The News Ecosystem During the Birth of the Confederacy: South Carolina Secession in Southern Newspapers

Abstract

During the secession crisis in 1860–61, the American South was far from unified. Contrary to the idea that the South constituted a single distinct region, this analysis of secession news in Southern newspapers demonstrates the slave states consisted of a constellation of Souths rather than one unified South. Through their decisions about what to print, Southern editors serving unique localities contributed to the social construction of sectionally distinct visions of nationhood. Their decisions about which news and opinion they would reprint and how news was framed made them integral agents in the news ecosystem. This study examines 822 newspaper articles covering secession in the weeks before, during, and after South Carolina’s secession in the Charleston Mercury, New Orleans Picayune, Alexandria Gazette, and Macon Telegraph.

Notes

1 “Postscript. By Magnetic Telegraph. South Carolina Convention,” Alexandria (Virginia) Gazette, December 21, 1860; “South Carolina—Passage of the Secession Ordinance,” Macon (Georgia) Telegraph, December 21, 1860; “Secession of South Carolina. Great Enthusiasm of the People,” New Orleans Picayune, December 21, 1860.

2 Celebrations in Pensacola, Florida, Mobile, Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama, Augusta, Geogia, were reported under “By Telegraph” headings in several newspapers. “Rejoicings at the South,” Daily Ohio Statesman, December 21, 1860; “Rejoicings for South Carolina,” Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta, GA), December 21, 1860, 3.

3 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006).

4 David P. Nord, Communities of Journalism: A History of American Newspapers and Their Readers (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001).

5 Michael T. Bernath, “Nationalism,” Journal of the Civil War Era 2, no. 1 (2012): 4.

6 Ibid.

7 “Content assessment,” not to be confused with “content analysis,” is a qualitative historical research method explained as “a process of reading, sifting, weighting, comparing and analyzing the evidence in order to tell the story.” Marion Marzolf, “American Studies—Ideas for Media Historians?” Journalism History 5, no. 1 (Spring 1978): 15; Carolyn Kitch, The Girl on the Magazine Cover: The Origins of Visual Stereotypes in American Mass Media (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 13.

8 Charleston Mercury, July 12, 1830, cited in William C. Davis, Rhett: The Turbulent Life and Times of a Fire-Eater (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), 55.

9 William Barney, The Road to Secession (New York: Praeger, 1970), xvi, 11–16, 121, 146.

10 William C. Davis, Rhett: The Turbulent Life and Times of a Fire-Eater (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), 391.

11 Steven A. Channing, Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970), 269–70.

12 Ibid., 121.

13 Leon Jackson, The Business of Letters: Authorial Economies in Antebellum America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), 120–1.

14 Ford Risley, “The Confederate Press Association: Cooperative News Reporting of the War,” Civil War History 47, no. 3 (2001): 222; Richard Kielbowicz, News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700s–1860s (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989).

15 Debra Reddin Van Tuyll, The Confederate Press in the Crucible of the American Civil War (New York: Peter Lang, 2013), 110; Shaw, Donald Lewis, “News about Slavery from 1820–1860 in Newspapers of South, North and West,” Journalism Quarterly 61, no. 3 (September 1984): 483–92.

16 For example, Matthew W. Ragas and Hai Tran, “Beyond Cognitions: A Longitudinal Study of Online Search Salience and Media Coverage of the President,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 90, no. 3 (September 2013): 478–99; Robert G. Picard, “Twilight or New Dawn of Journalism? Evidence from the Changing News Ecosystem,” Journalism Studies 15, no. 5 (2014): 500–10; Matthias Revers, “The Augmented Newsbeat: Spatial Structuring in a Twitterized News Ecosystem,” Media, Culture & Society 37, no. 1 (2015): 3–18.

17 Philip M. Napoli, Sarah Stonbely, Kathleen McCollough, and Bryce Renninger, “Local Journalism Ecosystems: A Comparative Analysis of Three New Jersey Communities,” Media and the Public Interest Initiative (2015): 11.

18 J. Cutler Andrews, The South Reports the Civil War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970).

19 Donald E. Reynolds, Editors Make War (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1970).

20 Dwight Dumond, Southern Editorials About Secession (New York: The Century Co., 1931).

21 Carl R. Osthaus, Partisans of the Southern Press: Editorial Spokesmen of the Nineteenth Century (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994).

22 Lorman Ratner and Dwight L. Teeter, Fanatics and Fire-Eaters: Newspapers and the Coming of the Civil War (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003).

23 David Bulla and Gregory A. Borchard, Journalism in the Civil War Era (New York: Peter Lang, 2010).

24 Ford Risley, Civil War Journalism (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2012).

25 Bulla and Borchard, Journalism in the Civil War Era, 404.

26 Donald E. Reynolds, Editors Make War (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1970), 5.

27 William C. Davis, Rhett: The Turbulent Life and Times of a Fire-Eater (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), 398, 419.

28 Daniel Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 91–2.

29 William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, Secession Debated (London: Oxford University Press, 2006), 10–11.

30 Richard W. Iobst, Civil War Macon: The History of a Confederate City (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press), 43.

31 Charles P. Roland, “Louisiana and Secession,” Louisiana History 19, no. 4 (Autumn 1978): 389–91.

32 Dumond, Southern Editorials on Secession, xx.

33 Andrews, South Reports the Civil War, 34.

34 Reynolds, Editors Make War, 5.

35 Donald E. Reynolds, Editors Make War: Southern Newspapers in the Secession Crisis (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), 95, 407–08.

36 Ibid., ix.

37 Reports on reactions to the movement in Georgia, Louisiana, Virginia, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and New York can be found in the Charleston Mercury on December 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, 24, and 27. A roundup of reactions to South Carolina’s secession vote can be found in “Reception of the Secession News,” Charleston Mercury, December 24, 1860.

38 “Seward’s Position,” Charleston Mercury, December 25, 1860.

39 “News from the State Capital,” Charleston Mercury, December 13, 1860.

40 “Union-Saving in Philadelphia,” Charleston Mercury, December 13, 1860; “Minutes of the States Assembly,” Charleston Mercury, December 13, 1860; “The Crisis in New York,” Charleston Mercury, December 17, 1860.

41 “Proceedings of the Legislature,” Charleston Mercury, December 13, 1860.

42 “Our Harbor ‘Defenses’,’” Charleston Mercury, December 13, 1860; “Our Harbor ‘Defenses’–Fort Sumter,” Charleston Mercury, December 25, 1860; “Coast Fortifications Begun,” Charleston Mercury, December 27, 1860.

43 “The Military Bureau,” Charleston Mercury, December 22, 1860.

44 “Commercial and Postal Facilities,” Charleston Mercury, December 25, 1860.

45 “Evacuation Day,” Charleston Mercury, December 14, 1860.

46 “The Celebration Evacuation Day,” Charleston Mercury, December 15, 1860.

47 “New England Dinner–1859,” Charleston Mercury, December 14, 1860.

48 J. D. B. De Bow, “The Slaveholding and Non-slaveholding Interests of the South—A Unit,” Charleston Mercury, December 15, 1860.

49 “Flag Presentation,” Charleston Mercury, December 14, 1860.

50 “More Palmettos,” Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1860.

51 “The Grand Secession March,” Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1860.

52 “The Great Transparency,” Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1860.

53 “Cockades,” Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1860.

54 “The White Flag in North Carolina,” Charleston Mercury, December 14, 1860.

55 “The Palmetto and the Penguin,” Charleston Mercury, December 27, 1860.

56 “Naval Resignation,” Charleston Mercury, December 13, 1860; “Resignation of an Army Officer,” Charleston Mercury, December 22, 1860; “Washington Gossip,” Charleston Mercury, December 19, 1860; “Resignation of Cobb—Letter of Cobb and Buchanan,” Charleston Mercury, December 15, 1860; “Resignation of Hon. L. M. Keitt,” Charleston Mercury, December 25, 1860; “Important Resignation,” Charleston Mercury, December 27, 1860; “Secession of Postmasters,” Charleston Mercury, December 19, 1860.

57 “From Virginia,” Charleston Mercury, December 13, 1860.

58 “An Abolitionist in Chester,” Charleston Mercury, December 17, 1860.

59 “Lincoln Takes his Position,” Charleston Mercury, December 24, 1860; “Will Lincoln be Powerless in the Next Congress” reprinted in Charleston Mercury, December 19, 1860; “Lincoln Bribing Bates,” Charleston Mercury, December 17, 1860.

60 “Resignation of Cobb—Letter of Cobb and Buchanan,” Charleston Mercury, December 15, 1860.

61 “Convention of the People of South Carolina,” Charleston Mercury, December 19, 1860.

62 “The Southern Address,” Charleston Mercury, December 20, 1860.

63 “Alabama Military,” Charleston Mercury, December15, 1860; “Georgia Legislation,” Charleston Mercury, December 15, 1860.

64 “Reception of the Secession News,” Charleston Mercury, December 25, 1860.

65 Ibid.

66 “Our Washington Dispatches,” Charleston Mercury, December 25, 1860.

67 “No Compromise,” Charleston Mercury, December 14, 1860.

68 Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 366; Ratner and Teeter, Fanatics and Fire-Eaters, 23; Reynolds, Editors Make War, 41.

69 Iobst, Civil War Macon, 5, 43.

70 Four other newspapers operated in Macon: the weekly and semi-weekly Georgia Citizen, the semi-monthly Baptist Champion, the weekly Christian Index, and the weekly American Republic. Richard W. Iobst, Civil War Macon: The History of a Confederate City (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press), 17.

71 David B. Sachsman, S. Kittrell Rushing, and Roy Morris Jr., Words at War: The Civil War and American Journalism (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2008), 150.

72 Lamar Cobb to Colonel David Barrow, Macon, 21 November 1860, Colonel David C. Barrow Papers, Correspondence May 1860–March 1865 Ms. 69, Hargrett Library, The University of Georgia, Athens. Cited in Richard W. Iobst, Civil War Macon: The History of a Confederate City (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press), 45.

73 Mary Ann Cobb to her Husband, Macon, December 25, 1860, Cobb Papers, 1860. Cited in Richard W. Iobst, Civil War Macon: The History of a Confederate City (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press), 44.

74 “Call for Convention,” Macon Daily Telegraph, November 8, 1860.

75 Sachsman, Rushing, and Morris, Words at War, 153–4; Richard Allen Schwarzlose, The Nation’s Newsbrokers: Vol. 1 The Formative Years, from Pre-telegraph to 1865 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1989), 264.

76 “A Secession Demonstration,” Macon Telegraph, December 21, 1860; “Montgomery, Dec. 20,” Macon Telegraph, December 21, 1860; “Grand Procession of Minute Men,” Macon Telegraph, December 22, 1860.

77 “The Union Demonstration in Philadelphia” and “Philadelphia, December 13,” Macon Telegraph, December 14, 1860.

78 “Meeting in New York,” Macon Telegraph, December 20, 1860; “Address of the Southern Members of the Committee of Thirty-Three,” Macon Telegraph, December 20, 1860; “Letter from the Hon. R. Toombs,” Macon Telegraph, December 18, 1860.

79 “Meeting in New York,” Macon Telegraph, December 20, 1860.

80 “Hon. Caleb Cushing Arrive Here Last Night,” Macon Telegraph, December 24, 1860.

81 “Grand Procession of Minute Men,” Macon Telegraph, December 24, 1860.

82 “Grand Demonstration,” Macon Telegraph, December 22, 1860.

83 “‘Secession March’, ‘Secession Gallop’,” Macon Telegraph, December 24, 1860.

84 “The South Carolina Project,” Macon Telegraph, December 22, 1860.

85 “The Crisis in Louisiana,” Macon Telegraph, December 13, 1860; “Defences of Charleston,” Macon Telegraph, December 14, 1860; “From Washington,” Macon Telegraph, December 14, 1860; “Fort Moultrie,” Macon Telegraph, December 21, 1860; “The 20th Day of December, in the Year of Our Lord, 1860,” Macon Telegraph, December 25, 1860.

86 “The Planters vs. the Northern Money Holders,” Macon Telegraph, December 13, 1860; “What Georgia Intends to Do,” Macon Telegraph, December 19, 1860.

87 “Defences of Charleston,” Macon Telegraph, December 14, 1860.

88 “Insurrectionary Plot in Montgomery Co.,” Macon Telegraph, December 20, 1860; “Central Bank Suspended,” Macon Telegraph, December 20, 1860; “South Carolina—Passage of the Secession Ordinance,” December 27, 1860.

89 “Address of the Southern Members of the Committee of Thirty-Three,” Macon Telegraph, December 20, 1860; “Letter from the Hon. R. Toombs,” Washington (Georgia) Independent, December 20, 1860; “Sick Republicans—Lincoln Importuned to Resign,” Cincinnati Commercial, December 14, 1860; “Fatal Affray in Missouri,” Baton Rouge Weekly Advocate, December 20, 1860; “Mississippi State Convention Election,” Jackson Mississippian, December 24, 1860; “Anticipated Troubles in Boston,” Alexandria (Virginia) Gazette, December 20, 1860.

90 “The Planters vs. the Northern Money Holders,” Macon Telegraph, December 13, 1860.

91 “Something Good in Nazareth,” Macon Telegraph, December 14, 1860.

92 Jon Wakelyn, Southern Pamphlets on Secession: November 1860–April 1861 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).

93 “The Non-Slaveholder,” Macon Telegraph, December 15, 1860.

94 “From Washington,” Macon Telegraph, December 15, 1860.

95 “Gems from Lincoln,” Macon Telegraph, December 17, 1860.

96 “A Letter from Judge Nicholson,” Macon Telegraph, December 17, 1860.

97 “Rays of Light Amid the Gloom,” Macon Telegraph, December 17, 1860.

98 “For Delegates to the Convention,” Macon Telegraph, December 19, 1860.

99 “What Georgia Intends to Do,” Macon Telegraph, December 19, 1860.

100 “South Carolina—Passage of the Secession Ordinance,” Macon Telegraph, December 21, 1860.

101 “Montgomery, Dec. 20,” Macon Telegraph, December 21, 1860.

102 “A Secession Demonstration,” Macon Telegraph, December 21, 1860.

103 “Address of Senator Toombs to the People of Georgia!” Macon Telegraph, December 24, 1860.

104 Crofts, Reluctant Confederates, 26, 30, 37, 106, 54.

105 Harold W. Hurst, Alexandria on the Potomac: The Portrait of an Antebellum Community (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991), 104.

106 Unionist, “Communicated,” Alexandria Gazette, December 24, 1860.

107 Hurst, Alexandria on the Potomac, 104.

108 Daniel Crofts, Reluctant Confederates (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 90.

109 “Do Your Duty To-day!” Alexandria Gazette, November 6, 1860.

110 “The Persistent Course of South Carolina,” Alexandria Gazette, December 14, 1860.

111 “The Spirited remarks of Mr. Shackelford,” Alexandria Gazette, December 13, 1860.

112 “We Cannot See or Say,” Alexandria Gazette, December 15, 1860.

113 “Gov. Pettus, of Misssissippi,” Alexandria Gazette, December 17, 1860.

114 “The Secession of South Carolina,” Alexandria Gazette, December 21, 1860.

115 “The Charleston Mercury Records,” Alexandria Gazette, December 25, 1860.

116 “In the Perilous Condition,” Alexandria Gazette, December 27, 1860.

117 “The Charleston Mercury Publishes an Account,” Alexandria Gazette, December 17, 1860.

118 “Evening Session,” Alexandria Gazette, December 19, 1860; “Third Days Proceedings,” Alexandria Gazette, December 20, 1860.

119 “Gov. Pettus, of Mississippi,” Alexandria Gazette, December 17, 1860.

120 “The Richmond Whig suggests,” Alexandria Gazette, December 18, 1860.

121 “Richmond Money Market,” Alexandria Gazette, December 15, 1860.

122 Fayette Copeland, Kendall of the Picayune: Being His Adventures in New Orleans, on the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, in the Mexican War, and in the Colonization of the Texas Frontier (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 17.

123 Ibid., 53, 58.

124 Charles Schultz, “New Orleans in December 1860,” Louisiana History 9, no. 1 (January 1968): 53, 58.

125 “Opinion in Virginia (Picayune correspondence),” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; J. B. Peuchaud, “Proceedings of a Meeting Held in the Parish of St. James on the Crisis (letter to editor),” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; “Nominations for the Convention (Exchange, Mississippi Mercury),” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; “The Federal Government ‘A Nuisance (Telegraph)’,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860, 5; “Union Convention in Kentucky (Exchange, Louisville Courier),” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860.

126 “Telegraphed to the Picayune,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860.

127 “Post Office Expenditures (Telegraph),” Daily Picayune, December 18, 1860; “The Defense of Fort Moultrie (Telegraph),” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; “Northern Manufacturers Coming South,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860.

128 “Absence of Secretary Thompson,” Daily Picayune, December 19, 1860; “The People’s Conventions at Charleston,” Daily Picayune, December 21, 1860.

129 “The Meeting Last Night,” Daily Picayune, December 25, 1860; “Military Spirit of the Times,” Daily Picayune, December 17, 1860.

130 “Military Spirit of the Times,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860; “Minute men in St. Charles,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860; “Expulsion from St. Charles,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860; “United Southern Movement,” Daily Picayune, December 19, 1860; “Nominations for the State Convention,” Daily Picayune, December 20, 1860.

131 “Proceedings of the House,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860; “National Humiliation, Fasting, Prayer,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860; “The Great Question in the Senate,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860.

132 “Yankee Doodle Superceded by the Marseillaise,” Daily Picayune, December 18, 1860.

133 “The Cockades,” Daily Picayune, December 23, 1860.

134 “Festival of St. Barbe,” Daily Picayune, December 25, 1860. The article provided no first name, but a Major Paul Theard is noted in John Kendall, History of New Orleans (Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1922), 234.

135 Reports on deliberations and attempts to head off secession in Washington can be found in the Picayune of December 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 27.

136 “Great Rejoicing in Mobile,” Picayune, December 21, 1860; “Mr. Buchanan on Secession,” Picayune, December 21, 1860; “Great Enthusiasm by the People,” Picayune, December 21, 1860; “The Secession News at Washington,” Picayune, December 21, 1860; “The Secession News in Congress,” Picayune, December 22, 1860; “Enthusiasm in Charleston,” Picayune, December 22, 1860; “Reception of the News in Memphis,” Picayune, December 22, 1860; “Reaction in Memphis,” Picayune, December 23, 1860; “Maryland and the Border States,” Picayune, December 23, 1860; “Feeling in Richmond,” Picayune, December 23, 1860; “Fifteen Guns from Portsmouth,” Picayune, December 23, 1860; “The Feeling in Wilmington,” Picayune, December 23, 1860.

137 “South Carolina Legislative Proceedings,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; “Sloop-of-War Brooklyn for Charleston,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860; “The Small Pox Raging at Columbia,” Daily Picayune, December 18, 1860; “Small Pox at Columbia, S.C,” Daily Picayune, December 18, 1860; “Proceedings of Columbia Convention,” Daily Picayune, December 18, 1860; “Small Pox at Columbia, S.C,” Daily Picayune, December 18, 1860; “Proceedings of Columbia Convention,” Daily Picayune, December 18, 1860.

138 “The Convention in Secret Session,” Daily Picayune, December 25, 1860; “Southern Confederacy Proposed,” Daily Picayune, December 22, 1860; “Proceedings of the Columbia Convention,” Daily Picayune, December 20, 1860.

139 “Proceedings of Columbia Convention,” Daily Picayune, December 25, 1860.

140 “The Defense of Fort Moultrie,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; “Cause of Gen. Cass’s Resignation,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860; “Sloop-of-War Brooklyn for Charleston,” Daily Picayune, December 16, 1860; “Successor of Gen. Cass,” Daily Picayune, December 25, 1860; “Mr. Cushing’s Report from South Carolina,” Daily Picayune, December 25, 1860.

141 “Mr. Cushing’s Report from South Carolina,” Daily Picayune, December 25 1860.

142 “Nominations for the Convention,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; “Mississippi Commissioners,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; “Mississippi State Arming,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860.

143 “Charleston Delegation to the South Carolina Convention,” Daily Picayune, December 15, 1860; “The People’s Convention at Charleston,” Daily Picayune, December 21, 1860.

144 That exchange described secession celebrations in Charleston. “Enthusiasm in Charleston,” Daily Picayune, December 22, 1860.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Fuhlhage

Michael Fuhlhage is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University. He is the author of Yankee Reporters and Southern Secrets: Journalism, Open Source Intelligence, and the Coming of the Civil War (Peter Lang, 2019).

Jade Metzger-Riftkin

Jade Metzger-Riftkin, Sarah Walker, and Nicholas Prephan are doctoral students in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University.

Sarah Walker

Jade Metzger-Riftkin, Sarah Walker, and Nicholas Prephan are doctoral students in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University.

Nicholas Prephan

Jade Metzger-Riftkin, Sarah Walker, and Nicholas Prephan are doctoral students in the Department of Communication at Wayne State University.