Lincoln's Informer: Charles A. Dana and the Inside Story of the Union War

by Carl J. Guarneri

Overview

The index to Lincoln’s Informer has been revised since the book’s first printing. Click here to read and download the revised index.

Winner: Albert Castel Book Award

In a recent poll of leading historians, Charles A. Dana was named among the “Twenty-Five Most Influential Civil War Figures You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.” If you have heard of Dana, it was probably from his classic Recollections of the Civil War (1898), which was ghostwritten by muckraker Ida Tarbell and riddled with errors cited by unsuspecting historians ever since. Lincoln’s Informer at long last sets the record straight, giving Charles A. Dana his due in a story that rivals the best historical fiction.

Dana didn’t just record history, Carl J. Guarneri notes: he made it. Starting out as managing editor of Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, he led the newspaper’s charge against proslavery forces in Congress and the Kansas territory. When his criticism of the Union’s prosecution of the war became too much for Greeley, Dana was drafted by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to be a special agent—and it was in this capacity that he truly made his mark. Drawing on Dana’s reports, letters, and telegrams—“the most remarkable, interesting, and instructive collection of official documents relating to the Rebellion,” according to the custodian of the Union war records—Guarneri reconstructs the Civil War as Dana experienced and observed it: as a journalist, a confidential informant to Stanton and Lincoln, and, most controversially, an administration insider with surprising influence. While reporting most of the war’s major events, Dana also had a hand in military investigations, the cotton trade, Lincoln’s reelection, passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, and, most notably, the making of Ulysses S. Grant and the breaking of other generals.

Dana’s reporting and Guarneri’s lively narrative provide fresh impressions of Lincoln, Stanton, Grant, and other Union war leaders. Lincoln’s Informer shows us the unlikely role of a little-known confidant and informant in the Lincoln administration’s military and political successes. A remarkable inside look at history unfolding, this book draws the first complete picture of a fascinating character writing his chapter in the story of the Civil War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700628469
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	10/25/2019
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	906,502
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Carl J. Guarneri is the Brother James Ash Professor of American History, Emeritus at Saint Mary’s College of California. He is the author of many books, including The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America and America in the World: United States History in Global Context.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: “The Eyes of the Government at the Front”

1. “The Responsible Editor of the Tribune”

2. “A Party against the Slave Power”

3. “Forward to Richmond!”

4. “A Printing House Divided”

5. “Several Propositions”

6. “Mr. Stanton's Spy”

7. “At the Side of the Conqueror”

8. Interlude: “Some Duty Not Yet Explained”

9. “As Fatal a Name as Bull Run”

10. “Glory to God! The Day Is Decisively Ours”

11. “Organizing Victory”

12. “A Hand on Lee’s Throat”

13. “The Deepest Shame That Has Yet Befallen Us”

14. “All the Power of the War Department”

15. “Side Politics,” Spies, and Swindlers

16. “The Rebellion Finished”

17. “Grantism” and Retreat

Epilogue: Remembering (and Forgetting) the War

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

10/18/2019

Guarneri (history, Saint Mary's Coll., MD) pores over Civil War-era newspapers, political campaigns, and presidential administrations to track the influence of 19th-century journalist, author, and government administrator Charles Anderson Dana (1819–97). A key figure in important events of the time, Dana advised Ulysses S. Grant on the battlefield, Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet in Washington, and Republicans reconsidering Reconstruction. He also served as aide to New York Tribune publisher Horace Greeley and later went on to found the New York Sun. Addressing the complexities of wartime military and political ambitions, the author sometimes loses sight of Dana with lengthy descriptions of various battles and campaigns yet provides plenty of perspective on how Dana gained and used insider information to advance careers, especially Grant's, and making himself indispensable. In Lincoln's telling, Dana was "the eyes of the government at the front." In Guarneri's compelling account, he was much more—a shrewd, sometimes ruthless, and always relentless reporter. Dana understood that knowing how things worked made it possible to make them work for you. VERDICT An insightful work about an influential but often overlooked political figure.—Randall M. Miller, St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia

Library Journal

"Lincoln’s Informer is that sort of rare history that can both enlighten other scholars and engage popular readership. . . . Guarneri’s work is thoughtful, thoroughly researched, and an important contribution to our understanding of the nineteenth-century United States."—American Nineteenth Century History

“Everyone from seasoned historians to casual readers will find Guarneri’s work stimulating and innovative.”—Journal of Military History

“This exemplary biography of a remarkable Civil War-era journalist should be carefully pondered by all serious students of nineteenth-century journalism.”—Michigan War Studies Review

“Guarneri’s lively, immersive, and well-researched biography offers a textured portrait of this remarkable figure who has been largely overlooked until now.”—Journal of Southern History

“An important read for anyone interested in the conduct of the war or American journalism.”—New York Military Affairs Symposium Review

“Get yourself a copy and get a good look into the machinations behind the scenes of military campaigns. You will be glad you did.”—Civil War News

"Lincoln’s Informer is unprecedented in how expansively it defines and details the depth of Dana’s myriad of important influences and actions. Dana, through the determined efforts of Guarneri’s fine scholarship, can now be more widely appreciated not just as an influential go-between but as an important historical actor in his own right. Highly recommended."—Civil War Books and Authors

"Insightful analysis and scrupulous research."—Civil War Times

"An insightful work about an influential but often overlooked political figure."—Library Journal

“Lincoln’s Informer is a genuine contribution to both Civil War studies and the history of nineteenth-century journalism. In the story of Charles A. Dana, Lincoln’s Informer reclaims exciting and underreported aspects of American political, literary, and military history.”—Harold Holzer, winner of the Gilder-Lehrman Lincoln Prize

“This highly readable, thoroughly researched account of Charles A. Dana’s role in the Civil War era is a welcome addition to the literature, for it sheds new light not only on Dana but also on such important players as Abraham Lincoln, U. S. Grant, and Horace Greeley.”—Michael Burlingame, author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life

“Brimming with fascinating details and drawing on an array of new sources, Lincoln’s Informer provides the definitive portrait of newspaper editor Charles A. Dana’s controversial career as an informant, investigator, and advisor for the War Department. Both on the field and in Washington, DC, Guarneri’s cogent narrative reveals how Dana’s reports on commanders, campaigns, and fraud not only earned the respect of President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton but also impacted vital military and political policy.”—Joan Waugh, coauthor of The American War: A History of the Civil War Era

Charles A. Dana, though little known today, was one of the major figures of the Civil War, an informant for Secretary of War Stanton and President Lincoln. Lincoln’s Informer is well written and full of insights for all Civil War scholars and buffs.”—John F. Marszalek, executive director and managing editor of the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library at Mississippi State University

From the Publisher