SeDe Sedalia Democrat
StLoDi St. Louis Dispatch
PD St. Louis Post-Dispatch
StLoPo St. Louis
PostThJo The Journalist
TT Town Topics
WaPo Washington Post
WP Westliche Post
WSJ Wall Street Journal
Note: When citing Pulitzer letters and other documents located at either Columbia University or the Library of Congress, I have chosen to limit the citation to the date of item and collection, unless more information would be needed for its retrieval. For instance, some correspondence and other items were not filed chronologically or sometimes are incorrectly filed. In those cases, I have provided the box and file folder information.
Additionally, finding aids I developed in conjunction with the research for this book have been deposited at the Rare Book and Manuscript Room of Columbia University and the Manuscript Room of the Library of Congress.
Last, the endnote appears at the point at which I begin using the source. So quotations in subsequent paragraphs stem from the same source unless otherwise specified.
PROLOGUE: HAVANA 1909
On the afternoon: Descriptions of Havana harbor are drawn from Robert T. Hill, Cuba and Porto Rico with the Other Islands of the West Indies (New York: The Century Co., 1898) and photographs in the G. W. Blunt Library of Mystic Seaport.
The length of: AI, 28. Sarawak is today one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo.
And it was talked about: Data calculated using data from the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of World, 5/10/1903, copy contained in May 1903 Folder, WP-CU.
“The World should”: JP and Clark B. Firestone conversation, transcript, undated, undated folder 1910, JP-LC, Box 9.
“I think God”: JP and Firestone conversation, transcript, 8/5/1908, WP-CU.
At last the small boat: WRR, 711.
CHAPTER 1: HUNGARY
A note about family names: I have chosen to keep Joseph Pulitzer’s ancestors and family names in their original spelling, such as Mihály (instead of Michael), Fülöp (instead of Phillip). But as Jószef Pulitzer would become known by the American spelling of his name, I instead refer to him as “Joseph.”
By the time: Moravia is now located in the eastern third of the modern Czech Republic. When I visited the Jewish cemetery in Makó in 2006, I found graves for Pulitzers with all three spellings: “Politzer,” “Puliczer,” and “Pulitzer.” András Csillag, “The Hungarian Origins of Joseph Pulitzer,” Hungarian Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1–2 (1987), 193; Peter I. Hidas, “A Brief Outline of the History of Jews of Hungary,” delivered December 13, 1992 at the Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, Westmount, Canada (unpublished, in author’s possession); Lupovitch, Jews at the Crossroads, xviii–xix; András Csillag, Pulitzer József makói származásáról (Makó: Makó Múseum, 1985), 13–14.
In Makó, the Pulitzers: Csillag, “Hungarian Origins,” 194–196.
When Joseph’s father: Ibid., 198; APM, 16; Csillag, Pulitzer József makói származásáról, 13.
Following Jewish custom: Birth Recorders Book, Makó, Israelitic Religious Birth Registrar’s Office, Vol. 36.16, JPII-LC. The copy is accompanied by a translation, which, however, fails to translate the Hungarian word körülmetélö (circumcision.) The translation was done for the Pulitzer family in 1937 (possibly later). The birth of Pulitzer is also noted in the listing of Jewish births in Makó on microfilm #0642780 of the Family History Center for the Mormon Church.
Nonetheless, as Jews: The percentage was determined using estimated population figures but it matched that provided by Marton Eacsedi, caretaker of the Jewish Cemeteries in Makó, in an interview with the author, January 21, 2006. A city plan of 1815 described the crooked streets of the Jewish settlement: Toth, “History,” 4.
Despite the revolution’s: The strength of Hungarian nationalism among Jews is described in Alexander Maxwell, “From Wild Carpathians to the Puszta: The Evolution of Hungarian National Landscapes,” in Ruth Buettner and Judith Peltz, eds., Mythical Landscapes Then and Now (Yerevan, Macmillan, 2006); Gyorgyi Haraszti, of the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, interview with author, January 24, 2006; APM, 4.
The end of: Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 8 (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1901), 273. Pulitzer attended the Hebrew school in Makó, according to his childhood friend Adolph Reiner, The Journal of Temesvar, June 21, 1913 (translation in JPII-LC.); Patai, The Jews of Hungary, 284–285; Lopovitch, Jews at the Crossroads, 240–243.
There was nothing modern: APM, 12.
In the spring: Csillag, Pulitzer József makói származásáról, 19; McCagg, Habsburg Jews, 135.
Unlike Buda, which: The descriptions of Pest and Buda are drawn from prints in the Hungarian National Museum and from Beattie, The Danube; and Parsons, The City of Magyar.
The Pulitzers’ wagon: Komoróczy, ed., Jewish Budapest; Csillag, “Hungarian Origins,” #199. Fülöp was no stranger to the Jewish quarter. On his business journeys he had lodged in the enormous Orczy House, which was so immense it was regarded as a kind of shtetl, or little Jewish town, in and of itself.
The move to Pest: Csillag, “Hungarian Origins,” 199–201; Victor Karady, professor in the Department of History and Nationalism Studies Program at Central European University, interview with author, January 17, 2006.
Because of the family’s: APM, 11–12. This tale has all the markings of a family legend and may be only an exaggeration. Years later, though, one of Joseph’s childhood friends cryptically reported that he “did beat his teacher.”
If Joseph didn’t: APM, 20, 46; Less than six years later, Joseph Pulitzer would meet the American philosopher Denton J. Snider. Upon learning that Snider was teaching a course in philosophy, Pulitzer said, “What good can you get from that?” (Denton J. Snider, The St. Louis Movement, 163.)
For Joseph, Pest: Kósa, The Old Jewish Quarter of Budapest, 14.
Leaving the market: APM, 16.
Any exploration of: Beattie, The Danube, 181–182. See also Paget, Hungary and Transylvania; and Parsons, The City of Magyar.
The wealth, success: Today Temple Emanu-El in New York City is larger than this synagogue but does not seat more people; Komoróczy, Jewish Budapest, 110; Patai, The Jews of Hungary, 298–301. Most, if not all, of the Pulitzer death records and gravestones in Hungary recognize the family as Neologs.
Despite having secured: In all the couple had nine children. Lajos, born in 1840, lived sixteen years; Borbála, born in 1842, five years; Breindel, born in 1845, one year; Anna, born in 1849, eleven years; Gábor, born in 1853, two years; and Arnold, born in 1856, less than one year. The birth and death dates of one child, Helene, are not known, but she died before 1858. Only Joseph and his brother Albert, who was born on July 10, 1851, lived into adulthood. (Csillag, “Hungarian Origins,” 197.)
Four years older than Albert: See John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss; Wass and Corr, eds., Childhood and Death; Silverman, Never Too Young to Know: Death in Children’s Lives.
As an additional: Fülöp’s will was probated in Pest, and an account of its contents is found in Csillag, “Hungarian Origins,” 202–203 (a portion of the will is reproduced on 201).
“Thus was my mother”: APM, 16.
Financial relief appeared: JP to Nannie Tunstall, May 2, 1878, EFJC. Albert never mentions Frey in his memoir, and Joseph seems never to have talked about Frey to his friends or family. His absence from their recollections is striking, especially in comparison with how much they both discussed their affection for their mother.
The deaths and: APM, 19; Temesvar Hirlap, June 21, 1913, translation in JP-LC, Box 12, folder 3.
Going to the: Komoróczy, Jewish Budapest; 104; Patai, The Jews of Hungary, 286.
Pulitzer had grown: Pulitzer later told friends that he traveled to Paris and London in hopes of joining an army; but this seems doubtful, considering the cost of such travel and his family’s financial condition at the time.
Events i
n the: Geary, We Need Men, 103; Boston Daily Courier, September 1, 1864, 1; Murdock, One Million Men, 188; Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs (38, Congress, 2nd Session, House Executive Document No. 1, vol. 3, Serial 1218, Washington, 1865), 177. Allen was established in Hamburg in early March: Julian Allen Scrapbook, #13-z, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Allen set up: Foreign Affairs, 184–185; Boston Courier, 9/1/1864, 1. The contract the recruits signed required turning over any bonus they received to Allen. His promise to pay all travel expenses from the recruit’s home is one of the reasons I believe that Pulitzer did not come to Hamburg by happenstance but rather responded to Allen’s advertisements. It was unlikely, considering the financial condition of his family, that Pulitzer would have embarked on a three-capital tour of Europe; Foreign Affairs, 178.
In early summer: Adolf Zedlinski to JP, 8/13/1903, JP-CU. Among those who once frequented the restaurant was the poet Joseph von Eichendorff, who had died in 1857.
There Pulitzer located: Boston Courier, 9/1/1864; New York Evening Post, 8/10/1864 and New York Evening Express, 8/10/1864 (copies of both are in Allen’s scrapbook). A copy of the contract is reproduced in Foreign Affairs, 185. See also ChTr, 8/16/1864, 3. An article also appeared in the Springfield Republican that was reprinted in NYT, 8/19/1864; ChTr, 8/11/1864, 1.
Pulitzer was among: “Copy of report and list of passengers taken on board the Garland of Hamburg,” National Archives, Washington, DC. Pulitzer was among the last two dozen to board; Galignani’s Messenger, date unknown, in Allen’s scrapbook; Foreign Affairs, 179.
CHAPTER 2: BOOTS AND SADDLES
Pulitzer remained closemouthed about the details of his service. Unlike other Civil War veterans, he never participated in commemorative events and never even told battle tales. The official records are also incomplete. There is, for instance, no information in his military service file to account for his whereabouts between January and May 1865. All the muster calls for these months are missing. Many such records were lost, so the disappearance of Pulitzer’s is not suspicious; but it is nevertheless frustrating to historians.
After nearly six: The Lizzie Homans, the City of Limerick, and the Etna all reported seeing icebergs on their voyages across the Atlantic from Liverpool, England. Even as late as August, while Pulitzer was seaborne, a ship reached Boston with tales of seeing large quantities of ice in Iceberg Alley. NYT, 8/16/1864, 8; 8/22/1864, 8; 8/23/1864, 8; 9/1/1864, 8.
Boats bearing federal: Article in Courier de Lyon, which was sent to Secretary of State William Seward by Consul William L. Dayton in Paris, 10/17/1864. It appears, translated, in Foreign Affairs, 165.
Pulitzer knew the: Pulitzer later told friends that he slipped over the ship’s railing at night and swam ashore so as to collect his own bounty. This tale has long been considered a myth. The ship never came close to a Boston dock. But the discovery that Pulitzer was among those in Allen’s recruiting scheme gives the tale new credibility. In fact, the waterway separating Deer Island from the mainland was only about 300 feet wide at its narrowest point and a dozen feet deep. In the end, it may be that Pulitzer only embellished his escape from the clutches of the Massachusetts recruiters. Instead of thrashing about in the polluted harbor water of the docks, leaving all his personal belongings behind, he and a dozen or two dozen men probably easily traversed the channel at low tide. I compared the ship’s manifest with the rolls of Massachusetts regiments and found that almost all the men I looked up did, in the end, join the Union forces. The channel between Deer Island and the mainland was filled in by a hurricane during the twentieth century. The width and depth of the channel when Pulitzer arrived were estimated from nautical charts on deposit at the Library of Congress.
Reaching New York: One could earn $300 from the county, $75 from the state, and $300 from the federal government (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 3/19/1864, 404). Advertisements in NYH listed bounties of $400 for aliens and $600 for men willing to be substitutes. See NYH, 5/27/1864, 6/3/1864, 6/7/1864; NYT, 1/30/1864, 8.
Despite such efforts: NYT, 8/2/1864, 3. Lieutenant Colonel R. W. Winfield Simpson and Captain R. McNichol, from Kingston, ran a regular advertisement in New York newspapers. Typical of them was one that can be found in NYT, 9/29/1864, when Pulitzer was in the city; NYT, 8/7/1864. NYT, 2/4/1865, 8; NYT, 9/24/1864, 1. Information on Henry Vosburgh drawn from Descriptive Book of Drafted, Draft Register for the 13th District Headquarters in Kingston, National Archives, 159, as well as cemetery and census records provided by the Greene County (NY) Historical Society.
At the Kingston tent: Pulitzer’s military service record, NARA. (Note: His service records are sometimes hard to locate because his name is variously spelled as “Pullitzer” and “Politzer.”) Geary, We Need Men, 145. Ironically, Vosburgh’s luck in obtaining Pulitzer’s services as a substitute did not ward off an early death. He died within a year of natural causes. (Headstone at Colleburgh Cemetery, headstone inventory, Greene County Historical Society, Coxsackie, NY.)
With money in: The ring, along with letters telling its story, is stored in the Library of Congress among the collection of Joseph Pulitzer II papers. The younger Pulitzer acquired the coin in 1938, when relatives in Hungary mailed it to him. (Polgar Gyulane to JPII, 4/18/1938.)
A few days: Bill Twoney, “Hart Island—Part 1” Bronx Times Reporter, 11/24/1994; NYT, 12/12/1867, 7; NYT, 8/7/1864, 2; NYT, 1/10/1865, 4.
Pulitzer also avoided: NYT, 8/27/1864, 3 and 11/20/1864, 5. Pulitzer’s story is consistent with the fact that the cavalries were also becoming less selective about recruits. See, for instance, the poster with five charging cavalrymen in New-York Historical Society Civil War Treasures Collection, PR–055–3–207; DCS-JP, 43.
On November 12, 1864: Starr, The Union Cavalry in the Civil War, Vol., 2, 322–333.
Pulitzer was assigned: Descriptive Book, Companies B-M, 1st New York Lincoln Cavalry, NARA. Stevenson, Boots and Saddles, 320. Later in Pulitzer’s life, when he was famous, several of his wartime acquaintances contacted him. One of them, the German-born John See, who recalled being his tent mate, was seeking financial assistance in 1910. One of Pulitzer’s staff members checked to make sure this was the case before Pulitzer sent a check. (Witherbee memo to Seitz, undated but in May–June, 1910, folder, JP-LC, Box 9.)
Although it was a relief: McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 115.
A less significant: NYT, 11/11/1864, 5, and 11/12/1864, 1; Beach, The First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry, 453. President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of each November as Thanksgiving Day in the fall of 1863.
For the remainder: Beach, The First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry, 452; Illustrated London News, Vol. 45, No. 1291 12/10/1864, 574.
Pulitzer’s pain and: Beach, The First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry, 456–457
Warfare resumed with: John G. Steele to JP, 9/8/1885, JP-CU. Previous biographies of Pulitzer placed him in Sheridan’s raids when they resumed in late February, specifically attacks on Waynesboro on March 2 and Beaver Dam Station on March 15. Afterward it was believed that Pulitzer escaped hazardous duty by being assigned as an orderly to Major Richard J. Hinton, who was in the valley on special duty. But the records do not bear out this account. Hinton was a British-born American journalist whose strong abolitionist sentiments led him to move to Kansas, where he became a leading advocate of a slave-free state and a follower of John Brown. For most of the war he served as a recruiter and an officer of black soldiers in Kansas. His military records do not include service in the Shenandoah Valley. But one cannot be certain that he didn’t come east, because at the beginning of the war he conducted some secret missions to the South (significant enough so that he was thanked by President Lincoln). Yet, if he had been conducting secret work, one would think that he would hardly select a soldier who took orders only in German. Furthermore, Hinton spent the remainder of his life as a journalist, writer, and public official; and his limited correspondence wi
th Pulitzer, when the latter became a well-known publisher, made no reference to having known him before: (DCS-JP, 46; JWB, 14; WRR, 5; WAS, 4). What may have occurred is that Pulitzer’s first biographer confused two Hintons. This biographer wrongly assumed, when Pulitzer said that he had served under a Major Hinton, that this was the better-known Richard, unaware of Chalmers A. Hinton, a captain in the First Lincoln. Chalmers Hinton was detached and assigned to tend prisoners of war at City Point, Virginia. There is, however, no record that Pulitzer was detached to work for this Hinton, either.
What other military records and a fragment of correspondence dating from many years after the war do reveal is that Pulitzer remained far from harm’s way during the final months of the war. When his name surfaces in the records of June 1865, it is on a muster-out roll of a detachment from Company L in the First Regiment of the New York Cavalry. The group of six was under the command of Franz Passeger, a Viennese major. During January, February, March, and possibly April, Passeger served as a bodyguard for and then on the staff of General H. Chapman. The general had just returned to service after being wounded in the fall of 1864 and was assigned to Camp Averell, near Winchester.
April 1865 brought: Beach, The First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry, 511–512.
Promptly at nine: NYT and ChTr, 5/24/1864; DCS-JP, 47. For years Pulitzer apparently believed that he had seen Lincoln, but he realized, after considering the facts, that he could never have.
The reviews over: NYT, 6/1/1865, 1.
When Pulitzer’s turn: Pulitzer’s military service record, NARA; Pulitzer’s discharge, JP-MHS.
On June 26: NYH, 6/29/1865, 3.
Peace had its: In June and July, alone, the city provided meals, lodging, and what the newspapers called “extra delicacies” to 60,000 men. Illustrated London News, 8/12/1865, 128; NYT, 10/1/1865, 5; Ida Tarbel, “Disbanding Union Army at the End of the Civil War,” BoGl, 5/26/1907, 5; NYT, 7/16/1865, 5, 8/9/1865, 3, 8/12/1865, 8, 9/13/1865, 9, 9/28/1865, 2.
Bewildered, alone, and: WaPo, 9/28/1890, 9.
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