The American Civil War illustrates the influence of a relatively new phenomena of that time, propaganda dissemination to a mass audience through widespread newspaper circulation. The American Civil War represents the most divisive era in American history, politics, and society. Abraham Lincoln, who won the Illinois Republican bid to challenge the Senate seat of Stephen Douglas in 1858, gave his famous House Divided speech, in which he underscored his moral position on the issue of slavery and his belief that a nation divided on such an issue would surely fall:
A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new – North as well as South.
A survey of the media coverage during the Civil War reveals a media divided, much as Lincoln represented the Union. Correspondents, North, South, and International alike, covered the events and battles that transpired during the war from a variety of perspectives, some fairly objective and others not so, but all with varying degrees of accuracy. The media also expanded and used new technology during the Civil War in order to increase the amount of information gathered from the front lines and to reduce the time of transmission of newsworthy events. For instance, the use of the telegraph dramatically increased during the course of the war, and many newspapers utilized this new method of information dissemination to keep abreast of the latest developments wi...