of light could penetrate.

I have elsewhere alluded to the capture of Messrs. Richardson and
Browne, of _The Tribune_, and Mr. Colburn, of _The World_, in front
of Vicksburg. The story of the captivity and perilous escape of these
representatives of _The Tribune_ reveals a patience, a fortitude, a
daring, and a fertility of resource not often excelled.

Some of the most graphic battle-accounts of the war were written very
hastily. During the three days' battle at Gettysburg, _The Herald_
published each morning the details of the fighting of the previous
day, down to the setting of the sun. This was accomplished by having a
correspondent with each corps, and one at head-quarters to forward the
accounts to the nearest telegraph office. At Antietam, _The Tribune_
correspondent viewed the battle by day, and then hurried from the
field, writing the most of his account on a railway train. From Fort
Donelson the correspondents of _The World_ and _The Tribune_ went to
Cairo, on a hospital boat crowded with wounded. Their accounts were
written amid dead and suffering men, but when published they bore
little evidence of their hasty preparation.

I once wrote a portion of a letter at the end of a medium-sized table.
At the other end of the table a party of gamblers, with twenty or
thirty spectators, were indulging in "Chuck-a-Luck." I have known
dispatches to be written on horseback, but they were very brief,
and utterly illegible to any except the writer. Much of the press
correspondence during the war was written in railway cars and on
steamboats, and much on camp-chests, stumps, or other substitutes for
tables. I have seen a half-dozen correspondents busily engaged with
their letters at the same moment, each of them resting his port-folio
on his knee, or standing upright, with no support whatever. On one
occasion a fellow-journalist assured me that the broad chest of a
slumbering _confrere_ made an excellent table, the undulations caused
by the sleeper's breathing being the only objectionable feature.

Sometimes a correspondent reached the end of a long ride so exhausted
as to be unable to hold a pen for ten consecutive minutes. In such
case a short-hand writer was employed, when accessible, to take down
from rapid dictation the story of our victory or defeat.

Under all the disadvantages of time, place, and circumstances,
of physical exhaustion and mental anxiety, it is greatly to the
correspondents' credit that they wro