Macleans Looks at 'Times of the Civil War'; Leaves Open Question for Modern Media

Macleans Magazine cites "ingenious construction" of new book as clear illustration of confusion in newspaper wartime reportage.

(PRWEB) December 10, 2005 -- Macleans, the Toronto based magazine, posed a parting question for the media after reviewing Times of the Civil War by Don Bracken.

”The 'fog of war,' Carl von Clausewitz's metaphor about how the chaos of combat confounds the best-laid plans of military strategists applies equally well to war correspondents,” Macleans stated in its opening comment on Bracken's book during an Autumn 2005 review.

“Don Bracken's ingenious construction, Times of the Civil War -- half reference book, half gripping narrative -- is also a cautionary tale for journalists. Bracken looks at the U.S. Civil War's major battles -- an astounding total of 384 -- through the lenses of the contemporary press: the New York Times for the Union and the Charleston Mercury for the Confederacy. Then he offers a judgment from modern historians.”

To further its advisory points of media caution, Macleans referred to the reportage of the great battle in Maryland that prompted Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. “Antietam (or Sharpsburg, as it's known in the South -- the two sides can't even agree on the name) is nowadays reckoned a Union victory,” Macleans wrote, “but the Mercury also reported it as a triumph for its side, the result not of deliberate lying but of survivors' confused accounts. Whether modern media do any better is an open question,” the Canadian magazine said in conclusion.

Further accounts of media confusion in the Civil War are available in Times of the Civil War, a compilation of newspaper reportage and onsite sketches by wartime artists sent by Harper's Weekly and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Magazine.

Don Bracken is Senior Editor of History Publishing Company LLC a firm dedicated to the study of American History though technology and the co-editor of the Civil War Historyscope Series, a computerized plotting of the 384 major battles and 132 campaigns of the Civil War. The Series is used in schools throughout the nation.

“Times of the Civil War” (ISBN 1420806955) is available at select bookstores and on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other internet book sites.

###