I closed up my affairs in Petersburg just as the week was drawing to an end, and decided to go to Mechlenburg on Monday morning; but I could not make up my mind to go off without running over to Richmond to bid the Tylers and other friends there good-bye. When I went into Mr. Tyler’s house, where, as ever, my reception was most hearty, Dr. C. W. Brock, Mr. Tyler’s son-in-law, asked me whether I had received a telegram he had sent me. I told him that I had not, and he then informed me, to my astonishment, that Mr. H. Rives Pollard, who had been one of the editors of the Examiner during the war, was about to resume the publication of that paper, and wanted me to take a place on the staff, as local reporter. I was in much the same mood that I was in when I received my commission as Ordnance Officer, in 1862, and told Brock that I knew nothing about local reporting. But he insisted that it was too good an opportunity to lose, and that I must close with Pollard at once, and trust to work and luck for the rest. Pollard was quite cordial, and told me that he would give me $20 a week. This change from $40 a month to $80 a month gave me a feeling of wealth that I am sure I have never had since. It seemed to me that there were no bounds to the results that might be accomplished with so vast a sum. Pollard had issued a flaming prospectus, in which he described the different members of the staff. As I was unknown to journalistic fame I did not appear on the roll. One of the conspicuous figures, however, was Mr. B. R. Riordan, who, in the words of the prospectus, was an “experienced and accomplished young journalist, who had been for a number of years one of the editors of the New Orleans Delta, and who, during the war, had been the managing editor of the Charleston Mercury.” Those were the words, or very nearly so, and I was profoundly impressed, I remember, with the journalistic grandeur of the forthcoming journalist from the South. Pollard was busily engaged in his room, and had refused to see any one, when a rather slender and exceedingly quiet looking man came in, and told me that he wanted to see Mr. Pollard. I told him that Pollard was engaged, and could not be disturbed, whereupon he told me, very composedly, that he expected that Mr. Pollard would see him, and, without more ado, passed by me and walked into Pollard’s room. This was my first introduction to Mr. B. R. Riordan.

Pollard was a queer character: not without ability, but lazy, vain and dissolute, and it was not very easy, therefore, to make the Examiner what he wanted it to be. Under the editorial management of Mr. John Daniel during the war, the Examiner was known everywhere for its great ability and its caustic criticisms of the conduct of the war by Mr. Davis and his Cabinet. It was a brilliant newspaper, but disfigured by the whim of Mr. Daniel that the old English form of spelling words ending in “c” should be retained, so that in the Examiner such words as “antic,” “critic,” and “music,” were spelled with a final k. Pollard insisted upon retaining this peculiarity. But this did not make up for the loss of the brain and vigor of Mr. Daniel. Professor Gildersleeve, of the University of Virginia, and other erudite men, were engaged as editorial writers, but they did not live in Richmond, and their work was often stale. Pollard hacked and cooked their articles to suit himself, and, when the supply of new material failed, had no hesitation in revamping and republishing articles which had appeared in the Examiner during the war. However, I had no reason to complain of Pollard’s treatment of me. Amongst other things, he was always exceedingly anxious to resent any affront that might be put upon him, and this weakness, if such it should be called, enabled me to make myself indispensable. I occupied the unpleasant position, as I should now consider it, of adviser and best man for Pollard in his principal rencontres.

The first of these grew out of an article in the Richmond Enquirer which reflected on the Examiner, and caused Pollard to determine to cowhide the editor of the Enquirer as soon as he could find him. When we ran the Enquirer man to earth, he was in the hall of the House of Representatives at the Capitol, and Pollard waited for him in the rotunda. When the Enquirer man came out, Pollard attempted to strike him and was resisted. Both the Enquirer man and Pollard drew pistols, and several shots were exchanged. Only one shot, however, took effect, and it unfortunately carried away the tassel of the cane on Houdon’s statue of George Washington, which is in the centre of the rotunda. The combatants were arrested, and for a few days there was peace.

The next offender was E. P. Brooks, of the New York Times. In a letter from Richmond he spoke rather abusively of Pollard, and Pollard decided to give him a beating. It was not very easy to find him at first, as neither Pollard nor I had ever seen him. After a long hunt I was told that he was in the billiard room at the Spotswood Hotel, and I succeeded in getting a good look at him. Pollard came down immediately, armed to the teeth and flourishing a big cowhide, and, when Brooks came into the lobby of the hotel, accosted him and asked whether he was the Richmond correspondent of the New York Times. Brooks told him that he was, and thereupon Pollard seized him by the collar and began to thrash him soundly. Several persons attempted to interfere, but I kept them off with my pistol until the affair was at an end. Brooks had pulled a handful of hair out of Pollard’s long beard, and Pollard had jammed Brooks’ head through the glass partition in front of the desk, and had given him some hard blows besides. Pollard was not in good society in Richmond, but the Brooks affair was much enjoyed. When I told a drawing-room full of ladies about it, they clapped their hands with joy that the “miserable Yankee” should have been so well thrashed by the Southerner.

The next cloud of war was on account of Mrs. Henningsen, wife of General Henningsen, whom the Examiner had spoken of as a “notorious” character. This was not to be a street fight, but a regular duel according to the “Code.” Pollard placed himself in my hands, and I had a mischievous pleasure in telling him that General Henningsen, who had demanded an apology for the insult offered his wife, was a crack shot, and could hit the spots on a card at fifteen paces with a duelling pistol, nine times out of ten. Pollard told me, in some little trepidation, that he did not believe he could hit a barn door at ten paces, and I warned him that it was high time that he was practicing. Pollard evidently did not hanker after a fight this time, and I succeeded in arranging the matter amicably.

A little later somebody else trod on Pollard’s toes, and he determined to “post” him. Preceded by a negro boy bearing a paste pot and brush and a number of hand bills or posters, denouncing the person to be posted as a liar, coward, and a variety of other things, Pollard marched down Main Street with a double-barrelled shotgun on his shoulder and a huge revolver and bowie-knife in a belt around his waist. There was no fight, and I am not sure that the man who was posted was in Richmond.

I have said that Pollard was a man of loose character, and he was very careless in the statements he made affecting anyone’s reputation if he could, by the publication, make a hit for his paper. Yet, strange to say, he was killed for an offence which he did not commit himself, although he was responsible for it. In 1867, the paper he was managing (the Examiner having died previously) published a flaming account of the elopement of a Miss Grant, of Richmond. It was written up very elaborately, and highly spiced. It was expected that trouble would come of it, but it was not supposed that Pollard would be denied the chance to defend himself. James Grant, the brother of the lady who was the subject of the article in the Examiner, ensconced himself in a room in a house which Pollard passed regularly every morning. It was near his office. As Pollard passed by the window of the room, Grant, who was hidden from sight, shot Pollard down with a double-barrelled gun. He died instantly, and without knowing who killed him. Grant was tried for murder, and was acquitted. The feeling in Richmond was very strong against Grant: not because he had killed Pollard, but because he had not confronted him like a man, and given him a chance for his life. All this was long after I left Richmond.

Mr. Riordan and I were now on very good terms. We slept in one of the rooms at the Examiner office, in which we worked, and took our meals together at Zetelle’s restaurant. I suppose I must have made a good impression upon him, as I find the following in a letter to my mother, dated January 11, 1866: “Our news editor, a gentleman of ten or fifteen years experience in the newspaper business, says that it is impossible that a man of my talent can remain unemployed, and Pollard says he is delighted with my fluency, style and indefatigable energy. Of course, I do not place one particle of reliance in such remarks as these. They are sincere, and I am grateful for them, but these gentlemen cannot make me think so highly of myself as they seem to think of me.” About this time Mr. Riordan, the news editor just mentioned, broached to me a plan for starting a cheap and popular newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina. He said that the Charleston newspapers were very slow and old fashioned, and that there was a fine field for a new and bright paper. This he had thought for a long time, but had not taken any steps to give the project shape, because he had not found the right sort of man to go into it with him. He was pleased to say that I was just the man he was looking for, and that he was quite sure that he and I could make the paper successful. The whole of the details of the prospective newspaper were carefully discussed. It is rather amusing to recall now Riordan’s remark that the local reporting in Charleston need not give us much trouble, as the policemen would drop in and tell us about anything that happened. Another remark of his was about in these words: “Of course you know, Dawson, you could not do the editorial writing, but we could engage a man to do that for us.” Riordan, like myself, had no money, but thought that he had friends who would lend us some; and this was the position of affairs when my connection with the Examiner was suddenly suspended.