George Townsend

January 30, 1841 (age 73)

He plunged at once into the newspaper world, first with the Philadelphia Inquirer, then with the Press. In 1861 he began his connection with the New York Herald, which he served first as Philadelphia agent and later as war correspondent. Towards the end of 1862 he went to England, where by lectures and articles, notably in the Cornhill, he persuasively advocated the cause of the northern states. On returning to America he became war correspondent for the New York World, in which appeared his most vivid reportorial work. His accounts of the final battles and of Lincoln's assassination won him an almost nation-wide recognition. He went abroad to report for the World the events of the Austro-Prussian War. After settling in Washington in 1867, he began to contribute, as he continued to do for some forty years, to the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, and many other papers (amounting, in the end, to nearly a hundred), a frequent letter of from two to four columns under the signature of "Gath"--a humorously conceived pseudonym, utilizing his initials, and ironically suggesting the Biblical prohibition concerning the downfall of the mighty, "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon. " These letters were mainly occupied with politics and the advocacy of Republicanism, but they included also very perspicacious comments upon almost every event of major importance, and are now peculiarly interesting for their often satirical animadversions upon the social life of the time. Their fearlessness, kindly humor, and wise judgments brought to them a large following, and made of their author one of the most important journalists of the reconstruction era. He assisted Donn Piatt in organizing the Capital in 1871, but, originally a co-editor of that useful weekly, he was forced by the pressure of his other work to resign after a few weeks. Washington remained the center of his activities, except for the twelve years following 1880 which he spent in New York, though he lived also for long periods at a country house, built on the battlefield of Crampton's Gap, South Mountain, Md. , which he called, with the village that grew up around it, Gapland. He traveled widely both in America and abroad, and gave many popular lectures. The latter half of his life was taken up quite as much with the production of books as with newspaper work. He had always been interested in pure literature and had tried his hand, not very successfully, at a play, The Bohemians, as early as 1861, but the majority of his books before 1880 were frankly journalistic. They included such revampings of his ephemeral writings as Campaigns of a Non-Combatant (1866), The New World Compared with the Old (1869), Lost Abroad (1870), The Mormon Trials at Salt Lake City (1871), and Washington, Outside and Inside (1873), and such hasty venturings into biography as The Life and Battles of Garibaldi (1867) and The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867). In 1880, however, appeared Tales of the Chesapeake, a collection of stories notable for their admirable use of local color. This was followed by a novel, the best of his books, The Entailed Hat (1884), a tale involving the kidnaping of free negroes in the days before the war in Delaware and the border counties of Maryland, and remarkable for its careful reconstruction of the period and its vivid presentation of local characters. Its sequel, Katy of Catoctin (1886), was less painstakingly executed and was deservedly less popular. Among his varied productions, Mrs. Reynolds and Hamilton (1890), deserves mention as one of the first romantic picturings of the great Federalist. His poems are less important. Such volumes as Poems (1870), Poetical Addresses of George Alfred Townsend (1881), and Poems of Men and Events (1899), while showing considerable vigor and a wide range of knowledge, are the works of a prose craftsman unhappily essaying verse. He was an invalid for the last ten years of his life, and died of general debility at the home of his daughter in New York.

Back to Profile

Photos
Works

book

Lost Abroad: By George Alfred Townsend

(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad During the War (Collector's Library of the Civil War)

(This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfec...)

The Entailed Hat

(Townsend was a noted American war correspondent who wrote...)

Townsend was a noted American war correspondent who wrote dispatches, travelogues, and other types of historical fiction dealing with America. He was also an acquaintance of Mark Twain's. From the intro: "Once the author awoke to a painful reflection that he knew no place well, though his occupation had taken him to many, and that, after twenty-five years of describing localities and society, he would be identified with none. "Where shall I begin to rove within confines?" he asked, feeling the vacant spaces in his nature: the want of all those birds, forest trees, household habits, weeds, instincts of the brooks, and tints and tones of the local species which lie in some neighborhood's compass, and complete the pastoral mind. Numerous districts rose up and contended together, each attractive from some striking scene, or bold contrast, or lovely face; and wiser policy might have led his inclinations to one of these, redundant, perhaps, in wealth or literary appreciation; yet the heart began to turn, as in first love, or vagrancy almost as sweet, to the little, lowly region where his short childhood was lived, and where the unknown generations of his people darkened the sand—the peninsula between the Chesapeake and the Delaware. Far down this peninsula lies the old town of Snow Hill, on the border of Virginia; there the pilgrim entered the court-house, and asked to see an early book of wills, and in it he turned to the name of a maternal ancestor, of whom grand tales had been told him by an aged relative. His breath was almost taken by finding the following provisions, dated February 12, 1800: "I give and bequeath to my son, Ralph Milbourn, MY BEST HAT, TO HIM AND HIS ASSIGNEES FOREVER, and no more of my estate. "I give to Thomas Milbourn my small iron kettle, my brandy still, all my hand-irons, my pot-rack, and fifteen pounds bond that he gave to my daughter, Grace Milbourn." The next day a doctor took the author on his rounds through "the Forest," as a neighboring tract was almost too invidiously called, and through a deserted iron-furnace; village almost of the date of these wills."

The Mormon Trials at Salt Lake City

(The Mormon Trials at Salt Lake City is a collection of le...)

Katy of Catoctin

The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Talk With Mr. Herndon, His Late Law Partner (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Talk Wit...)

Excerpt from The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln: A Talk With Mr. Herndon, His Late Law Partner He has given me permission to write what I choose of himself and his dead friend, and among all the men I have ever met he is the readiest to understand a question and to give even and direct answers. He resembles Mr. Lincoln so much, and in his present quarters, garb, and worldly condition, is so nearly a reproduction of A. Lincoln, law yer, as he lived before Fame drove a chariot through this second story, that we may as well take a turn around the surviving man and the room. Lincoln was the taller and older, and the senior partner; he had been in two or three associations with lawyers one of his early partners, by fraud or mismanagement, got him into debt, and he car ried the burden of it about ten years; his latest partner, excepting Herndon, was anxious to be a candidate for the Legislature, and as Mr. Lincoln desired the same honor at the same time, a dissolution was inevitable, and then to'herndon's great surprise, for he was very young and obscure, Lincoln said: Billy, let us go into business to gether. Herndon accepted the proposition thankfully. Mr. Lincoln arranged the terms of partnership, and the new shingle went up directly, never to be removed till the bullet of Booth had done its errand. How young Herndon might have looked twenty-five years ago We can scarcely infer from the saffron-faced, blue-black haired man before us, bearded bushily at the throat, disposed to shut one eye for accuracy in conversation, his teeth discolored by tobacco, and over his angular features, which suggest Mr. Lincoln's in ampleness and shape, the same half-tender melancholy, the result in both cases, perhaps, Of hard frontier work, poor pay, thoughtful abstraction, and a disposition to share the sorrows of mankind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The New world compared with the Old,

The life and battles of Garibaldi: And his march on Rome in 1867

George Alfred Townsend Edit Profile

also known as Gath

journalist author

Background

George Alfred Townsend was born on January 30, 1841 in Georgetown, Del. His father, Stephen Townsend, who combined carpentry with the profession of itinerant Methodist preacher and at an advanced age gave up both for the study of medicine, and his mother, Mary (Milbourne) Townsend, were both descendants of families long resident in Virginia and Maryland. His first fourteen years were spent in various small towns of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

Education

Between 1850 and 1854 he studied in the academic departments of Washington College, Chestertown, Md. , and Delaware College, Newark.

After 1855 the family was permanently settled in Philadelphia. There Townsend finished his studies at the Central High School, from which he was graduated in 1860.

Career

He plunged at once into the newspaper world, first with the Philadelphia Inquirer, then with the Press. In 1861 he began his connection with the New York Herald, which he served first as Philadelphia agent and later as war correspondent.

Towards the end of 1862 he went to England, where by lectures and articles, notably in the Cornhill, he persuasively advocated the cause of the northern states. On returning to America he became war correspondent for the New York World, in which appeared his most vivid reportorial work. His accounts of the final battles and of Lincoln's assassination won him an almost nation-wide recognition.

He went abroad to report for the World the events of the Austro-Prussian War. After settling in Washington in 1867, he began to contribute, as he continued to do for some forty years, to the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, and many other papers (amounting, in the end, to nearly a hundred), a frequent letter of from two to four columns under the signature of "Gath"--a humorously conceived pseudonym, utilizing his initials, and ironically suggesting the Biblical prohibition concerning the downfall of the mighty, "Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon. " These letters were mainly occupied with politics and the advocacy of Republicanism, but they included also very perspicacious comments upon almost every event of major importance, and are now peculiarly interesting for their often satirical animadversions upon the social life of the time. Their fearlessness, kindly humor, and wise judgments brought to them a large following, and made of their author one of the most important journalists of the reconstruction era.

He assisted Donn Piatt in organizing the Capital in 1871, but, originally a co-editor of that useful weekly, he was forced by the pressure of his other work to resign after a few weeks. Washington remained the center of his activities, except for the twelve years following 1880 which he spent in New York, though he lived also for long periods at a country house, built on the battlefield of Crampton's Gap, South Mountain, Md. , which he called, with the village that grew up around it, Gapland.

He traveled widely both in America and abroad, and gave many popular lectures. The latter half of his life was taken up quite as much with the production of books as with newspaper work. He had always been interested in pure literature and had tried his hand, not very successfully, at a play, The Bohemians, as early as 1861, but the majority of his books before 1880 were frankly journalistic. They included such revampings of his ephemeral writings as Campaigns of a Non-Combatant (1866), The New World Compared with the Old (1869), Lost Abroad (1870), The Mormon Trials at Salt Lake City (1871), and Washington, Outside and Inside (1873), and such hasty venturings into biography as The Life and Battles of Garibaldi (1867) and The Real Life of Abraham Lincoln (1867). In 1880, however, appeared Tales of the Chesapeake, a collection of stories notable for their admirable use of local color. This was followed by a novel, the best of his books, The Entailed Hat (1884), a tale involving the kidnaping of free negroes in the days before the war in Delaware and the border counties of Maryland, and remarkable for its careful reconstruction of the period and its vivid presentation of local characters. Its sequel, Katy of Catoctin (1886), was less painstakingly executed and was deservedly less popular.

Among his varied productions, Mrs. Reynolds and Hamilton (1890), deserves mention as one of the first romantic picturings of the great Federalist.

His poems are less important. Such volumes as Poems (1870), Poetical Addresses of George Alfred Townsend (1881), and Poems of Men and Events (1899), while showing considerable vigor and a wide range of knowledge, are the works of a prose craftsman unhappily essaying verse. He was an invalid for the last ten years of his life, and died of general debility at the home of his daughter in New York.

Achievements

George Alfred Townsend was a noted war correspondent during the American Civil War, and a later novelist.

Works

Lost Abroad: By George Alfred Townsend Lost Abroad: By George Alfred Townsend

$Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad During the War (Collector\'s Library of the Civil War) Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, and His Romaunt Abroad During the War (Collector\'s Library of the Civil War)$ The Entailed Hat The Entailed Hat