His father was close to President Andrew Jackson, also from Tennessee, and in 1843 would become the publisher of the Washington Union, the main newspaper of the Democratic party of that era.

His uncle in Ohio would also become a newspaper editor, lawyer, Union soldier during the Civil War and ultimately Republican U.S. Supreme Court justice Stanley Matthews.

She then sent him to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he received his only formal education, at an academy run by an Episcopal priest, and he also ran the school paper, the New Era, on a press his father donated.

[1] After the American Civil War as discussed below, in September 1865, Watterson returned to Nashville to marry Rebecca Ewing, with whom he would have six sons and two daughters.

He volunteered for the Confederate States Army, and was attached at various times to the staffs of Generals Joseph E. Johnston, Leonidas Polk and Nathan B. Forrest.

Watterson was called "the last of the great personal journalists", writing colorful and controversial editorials on many topics under the pen name "Marse Henry".

Hundreds of American papers republished them; they were an early exemplar of the syndicated column which played a significant role creating public support for U.S. intervention in the First World War.