GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND
TOWNSEND, GEORGE ALFRED, veteran newspaper correspondent, war correspondent for the New York "Herald" and the New York "World," author of descriptive daily newspaper correspondence signed "Gath," and writer of many books; was born in Georgetown, Delaware, January 30, 1841. His father, the Reverend Stephen Townsend, M.D., D.D., a well known physician and clergyman, married Mary, daughter of Ralph Milbourne, descendant of General Jacob Milbourne, who was prominent in the early history of the colonies of New York, New England and Maryland about 1688. His grandfather, Stephen Townsend, was descended from John Townsend, who came to St. Mary's, Virginia in 1686, as interpreter for the Indian chiefs from the Eastern shore of Maryland, and settled in Nassawadox, Virginia; and from Richard Townsend, the immigrant, who was indentured to Doctor John Potts of Jamestown, became a burgess, councilor and assemblyman, and joined William Claiborne and Captain Richard Ingle's "Men of Kent" in their efforts to restore to Virginia the land claimed by Lord Baltimore, by expelling Governor Leonard Calvert in 1645; whence Claiborne and Ingle went down in history as "the rebels."
George Alfred Townsend was prepared for college in the schools of his native city, was graduated at the Philadelphia high school, A.B., 1860, and at once entered journalism as a reporter on the Philadelphia "Inquirer" transferring his service soon after to the Philadelphia "Press." He became local news agent for the New York "Herald" in Philadelphia in 1861, and was correspondent for the "Herald" in 1862, notably in McClellan's Peninsular campaign and in the army of Pope in the second battle of Bull Run. He then went to Europe and while in England wrote for English and American newspapers and lectured on the Civil war as observed by him in the field. On his return to America in 1864 he became war correspondent of the New York "World," exacting from that paper the condition that all his articles should be signed by his full name and this brought him prominently before the American public as a war correspondent and an unusually lucid and effective descriptive writer.
