SOURCE: Osthaus, Carl R. “From the Old South to the New South: The Editorial Career of William Tappan Thompson of the Savannah Morning News.” The Southern Quarterly 14, no. 3 (April 1976): 237-60.

In the following essay, Osthaus documents the career of William Tappan Thompson, an influential writer and Savannah journalist who voiced the opinions of conservative, white supremacist, and non-appeasement Southerners throughout the Reconstruction era.

In 1882 newspapers all over the South reported the death of Colonel William Tappan Thompson, editor of the Savannah Morning News for almost thirty-two years. The New York Times, one of the few Northern papers to put aside the bitterness of sectional discord to pay its respects, regretted the passing of one of the most influential journalists of the South. Thompson's own paper saw in his death the decline of a significant aspect of Southern life. “In many respects,” the paper declared, “he was truly a...