"We’ll Have Dispatches Now from Hell Before Breakfast”

When Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman learned that Junius Henri Browne, a war correspondent with Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, and two other reporters went missing when they attempted to run the Confederate batteries of Vicksburg, he reportedly reacted with delight. Browne and his comrades were in fact captured-and Browne spent the next 20 months as a prisoner of war. Here's his story.
"Life on the Civil War Research Trail" is hosted by Ronald S. Coddington, Editor and Publisher of Military Images magazine. Learn more about our mission to showcase, interpret and preserve Civil War portrait photography at militaryimagesmagazine.com and shopmilitaryimages.com.
This episode is brought to you in part by The Excelsior Brigade, dealers in fine Civil War memorabilia. See their latest additions at excelsiorbrigade.com.
Image: Ronald S. Coddington Collection
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[@conradnelson5283]

Great story. Almost 2 years a prisoner and not a soldier . There are some very strange stories out there about the Civil War and you are digging them up amazing.

[@barbaramichiels5503]

I want to thank you for your hard work bringing these stories to light. I think you deserve a major award. Thank you!❤❤❤

[@stanallen1072]

Hilarious! Your quote from Gen Sherman was excellent! Carry on.

[@davide9658]

Thanks for that interestingly written account.

[@amadeusamwater]

You can tell he was a journalist, he seemed very fond of words.

[@curtgomes]

All the best Ron. How very interesting. Keep up the good work. Your brief stories and the recollections of these Civil War veterans should not be lost to history…. Thank You

[@spacehonky6315]

Mr.Brown has a beautiful writing voice. Thank you for sharing your research of the man.

[@frankperkin124]

Great story. I'd like to read his book.

[@larrydemaar409]

I would like to recommend a terrific book about these men by Peter Carlson. It is called: “Junius and Albert’s Adventures in the Confederacy: a Civil War Odyssey”. For example, these 2 guys weren’t able to make the Battle of Pea Ridge and just made up a story and received lots of compliments. After the war, Albert wrote an early biography of U. S. Grant. His first wife died while they were in Salisbury prison. He remarried, but was murdered by his wife’s first husband.

[@delstanley1349]

Notice the pant's tear above Brown's right knee and below the right hand. It looks like the state of Texas' boundary outline; perhaps because I'm from Texas and someone from another state wouldn't pay it any mind or have any reason to notice. Then I looked at it again, knowing now at the end of the video that these were the clothes he was wearing on the road to his freedom. Now that same rip tear looks like a roadrunner! Beep, beep. Note that the western stretch of the "state" now looks like the roadrunner's beak, and that black dot is the "eye" of the bird, and could be Fort Stockton, on a Texas map. Amarillo is in the "crown" of the bird on the map, called the "panhandle" in Texas. But the more I look at it I can see only the roadrunner and less the state. The vision changes the more you know about the circumstances. Thanx again for the video.

[@crippledcrow2384]

One of the biggest hams in the north. You have to take what he says with a grain of salt. He definitely stretched the truth.

[@owensomers8572]

Hammier than southern productions of effigies?

[@Mr4autiger]

@@owensomers8572 yes

[@yisroelkatz-xj6pq]

Brown was very accurate about his description about war correspondents that they suffer like soldiers but they are treated like outcasts! However, war correspondents are very important in that they inform the public and they record history for future generations! They definitely deserve a lot of respect and appreciation!

[@oldgeezerproductions]

Thanks once again Ron for a wonderful story well told.
What an exciting and dramatic adventure Browne and his fellow "Bohemians" had and to make it complete, they survived their ordeal physically and intellectually. I call what Browne and his fellows went through an "adventure" because, as the 'Old Saying' I made up some years ago states: "the only difference between an adventure and a disaster, is that in an adventure nobody gets killed."

[@douglaslucas7612]

D!!!! Blue bellies

[@Mr4autiger]

Sorry, not adding up. Kitchen duty and ample time to read books does not sound like a "demonic" imprisonment. Secondly, this gentleman claims he receives no accolades for the harms way he put himself in, including having taken up arms in the field of battle, then goes on to claim that he was being held unjustly as a noncombatant. I guess not much has changed with journalists over the years....