An errant tee shot from the Atlanta Country Club’s 13th hole will transport the ball a centur and a half back in time. The bal will fly out of bounds, out of t prosperous suburban neighborhood, and onto a wooded hill overlooking ruined stone buildings on Sope Creek. These ruins were once the Marietta Paper Mill, one of the few facilities in the South manufacturing paper, a product in short supply from the outset of the Civil War. The mill’s destru tion by Union forces on July 5, 1864, contributed to the already severe problems that plagued Confederate newspapers. Lack of paper wasn’t the journalists’ on headache, but it was a major one and one that hampered their operations from the start of the c flict to its finish. Most of the paper used by Southern newspapers and, of course, by other users of the product, including musket cartridges. was imported from the North or Europe. The interruption of these supplies quickly caused shortages, price increase and often a diminution in qualit
A review of newspaper articles published during the war shows how owners struggled to continue their operations in the face these difficulties. On June 12, 1861, the Bellvi Countryman, a Texas weekly, published “but half a sheet,” b cause of the scarcity of paper warned readers to expect more of the same and worse. “Unless the blockade is raised before long many newspapers will have to suspend for want of the article….” Four months later the Athens (Ga.) Southern Watchman cut its size to a half sheet an told readers “We were obliged t yield.” The same edition report ed that, “One third of the pape in the Confederate States have been entirely discontinued; whi of the remainder, more than one half are published either on a sheet or have been reduced in size.” In November the Austin State Gazette reported that only two newspapers in its “exchange” were still printed on broad she That same month the Charleston Mercury reduced its size. In March 1862 the Washington
(Ark.) Telegraph announced that it too was shrinking as it remin ed readers “the Paper Mill at Nashville is in the hands of the enemy [and] the blockade still exists.” Even as they conserved paper by printing on half sheets, and by using smaller type, shrinking margins, and devoting less space to ads, newspapermen still scrambled to get the paper they needed—and they suffered sticker shock when they did find some
Southern Watchman skipped an issue; there was no paper to pri it on. The following week the Watchman announced that an ample supply had arrived, “but oh!
double the price paid a year ear er. Worse still, the Watchman ha a collections problem. How can a publisher pay for his supplies when some customers “refuse or fail to pay”? As one would expect, the newspapers had to raise their ow prices. The Augusta (Ga.) Daily Chronicle and Sentinel went up
per year. Articles in the Athens (Ga.) Southern Banner and the Richard McMurry holding Columbus (Ga.) Enquirer provide replica of July 2, 1863, lessons in newspaper economics, newspaper from Vicksburg, describing the cost of various printed on wallpaper. This supplies and services. Even with edition was set but not printed
were losing money with every paper typeset and ready to go, copy they sold. some clever Yankee printers
in a pinch too. In July 1861, even Confederates’ surrender. before the first major battle of the (Gould Hagler) war, the Bellville Countryman told its Texas readers that it was Mobile Register and Advertiser willing to barter. Running a news- joked about receiving a paper paper “requires money,” the edi- from Louisiana that was beautitor wrote, “or something that will fully illustrated “by masters – sustain life. Country publishers the school of paperhangers.” can use much of the produce of Of course, the shortage was the farm and workshop in lieu of not limited to print paper, but money.” The following October paper used for all the facets o the Athens Southern Watchman the business. The Washington also invited cash-strapped read- Telegraph didn’t report having ers to pay in “any kind of coun- to print on wallpaper, but in M try produce – corn, wheat, flour, 1862 advised that “We have used oats, rye, butter, hay, shucks, fod- up all the supply of our editor der, chickens, eggs – any thing office, and invaded our stocks that can be eaten or worn, or that law stationery. At length we ha will answer for fuel.” Mind you, destroyed all our legal blanks this was in 1861, not 1865. writing editorials on their bac The papers’ prices went up; and now we use the yellow ruled their size went down; and their leaves, we have from an old overall quality suffered. Brown ledger.” paper was common. Other short- And regular folks, too, not cuts produced bizarre results. just journalists, had trouble g In December 1862 the Natchez ting the paper they needed. The Daily Courier received an issue Columbus Enquirer received a from one of its exchanges “print- letter to the editor inked on “ ed on the white side of wallpa- from an account book of a merper.” The following March the cantile house…just one hundred GEORGIA’S CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS In Honor of a Fallen Nation Gould B. Hagler, Jr. This unique work contains a complete photographic record of Georgia’s memorials to the Confederacy, a full transcription of the words engraved upon them, and carefully-researched information about the monuments and the organizations which built them. These works of art and their eloquent inscriptions express a nation’s profound grief, praise the soldiers’ bravery and patriotism, and pay homage to the cause for which they fought.
prices rising, entrepreneurs saw opportunities in the paper mill business. Some mills were already in operation, of course, li
our facility adjacent to the 13th hole. Others were built during the war at Mobile, Atlanta, and Manchester, Ga. There were plans to build paper mills in Texas and Louisiana; it is unclea if these plans came to fruition. Sometimes new mills were just
hoped for in newspaper editorials In April 1863 the Natchez Daily Courier listed 20 paper mills operating in six Confederate states No one will be surprised to learn that these businesses confronted challenges just as severe as those faced by their newspaper customers. They too had to battle for raw materials and deal with labor shortages, inflation, routi perils like fires, and un-routine perils like invading armies. One
terprising Georgian bought mill machinery in Tennessee in 1863,
Rags!” blared numerous headlines above articles urging peopl to save their rags, assuring them that the paper mills were paying good prices for the material. By January 1863 the price of rags had risen 800%, according to the Charleston Mercury, and not just cloth rags were sought. The papers begged readers to save ashes scraps of rope and thread, refuse cotton, flax, hemp, corn husks— anything that could be pulped and processed into paper. Some mills limited sales to customers who helped supply the desperately-needed raw materials; consequently, newspapers did more than advocate. Bring your rags to us, they pleaded, an we will pay top dollar. “10,000 Pounds Of Rags Wanted at This Office, For Which the Highest Market Price Will be Paid!!” shouted the Columbus Enquirer on Oct. 13, 1863. With the ashes, corn husks, an whatnot, the quality suffered. Th Atlanta Southern Confederacy complained in early 1863 that much of the paper bought from the Marietta mill was unsatisfactory and would not run through the press. For good paper or bad, prices continued to rise. A ream of paper cost the Athens Southern
In Texas things were much worse. In August the San Antonio Herald and the Galveston Weekly News
the latter publication on August 26. Eight months later the Austin
State Gazette said “the same amount of paper that formerly
This alarming fact demonstrates the collapse of the currency’s val ue as much as it does the increase in the price of paper. By this poi in the war some papers were demanding payment in specie, as
were the paper mills. There were some accusato-
ry editorials with headlines like “Profits of Extortion,” but these were rare. It seems that the newsmen understood that their suppliers were as stressed, strained, stretched, and starved as they were. There were also complaints that the blockade runners did not allot sufficient space to this vital cargo. The government too was shortsighted, say the editors, when it did not exempt newspaper hands and paper mill workers
Marietta Paper Mill explained in a letter to the Atlanta Intelligence
is that Government agents insist upon the absolute necessity for the Government to have paper,” he wrote, “and yet refuse us our hands.” More and more papers suspended operations as the economy worsened with the war, and surely many a newspaperman went a-soldiering. The paperless editor of the Dallas Herald signed up early in 1862. Wartime newspapers contain scores of items on the shuttering of other papers. As the Columbus Enquirer put it, “We can but [express] our deep grief at the early loss of our boo companions, and pray that our fate be not too soon like theirs.” The story of Southern newspapermen’s struggles during the Civil War is a tale of woe and hardship, but it is also a tale of persistence and resourcefulness. The publishers improvised and by one means or another made do for as long as they could. The journalists also maintained their sense of humor: The Mobile paper in the spring of 1863 relayed a jape from the wags at the Winchester Bulletin, who advised “people in that region to write letters on the backs of one dollar bills, for the sake of econ omy.” Who said the money was worthless? When forced to suspend, they bounced back as they could. The Dallas Herald ran an item in September 1863 welcoming the Marshall Republican back into
hiatus of several months. The Republican was again knocked
down and again rose from the mat a year later, as the Galv
paper happily reported. As unlikely as it seems, two new
papers were established in Te late in the war: the Army and Navy Messenger in the fall of 1864, and another publication in 1865, less than two months before Appomattox.
That required faith, but th founders had plenty of that.
The other startup was the Tex Christian Herald, published b the Baptist State Convention.
Sources: The newspaper accounts used for this article were compiled by Vicki Betts, a librarian at the University Texas at Tyler. Betts, Vicki, “Paper Manufacturing and Pape Shortages in the South, 1861– 1865” (2016). Special Topics. Paper 18. http://hdl.handle.
Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. Hag