William Howard Russell witnessed the final re-capture of Lucknow (1858). In 1861 Russell went to Washington, returning to England in 1863. In July 1865 he sailed on the "Great Eastern" to document the laying of the Atlantic Cable and wrote a book about the voyage with color illustrations by Robert Dudley. He published diaries of his time in India, the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, where he describes the warm welcome given him by English-speaking Prussian generals such as Leonhard Graf von Blumenthal. Russell later accused fellow war correspondent Nicholas Woods of the "Morning Herald" of lying in his articles about
William Hepburn Russell River. Acting as the firm's representative in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and New York City, Russell lobbied for contracts with the War Department as well as for financing from banks and other sources. With a virtual monopoly on all western freighting contracting Russell, Majors, and Waddell became the largest freighting company in western Missouri. In July 1858, the Pike's Peak Gold Rush started when Green Russell and Sam Bates found a small amount of gold in Colorado. William Russell was in Leavenworth, Kansas when he heard the news. Believing that this gold rush was the start of heavy emigration to the