Charles Anderson Dana
Charles Anderson Dana (August 8, 1819 – October 17, 1897) was an American journalist, author, and senior government official. He was a top aide to Horace Greeley as the managing editor of the powerful Republican newspaper New-York Tribune until 1862. During the American Civil War, he served as Assistant Secretary of War, playing especially the role of the liaison between the War Department and General Ulysses S. Grant. In 1868 he became the editor and part-owner of The New York Sun. He at first appealed to working class Democrats but after 1890 became a champion of business-oriented conservatism. Dana was an avid art collector of paintings and porcelains and boasted of being in possession of many items not found in several European museums.
For the New York philanthropist and legislator, see Charles A. Dana (philanthropist).
Charles Anderson Dana
August 8, 1819
October 17, 1897 (aged 78)
Journalist
Newspaper editor
Ruth Draper (granddaughter)
Early life[edit]
Dana was born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire on August 8, 1819. He was a descendant of Richard Dana, progenitor of most of the Danas in the United States, who emigrated from England, settled in Cambridge in 1640, and died there about 1695. At the age of twelve, Charles Dana became a clerk in his uncle's general store at Buffalo, until the store failed in 1837. At this time, he began the study of Latin grammar, and prepared himself for college. In 1839 he entered Harvard, but the impairment of his eyesight forced him to leave college in 1841. He also abandoned his intentions to study in Germany and enter the ministry. From September 1841 until March 1846 he lived at Brook Farm, where he was made one of the trustees of the farm, was head waiter when the farm became a Fourierite phalanx, and was in charge of the Phalanx's finances when its buildings were burned in 1846.[1] During his time with Brook Farm, he also wrote for the Transcendental publication, the Harbinger. In 1846, he married widow Eunice Macdaniel.[2]
Civil War[edit]
When Dana left the Tribune, Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, made him a special commissioner of the War Department during the American Civil War.[9] In this capacity, Dana discovered frauds committed by quartermasters and contractors. As the eyes of the administration, as Abraham Lincoln called him, Dana spent much time at the front and sent to War Secretary Edwin Stanton frequent reports concerning the capacity and methods of various generals in the field.[1] In particular, the War Department was concerned about rumors of Ulysses S. Grant's alcoholism. Dana spent considerable time with Grant, becoming a close friend and assuaging administration concerns. Dana reported to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that he found Grant, as historian John D. Winters writes, to be "modest, honest, and judicial . . . 'not an original or brilliant man, but sincere, thoughtful, deep, and gifted with a courage that never faltered.' Although quiet and hard to know, he loved a humorous story and the company of his friends."[10][11] Dana also observed the growing problem of cotton speculators, who were often going beyond established limits into rebel territory with the purpose of trading and often collaborating with the rebels. Dana warned President Lincoln and Stanton that the cotton trading and all related activity needed to be stopped, maintaining that General Grant was in full agreement with his assessment and recommendations.[12] Dana went through the Vicksburg Campaign and was present at the Battle of Chickamauga and the Chattanooga Campaign. He urged placing General Grant in supreme command of all the armies in the field, which Lincoln did on March 2, 1864. After returning to Washington, Dana received a telegram from assistant Secretary of War H. P. Watson instructing him to go to Washington to pursue another investigation, and he was received by Stanton, who offered him the position of Assistant Secretary of War, which he accepted. It was reported in the New York papers the next morning. Dana held this position from 1863 to 1865.[13][14] With the likely exception of John Rawlins, Dana had a greater influence over Grant's military career than any other political or military man.[15]
Writing[edit]
Dana's literary style came to be the style of The Sun—simple, strong, clear, boiled down.[20] He recorded no theories of journalism other than those of common sense and human interest. He was impatient of prolixity, cant, and the conventional standards of news importance. Three of his lectures on journalism were published in 1895 as the Art of Newspaper Making.
With George Ripley he edited The New American Cyclopaedia (1857–1863), reissued as the American Cyclopaedia in 1873–1876.[20]
Dana had an interest in literature. His first book was a volume of stories translated from German, entitled The Black Aunt (New York and Leipzig, 1848). In 1857, he edited an anthology, The Household Book of Poetry. His translation from German of "Nutcracker and Sugardolly: A Fairy Tale" was published in 1856 by the Philadelphia publisher C.G. Henderson & Co. In addition to translating German, Dana could read the Romance and Scandinavian languages. With Rossiter Johnson, he edited, Fifty Perfect Poems (New York, 1883).
Dana edited The Life of Ulysses S. Grant: General of the Armies of the United States, published over his name and that of General James H. Wilson in 1868. His Recollections of the Civil War[24] and Eastern Journeys: Some Notes of Travel in Russia, in the Caucasus, and to Jerusalem were published in 1898.
Early in his journalism career, in 1849, he wrote a series of newspaper articles in defense of anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and his mutual banking ideas. They were published in collected form in 1896 as Proudhon and His Bank of the People by Benjamin Tucker, who did so partly to expose Dana's radical past, as Dana had late in life become quite conservative, editorializing against radicals, "reds," and the free silver movement. This book remains in print today through a Charles H. Kerr Company Publishers edition with an introduction by Paul Avrich.
Art collecting[edit]
Dana was an art collector. In 1880 he built a large residence in New York City on the corner of Madison Avenue and 60th Street and furnished it with paintings, tapestries, and Chinese porcelains, giving his greatest attention to his porcelains. He devoted much time and historical study in these areas of art throughout his life. An unnamed connoisseur praised the historical value and quality of items in his collection, noting that "they are not in the British Museum; they are not in the Louvre; and they are conspicuously absent at Dresden."[25]
