The colorful Chicago Times editor Wilbur Storey sent at least one of his Civil War reporters into the field with the now-famous directive: "Telegraph fully all the news, and when there is no news, send rumors." The Copperhead editor hired Sylvanus Cadwallader, a reporter with professional demeanor to cover the Republican Union General Ulysses S. Grant, who had imprisoned the previous Chicago Times correspondent with his command. Like his editor, the correspondent, Warren P. Isham, made up news, even though he was a talented and moderate reporter.
To survive between the Copperhead editor and the Republican general, Cadwallader defined an independent course in an era of partisan journalism. He exercised his critical judgment rather than partisan bias. While attacking favoritism among his journalistic colleagues, however, Cadwallader enjoyed some of the same favors, and he found discretion about Grant’s drinking to be in the national interest. In the days before rules, Grant and Cadwallader worked out a professional relationship in which Cadwallader asserted his right to evaluate critically Grant’s battlefield performance.
Cadwallader’s reports for the Chicago Times and later the New York Herald were certainly not what would be today called objective journalism. Instead, they were independent, critical analyses. In defining his independence, Cadwallader outlined some of the ethics of modern journalism.
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