Ramsey, Charles G.

Flourished: Saint Louis, Missouri

Alternate name: Ramsay

Ramsey was a newspaper editor and publisher who began his career in St. Louis in 1837 when he purchased the Commercial Bulletin, a standard Democratic organ, and converted it into a Whig newspaper. In 1840, Ramsey started the New Era, another Whig organ that did much to promote the Whig cause in the presidential election of 1840. In 1849, Ramsey sold part interest of the New Era to Thomas Yeatman and Joseph Crockett, who changed the name to the Intelligencer. In 1852 Ramsey, who had shifted to the Democratic Party after the decline of the Whigs, established the Evening News. The Evening News enjoyed immediate success, and in 1857, it merged with the Intelligencer to become the Daily News and Intelligencer. Ramsey eventually dropped "Daily" and "Intelligencer" and resumed the name Evening News. After the attack on Fort Sumter, Ramsey urged Missouri to remain neutral in the sectional conflict, but later embraced the Union cause. Nevertheless, in September 1861, Union officials arrested him for criticizing John C. Fremont's pace in relieving the besieged garrison at Lexington, Missouri. He was subsequently released, but Union Army suppressed the offending issue of the Evening News. He maintained operation of the Evening News until 1867.

J. Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883), 1:910, 935-36, 940, 941, 957, 2:1614; Dennis K. Boman, Lincoln and Citizens' Rights in Civil War Missouri: Balancing Freedom and Security (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2011), 48; Harold Holzer, Lincoln and the Power of the Press (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2014), 340.