War News

In the 1840s reports came to Arkansas by newspaper, as they did in the rest of the nation. At that time Little Rock had three weekly newspapers; weeklies operated in other Arkansas towns like Helena, Van Buren, and Washington. The news they reported came by river boat, much of it coming from the nine daily New Orleans papers. New Orleans was the closest U.S. port to Mexico, and its newspapers used the first war correspondents. The newspapers described battles, made heroes of soldiers, grimly described deaths, examined political debates over the war, and even translated Santa Anna' s speeches to his troops. A crudely engraved battle map was the first locally produced illustration to appear in the Arkansas Gazette.