William Howard Russell Brompton Cemetery, London. He married twice. His first marriage was to Mary Burrows, of Irish origin. After her death in 1867, he married Countess Antoinette Malvezzi, an Italian. They remained married until his death. Russell's dispatches via telegraph from the Crimea remain as his legacy; for the first time he brought the realities of war home to readers. This helped diminish the distance between the home front and remote battle fields. Russell's war reporting (often in semi-verbatim form) features prominently in Northern Irish poet Ciarán Carson's reconstruction of the Crimean War in "Breaking News" (2003). His biography was written by
William Thomas Russell James until 1894, when he became private secretary to Cardinal Gibbons and curate at the Cathedral of the Assumption. In 1908, Russell was named pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Washington, D.C. He there earned a reputation as an eminent preacher. In 1909, he inaugurated the Pan-American Mass, an annual liturgical celebration held at St. Patrick's on Thanksgiving. Before being discontinued in 1914, the Mass was attended by President William Howard Taft and representatives of 21 American republics. He was raised to the rank of Domestic Prelate by Pope Pius X in 1911, and named an honorary member of