William Howard Russell and the Confederacy
The Times of London had kept a close watch on the developing American sectional conflict of the 1850s. Despite charges of ignorance which were persistently levelled against it, the quality of its American intelligence in the years leading up to the war remained consistently high. Since 1854 a young New York lawyer, Bancroft Davis, had provided informative weekly reports on political, diplomatic and economic affairs, whilst between July 1856 and December 1857 the paper possessed in Louis Filmore an experienced and talented Special Correspondent in the United States. After Lincoln's election, however, it became clear that Davis, who was based in New York City, was not up to dealing with a political crisis of the magnitude of secession and to this end William Howard Russell, the hero of the Crimea and the most famous reporter of his day, was despatched to the United States as The Times's new Special Correspondent. Russell arrived in New York on 16 March 1861 and less than a month later embarked upon what was to prove a highly successful tour of the Confederate States.