| Summary |
The purpose of this study is to examine a five year period in the career of newspaper editor Edward Jones Hale and the influence that he exerted through his newspaper, the Fayetteville Observer, and through his personality upon the events of that period. The selected period encompasses the time from January of 1860 to March of 1865. During those years, Hale and his Observer reached the apex of their influence within North Carolina. The defeat of the South abruptly ended Hale's influence and his career as editor of the Observer. Hale began his career as a newspaper editor with the Observer at the age of twenty-three in 1825 when he bought the paper. By i860 the Fayetteville Observer was forty-four years old, and Hale had served as its editor for thirty-five years. For the early part of those years, Hale supported Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party. However, with the establishment of the Whig party in North Carolina during the 1830's, Hale transferred his political allegiance. Thus, he campaigned for Whig policies throughout the years in which the party was a viable opposition to the Democratic party, and he continued to support the Whig party even when it entered its period of decline and finally its demise as a national party during the 1850's. As a loyal member of the Whig party, Hale decried secession and believed deeply in the United States government and the Constitution, that is, until the firing on Fort Sumter. with the commencement of the Civil War, Hale did an about face in his attitude toward secession and became one of the strongest advocators of the Confederacy until the last days of the war. During the war years, Hale's success as an important editor received assistance from several factors. First, the people elected Zebulon B. Vance, a former Whig, as governor in 1862 and again in 1864. Vance acknowledged that he owed his victories in part to Hale and that he considered Hale as one of his closest advisers. Also, other former Whigs sat on the North Carolina Supreme Court and occupied other positions of power within the state. Therefore, in the highest offices of the state, men of the Whig political persuasion looked to the Observer as the paper which reflected their views and to Hale as their spokesman. Second, when William W. Holden brought his Raleigh North Carolina Standard to the peace movement in 1863-1864, the Democratic party chose not to run a candidate in 1864 against Vance. The Democratic papers nominally supported Vance against Holden, and in effect they fell into step politically with Hale. When the war began to go badly for the South in the latter part of 1864, Hale refused to recant from the position that the South must fight until it achieved independence. In March of 1865 when Sherman marched north from South Carolina, Hale still refused to soften his stand against the Federal government. His attitude resulted in the destruction of the Observer and in disillusionment of Hale with the people of North Carolina. Hale left North Carolina in 1866 and spent the remainder of his life in New York City as the owner of a publishing company. It seems odd that such an enthusiastic Confederate supporter would move to the North after the war, but Hale had friends there and he felt that New York offered the best opportunity for him and his family. Hale never published a newspaper again, and only after his death did the Fayetteville Observer resume publication under the management of his son Edward. While Hale edited the Observer from 1825 to 1865, he made it one of the leading newspapers in North Carolina and carved for himself a niche in North Carolina history as one of the state's most dedicated, successful, and indomitable newspaper editors. The Civil War was a national tragedy for the United States and a personal tragedy for Hale. After giving all that he had to a losing cause, be left both the South and his profession for the rest of his life. However, a study of the last five years that Hale spent in the South as an editor presents an opportunity to reassess the influential role of a leader of the Civil War era whose true significance has never been fully appreciated. |
