The New International Encyclopædia/Browne, Junius Henri

BROWNE, Junius Henri (1833-1902). An American journalist, well known as one of the correspondents of the New York Tribune during the Civil War. He was born at Seneca Falls. N. Y., was educated at Saint Xavier College, Cincinnati. Ohio, and for some time was engaged in journalism there. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was sent, as ‘war correspondent’ of the New York Tribune, to report the campaigns in the Southwest, but in May, 1863, was captured near Vicksburg by the Confederates, and for two years thereafter was confined successively in the Vicksburg, Jackson, Atlanta, Richmond, and Salisbury prisons. He escaped from Salisbury in December, 1864, with several companions; accomplished the difficult feat of crossing the mountains in midwinter; and after a journey of 400 miles reached the Federal lines at Knoxville. Soon afterwards he published a book of war experiences, entitled Four Years in Secessia (1865), which, though hastily prepared and somewhat crude in literary form, contains much interesting information concerning various incidents of the war, and especially concerning the conditions which obtained in Southern prisons, and the life of the Federal soldiers confined in them. After the war, and until his death, Browne was engaged as a ‘general writer,’ and contributed to many papers and periodicals in the United States. In addition to Four Years in Secessia, he published The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York; and Lights and Sensations in Europe.