They didn't know what to expect in July 1861 when the two armies marched out to meet along a meandering Virginia stream called Bull Run.

The newspaper reporters had never covered a live battle. Many rented or purchased horses and wore sidearms and boots, much like Army officers. Others walked alongside the soldiers or rode in wagons.

Uriah Hunt Painter was just another face in the Bohemian Brigade, the name given the free-spirited nonconformist journalists of the time.

But the 24-year-old Inquirer correspondent was about to make history. He provided the first accurate full-length account of what really happened at the Battle of Bull Run.

Painter avoided the military censors in Washington, instead taking a train that whisked him to Philadelphia, where he delivered his report in person.

The Inquirer made a reputation for itself during the Civil War as one of the top newspapers in the country. Reporters transmitted stories long distances over telegraph wires and traveled hundreds of miles on steam-driven trains and horseback. And their papers used huge, steam-powered presses to quickly print eyewitness reports.

The Inquirer's accurate coverage of the Battle of Bull Run caused consternation in Philadelphia, where crowds were expecting a different outcome. The paper also covered the crucial Battle of Gettysburg, where coverage of the first day's fight was hawked among the troops even as the three-day clash continued. The newspaper's accuracy won over the crusty Union secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, who used it to guide some of his decisions.

The Inquirer "was of incalculable importance during the Civil War," said Anthony Waskie, Philadelphia historian and assistant professor of language and history at Temple University. "It was the paper of record for the Lincoln administration and had a monumental role in shaping opinion about the war effort. It was pro-Lincoln and pro-Union - but not a mouthpiece for [Lincoln's] Republican Party."

The Inquirer helped bond the readers on the Philadelphia homefront to the soldiers in the field, said Randall Miller, professor of history at St. Joseph's University.

"It helped connect the country and build a sense of common purpose and peoplehood," he said. "The paper was powerful and had a broad readership because it was not in the pocket of a party, faction, or chieftain."

At the same time, The Inquirer "seemed to give richer, fuller description of the battles," said Daniel N. Rolph, historian, college lecturer, and head of reference services at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, where he has long studied newspapers of the period.

"I enjoy the [Philadelphia] Public Ledger and Bulletin, but The Inquirer would give a more complete account - and seemed more balanced at the time, when the Ledger leaned toward the South."

The Civil War turned America into a nation of newspaper readers. Long before radio, television, computers, and cable technologies, newspapers were "the media."

The development of the kerosene lamp in 1830 extended the time for reading. The Inquirer and other newspapers competed for readers by giving people more than editorial opinions. They told them what their fathers and sons were doing in the war and gave them the news faster than ever.

The Inquirer's circulation jumped from 7,000 in the 1850s to 70,000 in 1863.

The increase was accompanied by a move in 1863 from a building on Third Street and Carter's Alley, south of Chestnut Street, to a larger building at 304 Chestnut. The pressroom there had a new, steam-driven Bullock printing press, the first of its kind. It printed on both sides of the paper with one feeding.

From the beginning of the war to its end, The Inquirer was a favorite of the troops. "As this item was written, at 11 o'clock, P.M., the Washington Regiment, numbering six hundred men, under Col. Angeroth, were passing the office [of The Inquirer on Chestnut Street], and greeted The Inquirer's flag with repeated cheers," said a story in the April 19, 1861, edition. "They were accompanied by a band of martial music."

Waskie said, "I have read hundreds of letters and diaries, and I know the soldiers always looked forward to the delivery of The Inquirer. It was delivered quickly by train, usually on the same day or day after the printing."

Single copies of the paper - sometimes up to 30,000 - were frequently distributed among the soldiers.