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My great-great grand uncle, Stephen F. Fleharty, may have been the first blogger.

Although it was common practice for soldiers in the Civil War to write regular letters home or to the local newspaper editors, Fleharty did one better.
He actually authored his own column, "Jottings from Dixie". Like today's bloggers, perhaps he fashioned his writings after another prolific war time writer, John Adams.

He wrote for the general public, specifically friends and family of those in his company, the 102nd, in two different papers in Rock Island, Illinois. His columns, which he numbered and dated, were compiled and published as a book in 1999. I have done extensive genealogical research on my family lines but I did not find his book until I inherited his brother William's (my great-grandfather) Civil war guard detail book. The detail book led me to a distant cousin who shared her mother's material with me and the existence of the book.

His writings were, at times, lengthy essays and others were brief bits of timely information. He wrote about the wounded and the dead, the brave and the fearful. During a battle near Cassville, Georgia on May 21st, 1864, he describes his impressions:

I wish it were in my power to represent upon paper all the impressions received during the nine hours that we were under fire. But I cannot command words that will do justice to the subject. Yet in memory the scenes of that day are indelibly fixed. The cheers of the combatants; the roar of musketry; the groans of the wounded; the upturned faces of the ghastly dead can never be forgotten. And those who passed through the fiery ordeal will never forget the pecurliar zip, zip, zip of bullets as they barked the trees and clipped the leaves around them. (From Jottings from Dixie, Edited by Philip J. Reyburn and Terry L. Wilson.)

Megnut, a current day blogger offers a different perspective on the American Civil War.

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