He was called "the chief," or simply, "Mack." In his day he was one of the country’s top war correspondents. In time he presided over his publishing world, never an empire, from a building he called The Temple of Truth. He once said, "The great art of running a newspaper is the art of guessing where hell is liable to break loose next." Here’s an example:
Commodore Andrew Foote was in charge of the Mississippi fleet the day Union gunboats assaulted Fort Donelson, one of the key Confederate installations on the river. But Foote was ill and was lying on a couch in the pilot’s cabin of the fleet flagship. Standing near the wheel was a young war correspondent describing the approach to the fort and watching the exchange of shells. Suddenly a shell crashed into the pilot house, killing the pilot and shattering the wheel. Foote and the other men were wounded. But the young correspondent was unscathed. Joseph McCullagh had again been where hell broke loose, and reported it graphically.
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