Richard Harding Davis (1864 –1916) was a journalist and writer of fiction and drama, known foremost as the first American war correspondent to cover the Spanish–American War, the Second Boer War, and the First World War.

Davis was a managing editor of Harper's Weekly and was one of the world's leading war correspondents at the time of the Second Boer War in South Africa. As an American, he had the opportunity to see the war first-hand from both the British and Boer perspectives. Davis also worked as a reporter for the New York Herald, The Times, and Scribner's Magazine.

During the Spanish–American War, Davis was on a United States Navy warship when he witnessed the shelling of Matanzas, Cuba, a part of the Battle of Santiago de Cuba. Davis' story made headlines, but as a result, the Navy prohibited reporters from being aboard any American naval vessel for the rest of the war.

Davis was a good friend of Theodore Roosevelt, and he helped create the legend surrounding the Rough Riders, for which he was made an honorary member. Some have even gone so far to accuse Davis of involvement in William Randolph Hearst's alleged plot to have started the war between Spain and the United States in order to boost newspaper sales; however, Davis refused to work for Hearst after a dispute over fictionalizing one of his articles.


Davis later reported on the Salonika Front of the First World War where he was arrested by the Germans as a spy but was released.



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