George Alfred Townsend was a journalist for the Philadelphia Enquirer, New York Herald, New York World, Chicago Tribune, New York Graphic, and The Capital. He is best remembered as a correspondent who covered the Civil War and the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. He published books of nonfiction, novels, short stories, a memoir, and poems, including The Life, Crime, and Capture of John Wilkes Booth (1865), Tales of the Chesapeake (1880), Poetical Addresses of George Alfred Townsend (1881), The Entailed Hat (1884), Campaigns of a Non-Combatant (1886), Katy of Catoctin (1887), and Poems of Men and Events (1899).
