TOWNSEND, George Alfred, author, born in Georgetown, Delaware, 30 January, 1841. His father, the Reverend Stephen Townsend, a Methodist clergyman for half a century, studied and practised medicine at the age of fifty, and at seventy obtained the degree of Ph.D. by actual university study. The son was educated mainly in Philadelphia, where he began writing for the press and speaking in public, and in 1860 adopted the profession of journalism. In 1862 he was a war-correspondent of the New York "Herald," describing for that journal McClellan's peninsula campaign and Pope's campaign in northern Virginia. Later in the year he went to Europe, where he wrote for English and American periodicals, and lectured on the civil war. In 1864 he became war-correspondent of the New York "World," was permitted to sign his letters, and quickly made a reputation as a descriptive writer. After the war he became a professional lecturer, continuing also his miscellaneous writing for the press, and, going to Europe, described the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. His pen-name, "Gath," was first used in 1868 in letters to the Chicago " Tribune." In 1885 he built a house on the battle-field of Crampton's Gap, South Mountain, Maryland, where a small village has since sprung up, to which he gives the name Gapland. His publications in book-form are "The Bohemians," a play (New York, 1862): "Campaigns of a, Non-Combatant" (1865): Life of Garibaldi' (1867);" Real Life of Abraham Lincoln " (1867): " The New World compared with the Old" (1868); "Poems " (1870) ; "Washington Outside and Inside" (1871); "Mormon Trials at Salt Lake" (1872) ; "Washington Re-builded" (1873) ; "Tales of the Chesapeake" (1880); "Bohemian Days" (1881); "Poetical Addresses" (1883); "The Entailed Eat" (1884) ; "President Cromwell." a drama (1885); "Katy of Catoctin," a novel (1886); and a campaign life of Levi P. Morton (1888). He is now writing a romance entitled "Dr. Priestley, or the Federalists."