George Alfred Townsend

   The public knew him as "Gath", a pen name derived from his initials, but George Alfred Townsend, the journalist and novelist, was much more than that.

    Townsend was born in Georgetown, Delaware, on January 30, 1841. His family finally settled in Philadelphia, PA in 1855 and it was there where he would gain his first full-time employment opportunity as a news editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer five years later. The following year, he worked as an editor for the Philadelphia Press. As a correspondent covering the Civil War for the New York Herald and New York World, and, as a ghost writer for The New York Times, Townsend had become a house-hold name in print journalism by 1866. His reports of Lincoln's assasination and General Sheridan's victory at Battle of Five Forks, Virginia also garnered him praise and recognition. He was the only correspondent present for the battle on March 31, 1865 and broke the word of the Union's determining victory which subsequently prompted the Confederate abandonment of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. Townsend also notably helped in exposing the Credit Mobilier scandal that involved key members of Congress and the Ulysses S. Grant administration. 

      After the war, he worked in Washington, DC as a foreign and Washington correspondent for various newspapers and his GATH columns were printed in nearly 100 papers throughout the country. He also wrote three books, The New World Compared with the Old (1869), Washington Outside and Inside (1873), and Events at the National Capitol and the Campaign of 1876 (1876), all of which explored and delved into American government and other politically related topics. Townsend did not limit himself to nonfiction; he composed collections of stories and poems as well in addition to writing two novels. He also traveled throughout the United States a lecturer, speaking on his knowledge of the Civil War, European Politics, and the U.S. government. 

      Townsend died in 1914 on his estate he coined "Gapland." The estate was deeded to Maryland State Department of Forests and Parks in 1949, under whose ownership it still remains today. Renamed Gathland State Park, after Townsend's popular pen name, the park is home to the only national memorial dedicated to Civil War correspondents like Townsend himself. George Alfred Townsend's legacy is enshrined at Gathland, for it honors Townsend was one of the greatest American journalists and novelists of the Reconstruction Era.

Sources:

-American Journalists by Donald A. Ritchie

-http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/findaids/townsend.htm