Hell Before Breakfast: America's First War Correspondents - Paperback

by Robert H. Patton (Author)

From acclaimed historian Robert H. Patton, author of The Pattons and Patriot Pirates, a rediscovery and celebration of America's first chroniclers of foreign war.

The first war correspondent, William H. Russell of The Times of London, described himself and his profession as "the miserable parent of a luckless tribe." But it wasn't long before others saw it differently. Hell Before Breakfast is the spectacular tale of larger-than-life Americans who made it their business to bring back news from the front; from Bull Run to the Paris Commune, from Africa to the Ottoman Empire, through decades of lightning-fast technological progress and high adventure. As America matured into a great power and the monarchies of Europe battled for dominance through a series of brief, bloody imperial wars, with the storm clouds of World War I drawing rapidly closer, these men and their newspapers were at center stage--the vanguard of a golden age of war correspondence.

Author Biography

Robert H. Patton graduated from Brown University and Northwestern University. He is the author of, among other works, The Pattons: A Personal History of an American Family and Patriot Pirates: The Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution. He lives with his wife and family in Darien, Connecticut.