Journalist. He was the first African-American to cover the Civil War in the field for a major American daily newspaper. Son of an escaped slave, he spent the earlier part of the war recruiting African-Americans in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the Union Army; men he recruited would eventually go on to serve in the famous 54th and 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry regiments. In August 1864 he joined the Army of the Potomac in the field as a correspondent for the “Philadelphia Press” daily newspaper, a role he would serve in until the end of the war.