In the matter of publishing war news, possibly the most im-
portant papers were those of New York, which still had an ex-
tensive circulation out of the city. Honors were fairly evenly
divided among The Herald, The Times, and The Tribune. The
first had already learned the value of the interview in connection
with John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, and this innovation
proved of the utmost value in getting news from those in au-
thority. Before Sumter was fired upon, The Herald had sent to
the various strategic points in the South correspondents with
instructions to gather Southern newspapers, to collect all in-
formation possible about Confederate situations, and to forward
the same at once to New York. The data thus gathered enabled
The Herald as hostilities broke out to publish a muster roll of the
Confederate army with such accuracy that a leak was suspected
in the War Office at Richmond. Several times The Herald pub-
lished items based upon such accurate information that rivals
positively asserted that The Herald was in collusion with Con-
federate authorities. In the number of war correspondents pos-
sibly The Herald excelled. Every army of the North had its
Herald headquarters equipped with tents, a wagon bearing the
name of the paper, and several attendants. A full half-million
dollars was spent by this paper on its war correspondence. The
Times had for its representatives equally as daring men : one of
them, being caught in an unavoidable delay which prevented
his presence with the Union forces, deliberately surrendered
himself to the Confederate army in order that he might witness
the battle from the opposite side. His correspondence was un-
usually interesting, because, being written inside the Confeder-
ate lines, it gave a new point of view to military manceuvers.
Correspondents for other papers outside of New York, however,
achieved distinction because of the excellence of their reports.
C. H. Ray, of The Chicago Tribune, attracted much attention
when he exposed the fake correspondents of The London Times.
(Incidentally, it may be said that much of the correspondence
which appeared in English papers was written in London and
was based upon data taken from Union and Confederate news-
papers.) The London Times was also criticized in the American
press because of the insertion of an item, sent by its New York
