William Howard Russell's Civil War: Private Diary and Letters, 1861-1862
Journal: The SHAFR Guide Online
Year: 2017

Having won renown in the 1850s for his vivid warfront dispatches from the Crimea, William Russell was the most celebrated foreign journalist in America during the first year of the Civil War. As a special correspondent for the Times of London, Russell was charged with explaining the American crisis to a British audience, but his reports also had a great impact in the United States. They so alienated both sides, North and South, that Russell was forced to return to England pematurely in April 186