Background
Joseph Burbridge McCullagh was born in November 1842 in Dublin, Ireland. He was one of the sixteen children of John and Sarah (Burbridge) McCullagh. At eleven he left home and worked his way to New York on a sailing vessel.
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Joseph Burbridge McCullagh
Edit ProfileEducation
Little is known of the next five years except that for a time he worked as an apprentice in the printing office of the New York Freeman's Journal.
Career
In 1858 he moved to St. Louis and became a compositor in the office of the St. Louis Christian Advocate. The next year he obtained a position on the local staff of the St. Louis Democrat, and his proficiency in stenography gained for him an assignment to report the proceedings of the State General Assembly during the session of 1859-60. Accepting an offer at an increased salary he left the Democrat early in 1860 to become a reporter for the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, but at the outbreak of the Civil War he entered the Union army as a lieutenant in the Benton Cadets, Gen. John C. Frémont's body guard. After Frémont's retirement he became war correspondent for the Gazette. He fought at Fort Donelson where he was one of the first men who volunteered to go on board the gunboat St. Louis, the first boat to pass the fire of the Fort. When the Gazette refused to publish his report of the first day's fighting at Shiloh, discrediting the conduct of the Union forces, he resigned his position but was immediately taken on by the Cincinnati Commercial at twice the salary he had been receiving. His war correspondence was widely popular and gained for him as a writer a reputation for fairness and reliability. After the capture of Vicksburg he left the army in 1863 to become Washington correspondent of the Commercial, and for several years he was also the Senate reporter for the New York Associated Press. He made special use of the interview and gained added fame by his interviews with Alexander H. Stephens and with President Andrew Johnson in 1867-68. Writing over the name of "Mack" he proved popular with public officials and with the public. President Johnson often called on him to talk with him and to "give out" interviews. In 1868 he resigned as Washington correspondent for the Commercial to become managing editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, a position held for some months. He then went to Chicago with a brother, John W. McCullagh, to take charge of the Chicago Republican. His personality was beginning to be felt when the fire of 1871 swept Chicago and destroyed his paper, his library, and his small fortune. Undaunted he went to St. Louis and became editor of the Democrat, the first newspaper on which he had been employed. After the founding of the St. Louis Daily Globe he edited the new paper from 1873 to 1875 when the two papers were combined as the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, of which he was editor until his death. McCullagh was killed by falling out of his bedroom window during an illness.
Achievements
Politics
As an editor he possessed a biting wit and frequently engaged in controversy through the columns of the Globe-Democrat. His newspaper was strongly Republican in a state largely Democratic, but his readers were of all political parties, brought to the paper by the brightness of its editorial page and the comprehensiveness of its news service.
Connections
He had never married.
