"I was born in a party camp and grew to manhood on a political battlefield," Henry Watterson wrote in his reminiscences. He spent most of his life on the political battlefields, too, combining his zest for politics with his equally strong penchant for wanting to share his information and instruct an audience. With the Louisville Courier-Journal as his base for more than fifty years, he was one of the most famous political editors of his time. Not only were his editorials widely quoted and reprinted, but he gained wider recognition from his magazine articles, his lecture tours, his frequent forays into the bright society of New York and Washington and the capitals of Europe, and his diligent efforts in the highest councils of the Democratic party.

Watterson was born in Washington, D.C., early in the first Congressional term of his father, Harvey Watterson. Harvey held the Tennessee...