Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1909 — The First War Correspondents. [ARTICLE]

The First War Correspondents.

In a sense Julius Caesar w’as a war correspondent, only he did not send his “Commentaries” piecemeal from the “theater of war,” but indited them at his leisure in the subsequent peace time. The old Swedish Intelligencer of the Gustavus Adolphus period was genuine war correspondence, published, Indeed, tardily compared with our news of today, but nevertheless fresh from the scene of action, full of distinctiveness, quaint and racy beyond compare. The first modern war correspondent professionally commissioned and paid by a newspaper was the late G. L. Gruneisen, a well known literary man, who was sent to Spain by the London Post with the Spanish legion which Sir de Lacy Evans commanded In 1837 in the service of the queen of Spain. But this new departure was not followed up, and no English paper was represented In the great battles of the first and second Punjab wars.