Newspapers & military secrets

[gary]

The Hunley or other submersible craft, the Monitor, the Virginia come to mind. Was their existence reported in the papers prior to their debut?

[Mark Wadsworth]

At times it hard to tell who's side the folks who print the newspapers or on.

[timewalker]

Originally Posted by Mark Wadsworth

At times it hard to tell who's side the folks who print the newspapers or on.

A very Sherman-like sentiment.

[ole]

I don't recollect reading that the papers had wind of the Merrimac or the Virginia or the Hunley. They certainly didn't know Sherman's intentions, but they did report the sailing of the Star of the West and the Fox Expedition. Guess it was more a matter of timing and learning that secrets are hard to keep.

ole

[timewalker]

I liked one throw-away line in Bruce Catton's Grant Moves South. He mentions that a telegrapher on Grant's staff only passed along those newspaper stories which were not true and stopped those which were true because he figured it would confuse the enemy. One of Grant's actions was so unexpected that he let it through thinking it false.

[whitworth]

read the other's newspapers. It was mentioned in the OR's that Lee had a copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer, still published, a few days after it was printed.

A clerk in the Confederate War Department noted that General Grant's family and children were living in the same northern city, as he had some years prior.

Of course, the Confederates had enough spies in Washington, that a Union regiment couldn't sneeze without word of it getting back to Richmond.