The Chilean intellectual, journalist and writer, Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, visited the United States from 1865 to 1867. While staying there he worked as a war correspondent, reporting on the Civil War and other aspects of North American society.
War is a recurrent theme with Vicuña Mackenna. He not only wrote on the American Civil War but was also a close witness of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. His writings were regularly published by Chile’s most prestigious newspaper: El Mercurio.
Mackenna’s journey and experiences in the U.S. were collected in his book, Ten Month Mission in the United States of North America as Chile’s Confidential Agent, published a few months after his return to Chile. In this book he refers to the United States as “a great country with enormous potential for development.”
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This is the third and final post to this blog by Claudia Gilardoni, a librarian from Chile who visited Cornell last spring. She has provided us with an international perspective of the Gettysburg Address and the American Civil. I want to thank her and our Cornell student blogger, Ariela Rutkin-Becker, for their efforts and their insights.
And don't forget that author Garry Wills will be on campus next Wednesday night to speak about the Lincoln Douglas debates.
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