The story of the Sun, New York: 1833-1928 / by Frank M. O'Brien ; with an introduction by Edward Page Mitchell ...

"THE SUN" IN THE MEXICAN WAR 113
The good news from the battlefields of Palo Alto and
Resaca de la Palma was eighteen days in reaching New
York. All Mexican news came by steamer to New
Orleans or Mobile, and was forwarded from those ports,
by the railroad or other means, to the nearest telegraphstation. Moses Y. Beach was instrumental in whipping
up the service from the South, for he established a special
railroad news service between Mobile and Montgomery,
a district of Alabama where there had been much delay.
On September 11, 1846, the Sutn uttered hallelujahs
over the slIreadl of the telegraph. The line to lBuffalo
had been opened on the previous day. The invention had
been in everyday use only two years, but more than twelve
hundred miles of lines had been built, as follows:

New York to Boston...................... 265
New York to Albany and Buffalo................. 507
New York to Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington 240
Philadelphia to IIarrisburg..................... 105
Boston to Lowell......................... 26
Boston toward Portland....................... 55
Ithaca to Auburn........................... 40
Troy to Saratoga.............................. 31
TOTAL............................ 1,269
England had then only 175 miles of telegraph. "This,"
gloated the Sun, "is American enterprise!"
The Sun did not have a special correspondent in
Mexico, and most of its big stories during the war, including the account of the storming of Monterey, were
those sent to the New Orleans Picayune by George W.
Kendall, who is supposed to have put in the mouth of