, the first major military engagement of the American Civil War where, on the 21st of July 1861, between them the Union and Confederate forces sustained some 5,000 casualties. On the way to the battlefield, I dipped into the diaries of a renowned Irish war correspondent who reported on that fateful battle.

William Howard Russell was born in County Dublin in 1820 and studied at Trinity College before becoming a journalist with The Times for which he covered Daniel O'Connell's efforts during the 1840s to secure the Repeal of the Act of Union. 

Russell subsequently won fame for his groundbreaking reports from the Crimean War (these were based on his personal observation of the war and its effects, rather than on briefings provided by the military) in which he fumed at the inadequacies of the British officers and exposed the dreadful conditions endured by the soldiers under their command. His reports caused enough of a sensation to help bring down the British Government in 1855. He was in India two years later where his reports highlighted the harsh treatment meted out to Indian soldiers following the rebellion of 1857. 

Reflecting the huge interest generated in Europe by the looming conflict in America, Russell was dispatched by his editor to report on the situation there. He boarded the trans-Atlantic steamship Arabia in what was then Queenstown in early March 1861 and duly arrived in New York on the eve of St. Patrick's Day.  As a famous Irish visitor, he was invited to dine with the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick where he made a speech in which he unwisely revealed his sympathy with the Union side. 

During the 13 months he spent in the United States, he travelled widely and met most of the leading figures of that time including President Abraham Lincoln. Russell called to see Lincoln at the White House in March 1861 and such was his fame as a war correspondent, and the influence of the newspaper he served, that he was invited to dine with the President. His description of Lincoln is fascinating: he was a man "with a shambling, loose, irregular almost unsteady gait, a tall, lank, lean man, considerably over six feet in height, with stooping shoulders, long pendulous arms". Russell left agreeably impressed with Lincoln's "shrewdness, humour, and natural sagacity."

Russell spent two months travelling in the South, visiting such places as Savannah, Charleston, Memphis, Mobil, and Montgomery, then the Capital of the Confederacy where he met its President, Jefferson Davis. Russell was impressed with the absolute determination of the population of the South to fight for the Confederacy, but was an opponent of slavery which he saw as a 'curse' and a 'cancer'. 

As an experienced war correspondent, Russell witnessed the build-up of forces around Washington during the month of July 1861 and knew that a major battle was imminent. On the 21st of July, he made his way towards the strategic railway junction at Manassas, which was being defended by the Confederate forces and was seen by the Union as a target in their effort to disrupt the rebels' supply lines. 

On his way to Manassas, Russell came across many people including members of Congress who had come out from Washington to observe what they confidently expected would be a rout of the Confederacy that would bring the Civil War quickly to an end. Russell never reached Manassas itself but was reduced to observing the exchanges from a distance. His diaries reveal his considerable powers of observation and description. 

"The woods far and near echoed to the roar of cannon, and the frayed lines of blue smoke marked the spot whence came the muttering sound of rolling musketry; the white puffs of smoke burst high above the treetops, and the gunners' rings from shell and howitzer marked the fire of the artillery."

Before the day was out, the tide turned against the Union side and Russell witnessed its army in full, chaotic retreat back to Washington. Russell duly reported to the Times, and in unflattering terms, the disarray he had seen among the Union forces on their retreat from the battlefield. 

It took some time for Russell's dispatch to reach London and for copies of the paper to make their way back to America. Russell's account of the battle was very badly received and he was accused of taking a partisan stance in favour of the South. While Russell was personally pro-Union, his newspaper was generally supportive of the Confederate side. One Times editorial opined that the destruction of the "American colossus" would be the "riddance of a nightmare". 

The unrelenting hostility directed at Russell in the aftermath of Bull Run made his position untenable and he endured a miserable last nine months in America as the Union Government refused to allow him to accompany their army on its campaigns. 

Russell left America in April 1862 and quickly set out to put on record impressions of his time in America. His diaries, which added up to more than 1,000 pages were published in 1863. Historians have vindicated his account of the Battle of Manassas/Bull Run, but in 1861 his were inconvenient truths that went down very badly with an embattled government and a people engaged in a life-and-death struggle to settle the future of the United States.

As I walked the ground at Manassas, my thoughts were not with the famous Irish war correspondent who observed that Battle from afar but with those Irishmen whose lives came to an end on that contested ground more than 150 years ago. Among the regiments engaged on that fateful July day was the 69th New York militia one of whose officers was the redoubtable, former Young Ireland leader, Thomas Francis Meagher. The Irishmen under Meagher's command fought bravely that day and sustained heavy casualties, 29 dead and 59 seriously wounded. Many of those men subsequently formed part of the Irish Brigade led by Meagher which distinguished itself throughout the civil war,  but this is not the place to tell their story. I will return to it in a later blog.

Daniel Mulhall is Ireland's Ambassador in Washington.