Pale and Bloody Faces are Everywhere Upturned: The Story of War Correspondent George Smalley and the Technology that Changed News Reporting Forever
Over seventy thousand men at arms begin to slaughter one another amidst the tranquil Maryland countryside in the late summer heat. The date is September 17, 1862--the single bloodiest day in all of American history. The Battle of Antietam has begun. Dressed in Federal blue and stationed just behind the front lines, behind the cannons and among the rows upon rows of supply wagons, most of which will soon be converted into impromptu ambulances for evacuating the wounded, stands a twenty-nine year old young reporter named George W. Smalley. As the smoke of battle rises into the humid summer air and the sound of gunfire reaches a deafening crescendo, George Smalley feels as if he’s about to jump out of his own skin. George Smalley, despite his relatively young age, is the Chief War Correspondent for America’s then most widely read and circulated daily newspaper, the New York Tribune. In modern terms we would say that George Smalley has been embedded with th...