Hell before breakfast : America's first war correspondents making history and headlines, from the battlefields of the Civil War to the far reaches of the Ottoman Empire

**From the acclaimed author of __The Pattons__ and __Patriot Pirates:__ a book celebrating America's early war correspondents--legends in their time, but mostly forgotten today--who learned their trade in the Civil War and went on to cover twenty years of bloody imperial conflict in Europe and Central Asia. Their harrowing experiences changed their politics, their youthful illusions of war's glory and thrill, and in some cases cost their lives, while also setting examples of globetrotting gallantry that would influence such iconic daredevils as Rudyard Kipling, Winston Churchill, and Theodore Roosevelt in the decades that followed.** It was the dawn of America's Gilded Age. Thanks to advances in the electric telegraph and the transatlantic cable, the reporters' dispatches were featured in daily newspapers that proliferated as never before on both sides of the Atlantic, driving public opinion and fueling political passions that wouldn't resolve until World War I. Inspired by history's first war correspondent, William H. Russell of __The Times__ of London, they interpreted Russell's heartbreaking account of the Charge of Light Brigade not as tragedy but as grand adventure. Hard experience would teach them otherwise, yet the romance of their profession remained. Said one of them even after he'd lost his health, buried his friends, and seen the terrible truth of combat: "To have lived at the very heart of everything that was most sensational in those sensational days--__what joy!__" Their editors and newspaper owners treated them like cannon fodder, sending them repeatedly into harm's way to obtain the exclusive battlefield "beat," but the reporters didn't mind. Even in bitter competition they were a brotherhood above all. __Hell Before Breakfast__ is their marvelous story. The first “war correspondent,” William H. Russell of The Times of London, described himself and his profession as “the miserable parent of a luckless tribe.” Others saw it differently: the war correspondent became the stuff of dreams and an urgent romantic calling. . . . Now, Robert H. Patton, acclaimed historian, author of The Pattons (“Exceptional”— The Washington Post; “Truly remarkable”—John S. Eisenhower) and Patriot Pirates (“Soul-stirring—as good as reading a Patrick O’Brian novel, except that every word is true”—Michael Korda), rediscovers and celebrates, in Hell Before Breakfast, America’s first war correspondents, forgotten today but legends in their time. Here are the men who, between 1850 and 1914, and particularly during America’s Civil War and the Spanish-American War, led the most romantic and thrilling of lives on the edgiest frontiers of time and space, where empires fell and dynasties flourished; they were correspondents who saw the world, broke the story, were making the news during the years when newspapers made available the most foreign of landscapes and their circulation wars were revolutionizing contemporary life, shaping global events, and creating history. Patton writes of the decades of lightning progress and high adventure, when America was emerging as a great power and the monarchies of Europe battled for dominance through a series of brief, bloody imperial wars; when the newly discovered electric telegraph enabled these extraordinary first-person dispatches to be splashed across the daily newspapers then proliferating on both sides of the Atlantic. Through the eyes (and minds) of American adventurers, soldiers, and artists-turned-correspondents—Mark Twain and the painter John Millet among them—we see what they saw and what they brought to life: the Civil War, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Turkish War. Patton writes about New York Herald reporter Henry Stanley, who led a caravan from the Tanzanian coast into the uncharted “cannibal country” and, after a 236-day trek, discovered the long lost and presumed dead Dr. David Livingstone . . . about Archibald Forbes of the London Daily News bringing to life in his dispatches the frantic assembly of barricades along Paris streets as royalists and Communists fought with bayonets following the Prussian invasion. Here are the fearless young correspondents, among them Henry Villard of Bavaria, a journalist who covered the Civil War and ended up a financial titan, head of the Northern Pacific Railway and an early investor in the company that would ultimately become General Electric; and George Smalley, chief war correspondent of the New York Tribune, who watched for twenty-four hours as the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia fought in the cornfields and woodlands around Antietam Creek. These correspondents were at center stage and, through their on-the-spot reporting, became legends in their time. Their intrepid spirit and sense of adventure inspired generations of storytellers, explorers, artists, writers, statesmen and politicians, and even moviemakers—from Rudyard Kipling and Winston Churchill to Theodore Roosevelt, D. W. Griffith, and Cecil B. DeMille—men whose adolescence was shaped during this spectacular age of war correspondence. From the acclaimed author of The Pattons and Patriot Pirates: a book celebrating America's early war correspondents--legends in their time, but mostly forgotten today--who learned their trade in the Civil War and went on to cover twenty years of bloody imperial conflict in Europe and Central Asia. Their harrowing experiences changed their politics, their youthful illusions of war's glory and thrill, and in some cases cost their lives, while also setting examples of globetrotting gallantry that would influence such iconic daredevils as Rudyard Kipling, Winston Churchill, and Theodore Roosevelt in the decades that followed. It was the dawn of America's Gilded Age. Thanks to advances in the electric telegraph and the transatlantic cable, the reporters' dispatches were featured in daily newspapers that proliferated as never before on both sides of the Atlantic, driving public opinion and fueling political passions that wouldn't resolve until World War I. Inspired by history's first war correspondent, William H. Russell of The Times of London, they interpreted Russell's heartbreaking account of the Charge of Light Brigade not as tragedy but as grand adventure. Hard experience would teach them otherwise, yet the romance of their profession remained. Said one of them even after he'd lost his health, buried his friends, and seen the terrible truth of combat: "To have lived at the very heart of everything that was most sensational in those sensational days-- what joy! " Their editors and newspaper owners treated them like cannon fodder, sending them repeatedly into harm's way to obtain the exclusive battlefield "beat," but the reporters didn't mind. Even in bitter competition they were a brotherhood above all. Hell Before Breakfast is their marvelous story. From the acclaimed author of The Pattons and Patriot Pirates: a book that celebrates America's forgotten war correspondents, men who were legends in their time; who, between 1860 and 1910, between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War'when empires fell and dynasties flourished'led romantic, thrilling lives on the edgiest frontiers of time and place: seeing the world, breaking the stories, making news themselves during the time when newspapers made the most foreign of landscapes available, and the circulation wars were revolutionizing contemporary life, shaping global events, and making history. The first war correspondent, William H. Russell of The Times of London, described himself and his profession as "the miserable parent of a luckless tribe." Others saw it differently: the term "war correspondent" became the stuff of dreams and an urgent romantic calling. Now, in Hell Before Breakfast, the acclaimed historian Robert Patton writes of these fearless young correspondents: Henry Villard and John Russell Young of The New York Herald, and George Smalley and Holt White of The New York Tribune, among many others'correspondents who were center stage and who, in their on-the-spot reporting, captured large events as they were happening, and whose intrepid spirit and sense of adventure inspired generations of storytellers, explorers, artists, writers, statesmen and politicians, even moviemakers, from Kipling and Churchill to Theodore Roosevelt, N.C. Wyeth, D.W. Griffith, and Cecil B. DeMille, each of whose adolescence was shaped during this spectacular age of war correspondence Nobody's child: 1854-1866 American methods: 1865-1870 Wild work: 1870-1871 Paris is burning: 1871 Primitive people: 1871-1873 Pure and savage freedom: 1872-1877 Red hands: 1876-1877 Green leaves in a furnace flame: 1877 The pause of an instant: 1877-1890 Our people: 1884-1912.