POORE, BENJAMIN PERLEY (1820-67). An .American journalist, born near Newbury-po•t, Mass. His father sent him to a military school to prepare for admission to West Point, but lie ran away and apprenticed himself to a printer. At the expiration of his service his father bought for him the Southern 'Whig, an Athens, Ga., news paper. After only two years as editor, however, he accepted an appointment as attache to the United States legation in Brussels. During the following seven years he visited the principal countries of Europe, Egypt, and Palestine, and acted as foreign correspondent of the Boston At las. During the last four years he acted also as an historical agent for Massachusetts in France, copying from the French archives many papers of historical value and illustrating them with maps and sketches. After his return to America in 1848 he edited the Boston Bee and Sunday Sentinel, and in 1854 became the Washington correspondent of several newspapers. For a short
time 'luring the Civil War he served as major of the Eighth Massachusetts Volunteers, but soon returned to his journalistic work, at which lie continued until 1884. During these years he was for a long period clerk of the Senate Committee on Printing Records, and in this capacity com piled and edited several publications dealing with the Government, including The Political Register and Congressional Directory ( 1S87) ; The Con spiracy Trial for the Murder of the President (1865) ; and a Dc•scriptirc Catalogue of the Cue ernmcnt Publications of the United States, 177 186'1 (1885). in addition he published, among other works: Perley's Reminiscences of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis (2 vols., 1886) ; Rise and Fall of Louis Philippe ( 1S48) ; Life of General Taylor (IS-IS) ; and The Life and Public Services of Ambrose L'. Burnside (1882).