The Civil War in Georgia: A New Georgia Encyclopedia Companion

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HOME FRONT “Distributing Rations,” from J. T. Trowbridge’s The South (1866). General Research & Reference Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations. Newspapers 149 } Newspapers Georgia citizens in the nineteenth century relied on newspapers to keep them informed about what was happening outside their own towns and counties. The state could boast a few literary, religious, and agricultural magazines, but newspapers were by far the more important news source. They took on added significance during the Civil War, providing to Georgians not only information about the breakdown of the Union and the four-year conflict that followed but also a venue through which vital issues were debated before a broad reading public. State Expansion and the Spread of Newspapers As the nineteenth century began, Georgia had only five newspapers— two in Savannah, two in Augusta, and one in the state capital, Louisville —but soon newspapers appeared in several other towns. Georgia’s expanding economy was the most important stimulant for newspaper growth. The state’s first daily paper appeared in Savannah in 1817, when the Columbian Museum and the Savannah Gazette merged and began publishing six days a week. The Augusta Constitutionalist became a daily in 1834, followed in 1837 by the Augusta Chronicle. Newspapers did not appear in Atlanta until the 1840s. Cornelius R. Hanleiter put down the first permanent roots of Atlanta journalism when he moved his newspaper, the Southern Miscellany, there from Madison in 1847. Hanleiter moved because he believed the westward railroad expansion meant big things were in store for the hamlet, then called Marthasville . By 1860 most of Georgia’s major cities had two or more newspapers, mostly weekly, but several daily. Atlantans had access to five locally published newspapers during the war years, two of which were daily. Most households did not subscribe to these papers; rather they were available to be read at various public venues, such as post offices, courthouses, and taverns, where men gathered and often discussed or debated what they read. As such, newspapers served not only as the major sources of information but also as the impetus for discussion and debate. 150 The War Years: Home Front Partisan Journalism Georgia’s antebellum newspapers were mostly political in nature and continued to be so through the war years. Editors were bombastic political impresarios who touted party lines and perhaps even held political office. A large portion of their papers’ revenues came from political party patronage, even if the owners were not otherwise directly involved in the politics of the day. Editors commonly harassed and abused other journalists, politicians, and even private citizens who were of a different political persuasion. In the sectional conflicts of the late antebellum period, most Georgia newspapers leaned toward a Unionist position, though virtually all supported Southern rights. The issue was whether the South’s rights could best be protected from inside or outside the Union. The debates over nullification and secession were complicated by the issues of slavery and abolition. Most editors, themselves slave owners, opposed abolition and argued that vast social problems would arise should slaves be emancipated. Editors tried to downplay slave unrest. They said little in response to the Nat Turner revolt of August 1831, for example, though they increased the number of stern warnings they published about the possibility of further rebellion. Secession and Civil War By 1860 Georgia’s editors were deeply divided on the issue of secession. Even most of the Unionist editors did not rule out secession entirely, but neither were they convinced that the election of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln was grounds for immediate secession. They preferred to take a wait-and-see attitude. As secession became a reality, however, editors promised unity and grew quite expansive in their approval of the move to divide the Union. This unity, however, was short-lived. Once it became apparent that the war was not going to be short and that certain civil liberties would have to be suspended to support the war effort, some newspapers again began to question the wisdom of the war. A fairly widespread peace movement arose in Georgia to foster opposition to the war and to the freedom-limiting measures Confederate president Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Congress had adopted, such as conscription, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and war taxes. One of the leading peace proponents was...