Individuals >> Gunn, Thomas Butler

Journalist.

Thomas Butler Gunn worked as a reporter for the New York Tribune. He was stationed in Charleston prior to Abraham Lincoln’s Presidential Inauguration. Gunn and other Northern reporters stationed in the South had to take special precautions to protect themselves: they wore blue secession cockades on their lapels, wrote their reports in an elaborate code, and addressed their reports to New York banks and commercial houses who had agreed to work as fronts (L. Starr 21).

Gunn is mentioned in reference to a Bohemian Club that frequented “Pfaaf’s [sic]” (“Our New York Letter” 64). Thomas Dunn English claimed to have known Gunn because he was a frequent contributor to “a New York journal” to which English was also “connected” (“The Club” 202). English also calls into question the validity of the “Our New York Letter” piece when he goes on to describe Gunn as “a correct, upright, and decorous gentleman, anything but a Bohemian, as the term is generally understood. He never spoke of such a club to me” (202). The contradictory claims leave a great deal of uncertainty as to Gunn’s association with Pfaff’s.

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References & Biographical Resources

English, Thomas Dunn. "That Club at Pfaaf's [sic]." The Literary World. 12 Jun. 1886: 202. [more about this work]

English mentions that Gunn was also mentioned as a frequenter of Pfaff's in the "Our New York" piece. English claims to know Gunn as he was a steady contributor to "a New York journal" to which English was also "connected." English states, "He was a correct, upright, and decorous gentleman, anything but a Bohemian, as the term is generally understood. He never spoke of such a club to me" (202). [pages: 202]

Parry, Albert. Garrets and Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America. New York: Covici, Friede, 1933. [more about this work]

Parry reprints the illustration "An Artists' Boarding-House" from Gunn's book, The Physiology of New York Boarding-Houses on p.23. [pages: 23]

Starr, Louis Morris. Bohemian Brigade; Civil War Newsmen in Action. New York: Knopf, 1954. 367 p. [more about this work]

Prior to the inauguration of Lincoln, Gunn, "an Englishman thoroughly grateful for his British accent," were "on the scene" in Charleston as reporters for the Tribune (20-21). Gunn and the other men Dana added to the Tribune's Charleston staff had to take special precautions as reporters for a Northern newspaper stationed in the South: they wore blue secession cockades on their lapels, wrote their reports in an elaborate code devised by Dana, and addressed their reports to New York banks and commercial houses who had agreed to work as fronts (21).

When Gay took over as managing editor of the Tribune, he relied on Gunn, who had done good work for the paper in Charleston before the war, D.J. Kinney, and three "hastily hired recruits" to deliver him speedy reports. During the Penninsular campaign, the Tribune was often beaten in reporting the news. Gay sent Gunn the following letter to "awaken" him:

I pray you remember that the Tribune is a daily newspaper - or meant to be - and not a historical record of past events. Correspondence to be of any value must be prompt, fresh, and full of facts. I know how difficult it is, under the censorship, to write, but there must be facts enough of general interest all about you to make a daily letter...I should like you to write daily, if only 1/2, 1/4 column, so that the report of all you may tell be continuous. The curiousity and anxiety about Yorktown is feverish, and the public like the paper best that is always giving something. If there is absolutely nothing to write about, drop me a line and tell me that. The Herald is constantly ahead of us with Yorktown news. The battle of the 16th were were compelled to copy from it. (106-107).

According to Starr, Gunn was using the letter as notepaper after the fall of Yorktown. Unfortunately, Gunn mislaid the paper. Shortly after, the Herald ran the following in the editorial columns:

One of our correspondents - who see everythign, hear everything, and find everything - fished this unique epistle out of a pile of rebel documents...We do not knoow the name of the Tribune reporter to whom it is addressed, but his notes in pencil are on the back of the original letter. (107)

The Herald ran Gay's letter in full (107). Gunn quickly wrote to Gay: "God knows how the Herald got hold of your letter to me...The Herald men here repudiate the thing, but many of them would pick pockets." Gunn also wrote that his horse had been stolen (107). [pages: 20-21,106-107]

Stylus. "Our New York Letter." The Literary World: A Monthly Review of Current Literature. 20 Feb. 1886: 64-65. [more about this work]

Mentioned in reference to the Bohemian Club, which may be a post-Pfaff's group of journalists, even though they are described here as frequenting "Pfaaf's" [sic]. See Thomas Dunn English's "That Club at Pfaaf's [sic]." [pages: 64]