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To: Non-Sequitur
Like your own personal poltergeist, I'm back. My mother's angioplasty went fine this afternoon, but I expect to have to spend a good deal of time with her the next few days, so my posting will be sporadic.

You have no idea, do you? Figures.

You really must work on your Internet searching skills. All of the papers I cited that were suppressed/mobbed,etc., in 1864 by the Feds or Union hooligans are listed on the web in one source. Maybe that hint will be sufficient. I also went to the library and found the hard copy of that source and confirmed what it said.

Let's examine the examples of Southern newspaper suppression you got from Blue and Gray in Black and White.

Richmond Whig. Antisecession editor forced out of his job the day after Sumter's surrender. By whom, the proprietor wishing for his paper to be profitable?

B&G in B&W says General Winder arrested the Whig editor in March 1862. B&G in B&W didn't mention the reason -- the Whig had published information about arms and ammunition arriving in Richmond from Europe. This was counter to war time restrictions on publishing such information and the police pointed this out to Winder. By the way, before this incident, Winder had earlier named a colonel as his provost marshal and was not provost marshal himself then as B&G in B&W says. I'm not sure the editor was actually arrested. Next.

Greensboro Alabama Beacon. The proprietor sold this paper to someone else. That counts as suppression? Did the paper actually cease publication?

Athena Union Banner. The owner (I guess it is the owner) "simply quit." Was force used against him? Was he arrested?

Galveston Union. Trashed by a mob months before the war. Do such early occassions count?

Galveston Civilian and Gazette. Simply didn't say anything about the other Galveston paper being mobbed. That counts? By George, I can add some papers like the New York Times, The New York Herald, and the Philadelphia Public Ledger to my list of suppressed papers because by 1864 they did not report on several of the suppressed/mobbed Northern papers.

San Antonio Alamo Express. Mobbed. I've mentioned this hit in a post before.

Richmond Examiner. Threatened by General Winder says B&G in B&W. My source says the police threatened the Examiner, but it is possible Winder did too. General Grant did arrest the editor of the Richmond Examiner in June 1865.

You have to remember that there were only about 80 newspapers in the entire confederacy prior to the start of the rebellion

Hmmm. B&G in B&W also says on the same page that mentions the 80 papers: "Some papers went out of business because there was not enough business -- perhaps forty papers in Virginia and fifty in Texas closed during the first year of the war." OK, which is it? 80 papers in the entire Confederacy or 90 closed papers in Texas and Virginia plus unclosed papers in Texas and Virginia plus untold papers in the other nine Confederate States?

Union advances wound up shutting down newspapers in cities like Norfolk and Memphis and New Orleans as their staffs headed for the hills.

Yeah, they did shut down newspapers in such cities, but the staffs didn't always head for the hills. Sometimes the Union just replaced the editors with Union soldiers. Great objective news source. Or, as my source for 1864 suppressed newspapers mentioned (but I had left out in my earlier post), all Democratic papers were excluded by the Union commander from the state of Kentucky. Gee, I wonder how many Democratic papers there were in the North. I guess they were all excluded from Kentucky.

Heading to bed. Have to get up early to return to the hospital.

175 posted on 02/20/2008 11:10:05 PM PST by rustbucket
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To: rustbucket

Come, come, come, Rustbucket. You gave no reasons for the alleged suppression of the newspapers you mentioned. We have no idea if editors were forced out, arrested, threatened by mobs or what. If papers were sold because of public threats against the policy then doesn’t that count as suppression under your definition? If mobs burn out papers, like it did with the San Antonio paper, then isn’t that Davis’ fault? You blame similar actions on Lincoln.


177 posted on 02/21/2008 4:11:34 AM PST by Non-Sequitur (Save Fredericksburg. Support CVBT.)
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